The Band song Robbie Robertson never finished writing: “This quirky thing”
When you listen to music for the first time in the modern age, it’s easy to take it at face value and not consider the period during which it was released. When we do this, we often don’t give a record the credit that it deserves, which is a huge mistake when it comes to truly understanding a piece of art and the artist responsible for it.
A great example of this is The Band and their 1968 album Music From Big Pink. If you listen to it today, you will hear a pleasing record that doesn’t sound too defiant in its execution. The songs are dreamy and chilled out, the lyrics are pretty, and the production is well thought out. In the modern age, the album could be considered safe, but to label it as so would be doing the record and the group a complete disservice.
When considering the music being released at the time, the world was on a distortion-heavy hype. As the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Jeff Beck started to take the world by storm, people were looking for heavy rock music wholly filled with energy and a buzz about it. For The Band to go left field and deliver something that brought people back to Earth before gently helping them ascend from it was a bold move.
As guitarist Robbie Robertson said, “We were rebelling against the rebellion. If everybody was going east, then we were going west, and we never once discussed it.”
He continued, “There was this kind of ingrained thing from us all along. We were these kind of rebels with an absolute cause. It was an instinct to separate ourselves from the pack.”
The album was a massive success and really allowed the band to flex their songwriting ability; however, some tracks on the album, despite slotting into the LP well and being favourites of some, were given a bit less time than others. In fact, one of them went out into the world completely unfinished.
‘Chest Fever’ came about from a jam. While trying to think of lyrics, Robbie Robertson made up improvised ones to fill the gaps. With deadlines approaching, one of these rough improvisations ended up in the final cut of the record. Even though the song sounds slightly haphazard, it doesn’t stop many people from frequently enjoying it and listening, much to Robertson’s surprise.
“If you like ‘Chest Fever’, it’s for God knows what reason. It’s just in there somewhere, this quirky thing,” he said, “But it doesn’t make particularly any kind of sense in the lyrics, in the music, in the arrangement, in anything.”
Written lyrics or not, the music appeals because of the intricate way in which The Band could deliver such a peaceful-sounding album. While some of the songs may not have been complete, the group was so far removed from the modern sound of hard rock and willing to embrace something new that people couldn’t hear it and would not be endeared.
