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Discography / Acadian Driftwood

Acadian Driftwood

The centerpiece of Northern Lights–Southern Cross, and one of the two or three best songs the Band ever recorded. Robertson turned his story-song instincts, previously aimed at American history on songs like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," toward his own country's past instead, telling the story of the Expulsion of the Acadians, the forced removal of French colonists from what's now Nova Scotia by the British in 1755, an event that eventually sent many of the displaced families to Louisiana, where their descendants became the Cajuns.

The song is built as a series of long verses, each split in two, usually with Richard Manuel taking the first half and Levon Helm the second, before the two of them join Rick Danko for a three-part harmony on the chorus. Garth Hudson layers in chanter, accordion, and piccolo, with a guest fiddle part from Byron Berline, and a handful of lines are sung in French, a detail that grounds the song in a specific cultural history rather than treating it as generic period color. Danko gets the song's most memorable single verse, an account of ice fishing that's often singled out as the lyric's most vivid image.

The historical details in the lyric aren't all strictly accurate, a point critics have noted without it diminishing the song's emotional impact. As a piece of narrative songwriting, built to carry real feeling for people caught up in events far beyond their control, it's regarded as one of Robertson's genuine masterpieces.

Notable versions