Where did you find that Bobby, it's Annie not Fanny look at the third verse,,,, Anna Lee.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-weight-lyrics-band.htmlWritten 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)
Songfacts: You can leave comments about the song at the bottom of the page.
This tells the story of a guy who visits Nazareth, and is asked by his friend Annie to visit several of her friends. "The Weight" that is his load are all these strange people he promised he would check on.
The Band's guitarist, Robbie Robertson, claims this was influenced by the work of Luis Bunuel, a Mexican director who made some of the first movies dealing with surrealism. Robertson was intrigued by the characters in his films, who were often good people who did bad things.
Robbie Robertson got the only writing credit for this, although other members of the group claimed that they contributed to this as well as many of their other songs and were not credited. Since only the writer receives royalties for a song, this created a great deal of tension in The Band.
The vocals are shared by Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Levon Helm.
Nazareth, where the story takes place, refers to the town in Pennsylvania about 70 miles north of Philadelphia. The rock group Nazareth got their name from this line ("Went down to Nazareth, I was feeling about half past dead..."). In the liner notes for the Across the Great Divide box set, Robbie is quoted as saying that he chose that place because they make legendary Martin Guitars there, so he was aware of the place and been there once or twice. The only reason I know all of this is because I grew up in that area, and found it cool that little Nazareth, PA was mentioned in SUCH an influential song. (thanks, Jared - Meadville, PA)
The characters in the song - Crazy Chester, Luke, Anna Lee, are based on friends of the band. In Levon Helm's autobiography This Wheel's On Fire: Levon Helm And The Story Of The Band, he explained:
"We had two or three tunes, or pieces of tunes, and "The Weight" was one I would work on. Robbie had that bit about going down to Nazareth - Pennsylvania, where the Martin guitar factory is at. The song was full of our favorite characters. "Luke" was Jimmy Ray Paulman. "Young Anna Lee" was Anna Lee Williams from Turkey Scratch. "Crazy Chester" was a guy we all knew from Fayetteville who came into town on Saturdays wearing a full set of cap guns on his hips and kinda walked around town to help keep the peace,if you follow me. He was like Hopalong Cassidy, and he was a friend of the Hawks. Ronnie would always check with Crazy Chester to make sure there wasn't any trouble around town. And Chester would reassure him that everything was peaceable and not to worry, because he was on the case. Two big cap guns, he wore, plus a toupee! There were also "Carmen and the Devil", "Miss Moses" and "Fanny," a name that just seemed to fit the picture. (I believe she looked a lot like Caladonia.) We recorded the song maybe four times. We weren't really sure it was going to be on the album, but people really liked it. Rick, Richard, and I would switch the verses around among us, and we all sang the chorus: Put the load right on me!"
Looks like Fanny was in it too!
