“The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” plus more Robertson-penned favorites chosen by Billboard‘s staff.
Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson of The Band pose for a group portrait in London in 1971.
Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
One of the most important voices in rock of the late 1960s and early ’70s — even though he didn’t sing lead on many of his most famous songs — died this week. Robbie Robertson, guitarist and primary songwriter for Rock and Roll Hall of Famers The Band (and later solo performer and film composer), died Wednesday (Aug. 9) at age 80 after a long illness.
Growing out of the group The Hawks, which served as the backing band for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and then legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, The Band emerged in the late ’60s as a fully formed rock outfit, with a pair of classic albums: 1968’s Music From Big Pink and 1969’s self-titled album. The group’s rootsy sound and soulful performances, combined with Robertson’s evocative and enigmatic songwriting and strong knack for melody, helped set the early standard for the hybrid genre that would eventually become known as Americana, inspiring entire generations of future musicians.
As The Band fractured over the course of the ’70s, Robertson also became an in-demand producer and guest guitarist — and then in the ’80s, he also began a long collaboration with filmmaking great Martin Scorsese, scoring his The Color of Money (and, much later, The Irishman) and providing additional music and music supervision to many other Scorsese films. He also launched an acclaimed solo career, with his self-titled 1987 debut winning the Juno Award in his native Canada for album of the year.
With a decades-spanning career that remained relevant and vital for many decades after his debut, Robertson’s catalog ranks among the most essential of the rock era. Here are our staff’s picks for his most essential songs, presented in chronological order.
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“Look Out Cleveland” (The Band)
Something of an outlier among The Band’s predominantly rootsy first two albums, “Look Out Cleveland” is a rollicking blast of bar-band blues, where the group’s history backing Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan is evident in structure and sterling execution. Rick Danko effectively sells both Robertson’s lyrics, written from the perspective of a narrator warning folks about a storm rolling into town, and his instrumental, with a bouncing bass line. Surprisingly, “Look Out Cleveland” has taken on a second life in recent years in the jam-band community: Phish covered the song in 2010, and the rising Connecticut group Goose has played it several times since introducing the track to its repertoire in 2020. — ERIC RENNER BROWN
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“Chest Fever” (Music From Big Pink)
With evocative, elliptical lines like “She’s been down in the dunes/ And she’s dealt with goons,” “Chest Fever” is a perfect slice of The Band’s rustic psychedelia — and, fittingly, in 1969, the group opened their Woodstock set with the Music From Big Pink track. Garth Hudson’s virtuosic organ, which leans heavily on Bach’s “Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor,” defines the track, but its relentless, driving instrumental is all Robertson. (Levon Helm would later dispute Robertson’s credit as sole lyric writer.) Not that any of this meant much to Robertson, who would later say, “If you like ‘Chest Fever,’ it’s for God knows what reason. … It doesn’t make particularly any kind of sense in the lyrics, in the music, in the arrangement, in anything.” — E.R.B.
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“Broken Arrow” (Robbie Robertson)
One of Robertson’s most romantic songs, “Broken Arrow” is from his 1987 self-titled solo album. Atmospheric and dreamy, Robertson sings of a partner who turns his “whole world around.” “I gotta hold you in these arms of steel/ Lay your heart on the line,” as he counts “the beads of sweat that cover me.” Whether it is or not, the whole affair feels a little forbidden and clandestine, adding to its appeal. Rod Stewart had a hit with the song, taking his version to No. 20 in 1991. — MELINDA NEWMAN
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“To Kingdom Come” (Music From Big Pink)
Like most of the songs on Music From Big Pink, “To Kingdom Come” is a team effort; it’s tough to imagine its effervescent groove without any of The Band’s members. But Robertson’s the track’s MVP: He penned the tune, along with its economical but vivid biblical lyrics; delivered its iconic, lilting guitar solo, which continues into the horizon even as the song fades out; and even took a rare and compelling lead vocal turn. Appropriately, the band’s two-disc 1989 greatest-hits set used the song as its namesake. — E.R.B.
