Basically, there is no "meaning". It's not like "Hey Jude" where there is a "meaning" or a clear narrative or inspiration. Instead, Robbie Robertson (the man who wrote the lyrics) said "I just wrote it. It’s just one of those things. I thought of a couple of words that led to a couple more, and the next thing I knew I wrote the song," and he's also said "When I wrote ‘The Weight’, the first song for ‘Music From Big Pink’, it had a kind of American mythology I was reinventing using my connection to the universal language. The Nazareth in ‘The Weight’ was Nazareth, Pennsylvania."
He was using very evocative language, which ends up sounding Biblical, i.e. great and mythical -- because there's not much language that digs deeper in the human soul to bring up images than the Bible. And "The Weight" manages to do the same as the Bible, in that respect. And it's also not dissimilar with regard to the difficulty in interpreting it! But, similarly or dissimilarly, that's because The Weight lacks a real story being told. Instead, he he uses the "Universal Language", really evocative and poetic language, to tell a story of travel and desperation and attachment with all the narrative "blanks" left unfilled, which actually leaves us to fill the blanks in with something that's not even put into words -- the imagery of a North American mythology. For me, I imagine him pulling into a Nazareth of whiskey stills and Appalachian old-timers, rural ghettos, rusty train cars rattling by, and guys with dogs that have only been fed whenever their owners got the chance.
A beautiful song, the kind of song that conjures meanings up for each listener. This is one song where the comments on songmeanings that claim that the song has no "meaning" are well placed, although that is an asset in the case of this piece.
@just12 If the song's backdrop is Nazareth, PA...how close is that town to Gettysburg?? All that talk about Cannonballs and Judgement Day makes me think of that-and other, bloody civil war battles. Also, remember that during the time period of all those Classic Rock songs, we were in a virtual second Civil War in this country. The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests, Race Riots, and assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK. The War between the States was referenced more than once. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" Also performed by The Band and Jon Baez, comes to mind....
@just12 If the song's backdrop is Nazareth, PA...how close is that town to Gettysburg?? All that talk about Cannonballs and Judgement Day makes me think of that-and other, bloody civil war battles. Also, remember that during the time period of all those Classic Rock songs, we were in a virtual second Civil War in this country. The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests, Race Riots, and assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK. The War between the States was referenced more than once. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" Also performed by The Band and Jon Baez, comes to mind. Not saying I'm Right (I'm usually not) but, it's food for thought.
I just found the meaning of this song at this address: theband.hiof.no/articles/the_weight_viney.html
Basically, there is no "meaning". It's not like "Hey Jude" where there is a "meaning" or a clear narrative or inspiration. Instead, Robbie Robertson (the man who wrote the lyrics) said "I just wrote it. It’s just one of those things. I thought of a couple of words that led to a couple more, and the next thing I knew I wrote the song," and he's also said "When I wrote ‘The Weight’, the first song for ‘Music From Big Pink’, it had a kind of American mythology I was reinventing using my connection to the universal language. The Nazareth in ‘The Weight’ was Nazareth, Pennsylvania."
He was using very evocative language, which ends up sounding Biblical, i.e. great and mythical -- because there's not much language that digs deeper in the human soul to bring up images than the Bible. And "The Weight" manages to do the same as the Bible, in that respect. And it's also not dissimilar with regard to the difficulty in interpreting it! But, similarly or dissimilarly, that's because The Weight lacks a real story being told. Instead, he he uses the "Universal Language", really evocative and poetic language, to tell a story of travel and desperation and attachment with all the narrative "blanks" left unfilled, which actually leaves us to fill the blanks in with something that's not even put into words -- the imagery of a North American mythology. For me, I imagine him pulling into a Nazareth of whiskey stills and Appalachian old-timers, rural ghettos, rusty train cars rattling by, and guys with dogs that have only been fed whenever their owners got the chance.
A beautiful song, the kind of song that conjures meanings up for each listener. This is one song where the comments on songmeanings that claim that the song has no "meaning" are well placed, although that is an asset in the case of this piece.
@just12 If the song's backdrop is Nazareth, PA...how close is that town to Gettysburg?? All that talk about Cannonballs and Judgement Day makes me think of that-and other, bloody civil war battles. Also, remember that during the time period of all those Classic Rock songs, we were in a virtual second Civil War in this country. The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests, Race Riots, and assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK. The War between the States was referenced more than once. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" Also performed by The Band and Jon Baez, comes to mind....
@just12 If the song's backdrop is Nazareth, PA...how close is that town to Gettysburg?? All that talk about Cannonballs and Judgement Day makes me think of that-and other, bloody civil war battles. Also, remember that during the time period of all those Classic Rock songs, we were in a virtual second Civil War in this country. The Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests, Race Riots, and assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK. The War between the States was referenced more than once. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" Also performed by The Band and Jon Baez, comes to mind. Not saying I'm Right (I'm usually not) but, it's food for thought.
@just12 I like your take on this esp. that it "conjures meanings up for each listener" - nice.
@just12 I like your take on this esp. that it "conjures meanings up for each listener" - nice.
@just12 So... is it 'Universal Language" or "Biblical", or both [the latter being a smaller overlap in the Venn diagram of the former] :D
@just12 So... is it 'Universal Language" or "Biblical", or both [the latter being a smaller overlap in the Venn diagram of the former] :D