The Band Redux: Take a Load Off Fannie (Mae)

Classic song from The Band explains The Weight of current Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac crisis. You’ve heard it a million times in good context when you watched The Big Chill, Easy Rider, Starsky & Hutch (movie), The Sopranos, My Name is Earl, or in horrible context like Diet Coke and AT&T ads. But now it’s back to form as the soundtrack for a video montage of Fannie & Freddie’s seemingly inevitable bailout by the Treasury Department. The Weight is a song about the impossibility of sainthood says writer Robbie Robertson: “People trying to do good…and it’s impossible to do good. Someone says, ‘Oh, you’re going to Nazareth, do me a favor when you’re there.’ So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like, ‘Holy shit, what has this turned into? I’ve only come here to say ‘hello’ for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament.'” Which makes this use of the song all the more fun to analyze. Bravo to it’s creator.