Take a Load Off Dino, Take a Load for Free
Whenever asked for a favorite song, I have a standard reply. Anything by Hank Williams. Anything. And if the person wants to know if I’m talking about Jr., or even Hank III, my legendary dander is prone to rise, because, in my book when you’ve said Hank Williams hoss, you’ve said all that needs to be said.
When pressed for my favorite non-Hank song, that takes an investment in brain matter. But if held down and threatened with an ice pick into one ear drum and out the other if I didn’t provide an answer, I’d probably go with The Weight by the Band. I’m sure you’ve heard it.
I pulled into Nazareth, I was feeling about half-past dead.
I just need some place where I could lay my head.
Hey Mister can you tell me where a man might find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand, `No’ was all he said.
Take a load off fanny.
I can remember the exact moment I first heard that song, and where I was and who I was with. I had already been turned onto the Band by my buddy Denton “Raunchy’’ Higdon. Raunchy had the plum job of part-time, after-school handyman at Perry’s Drug Store on Main Street of my hometown of Franklin. What made it such a cushy gig was Perry’s Drug Store was where we all headed after school anyway, to first off, check out any new albums or comic books that might have been added to the racks up front and then to wedge into the booths at the back to wolf down ice cream and act really stupid around the girls. The job description was pretty light—sweep up, mop occasionally and head down to the cellar for any baby formula that needed to be brought up. The pay was $2 a day. Whenever Raunchy was detained or indisposed, I eagerly filled in. So there was one time he was owing me for a day’s salary when he mentioned a new album he had bought recently, but didn’t like. We walked over for a listen at his house, where he told me he’d give me the album instead of the two bucks. The album was The Band, with The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Up on Cripple Creek, Across the Great Divide and Rag Mama Rag. It’s also known as the Brown Album. Raunchy’s taste in music has hopefully improved over the years, and maybe, like a lot of people of the time, he just couldn’t get his head around a bunch of (mostly) Canadian hipsters melding bedrock country music with the more innovative elements of rock and roll in new and exciting ways that simply blew the mind of a 17-year-old country boy from backwater North Carolina. His loss was my gain. I took the album, and began devouring it from the moment I got back home.
But The Weight wasn’t on The Brown Album. Instead, it was the showpiece tune of the Band’s earlier album, Music From Big Pink, which hadn’t made it as far back into the mountains as Franklin. So my buddy Bruce Young and I were sitting in the Movie Theatre, about six or eight doors down on Main Street from Perry’s, watching the hippie film that caused all the stir that summer, Easy Rider. And I’ll never forget the scene where Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson (riding on the back of Fonda’s Hog) crank up their Harleys and start slicing through the desert to the sound of Robbie Robertson’s acoustic intro followed by Levon Helm’s smoking cornfield vocals. Nobody gets better traction on a song than Good Ol’ Levon.
Take a Load Off Fanny,
Take a Load For Free,
Take a Load Off Fanny,
And you can put the load right on me.
I was transfixed. Some might call it poleaxed. From that day on, my whole sense of music and what it was and could be when various threads and influences are intertwined and enhanced changed. I was already dabbling in songwriting at the time and the Band, to put it lightly, was a huge influence.
The lyric always seemed awfully cryptic (which to me is OK, I’d rather have something worth interpreting than being spoon-fed pap) until I read an interview with Robertson. He said the song was influenced by the film maker Luis Bunuel, and Bunuel’s recurring theme on the impossibility of sainthood. The old No-Good-Deed-Is-Ever-Left-Unpunished storyline. Here’s the traveler passing through Nazareth, Pa, which just happens to be where Martin Guitars are made. And he’s been asked by Miss Annie to send everyone there her regards. But along the way he has to deal with Miss Carmen trying to ditch the Devil off on him, he has to keep Miss Anna Lee company and he has to feed Jack the Dog whenever he can. So no matter how hard you try, sometimes you can’t win.
Dino Gaudio was in that situation here recently. The post-season at Wake didn’t come down the way anyone wanted and there was a clamor for Gaudio to explain what happened. He was good enough to sit down with me for a Q&A interview that if published verbatim would have absorbed more than 100 column inches. He answered every question I posed, and never once turned defensive or contentious. There were times he was more general than I would have preferred, but at other times he was quite candid about what happened and his reaction to all the criticism he and his program received. If he hadn’t bothered, people would have been all over him for dodging the media and refusing to address the situation. On the other side, there were so many people demanding a pound of flesh who wouldn’t have been satisfied whatever he said.
He gave his take on the season, in both honest and forthright fashion. I appreciate his time and consideration.
Catch a Cannonball, to take me on down the line,
My bag is sinking low and I do believe it’s time.
To get back to Miss Annie, you know she’s the only one.
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone.