The Weight

One of my favourite songs is 'The Weight' by The Band. It has to be played really loud.

The version above features The Staple Singers and is taken from Martin Scorsese's documentary 'The Last Waltz'. This version has a nice gospel quality to it. I find it rousing and uplifting. 

The lyrics to the song are fascinating. I tend not to overthink music and I don't really go looking for any deep meaning in the words to songs. The best music, such as this song or in the work of people like Leonard Cohen, tends to have a deceptively crafted simplicity to it. By that, I mean it will be really clever but still accessible. In a way you don't actually notice the cleverness, if that makes sense. 

What I find fascinating about this song is how it tells a little story - like a vignette - that I like to imagine playing out like some sort of short-movie. 

I have read that Robbie Robertson, the songwriter behind 'The Weight',* was influenced in his approach to music by the Luis Bunuel, a Spanish surrealist filmmaker. 

While I tend not to overthink music, there are many in inter-net-land who take the meaning of songs quite fanatically. A look at the weightiness of 'The Weight' can be read here and here.  (I did quite like this paragraph from the article on the second link).

Inspired by Buñuel but populated by Arkansans, the song is most simply about the burdens we all carry. The "weight" is the load that we shoulder when we take on responsibility or when we try to do good. But it's also the heaviness that presses down on us when we fall into "sin" or wrestle with "temptation." It's a song about a universally human dilemma. But, just as the writers drew from their own pasts in fleshing out their cast, it's conceivable that they also drew from their own experiences in conceptualizing the "weight." Perhaps the song refers to the very real loads shouldered by Band members, the very real burdens that resulted from the good and the bad in their own lives.  

I tend to chew up a lot of my precious monthly internet data allowance by watching music clips on You Tube. I especially like to check out different versions of the same song. 

One of my favourite homages to 'The Weight' is by the Rockwiz Orchestra featuring Vika and Linda Bull. 

  

Fortunately, for me, this combines one of my favourite songs with one of my favourite television shows. (I love those serendipitous moments of such blessed synchronicity!) 

If you have a bit of spare time and some internet data up your sleeve then I can thoroughly recommend checking out Rockwiz on You Tube.  

*There is some contention with Robbie Robertson being listed as the sole songwriter. Other band members have said they contributed ideas and words to 'The Weight' and other songs but never received credit. Among fans of Levon Helm, The Band's seminal drummer and vocalist, Robbie Robertson remains somewhat of a divisive figure.