Our most careful listener noted that Rob and I did not discuss "The Weight" in the interview I shared earlier. However, we have a new conversation covering that and much else.
ok so, first: no matter how cryptic the lyrics seem, we cannot assume they don't mean something discernible...or that we are in some way being disrespectful of their oblique nature by reading closely. there is a basic method to apply, which really is, stick to the words, and know the dictionary definition of every word. Then proceed from there.
stanza 1 : he arrives in town - Nazareth - but he "can't find a bed." No room at the Inn, as is written. The guy does this weird thing and he smiles and says "no" — he facilitates the rest of the story, which would have ended, "and he went to bed and woke up in the morning and enjoyed his complimentary breakfast." That's not the song we get — the traveler is forced to move on. The guy smiles because he knows he has done the right thing; he's done his part.
Now, there's a lot of info in the chorus. He introduces us to Fanny, for whom he is doing a favor and asking for nothing in return. He's willing to take up her burden — "well put the load right on me." So this is not about him -- all that follows is him doing something for Fanny. So let's see what that's about.
stanza 2 : the traveler picks up his bag (with no reference to how it feels), and needs a place to hide...he doesn't have a room, but now the language is more desperate -- a place to hide, from someone. And along comes Carmen, with the devil, and while Carmen can't go out on the town with them, she passes the devil himself along to the traveler. so we go right from Nazareth to walking down the road with the devil, with a Wizard of Oz feeling.
stanza 3 : the traveler and the devil run into Miss Moses, who tells him the story of Luke — he's waiting for "the judgment," often thought of as the end of the world. what about your fiancee? Miss Moses knows him, so she asked the question...and he says to the traveler, you can have her. and even 'keep her company' which is polite for fuck her. (A Luke wrote one of the gospels, but I'll leave that alone for now.)
stanza 4 : then they bump into Chester, whom people call crazy. He's got a dog called Jack he can't take care of, and the traveler thinks he wants him to kill Jack - but Chet isn't so crazy, he says, of course feed him when you can. (People were poorer then; a dog's food was not assured.) btw now they are really doing Wizard of Oz — Toto has joined them.
stanza 5 : they're at the train station and it's time to take the Cannon Ball down the line — catch the next train home - a fast one; his bag is sinking low. It's getting heavy. This is "the weight" that he is carrying. And he is headed back to where he came from, but do his traveling companions join him on the train?
He does make a comment to them before he goes: Fannie not only sent me, she said give her regards to you...wow...the whole thing was predestined, an act of Fanny's will. it all seems so random but it's not.
There is no reference to the devil, Anna Lee or Jack the canine getting on the train. The implication is that some purposes has been fulfilled...you might say, Jesus showed up, did what he had to, and went home to the one who sent him.
This discussion was much more enlightening than reading the Wikipedia entry. :-) It doesn't at all mention Dennis Danko's role. It does mention Robbie's fascination with the work of Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel, very surrealist films, he's a master. And mentions the Biblical allusions, attributing them to Levon Helm's US South (Arkansas) background. Robbie composed the tune on a Martin acoustic guitar, made in ... Nazareth, Pa. All the characters are said to be people Levon knew in real life.
Very poignant discussion on how today's young people seem to be very fascinated by the music of the '60s and '70s (or at least '80s), so little in music since then in terms of songs which persist, just like with your mom's 45s which you grew up with, Eric. It was a special era. But even it featured a lot of garbage. So much time with absolute garbage topping the music charts even back then.
And some of the stuff which seems special today, well..... The Beatles have persisted, but most of their stuff wasn't that heavy, aside from the work of John starting in '65, and George, at times. Paul did come up with Eleanor Rigby, Fixing a Hole, She's Leaving Home, but also a lot of Paul Pop. Stones did, for a while, before largely getting self-indulgent. Kinks. Who, for a while, before the Meir Baba takeover. The Dead were lucky to have lyricists like Hunter and Barlow, masters. Quicksilver, the Airplane,... yes. Jim Morrison, Jimi, Arthur Lee, David Crosby yes, Young at times too, less so Stills (mostly obsessed with Judy Collins) and Nash. Joni Mitchell. Ellen McIlwaine, Patti Smith, Bonnie Dobson. Mark Knopfler. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. Gil Scott Heron. Profound music in the jazz tradition. We had a short burst of creativity, before the onset of the digital world killed it with uniformity and packaging.
The wikipedia entry is a total lie, resulting in a song that actually means nothing. A few film scenes, a few friends here and there...does not make a great song.
Wiki reprinted the public relations position of the person who stole the song from Dennis. It is the official denial; as we heard above, the whole band knew what happened. It gets worse from there (regarding the royalty rights to the song, which originally went to the whole band and now only go to Robertson). The wiki/Robertson version of events is identifiable as a fraud from an artistic standpoint because ultimately the claim is that the song is a meaningless pastiche; a collage of random images and people that somehow emerges with this profound gravitas as one of the best known rock songs in history. It would be an insult were it not so ridiculous.
I think I figured out who Fannie is. The key is to not be distracted by the name.
ok so, first: no matter how cryptic the lyrics seem, we cannot assume they don't mean something discernible...or that we are in some way being disrespectful of their oblique nature by reading closely. there is a basic method to apply, which really is, stick to the words, and know the dictionary definition of every word. Then proceed from there.
stanza 1 : he arrives in town - Nazareth - but he "can't find a bed." No room at the Inn, as is written. The guy does this weird thing and he smiles and says "no" — he facilitates the rest of the story, which would have ended, "and he went to bed and woke up in the morning and enjoyed his complimentary breakfast." That's not the song we get — the traveler is forced to move on. The guy smiles because he knows he has done the right thing; he's done his part.
