Talk:Robert E. Lee (steamboat)

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Question[edit]

“The machinery of the ROB'T. E. LEE consists of feet stroke, the largest high pressure engines on the river. .. The doctor is considered a triumph of the medical art, it being a new style of [what?] with the parallel motion applied.”

In the Robert E. Lee (steamboat)#Description section, Is some text missing from the "feet stroke" line? And what does "The doctor is considered a triumph of the medical art" mean in a description of steamboat engineering and technology? — Athaenara ✉ 23:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to refind it.--Bedford 00:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I have a question. Was the riverboat replica that is in downtown St. Louis the one that burned? That is a nice restaurant, on a big, beautiful boat. I hope this isn't the same one, because that was a great looking boat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.206.21.58 (talk) 00:14, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was the replica that burned. Wikipedia talk pages aren't a forum but I'll let this one go. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (talk) 00:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't a forum, it was to validate that the information is accurate, but I can't find anything on the replica fire. Where's the source for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.206.21.58 (talk) 03:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The song[edit]

The page at present lacks content on the song, "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" – its history, melody, lyrics, recorded renditions, etc. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I put something in to that effect, but it was edited to claim that the song was written for the film The Jazz Singer - the 1912 Billboard charts include this song, so it's unlikely it was written for a sound film 15 years in the future. Kisch (talk) 01:59, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

File:Robert E Lee Steamboat.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion[edit]

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The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down[edit]

There is controversy about whether the lyrics to "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by Robbie Robertson of the Band, refer to Robert E. Lee, the general, or to the Robert E. Lee, the steamboat. Greil Marcus wrote that Robertson told him "There is no boat in the song." That statement must be taken with a grain of salt, however, because Robertson had a famously poor relationship with other members of the Band, including Levon Helm, who sang the song and helped to write it, according to his book, "This Wheel's On Fire". In the multiple recordings of the song, Helm sings it was "THE Robert E. Lee", which was spotted by Virgil's wife back in Tennessee.

