We will wind up our Robbie Robertson tribute with this 2020 version of The Weight, featuring Robbie and Ringo, along with musicians from around the world. Done for the Playing For Change Foundation. I particularly like the smiling Robbie at the end.
Catch a cannonball, nowTo take me down the lineMy bag is sinkin' lowAnd I do believe it's timeTo get back to Miss FannyYou know she's the only oneWho sent me here with her regards for everyone
Yes, I am, though finding it hard to believe.
Hang around, Willie boy,Don't you raise the sails anymoreIt's for sure, I've spent my whole life at seaAnd I'm pushin' age seventy-three
Hear the sound, Willie boy
The flyin' Dutchman's on the reef
It's my belief, we've used up all our time
This hill's too steep to climb
And the days that remain ain't worth a dime
Rockin' Chair from The Band album. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
From The Band album. Words and music by Robbie.
Like my father before meHere's a perspective from 1978 by Jonathan Taplin, the Band's tour manager at the time (later a Hollywood film producer and then Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California Annenbergy School for Communication and Journalism).
I will work the land
And like my brother above me
Who took a rebel stand
He was just 18, proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Cain back up
When he's in defeat
It was May and they'd just finished it the night before. They said it'd come out fast and hard and clean. It was just the most moving experience I'd had for, God, I don't know how long. Because for me, being a Northern liberal kid who'd been involved in the Civil Rights movement and had a whole attitude towards the South, well I loved the music but I didn't understand where white Southerners were coming from. And to have it all in just three and a half minutes, the sense of dignity and place and tradition, all those things … Well, the next day after I'd recovered, I went to Robbie and asked him, "How did that come out of you?" And he just said that being with Levon so long in his life and being in that place at that time … It was so inside him that he wanted to write the song right at Levon, to let him know how much those things meant to him.
Levon's vocal from The Last Waltz surpasses the studio version.
Whatever you do, don't listen to the Joan Baez cover which, along with botching the lyrics, completely misses the point of the song.
They signed a treatyAnd our homes were takenLoved-ones forsaken,They didn't give a damn.Try to raise a familyEnd up an enemyOver what went down on the Plains of Abraham.
A tale of the French settlers of Nova Scotia (known as Acadians), evicted by the British, many of whom ended up in Louisiana, becoming the people known as the Cajun.
In 1755 the British, believing the Acadians posed a security threat to their naval base in Halifax and a danger if the France tried to reconquer the province, ordered their expulsion, a process that continued for several years. Many of the refugees ended up in Spanish Louisiana but several thousand also died during the expulsions. The expulsion order was lifted in 1764 and small groups of Acadians were allowed back.
Out of this sad story, Robbie Robertson wrote Acadian Driftwood for The Band's last studio album; Northern Lights - Southern Cross. The song's themes and feel link it to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.
The lyrics take some liberty with the chronology. In reality, the expulsion order came at the beginning of the Seven Years War, while the Battle of Quebec on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 came four years after the order, but the song gets the gist of the story right.
By Bo Diddley, not Robbie Robertson, but this goes to Robbie's roots. He got his big break playing as a teenager with Canadian rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and it's where he met the other musicians who would go on to form The Hawks and then become The Band. From The Last Waltz, The Band's final concert.
The Band is clearly having a lot of fun with Ronnie and you can see what made Hawkins a first class showman. I love the end when Ronnie puts his hands on his hips, looks with pride at what his proteges have accomplished and then struts off the stage.
A rarity, as Robbie, Rick, and Levon share writing credits on Life Is A Carnival from The Band's 4th album, Cahoots.
Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a watch real cheapHere on the streetI got six on each arm and two more round my feetLife is a carnival--believe it or notLife is a carnival--two bits a shot
The opening song on The Band. Lyrics and music by Robbie. Rick Manuel on vocals.
