It’s hard to put a finger on it, but there is something just so soothing about the song, “The Weight,” by the Canadian-born rock band, the Band. It’s like an old dusty short story that you read as a kid that became your favorite and you can return to it over and over again.
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Of course, the way things begin is often how they proceed. Such is the case for “The Weight.” With inspirations beginning with old movie scripts and an old dusty bookstore, guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson began to put the pieces together that would be the song in the late ’60s. Then, when the song had been written, it felt like an old friend.
Bookstores and Bob Dylan
While the Band, which was a backing band for iconic ’60s artist Bob Dylan for several years, was finishing up with Bob for a session, the members were also working on their own debut album. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Band’s guitarist Robbie Robertson talked about being in Woodstock, New York, working on music.
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Prior to that, however, Robertson had been living in New York City and was turned onto an old book shop where he stumbled across movie scripts like those for The Seventh Seal and Nazarín. And “all these scripts were stirring around in my head,” Robertson says when his group was tracking with Dylan.
Nazareth, Fanny and Crazy Chester
The song opens with the line, I pulled in to Nazareth, was feeling ’bout half past dead. Sung by the Band’s drummer, Levon Helm, there is something so calming about the lyric. As if we’re all in the middle of a story but it’s one where we don’t have to worry about the ending. It’s comforting.
But the inspiration for the lyric came from Robertson’s guitar (a 1951 Martin D-28 acoustic), which was from, according to a label on it, in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where Martin was based. The town name was especially interesting because of the Biblical references and its association with Jesus.
“For some reason, seeing the word ‘Nazareth’ unlocked a lot of stuff in my head from ‘Nazarin’ and those other film scripts,” Robertson said.
As for the chorus’ Fanny, as in Take a load off, Fanny, take a load for free! The bookstore, Gotham` Book Mart, where Robertson found those old scripts was owned by one Fanny Steloff. “I’m not sure I had the Gotham’s owner in mind when I used ‘Fanny,'” Robertson said of that choice. “But her name was certainly buried back there in my imagination. ‘Fanny’ just felt rhythmic.”
The rest of the song is about the singer/main character/traveler looking for a place to rest in a small town full of characters, including one named “Crazy Chester.”
“‘Crazy Chester’ was based on someone I saw in Fayetteville, Ark., when I was 16. There was this guy in a wheelchair who was kind of nuts. He’d roll into the town square, and when girls went by, he’d call out, ‘Hoocha, baby, hoocha.’ It was like a tic,” added Robertson.
Sings Rick Danko of Crazy Chester,
Crazy Chester followed me
And he caught me in the fog
He said, “I will fix your rack
If you’ll take Jack, my dog”
I said, “Wait a minute, Chester
You know I’m a peaceful man”
He said, “That’s okay, boy
Won’t you feed him when you can?”
Big Pink
The Band got together at a pink home in Woodstock they called Big Pink and recorded their debut, Music from Big Pink, which included “The Weight.” (Previously the Band had been called Canadian Squires and Levon and the Hawks.)
Lyrical Controversy
While Robertson is universally credited with writing the beginnings of the song, the rest of the writing process has since been disputed, which is not uncommon for the Band’s songs.
Drummer/singer Helm has said that much of the writing of the song’s finished product was collaborative. He said each member helped, crediting Robertson with 60% of the lyrical work only.
“‘The Weight’ is just like ‘Life is a Carnival,’ or ‘The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show’ and ‘Ophelia’ and all the rest of ‘em,” said Helm. “It is a collaborative effort. Now you could say that Robertson was 60 percent responsible for the lyric, that Richard was 20 percent and maybe Rick got another 20, and I got 5 or 10, then you talk about the music. You could give Garth chord credits and all that stuff, but the people who handle that stuff don’t work for Garth. Or Richard or me. They work for Robbie and Albert.”
Final Thoughts
Regardless of the origin, the song remains a classic bit of North American rock and roll. No matter how much controversy or drama is part of its backstory, its current life is one of relief.
Many have taken the song on since its release, perhaps most notably Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross & the Supremes, the Temptations and Mavis Staples. High praise.
Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
So what do those lyrics about Crazy Chester mean? No one seems to know.