{"id":279195,"date":"2025-11-08T11:30:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T11:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/279195\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T11:30:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T11:30:17","slug":"the-bands-best-songs-20-classic-rock-gems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/279195\/","title":{"rendered":"The Band’s Best Songs: 20 Classic Rock Gems"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson, The Band<\/a>\u2019s name was a practical choice. \u201cWhen we were working with Bob Dylan and we moved to Woodstock, everybody referred to us as \u2018the band,\u2019\u201d Robertson recalled in The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese\u2019s 1978 documentary about The Band\u2019s farewell concert. \u201cHe called us the band, our friends called us the band, our neighbors called us the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Shop<\/a>\"Shop<\/a>\"Shop<\/a><\/p>\n

In truth though \u2014 and Robertson knew this better than anyone \u2014 the band\u2019s name was a statement; a bold declaration of talent and musicianship that also spoke of a back-to-basics approach at odds with the psychedelic fashions of the day.<\/p>\n

The Band were good enough to live up to it. The five members \u2014 Rick Danko (bass, vocals, fiddle), Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin \u2014 the only non-Canadian), Garth Hudson (keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (vocals, piano, drums) and Robertson (guitar, backing vocals) \u2014 served their musical apprenticeship as The Hawks, Ontario-based rockabilly wildman Ronnie Hawkins\u2019 backing band. Helm joined Hawkins\u2019 band straight from high school in 1958. Two years later, the then-15-year-old Robertson was recruited, followed shortly after by Danko, who was a year his senior. Manuel arrived in the summer of 1961, and by the end of that year, Hudson was on board. The Hawks tore through clubs and dive bars, becoming a well-oiled rock \u2019n\u2019 roll machine, but early in 1964, dissatisfied with their wages and feeling creatively held back, the Hawks handed Hawkins their notice.<\/p>\n

Order The Band\u2019s The Best of the Band on vinyl now.<\/a><\/p>\n

They went it alone, first as The Levon Helm Sextet (featuring saxophonist Jerry Penfold), before spells as The Canadian Squires and Levon & The Hawks, while touring as hard as ever. Their big break came when Mary Martin \u2014 then working as an assistant to Bob Dylan\u2019s manager Albert Grossman \u2014 recommended The Hawks to Dylan, then on the lookout for an electric backing band. In late 1965, The Hawks backed Dylan on his rambunctious single \u201cCan You Please Crawl Out Your Window?\u201d and \u2014 except Helm, who left to work on an oilrig \u2014 were called upon for the 1966 tours of North America, Europe, and Australia. The shows were split between Dylan solo acoustic sets and thrilling electric sets, causing extreme reactions from factions of the audience keen to see Dylan remain in the folk singer box he\u2019d long since outgrown.<\/p>\n

In early 1967, The Hawks (still minus Helm) moved to Woodstock, where Dylan was recuperating following a motorcycle crash and on a hot writing streak. Danko, Hudson, and Manuel lived in Big Pink, while Robertson lived nearby with his wife. Eventually, Helm was persuaded to rejoin his old bandmates. Big Pink soon doubled up as a basement and recording studio. Robertson told this writer in 2019, \u201cWe were just having such a great time together and, because we had this little tape machine, we were able to document some of the great times we were having. Some of them were done in jest and having fun and some were recorded because they turned out to be beautiful songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of pressure was so wonderful; it\u2019s such a rare thing to be able to feel something that is just about joy\u2026 We didn\u2019t think that the majority of that music would ever be heard outside of the basement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, every existing minute of the music Dylan and The Band made in the basement has been released and pored over by fans, while dozens of the songs that emerged from Big Pink have become classics. What\u2019s more, the atmosphere of heady creativity kickstarted a career for The Band away from their mentor. From their 1968 debut album, Music From Big Pink, to The Last Waltz, The Band gave us some of the defining music of their generation. Here\u2019s our pick of their 20 best songs.<\/p>\n

