The Band, “Chest Fever” (1968)

Robertson’s cackling guitar counters the pomp of Garth Hudson’s organ intro and the hefty chords within the verses. Richard Manuel sings a couple of tantalizing, bewildering girl. Within the refrain, as “my thoughts unweaves/I really feel the freeze down in my knees,” organ, piano and guitar seize the vertigo in woozy stereo syncopation, topped by groaning lead guitar licks that insist on comedy.

The Band, “The Evening They Drove Outdated Dixie Down” (1969)

Robertson wrote “The Evening They Drove Outdated Dixie Down” primarily based on the Southern reminiscences of Helm, the one American in a band with 4 Canadians. The track captures wounded delight, multigenerational loyalties and lingering bitterness in a mournful processional. Helm’s swelling, prolonged drum rolls trace at army funerals, and after every refrain, there’s a solemn pause, as if dealing with the following verse is sort of an excessive amount of to bear.

The Band, “Up on Cripple Creek” (1969)

A cheerful trucker narrates “Up on Cripple Creek,” praising Bessie, his free-spirited hookup in Lake Charles, La. “If I spring a leak, she mends me/I don’t have to talk, she defends me,” Helm exults. A ratchety groove grows out of Robertson’s opening guitar licks, and earlier than the tip, Helm is yodeling with glee.

The Band, “King Harvest (Has Certainly Come)” (1969)

In “King Harvest,” a farmer faces calamities — drought, fireplace, a horse gone mad — and finds his final hope in becoming a member of a union, as sharecroppers did throughout the Melancholy. His rising desperation comes by as Manuel sings the verses, and within the subdued choruses, his love of the land endures.

The Band, “The Form I’m In” (1970)

The beat is peppy, virtually keen, and Hudson’s note-bending organ interludes and outro are downright jaunty. However Manuel sings a couple of mounting assortment of woes: loneliness, jail, homelessness. Robertson’s guitar offers transient hints of the blues, however this narrator is simply going to must muddle by.

The Band, “Stage Fright” (1970)

Performing within the highlight is “Only one extra nightmare you’ll be able to stand” in “Stage Fright,” a mirrored image on trauma and fame which will have been autobiographical. “For the value that the poor boy has paid/He will get to sing identical to a chook,” Danko sang with a quaver, leaping into falsetto for a couple of notes after “chook.” The music pushes the fearful singer onstage and the track understands the compulsion to carry out regardless of all of it: “When he will get to the tip, he desires to start out yet again.”