Rockin’ Chair, by The Band.
Felt like The Band today, and this song is one of my standard “I’ve created a family tradition that I’m supposed to sing a song about the state when we cross the state line and enter it” numbers for our home state of Virginia, so I almost feel obliged?
Inspired to hack away at this after a high school orchestra and band concert tonight. If they can do it, why not me?
Tears of Rage, by The Band.
Look, things get pretty fuzzy where The Band and Bob Dylan intersect, as noted more than once in this project. This song, as far as I’m concerned, is The Band’s song, and the canonical version is the one on Music From Big Pink. Even if Dylan wrote the lyrics and they recorded it with him first on the Basement Tapes, but didn’t release that one until years later. So I’m not tagging this as cover-of-a-cover. Conveniently, I’m the only one making rules around here.
Daniel and the Sacred Harp, by The Band.
I hadn’t thought about this song in at least a decade, maybe two, but the great thing about looking at long lists of songs by your favorite bands is finding gems like this. A story song, biblical references, moral lessons, your basic monkey’s paw / cursed musical instrument situation.
And btw, I no longer have any idea what the canonical version of this song is, since there have been multiple rounds of remasters of this album.
Did my best to slightly vary my voice between Levon and Richard, but I don’t have the stamina tonight to, well, play a harp solo, or to do anything that sounds like an accordion or whatever else the heck is in play on this number.
Long Black Veil, by The Band.
Another not-quite-a-Johnny-Cash-song, but my intent here was to cover The Band’s version of this song, which, actually, quite a bit like Thirteen, sounds like a dark country standard, but it isn’t! I mean, it is now, but it was written for Nashville, not out of some standard Americana.
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Did not stick to my plan to go the incrementally less lazy route to record tonight, and for my trouble, the computer fell asleep halfway through the last verse, and I couldn’t remember the final lines, so I had to make another edit.
Jemima Surrender, by The Band.
I kinda felt bad about how terrible this came out until I read the Wikipedia page about this song, saw that everyone was playing out of position, and now can’t decide if I should feel worse because The Band just screwing around in the studio with a fun over-the-top song is so much better than me, or, more likely, if I should just feel good about getting this in the can after a bunch of false starts, continuing to play with yesterday’s broken/missing string, the electric guitar bit sounding kinda wanky, my vocals leaving much to be desired, but I gotta tell you, I don’t really care tonight, and I’m exhausted, and not every song can be Bon Iver.
I Shall Be Released, by The Band*.
Yes, indeed, it is a cover-of-a-cover, but that is sometimes the case the the Dylan/Band overlaps. I am way, way, way more familiar with The Band’s version, so that’s what this song is for me.
I spent a lot of time listening to The Band on a discman in Morocco — at least until I really got into the Gnaoua CD I picked up in Marrakech. This song might’ve been on one of those Band CDs I had on repeat when I hiked, alone, into the scrub outside Tinghir (Tenerhir) and left the tourist trail, scrambled up the rocks, and spent the night in what was clearly some goatherd’s regular campsite.
In the middle of the night, I woke once to the sound of bleating animals strolling by on the path; I woke up a hundred more times to the light of the moon in my eyes. (The ultralight tarp in my daypack was not enough to block it out; the clementines and almonds I brought were sufficient nourishment, though.)
The walk back through the date farms was a highlight of that trip, but I’ll save that for another song.
When I Paint My Masterpiece, by The Band
Is it a Dylan song? Is it a Band song? Is it a Dylan and The Band song? I know it best as a song by The Band, so that’s what it is to me.
I must’ve sung this to my infant children a thousand times or more when I was rocking them to sleep in my arms. If it had worked better, I joked that I could probably play it when they were teenagers and they’d pass out without knowing why.
I love this little song. It felt like a great day for something raw, and triumphant, and appropriately enough getting the recording for the day done before the aforementioned children are asleep in their beds means I can let a little looser and get a little louder.
I’d add an accordion if I could. If I had a harmonica in the right key… huh wait maybe I do. Next time?