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Written by: Robbie Robertson
Produced by: John Simon
Released: Aug. '68 on Capitol
Charts: 7 weeks
Top spot: No. 63
The Band was chiefly known as Bob Dylan's touring group when it retreated to a pink house in Woodstock, New York, to record its debut, Music From Big Pink. The homespun album was centered by "The Weight," an oddball fable of debt and burden. Robertson said he was inspired to write the song after watching Spanish director Luis Bu?uel's films about "the impossibility of sainthood," but characters such as Crazy Chester could have walked straight out of an old folk song. As for the biblical-sounding line "pulled into Nazareth," it refers to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, home of the Martin Guitar factory.
Appears on: Music From Big Pink (Capitol)