Harvest moon shinin' down from the skyA weary sign for allI'm gonna leave this one horse townHad to stall 'til the fall, now I'm gonna crawlAcross the Great Divide
An achingly sad love song from The Band's sixth album - Northern Lights, Southern Crosses. Rick Danko on lead vocal. Music and lyrics by Robbie. The Band was unusual in having three top flight vocalists, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel, with Danko and Manuel having stunning plaintive tones in their voices, which Danko employs to full effect here.
It makes no difference how far I goLike a scar, the hurt will always showAnd it makes no difference who I meet
They're just a face in the crowd on a dead-end streetAnd the sun don't shine anymoreAnd the rains fall down on my doorThese old love lettersWell, I just can't keep'Cause, like the gambler says"Read 'em and weep"
When Rick sings the last verse, he sounds like he's breaking down.
Well, I love you so muchAnd it's all I can doJust to keep myself from telling youThat I never felt so alone before
I like this. A lot. And they did.
Can we get 88k likes? The past says so… pic.twitter.com/yKTWOD18i2
— Christopher Lloyd (@DocBrownLloyd) August 14, 2023
Music From Big Pink. Words and music by Robbie. Lead vocal by Rick Manuel.
I can't get to you from your garden gateYou know it's always locked by the magistrateNow he don't care why you cry, he thinks it's just a lieTo get out, I don't doubt that you'd make a try
Look out, everybody! From The Band album. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
Chain lightnin', frightnin' as it may seem
Must not be mistaken for just another dream
Justice of the peace don't know his own fate
But you'll go down in the shelter late
Via Olga Tuleninova, I came across Italian painter Alessandro Tofanelli, and was very intrigued by his imagery. A few samples below.
Another one from the Stage Fright album. Lyrics and music by Robbie. A live performance from 1971.
Gonna see Miss Brer Foxhole with bright diamonds in her teethShe is pure gold down underneathShe's a rock and roll singer and a true dead ringerBoy, somethin' like you ain't never seenOnce you get it, you can't forget itW.S. Walcott Medicine Show
For the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, President Truman authorized their use when they were ready but did not get involved in target selection or timing. Under the existing authorization the third bomb would be dropped at the discretion of the U.S. military. On August 10, 1945, after being briefed on the impact of the first bombings, Truman altered his directive, requiring that any further use would require his "express authority". Although Truman always publicly maintained the decision to drop the bombs was an easy one, there is also testimony from those working with him that he was disturbed at the extent of destruction and loss of life and took this action to regain direct control over the use of the next bomb. It may also be that if, as he hoped, Japan would begin discussing surrender, he did not want another bomb used in the midst of such discussions.
I saw it with a friend at a theater in the Allston section of Boston when it was released back in 1977. We walked out thinking it was a great film but I've never found anyone else who has seen it. The recent passing of director William Friedkin reminds me that Sorcerer was his followup to The French Connection and The Exorcist. A gritty and tense remake of the French film, The Wages of Fear, it was a financial and critical failure and ended Friedkin's short reign as one of Hollywood's top directors. I found out the film has undergone a critical reappraisal and is now highly regarded.
Starring Roy Scheider (The French Connection, Jaws). Haven't seen it since 1977 but will make a point of rewatching it soon.
From Stage Fright, The Band's third album. This version is from The Last Waltz, the final concert by the group. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
Out of nine lives I spent sevenNow, how in the world do you get to Heaven?Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in
Long before living memory our ancestral way of life produced outstanding men, and those excellent men preserved the old way of life and the institutions of their forefathers. Our generation, however, after inheriting our political organization like a magnificent picture now fading with age, not only neglected to restore its original colours but did not even bother to ensure that it retained its basic form and, as it were, its faintest outlines.
What remains of those ancient customs on which he [Ennius] said the state of Rome stood firm? We see them so ruined by neglect that not only do they go unobserved, they are no longer known. And what shall I say of the men? It is the lack of such men that has led to the disappearance of those customs.
Of this great tragedy we are not only bound to give a description; we must somehow defend ourselves as if we were arraigned on a capital charge. For it is not by some accident—no, it is because of our own moral failings—that we are left with the name of the Republic, having long since lost its substance.