20. This Wheel\u2019s On Fire (Music From Big Pink, 1968)<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised that Bob had been coming every day for six or seven days a week,\u201d Rick Danko told MOJO\u2019s Barney Hoskyns in 1995, reflecting on The Band\u2019s early days in Woodstock. \u201cIf we were sleeping, he\u2019d get us up, he\u2019d make noise and make some coffee, or bang on the typewriter in the living room on the coffee table. Maybe 150 songs were composed in about a seven- or eight-month period.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most enduring basement songs was the collaboration between Danko and Dylan, \u201cThis Wheel\u2019s On Fire.\u201d Danko suggested that he wrote the music and verse melody, Dylan contributed the lyrics, and they wrote the chorus together \u2014 the song\u2019s inventive use of diminished chords certainly backs up Danko\u2019s claim. Meanwhile, Dylan\u2019s lyrics are at once plain speaking and unsettling \u2014 its verses carry a threatening tone, with the narrator reminding an unnamed partner of an inextricable (and perhaps eternal) bond, while the striking image of the chorus (\u201cThis wheel\u2019s on fire\/Rolling down the road\u201d) is loaded with biblical imagery. The basement version of \u201cThis Wheel\u2019s On Fire\u201d was a doomy country shuffle, but The Band\u2019s version, a highlight of Music From Big Pink, quickens the tempo and ramps up Garth Hudson\u2019s trippy organ sound to create an intoxicating atmosphere, echoed by Danko\u2019s increasingly frantic-sounding vocals.<\/p>\n

19. The Rumor (Stage Fright, 1970)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a dark album, and an accurate reflection of our group\u2019s psychic weather,\u201d Levon Helm says of The Band\u2019s third album, Stage Fright, in his 1993 autobiography This Wheel\u2019s On Fire. Nowhere was this more apparent than \u201cThe Rumor,\u201d a song written by Robbie Robertson about the gossip spreading around Woodstock about members of The Band experimenting with hard drugs. But despite being fuelled by paranoia, \u201cThe Rumor\u201d was one of the album\u2019s highlights, with strong vocal performances from Danko, Helm, and Manuel and one of the most satisfying grooves they\u2019d commit to tape.<\/p>\n

18. When You Awake (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

The success of Music From Big Pink meant its follow-up was highly anticipated. Keen to avoid record label interference and yearning for the informality of the basement, The Band took the then-radical step of building their own studio. They spent a month setting up a studio in the pool house of a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, once owned by Sammy Davis Jr, while living together in the main house. Their instincts proved correct; the resulting self-titled album has a sense of relaxed bonhomie they\u2019d struggled to find in an expensive studio.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel\u2019s \u201cWhen You Awake,\u201d a countrified charmer in two parts sung by Rick Danko. It begins with Robertson\u2019s unhurried, casual guitar and an organ line from Garth Hudson that has the warmth of early morning sunshine hitting your face. A story unfolds of a young boy seeking advice from his grandfather. \u201cIt\u2019s about someone who passes something on to you, and you pass it on to someone else,\u201d Robertson said in Barney Hoskyns\u2019 Across The Great Divide. \u201cBut it\u2019s something you take to heart and carry with you your whole life.\u201d In this case, words of grandfatherly wisdom are passed on and sung in unison by Danko, Manuel, and Levon Helm, underlining the vocal prowess The Band had at their disposal. Halfway through, there\u2019s a seamless segue into what may originally have been a totally different song, with a young man boasting of dates and despairing of the frosty weather. It fades out abruptly, leaving the listener leaning in, wanting more.<\/p>\n

17. Ophelia (Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross, 1975)<\/p>\n

Come the mid-70s, The Band were in trouble. Disputes over royalties and worsening alcohol and drug problems had weakened the brotherly bond forged by years on the road. Meanwhile, Robertson\u2019s songwriting lost some of its sparkle on 1971\u2019s Cahoots, and the rest of The Band barely contributed. Their musicianship was never in question, though, thanks to the stunning live album Rock Of Ages (1972), the lively covers set Moondog Matinee (1973) and backing Dylan on 1974\u2019s underrated Planet Waves and a record-breaking joint tour.<\/p>\n

