"Robertson — who, at this time, remember, had a body of songs that mostly consisted of things like 'Uh Uh Uh' — thought that Dylan’s songs were too long, and the lyrics were approaching word salad. Why, he wanted to know, did Dylan not write songs that expressed things simply, in words that anyone could understand, rather than this oblique, arty stuff? He kept holding up Curtis Mayfield songs as a model, like 'People Get Ready'... ... Robertson didn’t know... that that song was in a way the grandchild of one of Dylan’s own songs... [It] was inspired by 'A Change is Gonna Come,' which was in turn inspired by 'Blowin’ in the Wind' — but nonetheless Dylan thought that Robertson had a point. He was getting increasingly disenchanted with the counterculture which he was supposedly the figurehead for, and with psychedelic music. But also, he was aware that you could do a lot even with simple language... [b]ecause the folk tradition he came from had a very different attitude to language than either the Beat poets he’d been recently imitating or the R&B songwriters that the Hawks [i.e., The Band] had been listening to...."
August 17, 2023
"[Dylan] and Robertson had had something between friendly discussion and outright arguments about Dylan’s style of songwriting while on tour the year before."
Episode 167 of Andrew Hickey's "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" is about "The Weight" by The Band. (It's only by chance that this song came up in the week when Robbie Robertson died.)
I like the part of the podcast where Hickey demonstrates that "The Weight" has real-life characters. For example, according to Levon Helm, “Crazy Chester was a guy we all knew from Fayetteville who came into town on Saturdays wearing a full set of cap guns on his hips and kinda walked around town to help keep the peace. He was like Hopalong Cassidy and he was a friend of The Hawks. Ronnie [Hawkins] would always check with Crazy Chester to make sure there wasn’t any trouble around town, and Chester would reassure him that everything was peaceable and not to worry, because he was on the case. Two big cap guns he wore, plus a toupee!"
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16 comments:
"the lyrics were approaching word salad"
So, perfect for a Nobel prize.
I don't think word salad had been invented yet...
“Take a load off Fanny, and you put the load right on me.” If only that was the way society worked. ‘Twas ever so.
“That’s OK boy, won’t you feed him when you can.” Again
Thanks again for making us aware of Hickey's podcast. I've really enjoyed it . . . but increasingly I'm finding them to becoming a slog. His earlier podcasts had been in the range of 30-45 minutes per episode (with the Beatles episodes being the notable exceptions) but this year that range has been from 1:32:17 (on a song I didn't recall at all by a band, Love, I'd never heard of) to a whopping 4:39:09 on the Grateful Dead (and nobody sober needs that much Dead). Throw in a couple of 3-hour podcasts among the 7 total published this year, and listening to any of his recent podcasts is a multi-day commitment. For slightly older people like the Ms. Althouse, I can appreciate that the level of detail Andrew is providing can be both fascinating and illuminating. For me, who was largely unaware of rock until around 1971 (except for Elvis, my parents listened to country), it's too much detail down too many rabbit holes that don't pay off. The whole juice/squeeze worth calculation.
The Weight is such a great song.
Robbie Robertson was a rare bird, and it's not likely we'll see a comparable talent again in most our lifetimes. As a writer he drew from a deep and flavorful stream of musical styles—field hollar work songs, country blues, gospel, old time jazz with hints of ragtime syncopation, country and western, classic rythm and blues and rock and roll—and shared with his splendid Band members the ability to cogently blend the styles into an unaffected, appealing organic sound.
The Weight, in particular, is the prize example of Robertson's talents—a rolling piano figure never far from gospel roots, the narrative details the oddness of small town life and provides details that suggest hallucinations of religious fervor, incest, hidden insanity. It has the power of storyboard from which a great novel or grand motion picture can be made. Robertson was an artist of great and delicate talents that was a large part of why The Band is one of the greatest bands of the rock and roll era.
The Band was always one of my favorite bands. Still is. Not sure why, but I've always loved their sound. So it was indeed a nice coincidence to see that the most recent episode from Andrew Hickey was about "The Weight". I've read various accounts of their time with Dylan. Still don't know why, to this day, I can take Dylan only in spurts of about 5-10 minutes before his voice makes me turn it off.
But..no questioning his creative genius, his songwriting ability, and his productivity. Likewise that of Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm. RIP to both of them. Levon spent his last years playing for the community up in Woodstock. 'Midnight Rambles' as he called it, in his barn/studio, featuring various musicians over the years there. And, when cancer took him, he was buried there in the Woodstock Cemetery, which seems fitting.
When I read his memoir where he talks about his love of movies, and buying scripts of new wave ones, and that he saw his songs as movies, I started listening to the words and they got better!
Robbie was a great songwriter for several years. Maybe two years, with a few examples after that. And when I say great I mean one of the very top. Given the timing of when he was great, I always assumed something of Dylan's wide open imaginatation rubbed off on him.
I also think it was a unique situation in that he had these three great voices that he was writing for, with years of shared experiences (and then they met Bob Dylan).
Is "The Weight" the best possible example of simple language that everybody can understand?
Robertson had a lot of balls challenging the guy who'd written Restless Farewell and My Back Pages to write more simply. Whoa.
As good as the Band's version of the weight is, the Best version of has to be the one by Plaing for Change.
A bunch of world class musicians from all around the world (us, Texas, Nepal, Japan, Bahrain and more) including robbie Robertson and Ringo Starr all collaborating remotely.
https://youtu.be/ph1GU1qQ1zQ
There are a number of other playing for Change videos similar concept different artists all interesting.
John Henry
but this year that range has been from 1:32:17 (on a song I didn't recall at all by a band, Love, I'd never heard of)
I didn't know of them when I was younger and I don't remember when I found them - it's been a few years, but now a couple of their songs are among my favorites.
Alone Again, Or (I think the podcast was about this one.)
Always See Your Face
I am afraid that I can’t faint over the death of Robertson. Neal Diamond took him by the hand and suggested he put his name solo as the writer. Levon, obviously with good reason, despised him. After lawsuits, negotiations, etc. they settled. It broke my heart.
I think Robbie's post-Band work gets slighted because he was the bad guy who broke up the band. His "solo" album (with some help from U2 and the Bodeans) was really good, and demonstrates that he had the songwriting chops--nobody else in the Band ever wrote anything of note.* Showdown at Big Sky, Fallen Angel, Broken Arrow, Testimony, Somewhere Down the Crazy River.
I bought the CD of that album because I heard "Showdown at Big Sky" on the radio, and it sounded like a really good update of The Band's sound and musical complexity.
There's also a "test" version of "Twilight" where Robbie sings solo with minimal guitar accompaniment. It's pretty clear that he was the guy who wrote it.
*Yes, there was some guy named Zimmerman who had some good songs. I don't count him as a member of The Band.
Also--the first I had ever heard of The Band was when I saw "Easy Rider" as a college freshman in 1977. I heard the opening notes and was hooked--what is this?
You may find this strange, but back in the dark ages of the 70's if you lived in a semi-rural area as I did there was no college or underground radio. You simply never heard anything but what the mainstream stations played. Even the more "edgy" stations didn't play The Band.
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