- Cicero, De re publica (On The Republic or On The Commonwealth); via Laudator Temporis Acti
De re publica was composed by Cicero (106-43 BC) between 54 and 51 as a series of dialogues set in the prior century. The sixth and final book of De re publica is The Dream Of Scipio (Somnium Scipionis), of which I've previously written in Mastering The Tides Of The World, a post that also describes Cicero's fate amid the wreckage of the faded Republic.
Large parts of the dialogues have been lost over the ages. The quote is from the fifth book of the dialogues which focuses on the role a citizen should play in government.
Cicero wrote the dialogues during the last years of the Republic. From the time of the Social War (90-88 BC) the Republic staggered on, its long-standing institutions not capable of addressing the social tensions arising from the city's domination of the Mediterranean. As it was being written, Caesar was conquering Gaul and shared in the triumvirate of Pompey and Crassus, the latter dying at Carrhae in 53 in his failed quest to conquer the Parthians.
Caesar would cross the Rubicon in 49, plunging Rome into civil war. Pompey was killed in 48. Emerging triumphant in 45, Caesar would be murdered a few months later, followed by Cicero's death the following year. The Republic was dead.
You can read more about Cicero in Cicero And His Friends and Ciceroing.
He's a thief and he digs it. And in 12/8 time. Lyrics and music by Robbie and Richard Manuel. From The Band.
After writing The Weight, Robbie Robertson and the rest of the guys wanted to lighten things up a bit and came up with Chest Fever, featuring Garth's monstrous opening on the organ (he developed a long performance version intro which you can find on YouTube with the title The Genetic Method). From Music From Big Pink. The words make no sense.
"She's stoned," said the Swede
And the moon calf agreed
But I'm like a viper in shock
With my eyes in the clock
She was just there somewhere and here I am again
Robbie and Levon are the co-composers on this one. From The Band album.
Jemima Surrender, that's all you have to doI'll bring over my FenderAnd I'll play all night for you
On this date in 1779, a panicked American expeditionary force on Penobscot Bay in what was then Massachusetts, and is now Maine, burned its remaining boats, capping a disastrous campaign against the British. The force originally consisted of 44 vessels, with 1,000 soldiers, and a 100 man artillery detachment commanded by Lt. Colonel Paul Revere. Revere, the brave patriot of pre-war Boston and othe famed ride to Lexington and Concord, faced a court-martial in the wake of expedition's failure, and though acquitted, it marked the end of his military career.
It was the worst naval defeat in American history until Pearl Harbor.
The expedition was prompted by the landing, in June 1779, by British forces at the site of the present town of Castine, located on the northeast side of Penobscot Bay. The British quickly constructed an earthworks fortification, named Fort George in honor of the King. Their goal was to provide a base for protecting their valuable naval base in Nova Scotia. Once news reached Boston, Massachusetts quickly put together an expedition to retake the area.
Under the command of Dudley Saltonstall, a powerful Massachusetts family from the time of John Winthrop in the 17th century until the mid-20th, the fleet arrived on July 24, but due to Saltonstall's timidity and various other mishaps the American force could not capture Fort George. In early August a British relief fleet from New York City arrived and eventually the Americans fled up the Penobscot River, abandoning and destroying their fleet, the bedraggled survivors making their way through the woods of Maine as they returned to Massachusetts.
The British continued to occupy Fort George until they recognized American independence in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
From The Band's sixth album - Northern Lights, Southern Crosses. Lyrics and music by Robbie.
They got your numberScared and runningBut I'm still waiting for the second coming
Of OpheliaCome back home
A rollicking, barnburner of a song from The Band. "Hailstones beatin' on the roof, the bourbon is a hundred proof". Manuel, Danko and Helm switched instruments, with Richard taking drums (listen to his clever playing behind the lyric "we could be relaxing in my sleeping bag"), Rick on fiddle, and Levon on mandolin. Listen to Garth's rinky-tink piano interlude starting at 1:45, while producer John Simon contributes the underlying tuba part that holds the whole thing together (now there's a phrase you don't often hear). Lyrics and music by Robbie.
