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"The Weight" is the title of a 1968 song by The Band. It is one of the group's best known songs and among the most popular songs of the late 1960s counterculture. The Band's version is an excellent example of a silent title record, one in which the title never appears in the lyrics. While the names of the five members of The Band appear on the record label, "The Band" does not. The song was composed by The Band's Robbie Robertson and appears originally on The Band's first album, Music from Big Pink.
It is #41 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list
"The Weight" takes the folk music motif of a traveler, who arrives in Nazareth in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Once there, he encounters various residents of the town, the song being a story of these encounters.

The residents include a man who cannot direct the traveler to a hotel, Carmen and the Devil walking side by side, "Crazy Chester," who offers a bed in exchange for the traveler taking his dog, and Luke who has gone out to wait for the apocalypse, leaving his young bride neglected.

The traveler refers to "Miss Fannie," who has sent him on his journey to Nazareth, and "the weight" of the song is a reference to the burden of travel, of giving a message to the town, and of sin. The chorus refers to taking a load off of Fannie and putting it on the singer. The numerous Biblical allusions in the character names and incidents in the song are allegorical, referring to a purgatorial experience. In Levon Helm's autobiography "This Wheel's on Fire," Helm explains that the people mentioned in the song were based on real people the Band knew. The "Miss Anna Lee" mentioned in the lyric is Helm's longtime friend Anna Lee Amsden[2].
Robertson on "The Weight"
According to Robertson, "The Weight" was somewhat inspired by the films of Luis Buuel, about which Robertson once said:

He did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood, people trying to do good in Viridiana and Nazarn, and it's impossible to do good. In "The Weight" it's the same thing. Someone says, "Listen, will you do me this favor? When you get there will you say 'hello' to somebody or will you pick up one of these for me?" "Oh, you're going to Nazareth, do me a favor when you're there." So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it's like, "Holy shit, what has this turned into? I've only come here to say 'hello' for somebody and I've got myself in this incredible predicament." It was very Buuelish to me at the time.

Musical construction
"The Weight" is sung primarily by Levon Helm, The Band's drummer. Rick Danko, the bassist, sings the fourth verse, and joins Helm in singing the fifth verse. The chorus is sung by all three of The Band's singers.

Each verse follows the format of:

Chords:A, C# minor, D, A
Lyrics: I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead";
The chorus then takes the format of:

Chords: A, E, D, A, E, D
Lyrics: Take a load off Fannie, take a load for free;
The easily identifiable bass run between the final verse and the chorus is up the A major pentatonic scale (that is, A,B,C#,E,F#,A).

Film and commercial play
"The Weight" has featured prominently in many films and television shows, including such movies as Hope Floats; Igby Goes Down (in a cover version by rock band Travis); The Big Chill; Easy Rider; Girl, Interrupted; Patch Adams; and Starsky & Hutch (as a parody of the scene in Easy Rider); and on television in The Sopranos (Episode 4 of Season 4 is titled "The Weight" and features the song in the end credits) and also on My Name Is Earl. It also shows up in the show Scrubs where the song is peformed by Zach Braff and his friends as part of a skit. It has also been used in commercials for Diet Coke and Cingular/AT&T Wireless, an American telecommunications company.

The song was also included on the Easy Rider Soundtrack, but was performed by the band Smith because of contractual problems preventing use of The Band's version.

"The Weight" is one of three songs performed by The Band featured in the 2003 documentary film, Festival Express.

"The Weight" was one of three songs the Band's 1990s lineup performed for "LET IT ROCK!", a birthday concert/tribute for Ronnie Hawkins.

A fan favourite, "The Weight" is also in two post-Last Waltz concert videos: "The Band Is Back" (1984) and "The Band Live At The New Orleans Jazz Festival" (1998).

Don Imus liked this song and frequently played it on his show. The Levon Helm Band appeared frequently. Imus was fired from CBS Radio on April 12, 2007, in the midst of his charity radiothon. The Radiothon continued on Friday, April 13, 2007 with Imus's wife and newscaster hosting in his place, and the broadcast concluded with the Levon Helm Band performing "The Weight" live.
Played by other musicians
"The Weight" has been covered by many other acts, including the North Mississippi Allstars, moe., Aaron Prichett, The Staple Singers, Travis, The Grateful Dead, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, O.A.R., Edwin McCain, Spooky Tooth, Hanson, Stoney LaRue, Old Crow Medicine Show, Aretha Franklin, Joan Osborne, John Denver, Cassandra Wilson, Shannon Curfman, Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, and Dionne Warwick did as well. Ratdog and Bob Weir are also know to cover this song from time to time (notably shows in Pennsylvania). Additional notable versions are by Lee Ann Womack, the band Smith, and a joint effort by Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Allman Brothers Band, Joe Cocker, and The Temptations. In The Band's concert film, The Last Waltz, The Staples and The Band perform the song together. The indie-rock band Decemberists recruited Mavis Staples to sing the song with them during their performance at the Bonnaroo music festival in June 2007.

Levon Helm and Rick Danko also performed the song with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band. Josh Kelley and his backing band, The Weight, also perform this song at live shows.[3]

Australian artists Jimmy Barnes and The Badloves covered this song in 1993, which charted well.

In 1994, the Staple Singers performed this song again, with country singer Marty Stuart on the country-R&B collaborative album Rhythm, Country and Blues, produced by Don Was.

Along with Britney Spears' "Toxic", Radiohead's "(Nice Dream)" and the traditional song "The House Carpenter", Nickel Creek performed a cover of "The Weight" at Lollapalooza 2006.

The Allman Brothers Band began to cover this song during their annual Beacon run in 2006, presumably in tribute to Duane Allman, who played on the Aretha Franklin version.

Also, the song was played live in a joint performance by Sheryl Crow and The Wallflowers (whose lead singer is Jakob Dylan, the son of Bob Dylan, a frequent collaborator with The Band).

"The Weight" is a hit for Canadian singer/songwriter Aaron Pritchett.[citation needed]Panic! At The Disco covered the song at the Virgin Festival on 5 August, 2007