{"id":8063,"date":"2011-07-05T20:00:25","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T00:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=8063"},"modified":"2011-07-05T20:01:51","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T00:01:51","slug":"the-greatest-story-ever-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-greatest-story-ever-told\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Story Ever Told"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

A quibble about the Mod\u2019s recent open letter to Robbie Robertson<\/a>, in which he said: \u201cyou\u2019ve\u2026 \u2026written perhaps rock\u2019s greatest story song ever, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.’\u201d In the article linked to the Mod\u2019s post, Bill Flannigan makes a similar assertion.<\/p>\n

Now I like TNTDODD well enough (although it\u2019s hardly among my favorite Band songs) but I don\u2019t understand what the story is supposed to be. It just kind of runs through a bunch of Civil War images without any discernable plot (not unlike Thin Lizzy did with random Western images in the Cowboy Song). I would ask you to either explain the plot of this \u201cstory\u201d to me or please refer to the song as \u201cRock\u2019s Greatest Civil War Imagery Song\u201d from now on.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I submit \u201cTom Ames Prayer,\u201d one of a dozen or so songs by Steve Earle<\/strong> in which he tells a much more cohesive story than TNTDODD:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Everyone in Nacadoches knew Tom Ames would come to some bad end<\/address>\n
Well the sheriff had caught him stealin’ chickens and such<\/address>\n
by the time that he was ten<\/address>\n
And one day his daddy took a ten dollar bill<\/address>\n
and he tucked it in his hand<\/address>\n
He said I can tell you’re headed for trouble son<\/address>\n
and your momma wouldn’t understand<\/address>\n
So he took that money and his brothers old bay<\/address>\n
and he left without a word of thanks<\/address>\n
Fell in with a crowd in some border town<\/address>\n
and took to robbin’ banks<\/address>\n
Outside the law your luck will run out fast<\/address>\n
and a few years came and went<\/address>\n
‘Till he’s trapped in an alley in Abilene with all but four shells spent<\/address>\n
And he realized prayin’ was the only thing<\/address>\n
that he hadn’t ever tried<\/address>\n
Well he wasn’t sure he knew quite how but he looked up to the sky<\/address>\n
Said you don’t owe me nothin’ and as far as I know Lord don’t owe nothin’ to you<\/address>\n
And I ain’t askin’ for a miracle Lord just a little bit of luck will do<\/address>\n
And you know I ain’t never prayed before<\/address>\n
but it always seemed to me<\/address>\n
If prayin’ is the same as beggin’ Lord I don’t take no charity<\/address>\n
Yeah but right now Lord with my back to the wall<\/address>\n
I can’t help but recall<\/address>\n
How they nearly hung me for stealin’ a horse<\/address>\n
in Fort Smith Arkansas<\/address>\n
Judge Parker said guilty and the gavel came down just like a cannon shot<\/address>\n
And I went away quietly and I began to file and plot<\/address>\n
Well they sent the preacher down to my cell<\/address>\n
He said the Lord is your only hope<\/address>\n
He’s the only friend that you gonna have<\/address>\n
When you hit the end of Parker’s rope<\/address>\n
Well I guess he coulda’ kept on preachin’ ’till Christmas but he turned his back on me<\/address>\n
I put a home made blade to that golden throat and asked the deputy for the key<\/address>\n
Well it ain’t the first close call I ever had<\/address>\n
I’m sure you already know<\/address>\n
I had some help from you Lord and the devil himself<\/address>\n
It’s been strictly touch and go<\/address>\n
Yeah but who in the hell am I talkin’ to, there ain’t no one here but me<\/address>\n
Then he cocked both his pistols and he spit in the dirt and he walked out in the street<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A quibble about the Mod\u2019s recent open letter to Robbie Robertson, in which he said: \u201cyou\u2019ve\u2026 \u2026written perhaps rock\u2019s greatest story song ever, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.’\u201d In the article linked to the Mod\u2019s post, Bill Flannigan makes a similar assertion. Now I like TNTDODD well enough (although it\u2019s hardly among my […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[204],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}