Take a load off Annie

Exegesis of one of my favourite songs, The Band's "The Weight", complete with Buñuel references. Ah, enlightenment.

Lyrics to "The Weight". And yes, it is "Fanny", not "Annie", in the chorus.

Edit: actually, apparently the Fanny/Annie thing is a topic of much debate. Dagnabit, and I thought I had clarity. There's some metanalysis going on, but in which direction?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I can probably leave a analysis of the single pronunciation if you want. In the "take a load off" part, there is no audible "f" between the delay of off and annie. Also, the verse that is claimed to have it clearly audable isn't clearly audable at all. I took a look at it the same way I found the previous one (in audacity, a wave editor) and found a very large looking distort. The kind of distort you find when audio recordings mix up a little bit. It does have a sort of "f" sound, but is clearly part of a beat. So I would have to say it is "annie".
2 February 2006 at 14:08
Anonymous said…
If you listen to one of the last verses they clearly say "Fanny". My bag is sinking low, and I do believe its time...to get back to miss fanny...
1 June 2007 at 15:46
Unknown said…
I thought the lyric was "vannie"...
10 September 2007 at 15:54
Anonymous said…
Are you people idiots?, listen to the whole song, in the third verse it says:

"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee"

He said, "Do me a favor, son, won't ya stay and keep Anna Lee company?"

Take it from an old hippie that was madly in love with a woman that named her daughter Anna Lee based on the song.

I think her listening to the song a thousand times on the original turntable in a syncope like state makes her an expert.
25 November 2007 at 00:12
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Verbal agreement

From a Grauniad Guardian article on James Dyson , inventor of the dual-cyclone vacuum cleaner: He still has one major ambition. To become a verb, in the same way that Hoover - or, as he puts it, "the alternative" - has done. I suggest to him that people are already using his product but still saying they are "hoovering". He smiles. "I don't think they'll be doing that for long," he says. That struck me as unusual - it's very rare for a firm's leader to say that he wants his product to become a verb. Lots of other companies like TiVo and Google have tried desperately to avoid their name becoming a verb, for fear of the name becoming so generic that the trademark gets diluted. But then, the Languagehat archives seem to show (see comment near the bottom) that Dyson's big on turning his name into a verb. *** Sadly, due to its distinct lack of vowels, the chances of "sng" becoming a verb seem close to zero, regardless of whate...
Read more

50 Cent's crib

This New York Times article on 50 Cent's life in the sleepy suburb of Farmington, Conn. , is quite wry - But a cook at China Palace said Mr. Jackson could save 10 percent on any order over $30... Ah, the privileges of fame... 10% off Chinese takeout! For the party, Mr. Jackson ordered more than $5,000 worth of liquor, including "a lot of Baccardi," according to the owner of a Farmington liquor store who spoke on the condition of anonymity "to protect his privacy." Sipping Bacardi (ooh, caught a Times misspelling) like it's his birthday. How anonymous could a liquor store owner in a suburban town be? It's not like there're hundreds of liquor stores in the town, I'm guessing. I like how they keep referring to him as Mr. Jackson...
Read more