Rock of Ages
The musical legacy of Robbie Robertson is a monument to the possibilities of American song.
Don’t put me in a frame upon the mantel,
Where memories turn dusty old and grey.
Don’t leave me alone in the twilight,
’Cos twilight is the loneliest time of day.
~“Twilight,” Robbie Robertson
Strangely, when I heard that Robbie Robertson—lead guitarist and chief songwriter of The Band—had died on August 9th at the age of 80, I did not turn to The Band’s music for solace. I have listened to The Band since my early teens. I have embraced them, loved them, emulated them, played their songs, and watched Martin Scorsese’s 1978 film of their final concert, The Last Waltz, religiously over the years. But it was not “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” or any of The Band’s other standards that came to my mind in the wake of Robertson’s death.
I turned instead to “Dry Your Eyes,” the standout track, produced and co-written by Robertson, on Neil Diamond’s 1976 album Beautiful Noise. It is at once an anthem and a meditation on the upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s, sounding a note that is sad but also brassy and defiant. Its lyrics are simple, uncompromising, and uplifting, and it works hard for its moments of ecstatic resolution. “From the center of the circle, to the midst of the waiting crowd,” Diamond sings, “If it ever be forgotten, sing it long and sing it loud. And come dry your eyes.”
“It taught us more about giving than we ever cared to know,” Diamond’s assertive baritone declares as Robertson’s jagged guitar fills roll on behind, “but we came to know the secret, and we never let it go.” What and whose secret? And in the song’s enigmatic conclusion, we are told, with a vision of the sturm und drang that rocked America for over a decade back then: “Right through the lightning and the thunder to the dark side of the moon. To that distant falling angel that descended much too soon. And come dry your eyes.”
It was the perfect eulogy for Jaime Royal Robertson. Rarely a singer himself, Robertson penned songs for others to sing, whether it was his bandmates Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel—always sweetened by keyboardist/resident genius Garth Hudson—or those like Diamond who took his enigmatic and evocative words for themselves and were elevated by their simplicity and inscrutable splendor. All of Robertson’s work was, in its way, epic. With it, others became epic as well…
Read the complete article at Quillette.
Photo: Heinrich Klaffs