Looking to recapture the old magic, in 1974, The Band set up Shangri-La, a state-of-the-art recording studio in Venice Beach, where they recorded Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross<\/a>. For the first time, the material was entirely written by Robertson, while Garth Hudson\u2019s embrace of synthesizers gave it a polish their earlier records kicked against \u2014 but still, Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross showed flashes of greatness. \u201cOphelia\u201d was one such example, an irresistibly funky take on Dixieland jazz with a horn arrangement put together single-handedly by Hudson in the studio.<\/p>\n

The Ophelia in question has split town in a hurry, and it\u2019s eating the singer up inside \u2014 he can\u2019t wait for her to return and doesn\u2019t care who knows it. Robertson knew that such a lyric called for the lusty charisma of Levon Helm. \u201cIt had his name written all over it,\u201d Robertson wrote in his 2019 autobiography Testimony. \u201cI loved the way the track felt after we cut it. The combination of horns and keyboards that Garth overdubbed on this song was one of the very best things I\u2019d ever heard him do. \u2018Ophelia\u2019 became my favorite track on the album, even if it didn\u2019t have the depth of some of my other songs. The pure, jubilant pleasure of that tune swayed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

16. Rag Mama Rag (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

One of The Band\u2019s secret weapons was their ability to switch things up \u2014 if the track\u2019s not working, why not play musical chairs? The storming \u201cRag Mama Rag\u201d saw Rick Danko swap the bass for fiddle, vocalist Levon Helm putting his drumsticks aside to play mandolin, Garth Hudson moving from behind his bank of keyboards to an upright piano, and Richard Manuel keeping time on drums rather than playing piano. Robbie Robertson was the only member to stick to his usual instrument \u2014 electric guitar \u2014 while producer John Simon added tuba.<\/p>\n

It was an unlikely set-up, but the lascivious rocker gave The Band their biggest hit single in the UK, reaching No. 16. As with so much of the self-titled album, it\u2019s timeless \u2014 Danko\u2019s fiddle playing is straight out of Nashville; Hudson\u2019s ragtime piano is an utter delight \u2014 and unfeasibly exciting.<\/p>\n

15. Tears Of Rage (Music From Big Pink, 1968)<\/p>\n

Another Dylan co-write from that productive summer in Woodstock, this time with Richard Manuel, \u201cTears Of Rage\u201d was the opening track on Music From Big Pink and most listeners\u2019 introduction to The Band. They play it as a slow-burning funereal dirge, with Robertson\u2019s heavily phased guitar in conversation with Manuel\u2019s anguished falsetto, which wrings every drop of emotion from the lyrics; a remarkable feat considering he was unsure as to their exact meaning.
\u201c[Dylan] came down to the basement with a piece of typewritten paper,\u201d Manuel recalled in a 1985 Woodstock Times interview, \u201cand he just said, \u2018Have you got any music for this?\u2019\u2026 I had a couple of musical movements that seemed to fit, so I just elaborated a little bit, because I wasn\u2019t sure what the lyrics meant. I couldn\u2019t run upstairs and say, \u2018What\u2019s this mean, Bob?\u2019 \u2018Now the heart is filled with gold, as if it was a purse.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTears Of Rage\u201d was also a breakthrough in terms of The Band finding their sound. The engineer in A&R Studios had set the studio up as any modern rock band would \u2014 with acoustic baffles between the players for separation so mistakes could be fixed later. The Band were used to hearing, seeing, and responding to one another\u2019s playing, so Robertson asked for the baffles to come down. Although the engineer initially despaired, something magical happened. \u201cJohn [Simon] says over the talkback, \u2018I think we\u2019re getting somewhere, guys.\u2019\u2026 We go in the control room and they play back our first take. That was the first time we heard the sound of The Band coming out of those speakers. We looked at one another and, in that moment, we knew we had the confidence, we had our own rules, our own way of making music.\u201d<\/p>\n

