Monday, November 15, 2021

lxxv. THE BAND: Time to Kill

lxxv. THE BAND

Time to Kill (1970)
Rick Danko, bass, fiddle, vocals
Levon Helm, drums, guitar, percussion, vocals
Garth Hudson, organ, electric piano, accordion, tenor saxophone
Richard Manuel, keyboards, drums, vocals
Robbie Robertson, guitar, autoharp
(3:27)

From Stage Fright.


Of all their albums, this one really stuck with me year after year.

The actual story behind the recording is both sorbid and fascinating. It's hard to feel sorry for millionaires, but here goes Rick Danko:

"If you've never made a million dollars overnight, like we did, you have no concept of what it can do. We saw it ruin people -- kill them! Suddenly we had all the money we needed, and people were falling over themselves to make us happy, which meant giving us all the dope we could stand. People wanted to turn us on for free, do us favors, and some of us were happy to be taken care of like that. There wasn't anything real dramatic about it, because it was a fact of life, and probably still is. I'm here to tell you that it's a crying shame to see what success can do to some people. I'm sure it wasn't the best thing that could have happened to The Band."

"'Shine a light on 'em and see if they can handle it.'"

This Robertson tune is an ironic look at all that. Lots of time to kill.

Don't know what we got
But it feels like a lot
We don't need no more

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N-Z A-HA / Take On Me / ccclxx ABERCROMBIE, John / Timeless / xxiii ABERCROMBIE, John / JOHNSON, Marc / ERSKINE, Peter / Light Beam / cxlix ...