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“Rag Mama Rag” (The Band)
The loosey-goosey feel of “Rag Mama Rag” is intentional; to shake things up, the group’s members shifted to instruments they didn’t normally play, such as Levon Helm playing mandolin instead of drums, in addition to singing lead, while pianist Richard Manuel played drums. But it’s Garth Hudson’s upright, ragtime-style piano playing that really anchors the track, as the rollicking tune feels like it’s wafting out into the night from a New Orleans jazz hall. — M.N.
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“This Wheel’s on Fire” (Music From Big Pink)
Written by Bob Dylan and Band bassist Rick Danko, “This Wheel’s on Fire” marks one of the group’s most unsettling records — a haunted near-dirge with an inscrutable lyric and gorgeous chorus harmonies, and Robertson’s searing guitar work providing a rare source of stability. The memory of “Wheel” served it well, as it received a wide range of notable covers over the subsequent decades, including an eerie barroom-sing-along version with Dylan himself on 1975’s The Basement Tapes, an almost-discofied rendition from Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1987, and a 1968 U.K. hit cover from Julie Driscoll with Brian Auger and the Trinity, re-recorded by Driscoll in the ’90s for the theme to British comedy series Absolutely Fabulous. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
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“The Shape I’m In” (Stage Fright)
Though musically “The Shape I’m In” is one of The Band’s liveliest, most upbeat tunes, lyrically the 1970 tune from Stage Fright is about a sad sack down on his luck, fresh out of 60 days in jail for “having no dough,” and missing “his lady.” As Robertson writes, “Out of nine lives/ I spent seven/ Now, how in the world do you get to heaven?” Richard Manuel’s woebegone vocal delivery is perfection. — M.N.
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“Somewhere Down the Crazy River” (Robbie Robertson)
Featured on Robertson’s 1987 self-titled debut solo album, the percussive, rambling tale has Robertson speaking the verses and weaving one of his most cinematic and sexiest tales. Even if the lyrics are enigmatic, it doesn’t matter because “Somewhere Down the Crazy River” is all about the feel. Just try not to shiver when he says, “You like it now, but you’ll learn to love it later” (with “it” being open to all kinds of interpretation). Bolstered by The Bodeans’ Sam Llanas’ backing vocals and Manu Katche’s drumming, Robertson starts a fire that is still smoldering by song’s end. — M.N.
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“Up on Cripple Creek” (The Band)
One of The Band’s funkiest songs, thanks to Levon Helm’s swampy, yodeling vocals and Garth Hudson’s clavinet with wah-wah pedal, “Up on Cripple Creek,” from the group’s self-titled second album, is also one of their most amusing, with Robertson’s lyrics about Little Bessie who’s “a drunkard’s dream if I ever did see one” and the double entendre of “when that little love of mine dips her doughnut in my tea.” Also noteworthy for the reference to 1950s bandleader Spike Jones, whose goofy arrangements Robertson admired. — M.N.
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“The Night They Drive Old Dixie Down” (The Band)
In some ways, it’s ironic that one of the greatest songs about the American Civil War was written by a Canadian. And while sometimes criticized due to its lyrics coming from the viewpoint of a defeated Confederate soldier, the song is anything but a glorification of the Confederacy, instead a wide-eyed grappling with the aftermath of war and the devastation of the land, and of countless families, that it wrought. Levon Helm’s vocals drip with emotion, while the hook is one of the most memorable in the classic rock canon, with backing vocals that only reinforce the rawness of the subject matter at hand. It’s a true testament to Robertson’s songwriting ability that he was able to conjure such a nuanced song from such a brutal piece of another country’s history. — DAN RYS
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“The Weight” (Music From Big Pink)
Perhaps The Band’s most recognizable song from Music From the Big Pink, the midtempo, ambling track, credited to Robertson and sung by Levon Helm and Rick Danko, is a traveler’s take on arriving in a town called Nazareth and his adventures therein. The characters mentioned, including Fanny, who’s taking the proverbial load off in the lyrics, were allegedly based on people in Helm’s life and inspired by Robertson’s love of the movies of Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel. The song peaked at No. 63 on the Hot 100 for The Band, but Aretha’s version reached No. 19 in 1969. — M.N.