14. Across The Great Divide (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

In the \u201980s, Robbie Robertson became an in-demand soundtrack producer, working on movies including Martin Scorsese\u2019s The King Of Comedy (1983), Casino (1995) and Killers Of The Flower Moon (2023). But his songs for The Band reveal an instinct for the cinematic which flourished way before Marty came calling. The opening track to 1969\u2019s self-titled album emphasized Robertson\u2019s talent for scene setting and use of dramatic devices (in this case, Chekhov\u2019s gun). It begins with a fearful-sounding Richard Manuel pleading with a woman who seems intent on causing him harm, \u201cStanding by your window in pain, a pistol in your hand\/And I beg you, dear Molly, girl, try and understand your man the best you can.\u201d At that point, his buddies all join in, transforming the track into a good-time groove as Manuel recounts a life of roguish escapades. But any idea that Molly will let him get out of Dodge is thrown into question by the final verse and a worried, \u201cNow tell me, hon, what you done with the gun?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew what these guys could do,\u201d Robertson told Classic Rock in 2019. \u201cI knew who their characters were. And I was writing screenplays for these characters. I thought I was Ingmar Bergman. I was writing for Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann. I thought that was my job. But that\u2019s different than any other group, and it was a different format. Everything was different about The Band.\u201d<\/p>\n

13. Life Is A Carnival (Cahoots, 1971)<\/p>\n

By The Band\u2019s fourth album, Cahoots, success and celebrity had set in, and Danko, Helm, and Manuel\u2019s hell-raising ways were beginning to take their toll, while Robertson was struggling with a severe case of writer\u2019s block. Much of Cahoots feels like the work of a great band trudging through underwhelming material, but on the New Orleans funk of \u201cLife Is A Carnival,\u201d they sound weightless.<\/p>\n

The song\u2019s heady groove was cooked up during a Danko and Helm jam session, and Robertson added lyrics that found parallels between the uncertainty of life and the chaos of a carnival. Figuring that nobody could do syncopated New Orleans horn arrangements like the master, Robertson asked legendary Big Easy writer, performer, and arranger Allen Toussaint to write a horn chart for the song. The Band were long-term fans and had recently been impressed by his production on Lee Dorsey\u2019s 1970 classic, Yes We Can. \u201cThey\u2019d heard Lee\u2019s album and they were, I guess, impressed a little,\u201d Toussaint said in 1973. \u201cThey\u2019re such good guys, and communications were very, very good. They immediately know where you\u2019re coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n

12. It Makes No Difference (Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross, 1975)<\/p>\n

Another example of Robertson choosing the perfect singer for his material came with this heartbreaker to end all heartbreakers, sung by Rick Danko. Speaking to this writer in 2019, Robertson was full of praise for his former bandmate, \u201cRick might\u2019ve been the best friend you could have in this group; he was so warm and generous in his spirit. There was an openness with Rick, and it came through in his playing, in his singing and everything about him. More so than anybody else in the group, perhaps.\u201d On \u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d that openness allows Danko to inhabit a lyric about post-break-up loneliness and deliver it with fathoms-deep melancholy and total vulnerability. In a 1975 interview with New York Times journalist Robert Palmer, Danko explained how he approached the vocal, \u201cI thought about the song in terms of saying that time heals all wounds. Except in some cases, and this was one of those cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d is one of the greatest tracks on Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross, but nothing beats Danko\u2019s gut-punch performance of the song on The Last Waltz, an emotional tour-de-force topped off by a jaw-dropping duel between Robertson on guitar and Hudson on soprano saxophone.<\/p>\n

11. The Shape I\u2019m In (Stage Fright, 1970)<\/p>\n

Following the mature sounds of The Band\u2019s first two albums, audiences who\u2019d seen The Hawks might\u2019ve wondered what became of the wild young rock \u2019n\u2019 rollers. The stomping \u201cThe Shape I\u2019m In\u201d from the third album, Stage Fright, proved they could still cut loose. Backed by tough, driving R&B, Richard Manuel sings from the perspective of a down-on-his-luck rogue living on the fringes of society (\u201cI\u2019ve just spent sixty days in the jail house\/For the crime of having no dough\/Now here I am back out on the street\/For the crime of having nowhere to go\u201d). Manuel\u2019s gruff, soulful vocals are a perfect fit for the character \u2014 considering the singer\u2019s appetite for self-destruction, it\u2019s easy to imagine that Robbie Robertson wrote it with him in mind. \u201cI always felt very comfortable with Richard in The Band. I knew nobody else had a better singer,\u201d Levon Helm said in 1997. \u201cRichard\u2019s policy was to hold up his glass and say, \u2018spend it all!\u2019 \u2014 which is a pretty good policy when you think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