It should be noted that Robertson took full songwriting credit for a number of the Band's songs which were in fact group efforts, including TNTDODD, which was a collaborationist songwriting endeavor between Robertson and Helm, who together went to a local library and researched Civil War history when writing the tune, according to "This Wheel's On Fire". Furthermore, Helm is the vocalist and if he sang the words as "THE Robert E. Lee" then as co-author and singer, those words deserve consideration as real lyrics, and should not be disregarded simply because Greil Marcus or Robertson said so. In any event, it would have been more likely that Virgil's wife back in Tennesseee would spot a steamboat that frequently went up and down the river (i.e., the Robert E. Lee), rather than spot General Robert E. Lee himself. Furthermore, I am not aware of any evidence that Lee visited Tennessee after the Civil War, having retreated to his home in Virginia after the surrender at Appomattox. Considering the foregoing, a Wikipedia entry on the famous steamboat should not be whitewashed of any reference whatsoever to the popular song. 174.56.173.38 (talk) 12:29, 19 January 2024 (UTC)kolef174.56.173.38 (talk) 12:29, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this. Every version of the song I've heard uses "There goes THE Robert E. Lee", and it seems a more logical lyric to reference a local sighting of what was the most famous steamboat of the time - just launched a year or so earlier, incredibly opulent for the age, and celebrated for winning an historic race with a rival ship.
It also seems much more likely that Tennessee folk in rural hamlets (which the song implies the Kanes are) would more likely sight a riverboat which regularly traverses the entire western boundary of the state than a retired General from Virginia. I have added the song reference accordingly. ❮❮ GEEKSTREET Talk Lane ❯❯ 02:07, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fully agree. As said above, Helm sang "There goes THE Robert E. Lee" obviously referring to the steamboat. Robertson was full of shit on this and took credit for writing this song, and others, which were a collaborative effort, as the IP said above. Carlstak (talk) 03:20, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed your reference.
Robbie Robertson's handwritten lyrics for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" have been displayed at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They show that the line is: "There goes Robert E. Lee," not "There goes THE Robert E. Lee." Link: https://keatfreetime.blogspot.com/2011/05/there-goes-robert-e-lee.html
Robertson confirmed to Greil Marcus in 2017 that "There's no boat in the song." Link: https://greilmarcus.net/ask-greil-2017/
Levon Helm never suggested the line referred to a steamboat. Helm wrote in his memoir: "Robbie and I worked on 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' up in Woodstock. I remember taking him to the library so he could research the history and geography of the era for the lyrics and make General Robert E. Lee come out with all due respect."
"Make General E. Lee come out with all due respect." He's talking about the man, not the boat.
On the studio version of the song, Helm simply pauses between "there goes" and "Robert E. Lee." When singing the song live, Helm would sometimes insert an extra syllable to make the line bounce: "There goes-uh Robert E. Lee." This is something Helm did routinely as a singer, in many songs, for reasons of rhythm.
Joan Baez added the "The" when she recorded her cover of the song in 1971. She later admitted this and other alterations she made to the lyrics, such as changing "Stoneman's cavalry" to "so much cavalry," were errors caused by the fact that she did not have access to the official lyrics and was going off what she (mis)heard. Once she realized the error, she stopped singing the "The" in live performances.
It is one of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia that articles should be written from a "neutral point of view." Opinions should not be stated as facts. It is understandable why some listeners might believe the line refers to the steamboat, based on Joan Baez's error and Levon Helm's rhythmic way of singing. However, all the available evidence suggests the line refers to General Robert E. Lee the man and not the Robert E. Lee steamboat. The dispute between Robertson and Helm over songwriting credits is well documented, but it has no relevance to this discussion unless someone can present evidence that either one of them ever said the line was about a boat. Jhh310 (talk) 22:25, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Despite your verbiage, you show that you haven't listened to the song as sung by Helm in "The Last Waltz". He enunciates the clearly at 1:34. He is not inserting an extra syllable "uh". Carlstak (talk) 02:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Last Waltz is one of my favorite films, and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is my favorite part of it. I've watched that performance MANY times.
I'm sorry but Helm is not enunciating "the" clearly. He does the same thing earlier in the same performance: "By May 10th, uh-Richmond had fell." I've never heard anybody suggest what he's singing there is "THE Richmond." But people interpret the same sound, when situated later between "there goes" and "Robert E. Lee," as "the" because that's what they want to hear, or what they think is supposed to be there, in part because of Baez's version.
Levon Helm was not a sloppy singer. If he wanted to sing "the," he would have sung it out. Helm routinely stretched syllables or inserted extra sounds to adapt his vocal to the specific rhythm called for in a specific performance. Accordingly, the sound he put in between "there goes" and "Robert E. Lee" differs from performance to performance. Sometimes he didn't put a sound in at all.
I've been on Band forums as long as I've been on the Internet, and the reality is nobody can agree about what Helm sings on any version of the song. There are people who will swear he is singing "there goes-a" on this version and "there goes the" on that version, and other people who will swear the opposite is true. Then there are people who will say he's always singing "the," or always singing "a" or "uh," or that he's always pausing and singing nothing and it's just our brains filling in the gap. The fact that different people can listen to the same performance of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," whether it's the studio version or The Last Waltz version or any of the other live versions, and hear Helm singing different things speaks to why Wikipedia's policy is that claims must be fact-based rather than opinion-based.
The facts are that Robbie Robertson said there's no boat in the song and Levon Helm never said there was. When singing the song, Levon Helm sometimes did and sometimes didn't insert a sound between "there goes" and "Robert E. Lee," and when he did people can't agree on what that sound was. Furthermore, even if we want to say that Helm did sing "the," that doesn't automatically make it a reference to the steamboat. It could just as easily be interpreted as a southern colloquialism—there goes THE Robert E. Lee, as in the actual Robert E. Lee, the one and only, the real deal. I recall one gentleman in particular, on one particular message board, who was especially wedded to that opinion.
But that's all it was: his opinion. He had his opinion, I have my opinion, you have your opinion. The place for our opinions is not in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a place for facts. There are no verifiable sourced facts to support the claim that the song refers to the Robert E. Lee steamboat. The verifiable sourced facts that do exist oppose that claim. Therefore it is a claim that cannot, and should not, be presented as factual. Jhh310 (talk) 04:06, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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