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Like so many 1960s stunners, "The Weight" has nearly been spoiled rotten by that culture-siphoning boom-boom-boomer trash The Big Chill, but the Robbie Robertson-penned tune is deeper and more biblical than pass-the-pain ibuprofen ideology. Led by drummer Levon Helm's slurry roar and hammered home by Rick Danko's shouty backup vocals, Robertson mirrored Christian allusions to the devil and the end of time with the emotional dismemberment of small town living. Certainly the Band's best-known song, "The Weight" is pushed along by a chummy saloon-style piano line and country-ish three-part harmonies making it a no-brainer sing-along jukebox highlight, capable of raising the spirits of even the damnedest drunks yet still complex enough to arouse even the most spiritually confounded. --Sean Fennessey, www.pitchforkmedia.com |