10. Up On Cripple Creek (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

As The Band\u2019s second album took shape, Robbie Robertson was looking for inspiration in the everyday lives of Americans. \u201cWe\u2019re not dealing with people at the top of the ladder,\u201d Robertson said in 2022. \u201cWe\u2019re saying, \u2018What about that house out there in the middle of that field?\u2019 What does this guy think, with that one light on upstairs and that truck parked out there? That\u2019s who I\u2019m curious about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUp On Cripple Creek\u201d was a prime example, a collection of shaggy dog stories told by a road-weary trucker yearning for his woman. \u201cThis person, he just drives these trucks across the whole country, and he knows these characters that he drops in on, on his travels,\u201d Robertson added. \u201cJust following him with a camera is really what this song\u2019s all about.\u201d
Levon Helm clearly had the time of his life singing these tales of gambling, drinking, and womanizing, even leading his bandmates in a yodelling session to close the song. Meanwhile, Garth Hudson imitates a jaw harp by playing a clavinet through a wah-wah pedal, and Helm\u2019s drumming and a Robertson guitar lick are so funky that Gang Starr sampled them on 1990\u2019s \u201cBeyond Comprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n

9. Chest Fever (Music From Big Pink, 1968)<\/p>\n

The supremely funky Big Pink track \u201cChest Fever\u201d showcased The Band\u2019s ace in the hole, the prodigiously talented multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson. It begins in spectacular fashion, with Hudson vamping on Bach\u2019s \u201cToccata And Fugue In D Minor\u201d \u2014 a passage he\u2019d extend at live shows to the point where it became a separate song, \u201cThe Genetic Method\u201d \u2014 before he brings in the rest of The Band with a killer organ riff.<\/p>\n

\u201cGarth Hudson was from a different world,\u201d Robertson told this interviewer in 2019. \u201cWe\u2019d never witnessed anybody who could do what he does, musically. His improvizing would incorporate so many kinds of music that it was bedazzling. He could\u2019ve been playing with Miles Davis, or a Symphony Orchestra, he just had such a broad horizon when it came to music. He was a very different guy \u2014 quiet in personal ways, but not at all in an expressive, musical way. People have said to me over the years, musicians that I really admire in rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, there was only one Garth Hudson. Still people have no idea how extraordinary this guy really is, so I cherish that. Levon and I wanted him in the group so bad that we begged to have his music help us grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

8. Whispering Pines (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

Though The Band were blessed with some of the greatest voices in rock music, Richard Manuel\u2019s stood out. \u201cWe talked about him in the group like he was the lead singer and he hated that, but there was a truth to it,\u201d Robbie Robertson told this writer. \u201cHe was the most legitimate singer of all of us; he had the widest range, the most power and everything. The depth of his soulfulness was something that we loved and admired so much.\u201d Manuel\u2019s spellbinding vocal on \u201cWhispering Pines,\u201d which he co-wrote with Robertson, explains the esteem in which his bandmates held him.<\/p>\n

Robertson knew from the moment he heard Manuel working on the music that \u201cWhispering Pines\u201d would be special. \u201cRichard had this thing he was playing on the piano, he was hitting this same note over and over again and it almost echoed inside of itself,\u201d he told Rock Cellar in 2017. \u201cRight away, there was this distant, lonely, beautiful, sad feeling to it\u2026 In writing the words to \u2018Whispering Pines\u2019 I was writing something that I thought Richard could break your heart with if he sings these words.\u201d<\/p>\n

