26/05/13 Peter Vi ney on "The Wei ght" theband.hiof.no/ar ti cl es/the_weight viney.html 1/33 The Wei gh t by Peter Viney Re v ised v ersi on, 2005 This version comes nearl y ten years after t he first v ersi onof my article in Jawbonemagazine, and over those years I’ ve had a steady drip of e-mails adding things, and correcting things. They acceleratedwhen the use of ‘The Weight’ in a Cingular /ATT ad brought t he songback into people’s consciousness in 2004/5. What was once an article by me has been expanded into a comm unal take on the song. Call itthe “ R emastered Ex panded Versi on With Bonus Tracks”. Many thank s to all those who sent in their detailed views on the song. I’ve tried to include everyone’ s point of v iew. I’ m interested in the pictures the song has pai nted for people overnearly forty years rather than precisely what Robbie Robertson meantwhen he wrote it. I’ve been told before that my interpretations were way off that intent, and I expect them to be. Any literary analystcrawli ng for a let-out when caught out in nonsense will po int t o the subcons cious of t he writer! The lyrics are transcribed from the DVD -Audio versionof Music From Big Pink , which has on s creen l yric s and they differ sli ghtly from those on the Band site, which were taken from the sheet music. I have followedthe line breaks on the DVD-Audio. As the remastered DVD- Audio was done by Robbie R obertson, I assume that it is the def ini tiv e version. Musi c From Bi g Pink’s initial success was, in retrospect, surprisingly modest for an album which frequently appears in lists of the Top 100 Rock Albums of All Time. It got to #30 in the US charts while the single, The Weight , written by Robbie Robertson, reached only #63. Other artists had more sucess with covering The Weight. Versions by Jacki e DeSh an n on (U S #55, 1968), A ret h a Fran kl i n (U S #19, Ap ri l 1969, f eatu ri n g Duane Allman on guitar), The Supremes with The Temptations (US #46, September 1969) all charted. Significantly for both royalties and for general public awareness, the Di ana R oss and The Su premes Wi th The Tempt ations ’ album from which the single was taken reached US #2 and the Aretha Franklin album, Soul 69, reached US #15. The Weight was also heard on the soundtrack of the Peter Fonda / Dennis Hopper film Easy R ider in 1969, which in turn spawned a successful soundtrack album (US # 6 in October 1969 and 41 weeks on the chart). The Band agreed to their version being