Now deep in the heart of a lonely kid
Who suffered so much for what he did
They gave this ploughboy his fortune and fame
Since that day he ain't been the same
From their third album. Rick Danko on the vocal. Lyrics and music by Robbie Robertson.
Letter home from a soldier, 389th Infantry Division, German Sixth Army, August 14, 1942. After writing that the fighting had been hard, he tells his family:
"The only consolation is that we will be able to have peace and quiet in Stalingrad, where we'll move into winter quarter, and then, just think of it, there'll be a chance of leave."
The division, along with the entire Sixth Army, would be destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad. Unless the writer was among the few wounded who were evacuated, it is highly likely he was killed or taken prisoner (95% of non-officers taken prisoner at Stalingrad died in Soviet captivity).
Came across this while rereading Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor (1998).
Beevor also reports that the official Soviet propaganda line was "the morale of an army depends on the socially just and progress order of the society it defends". It also helps morale if you are defending your country against Nazis. The Soviets provided additional support to their troops by executing 160,000 for desertion or cowardice during the first 18 months of the war, and sentencing hundreds of thousands of others to punishment detachments in which 400,000 perished. The United States executed one soldier during the entire war for desertion or cowardice.
For more on this turning point of the war read Life And Fate.
Ollie showed me the fork in the road
You can take to the left or go straight to the rightUse your days and save your nights,Be careful where you step, and watch what you eatSleep with the light on and you got it beat
This might be The band's best known song. Lyrics and music by Robbie. That weird frog croaking sound is Garth Hudson on the clavinet - a keyboard instrument also frequently used by Stevie Wonder during that period.
Tarred and feathered, yeah, thistles and thornsOne or the other, he kindly warnedNow you look out the window, tell me, what do you see?I see a golden calf pointing back at me
From The Band's first album, Music From Big Pink. Lyrics and music by Robbie Robertson.
I'm going to ride out the month posting a song each day composed or co-written by Robbie Robertson. Today it's The Rumor from The Band's third album, Stage Fright. Like many of their finest, it features vocals from Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Levon Helm. With swirling organ from Garth Hudson. Lyrics and music by Robertson.
And here's an appreciation of Robertson from Jeff Blehar, who does the Political Beats music podcast which, several years ago ran a three hour appreciation of the music of The Band. Of their second album, The Band, he writes:
The Band was a landmark of popular music and remains so to this day. (It is without hyperbole one of the ten or so greatest popular music albums ever recorded.)
It is difficult to fully convey how singular an album The Band is. From its brown and stark-toned cover photograph to its twelve songs, it uniquely exists both in and of its time and outside of chronological time altogether. This is an album from 1969 that massively affected the future course of popular music along multiple genres, yet could have just as easily been released in 1869 (look out, Cleveland!) — and I suppose that is the point. Robbie Robertson took the lessons he learned from diving alongside Dylan deep into American traditional song and transfigured them into what can only be described as a miraculously perfect summary of America’s own mythologized understanding of itself.
Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
- Opening scene from the movie Patton (1970)
That memorable opening speech by Patton (George C Scott) was never actually given in that form, being mostly assembled from different speeches and comments Patton made over the years, but he did say the words quoted above. (1) You can watch the whole thing here.
It pains me to admit, but the Democrats are successfully following Patton's advice, baiting Republicans into nominating Donald Trump in 2024 and letting them politically die on a foolish quest. The smarter play for those offended by what the Democrats are doing is to nominate someone who can both win and govern effectively; it is unlikely Trump can do the former and he's already demonstrated he is incapable of the latter.
Two things stand out when reading The Art of the Deal and other Trump tomes.