Now, there's a lot of info in the chorus. He introduces us to Fanny, for whom he is doing a favor and asking for nothing in return. He's willing to take up her burden — "well put the load right on me." So this is not about him -- all that follows is him doing something for Fanny. So let's see what that's about.
stanza 2 : the traveler picks up his bag (with no reference to how it feels), and needs a place to hide...he doesn't have a room, but now the language is more desperate -- a place to hide, from someone. And along comes Carmen, with the devil, and while Carmen can't go out on the town with them, she passes the devil himself along to the traveler. so we go right from Nazareth to walking down the road with the devil, with a Wizard of Oz feeling.
stanza 3 : the traveler and the devil run into Miss Moses, who tells him the story of Luke — he's waiting for "the judgment," often thought of as the end of the world. what about your fiancee? Miss Moses knows him, so she asked the question...and he says to the traveler, you can have her. and even 'keep her company' which is polite for fuck her. (A Luke wrote one of the gospels, but I'll leave that alone for now.)
stanza 4 : then they bump into Chester, whom people call crazy. He's got a dog called Jack he can't take care of, and the traveler thinks he wants him to kill Jack - but Chet isn't so crazy, he says, of course feed him when you can. (People were poorer then; a dog's food was not assured.) btw now they are really doing Wizard of Oz — Toto has joined them.
stanza 5 : they're at the train station and it's time to take the Cannon Ball down the line — catch the next train home - a fast one; his bag is sinking low. It's getting heavy. This is "the weight" that he is carrying. And he is headed back to where he came from, but do his traveling companions join him on the train?
He does make a comment to them before he goes: Fannie not only sent me, she said give her regards to you...wow...the whole thing was predestined, an act of Fanny's will. it all seems so random but it's not.
There is no reference to the devil, Anna Lee or Jack the canine getting on the train. The implication is that some purposes has been fulfilled...you might say, Jesus showed up, did what he had to, and went home to the one who sent him.
actually there seems to be an actual Fannie...I lost track of that data set however...
Catch a Cannon Ball
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabash_Cannon_Ball_(train)
This discussion was much more enlightening than reading the Wikipedia entry. :-) It doesn't at all mention Dennis Danko's role. It does mention Robbie's fascination with the work of Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel, very surrealist films, he's a master. And mentions the Biblical allusions, attributing them to Levon Helm's US South (Arkansas) background. Robbie composed the tune on a Martin acoustic guitar, made in ... Nazareth, Pa. All the characters are said to be people Levon knew in real life.
Very poignant discussion on how today's young people seem to be very fascinated by the music of the '60s and '70s (or at least '80s), so little in music since then in terms of songs which persist, just like with your mom's 45s which you grew up with, Eric. It was a special era. But even it featured a lot of garbage. So much time with absolute garbage topping the music charts even back then.
And some of the stuff which seems special today, well..... The Beatles have persisted, but most of their stuff wasn't that heavy, aside from the work of John starting in '65, and George, at times. Paul did come up with Eleanor Rigby, Fixing a Hole, She's Leaving Home, but also a lot of Paul Pop. Stones did, for a while, before largely getting self-indulgent. Kinks. Who, for a while, before the Meir Baba takeover. The Dead were lucky to have lyricists like Hunter and Barlow, masters. Quicksilver, the Airplane,... yes. Jim Morrison, Jimi, Arthur Lee, David Crosby yes, Young at times too, less so Stills (mostly obsessed with Judy Collins) and Nash. Joni Mitchell. Ellen McIlwaine, Patti Smith, Bonnie Dobson. Mark Knopfler. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. Gil Scott Heron. Profound music in the jazz tradition. We had a short burst of creativity, before the onset of the digital world killed it with uniformity and packaging.
Thanks again for this conversation.
The wikipedia entry is a total lie, resulting in a song that actually means nothing. A few film scenes, a few friends here and there...does not make a great song.
Yeah, what a surprise, Wiki reduces a song's meaning to nothing. :-)
Wiki reprinted the public relations position of the person who stole the song from Dennis. It is the official denial; as we heard above, the whole band knew what happened. It gets worse from there (regarding the royalty rights to the song, which originally went to the whole band and now only go to Robertson). The wiki/Robertson version of events is identifiable as a fraud from an artistic standpoint because ultimately the claim is that the song is a meaningless pastiche; a collage of random images and people that somehow emerges with this profound gravitas as one of the best known rock songs in history. It would be an insult were it not so ridiculous.
INTER-VIEW{s}: Soul2Soul
"Nothing b/w The Universe"
In the Keys of E, F#, & C.
{9th of December 2022}
WOW ! This is really Fantastic.
EFC---Legendary, More-than-Music Producer, Rob Fraboni.
**
"This is The World !"
"This is The Wizard of Oz."
"The shared-verses."
"The Body, puts itself back together."
"It's elliptical."
"Art [has] such a bigger door to come through..."
~ Eric F. Coppolino
"It's Just The Way It Is."
"This relates all back to that."
"The whole thing's Wild."
"The delicacy of the whole thing."
"It's listenable, over 'n over."
"It's meant to be A Mystery."
~ Rob Fraboni
{Producer, of-Soul}
** *
For You-Two:
https://youtu.be/gDbAtWpoA6k
Graci !
Like The Wind...