7. Jawbone (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

Manuel\u2019s other major contribution to The Band showed an entirely different side of him. \u201cJawbone\u201d cast Manuel as another of lyricist Robertson\u2019s wrong-side-of-the-tracks characters; the scoundrel in question could easily be the narrator of \u201cAcross The Great Divide,\u201d or a drinking buddy of the trucker in \u201cUp On Cripple Creek.\u201d The verses admonish Jawbone for his bad behaviour and plead with him to clean up his act. His reaction? The totally unrepentant chorus of \u201cI\u2019m a thief and I dig it!,\u201d sung with cathartic joy by Manuel.<\/p>\n

Musically, it\u2019s like no other song on the album. Manuel deployed tricksy time signatures (the verses are in 6\/4, while the chorus flits between 4\/4 and a half-time shuffle), giving \u201cJawbone\u201d a suitably anarchic feel. Meanwhile, it\u2019s one of the few points on the album where Robertson solo\u2026<\/p>\n

6. Stage Fright (Stage Fright, 1970)<\/p>\n

The success of Music From Big Pink meant that there was a huge amount of expectation and hype around The Band\u2019s first live shows. Anticipation only grew as they turned down offers from promoters throughout 1968 \u2014 unbeknownst to the press, Rick Danko had a car crash, which he was lucky to survive, that put him out of action for months. With Danko fully recovered, The Band eventually booked a run of shows at Winterland, San Francisco, on April 17\u201319, 1969. But in the days leading up to the first show, Robbie Robertson began to feel so ill he couldn\u2019t stand up. \u201cI felt like I was dying,\u201d wrote Robertson in Testimony. \u201cI couldn\u2019t move\u2026 I couldn\u2019t hold any food down\u2026 Is this stage fright? Is this all in my head?\u201d<\/p>\n

With the show fast approaching and Robertson showing no sign of improving, promoter Bill Graham called in a hypnotist named Pierre Clement. \u201cI was so sick and pining to feel better,\u201d Robertson told Salon in 2020. \u201cI went with it. \u2018Please help me and allow me to feel better.\u2019 I said \u2018I\u2019ll go under your spell or over your spell. I\u2019ll do whatever you want me to do.\u2019\u201d Eventually, the guitarist made it on stage, though he could barely stand and only lasted seven songs. Turns out hypnosis can\u2019t cure a stomach virus.<\/p>\n

Still, the incident fed into the title track of The Band\u2019s third album, Stage Fright. Rick Danko took the lead vocal, investing the tale of a performer \u201ccaught in the spotlight\u201d with raw passion. \u201cThey gave this choirboy his fortune and fame,\u201d Danko sang, \u201cand since that day he ain\u2019t been the same\u2026\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s difficult to believe Robertson wasn\u2019t writing about The Band\u2019s reaction to success.<\/p>\n

5. Acadian Driftwood (Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross, 1975)<\/p>\n

Though Robertson spent much of The Band\u2019s career writing about America, \u201cAcadian Driftwood\u201d marked the first time he truly dug into the history of his native Canada. Robertson writes movingly about the British expulsion of around 10,000 French Acadians from their settled lands in 1755, on the eve of the Seven Years\u2019 War, as well as the yearning of the Acadian diaspora for a sense of home. But this is so much more than reportage \u2014 in giving voice to the Acadian people, Robertson gives them a dignity that was taken away from them by the rich and powerful so many years ago.<\/p>\n

Fittingly, given the gravitas of the song, the lead vocal is shared between Danko, Helm, and Manuel. Still, it\u2019s Danko who takes the evocative final verse, singing in French, \u201cDo you know, Acadia, I\u2019m homesick\/Your snow, Acadia, makes tears in the sun.\u201d The music is stirring, given a Cajun flavour \u2014 appropriately, as many Acadians settled in Louisiana, eventually contributing to Cajun culture \u2014 by Hudson on accordion, piccolo and chanter and bluegrass great Byron Berline\u2019s sorrowful fiddle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcadian Driftwood\u201d was the first step towards later material that explored Robertson\u2019s Indigenous heritage \u2014 he was raised on the Six Nations reserve near Ontario \u2014 such as the soundtrack to Ted Turner\u2019s film, Music For The Native Americans, and his 1998 album, Contact From The Underworld Of Redboy.<\/p>\n

4. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

Has agrarian tragedy ever sounded funkier? \u201cKing Harvest (Has Surely Come)\u201d tells the story of a Dust Bowl farmer on the brink of financial ruin and putting his trust in the union to save him. This guy can\u2019t catch a break \u2014 drought has devastated his livelihood, his barn has burned down, and his horse has gone mad \u2014 there\u2019s little wonder he\u2019s happy to embrace \u201ca man with a paper and pen, tellin\u2019 us our hard times are about to end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a kind of character study in a time period,\u201d Robertson wrote in the sleevenotes to the compilation Anthology. \u201cAt the beginning, when the unions came in, they were a saving grace, a way of fighting the big money people, and they affected everybody from the people that worked in the big cities all the way around to the farm people. It\u2019s ironic now, because now so much of it is like gangsters, assassinations, power, greed, insanity. I just thought it was incredible how it started and how it ended up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the ending is ambiguous, there\u2019s an air of desperation to \u201cKing Harvest (Has Surely Come),\u201d not least in Richard Manuel\u2019s powerhouse vocal performance, that suggests things won\u2019t end well for the farmer. The feeling of pent-up frustration is felt keenly in the song\u2019s finale, as Robertson brings things home with a stinging guitar solo. \u201cThis was a new way of dealing with the guitar for me,\u201d Robertson said in the To Kingdom Come sleevenotes, \u201cthis very subtle playing, leaving out a lot of stuff and just waiting till the last second and playing the thing in just the nick of time. It was an approach to playing where it\u2019s so delicate. It\u2019s just the opposite of the \u2018in your face\u2019 guitar playing that I used to do. This was the kind of thing that was slippery. It was like you have to hold your breath while you\u2019re playing these solos. You can\u2019t breathe or you\u2019ll throw yourself off.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Rockin\u2019 Chair (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m knocked out by older people,\u201d Robertson told Time magazine in 1970. \u201cJust look at their eyes. Hear them talk. They\u2019re not joking. They\u2019ve seen things you\u2019ll never see.\u201d Till this point, rock music had been defined by youth. The Band\u2019s obvious respect for the older generation was genuinely radical. And nowhere was it more apparent than on his poignant-beyond-words \u201cRockin\u2019 Chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRockin\u2019 Chair\u201d transports the listener to another time, with Helm on mandolin, Hudson\u2019s wheezing accordion and some of the finest close-knit harmonies of The Band\u2019s career. Manuel takes the lead, playing the part of an elderly sailor attempting to persuade his best friend, the marvellously named old seadog Ragtime Willie, to finally retire and return home, where the two can see out their remaining years in each other\u2019s company, seeing old friends and telling old jokes. Manuel sings it with such empathy and feeling that it\u2019s scarcely believable that he was just 26 at the time of recording \u2014 and a tragedy that he\u2019d never reach the age of the character in the song.<\/p>\n

2. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (The Band, 1969)<\/p>\n

When Robbie Robertson wrote \u201cThe Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,\u201d he knew that only Levon Helm could sing it. Born in Elaine, a small town in Phillips County, Arkansas, Helm was the only Southerner in The Band. Without the authority his voice gave, the song, sung from the perspective of Virgil Kane, a former Confederate soldier, wouldn\u2019t have worked at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cLevon and I went back the furthest and I thought I understood his instrument better than anybody else,\u201d Robertson told this writer in 2019, \u201cso I tried to the best of my ability to write songs that he could sing better than anybody in the world. When I would play him the songs, he knew that I was writing them for him. He just accepted it in a very natural way and tried to figure out as quickly as possible how to do the song justice. The only thing he told me, when it came to the writing of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, was, \u2018Don\u2019t mention Abraham Lincoln.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Robertson took Helm\u2019s advice, but the song has still courted controversy, with some seeing it as a glorification of the Confederate cause. But when heard alongside Robertson\u2019s work of the time, it\u2019s clear that it\u2019s an attempt to truly get under the skin of an ordinary person and understand the human cost of war \u2014 the wounded pride, trauma, class and regional divides. It was written as it was becoming clear that the Vietnam War was deeply unpopular in the U.S., not to mention a foreign policy disaster \u2014 though it seemed to look to the past, in the way that it showed how ordinary Americans were collateral damage for the rich and powerful, \u201cThe Night They Drove Old Dixie Down\u201d was timely.<\/p>\n

