Acoustic Snapshot - The Weight
November 6, 2025
Well inspiration can strike unexpectedly and frequently inconveniently. While in the midst of too many projects already, Robbie Robertson and The Band's iconic song The Weight popped into my head and I wondered if it was a candidate for an instrumental arrangement.
My first thought was no way– too many verses (could I leave some out?), and a very repetitive chorus (could I do all five of them?).
My next thought was– well, every verse is significantly different in terms of the number of syllables in each line and they are all different melodically as well.
But then there is the chorus consisting of three-part harmony and echoing vocal lines. Not sure I could do justice to that. And what key might put the melody in a comfortable spot on the guitar?
I decided it was worth investigating and found some very encouraging signs when I settled on the key of C (rather than the original in A). I started scoping out the melody and found it reasonable to reach all the notes in the melody over the chord changes (C-Em-F-C). The next step was to pay close attention to the words to match the phrasing in each verse. This started to come together as I sat there with the lyrics in front of me, paying close attention to the phrasing of every line.
Next was the chorus with the three-part harmony at the end (and not the normal parts of the F chord you would expect). I gradually chipped away at combining the independent lines and was having a lot of fun running through it.
This all happened over just a couple days and I thought I would do a test drive in the studio to see how it was coming along. This video is the result of Test Drive #1 and I was pretty happy with it. None of this is written down yet, and I am not sure I will turn it into a lesson but I hope you enjoy it and can sing along. I suggest having the lyric sheet handy.
Neil