First, he likes to come in each day without a set agenda and react to what is going on. That worked for the Trump Organization and on a reality show, but doesn't when you are President, running a complex Federal bureaucracy and dealing with Congress. It doesn't work when you just react, have a short attention plan, and refuse to spend the time to understand how DC works. It doesn't work when you think tweeting something is the equivalent of doing something.
Second, Trump did make some great deals. They were mostly deals that benefited him personally. He cleverly negotiated himself out of jams where he was a personal guarantor on huge bank loans, managing to keep himself afloat, an impressive accomplishment. But, in the process, he destroyed, at a minimum, hundreds of millions of capital loaned to him, capital that might have been more productively used elsewhere. He's doing the same thing now; successfully staying personally afloat, while destroying the built up political capital of those who oppose progressive Democrats. I wrote about this recently. Win or lose in 2024, he will leave behind a wasteland and a weakened, splintered opposition to a united and authoritarian Democratic party.
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(1) General Patton began a speech on May 31, 1944 with these words. He was addressing soldiers of the 6th Armored Division, part of the Third Army which he commanded. For the film, the screenwriters of the speech and full screenplay won the Academy Award; Edmund H North and Francis Ford Coppola, who two years later directed The Godfather.
Catch a cannonball, nowTo take me down the lineMy bag is sinkin' lowAnd I do believe it's timeTo get back to Miss FannyYou know she's the only oneWho sent me here with herRegards for everyone- The Weight; words and music by Robbie Robertson
The music is difficult to categorize. It's not exactly rock, it's not really country, it's sort of, but not quite, old-timey music. Americana is the label sometimes applied which is funny since four of the five band members were Canadians yet they had the sensibility required to capture the sound and feel of an America that had disappeared well before 1969. If one were to try to describe the time and place in which the songs are set it'd be from the end of the Civil War through the Depression with locales primarily in the South but also including the Great Plains and Midwest and mostly in rural white America. The Band sounds of the time about which they are singing about and it's a collection of songs by turn witty and bawdy, poignant and knowing, sympathetic and hopeful, nostalgic and fun.
Other than Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, the only regular (non-streaming) show Mrs THC and I made it a point to always watch over the past 15 years was Justified, which completed its run in 2015. When I heard they were making a new series, Justified: City Primeval, based on another Elmore Leonard novel and set in Detroit, I was worried it would not live up to its predecessor which took place in Harlan County, Kentucky.
Well, so far, we've watched the first four episodes and it is just fine. Timothy Olyphant, as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, is as good as before and Aujanue Ellis, is vibrant as a defense attorney, and their interplay is the highlight of the show. A solid supporting cast, though hard to match the sterling supporting cast of Justified, as well as the memorable villains played by Walter Goggins, Margo Martindale, and Neal McDonough and comic relief bad guys Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns) and Dewey Crowe (Damon Herriman).
From Super 70s Sports, still the best account on Twitter. The great Giants star Willie McCovey and 70s detective shows. This guy is brilliant and funny. The comments are also a hoot. And, yes, I would have watched that show.
Tell me you wouldn’t have watched the hell out of a 70s detective show called “McCovey.” He’s launching homers and cleaning up crime in San Francisco, motherfucker. I’m actually a little depressed now that this show doesn’t exist. pic.twitter.com/bLir24B2Ei
— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) August 3, 2023
And as long as we are talking old-time baseball, here's a good one from Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins.
I had pin point control, So yes, every single one✌🏾 https://t.co/nFHrKDyFzF
— Fergie Jenkins (@fergieajenkins) July 29, 2023
Driving in the car today this song came up on my playlist, bringing back memories of many years ago in Maine, driving with our children in the car with this playing on a Ray Charles CD I had. Composed by Percy Mayfield (Little Richard performed at his funeral in 1984) and a #1 hit for Ray in 1961.
When I think of American Voices I always think of Ray Charles and Willie Nelson and from, an earlier generation, Sinatra, Fitzgerald, and Armstrong. There is something so distinctive about their voices. Even when they are covering songs by those darned foreigners! Here's Ray Charles doing Eleanor Rigby, with a rhythm and blues touch.