1. The Weight (Music From Big Pink, 1968)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Weight\u201d is The Band\u2019s signature song, on the one hand a secular hymn that speaks of the value of sharing a burden; on the other, a road-weary traveller\u2019s surreal encounters in a town populated by oddball characters. It\u2019s a showcase for The Band\u2019s musicianship, vocal talent, and ability to assimilate country, gospel, blues, and soul, creating music that pays no mind to genre. But according to writer Robbie Robertson, it wasn\u2019t initially in the running to be included on Big Pink.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter The Basement Tapes, where there was all kinds of imagination and madness involved in some of the songwriting, that loosened up things,\u201d Robertson told writer Steven Hyden\u2019s Celebration Rock podcast in 2018. \u201cWhen I wrote \u2018The Weight\u2019, I thought, \u2018Now I\u2019ve gone too far. Nobody\u2019s going to understand this, even me.\u2019 So, it was hard to think, \u2018Guys, I\u2019ve written a song here that really could change things or make a difference,\u2019 or anything like that. I thought, \u2018It\u2019s too outside the lines here, but we\u2019ll keep it as a back-up in case one of the other songs doesn\u2019t work out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The seed for \u201cThe Weight\u201d was planted when beat poet Gregory Corso recommended Robertson visit the famed New York City bookshop, Gotham Book Mart. Ever the cinephile, Robertson was delighted to discover they stocked movie scripts, including Ingmar Bergman\u2019s screenplay for The Seventh Seal, and Luis Bu\u00f1uel\u2019s scripts for Nazar\u00edn and Viridiana.<\/p>\n

Images from those scripts stuck with Robertson and, months later, inspired \u201cThe Weight.\u201d \u201cOne night in Woodstock, upstairs in my house in a workspace next to my bedroom, I picked up my 1951 Martin D-28 acoustic guitar to write a song. I turned the guitar around and looked in the sound hole,\u201d Robertson told the Wall Street Journal in 2018. \u201cThere, I saw a label that said \u2018Nazareth, Pennsylvania\u2019, the town where Martin was based. For some reason, seeing the word \u2018Nazareth\u2019 unlocked a lot of stuff in my head from \u2018Nazarin\u2019 and those other film scripts.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Take a load off and put it right on me\u2019\u201d is also pure Bu\u00f1uel. Once you lend a hand and assume someone else\u2019s burden, you\u2019re involved. \u2018Carmen and the devil walkin\u2019 side by side\u2019 is from The Seventh Seal and the chess game with Death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Band\u2019s genius was in turning this song, loaded with arthouse movie references and biblical portent, into a communal anthem, one which became a defining moment of their set at Woodstock and inspired countless cover versions by artists including Aretha Franklin, The Staple Singers, and The Supremes & The Temptations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat group, the brotherhood and musical connection between us all was so powerful,\u201d Robertson told this writer in 2019, trying to get to the bottom of what made The Band so special. \u201cEverybody played such an important part in this production, in this movie, in this story \u2014 the characters and the way they all fit together, musically and personally. This wasn\u2019t a group where there were a couple of main guys like the singer and the guitar player, and then some other guys back there. That\u2019s why it could be called The Band \u2014 because it really was, truly that. The different musicalities of these guys was extraordinary. And the power of that brotherhood and how serious we were at honing the craft and doing something that had meaning and depth to it. We weren\u2019t on a pop cavalcade, our job wasn\u2019t to figure out if people liked us, it was to find a sound, a feeling, a music that goes beyond all of that. We just came in on a different train.\u201d<\/p>\n

Order The Band\u2019s The Best of the Band on vinyl now.<\/a><\/p>\n

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