Hi world! Chris here. Sorry I didn’t upload last week, but I had a huge project for my editing class and I had no time to write anything. I had plans to make a post about the Pig Jig I went to with my campus ministry group, but it just wasn’t in the cards. However, I am back this week with another Redhead Review! This week I’m looking at a song I got a little obsessed with because the cast of Supernatural did a cover and it was awesome. I’ll link it here because you should all check it out.

At first glance, “The Weight” probably doesn’t come across as a testament to Christianity. However, I did my digging and I’m here to prove that it is. It’s a joy of mine to look at secular songs or movies and turn them into a a positive expression of my faith. I hope you like it too!

All “The Weight” that God can Carry

In the song “The Weight” originally sung by The Band and covered by the cast of the CW’s hit show Supernatural, the writer uses a plethora of literary devices to convey a meaning deeper than the surface of catchy, Biblical lyrics. The very first stanza begins with an allusion to the Bible as the speaker “pulled into Nazareth,” the same city where Jesus was from (1). Then the entire stanza begins to retell the Christmas Story as the speaker uses diction such as “half past dead” instead of just sleepy to describe how tired he is (1).  He’s even turned away from finding an Inn when a random man uses the firm and declarative statement “no” after the speaker asks for a place to rest (4). This is also a form of foreshadowing as the speaker continues to be unable to find any rest throughout the song.

His struggle to find peace turns into the main conflict of the song as everyone he meets keeps giving him their own troubles to take care of instead of helping him solve his own. It is a little bit of man vs. man as the other people act as obstacles to his goal, but also man vs. self because it is his own body that is tired. In some way, it is also his own fault that he takes the problems given to him by other people and does not take care of himself first. In the chorus he is telling the lady Fanny to “take a load off” and then to “put the load right on me” so she can find peace while he still struggles with her troubles (5;8). In these lines, the speaker also says the paradox “take a load for free” which brings an ironic viewpoint to his collection of burdens. They are free because he hasn’t paid money for any of them, but at the same time he will pay for them by the burden that they are. It creates the meaning of load as the heavy weight of problems. Because this chorus is the only group of lines, besides the first stanza, that have a rhyme scheme of AAAAA, this part is clearly important as the rhyming emphasizes it above the others.

The song continues with the speaker struggling against the troubles of the people around him. He uses a metaphor in the second stanza as he “picked up his bag, [and] went lookin’ for a place to hide” comparing the burden of his bag to the burden of the issues he is faced with (10). When he runs into his friend Carmen, she refuses to help him and instead leaves him with the “Devil walkin’ side by side” as a symbol for her own burdens that he now carries for her (11). This continues as both Miss Moses and Anna Lee rope the speaker into their own issues as well. All of these heavy problems weigh on the speaker and make a deep and tired overall tone, clearly expressed in the pathetic fallacy used in line 28 as the speaker is caught “in the fog.” Even more weight is added to the tone as symbols such as cannon balls are used and the speaker even says “my bag is sinkin’ low” as everything begins to become too much for him to carry (38).

However, despite the great struggle of it all, the speaker still takes on the challenge of looking after a dog. Dogs are often used a symbols of loyalty and it shows how the narrator won’t give up on his responsibilities but will remain loyal to getting through the problems he has been given. At the end of the song, it is revealed that he hasn’t even been doing any of the work for himself but was sent by Fanny “with her regards for everyone” so all the issues he has carried are really just the initial load he told Fanny to put on himself (40). The writer uses syntax in placing the line “you put the load right on me” at the very end of the song, so it is the last thing the listener will hear and is more likely to stay in the mind (45).This line is important because it reiterates the overall theme and deeper meaning of the song.

There is an obvious theme of burdens and exhaustion in the song and from that, there is also a theme of servitude. The narrator never does anything for himself, but uses every stanza to work for someone else, putting his own needs behind theirs. When this is paired with the continued use of Biblical allusions, a hidden theme of the song is revealed to be the life of Jesus Christ while He was on Earth. The song starts in Nazareth where Jesus grew up and it continues with the speaker carrying burdens just as Jesus took the troubles, or sins, of everyone He met. The speaker also meets with “the Devil” in the song just as Jesus did on Earth (11). The continued misuse of the speaker, or Jesus, shows that the overall meaning of the song hits at the natural selfishness of humans. None of the people in the song are said to be bad or mean, they simply don’t care (or notice) that they are burdening an already exhausted individual for their own personal gain. However, because the speaker never complains, but instead continues to repeat the chorus line of “put the load right on me”, another overall meaning of the song is that no matter what humans do, God will always be there to help them as long as they ask Him to help (8). It reiterates the fact that no matter what the load is, it will never be too heavy for God to take just like no burden was too heavy for the speaker to carry in the song.

References

The Band. “The Weight.” Music from Big Pink, Capitol Records, 1968.