This week we’re launching a new band website ahead of our upcoming LAST WALTZ HALIFAX concert at the Marquee Ballroom.
You’ll note we’re also getting a new band name. For years we had no name for the band as kind of an ode to The Band but somewhere along the line folks started calling us King Harvest.
Eventually, I was both thrilled and mortified to hear from the guys from the 1970’s band King Harvest, who asked in the kindest way that we not use the same name. I fanned out for sure!
For the last few years I’ve been tweaking the name to King Harvest Academy of Music and other variations. It doesn’t actually come up much. But it doesn’t seem right and it’s pretty clunky.
How Awesome is this Video!!!
So, from here out we’re The Eastern Stars. It sounds kind of old-timey. But there aren’t really bands anymore on the hit parade so I suppose all ‘new’ band names will sound old-fashioned.
This will also come in good stead when we start releasing some of the new original music we’ve been working on in the basement since the Last Waltz.
It got me thinking about The Weight.
Atlas famously carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It was never a top ten hit, but The Weight is a masterpiece for the ages. It's a song about responsibility. Almost every line, place, and name in the song doubles Biblical and Southern allusions.
Nazareth is a famous biblical city, and an industrial town in Pa., and the home of the Martin guitar factory.
In the song, there's messages hidden for musicians, the faithful, the sexual, the disillusioned, and the political.
In each verse, the singer is asked to be responsible for something... something unsolvable... for themselves and others. Through the chorus the song shares in the uplifting joy of taking on responsibility even when that burden, that load, carries with it a weight and pain of all sort... even when it's impossible.
We live in a world where "I am not responsible" is a rally cry and whole industries and books of law exist simply to support the notion that "I am not legally liable" is an end goal of most enterprise. There's a fiction that responsibility can be shared, like in government, but where more than one is responsible then no one is responsible. The unwillingness to accept or burden others with responsibility has resulted in a kind of polite paralysis. Guilt, if divided enough, gets broken down into small forgettable pieces.
But the song reminds us, even when we fail, when we misstep, when we get in beyond our capacities, the willingness to take on responsibility, the weight, is the greatest human trait and the single unique feature shared by all our most storied human family. It's the essential building block of character and self-knowledge connecting us to the spiritual, natural, and human world around us. Without it we are untethered and alone. It's a concept as close to love as anything in the world. It's an undertaking that will lead to the most incredible journeys.
Next time you're drawn to someone, when you think wow, that person is amazing, ask yourself why. Deeply. I wouldn't be surprised if it's because that person willingly, maybe irresistibly because their conscience simply would not release them, took on a responsibility for something or someone.
The song was written 50 years ago and will surely be sung by people around fires (camp or survival) 50 years from now. It's a song anyone can sing. It's designed with verses to be shared around and the chorus is a simple perfect lesson in musical harmony. The Band showed us how music was made... with friends, where they found it.
In stark contrast to much of pop music that's made catchy, but purposefully inaccessible, in the end, this is what the song is for. It's meant to be shared. It's a doorway into music that's been left unlocked and open. It's for everyone to pass through. And in doing so the singer, the listener, the performer, can know a little of what it feels like - good and bad - to pass through that door... what it feels like to offer to be responsible.
Sing it and you'll see.
Pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was all he said
Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And you put the load right on me
I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side
I said: "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go downtown"
She said: "I gotta go, but my friend can stick around"
Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And you put the load right on me
Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say
It's just ol' Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the Judgement Day
Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?
He said: "Do me a favor, son, won't you stay and keep Anna Lee company?"
Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And you put the load right on me
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"
Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And you put the load right on me
Catch a cannon ball now, t'take me down the line
My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone
Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And you put the load right on me