I sometimes make mix CDs for Sara. And by that, I mean... I'm planning one right now, which would probably put the number of mixes I've made for her up to about 20, I'm assuming.

The necessity of this mix CD is that I've been going through a huge 60's phase, and mix CDs for Sara need to be made in order to properly document my various phases. That and I like it when she pretends to like the stuff that I do (she might not pretend, but even so...)

At some point I determined that I needed to include some of The Band on this huge 60's mix. I had given her "I Shall Be Released"... and I think that's it. Which seems like too little. So I started listening to their stuff to try to narrow down the list of what I should give her.

There was a problem that occurred.

I only own their first two albums ("Music From Big Pink" and their self titled), haven't been terribly impressed with anything else they've done and have no plans to acquire the rest of their catalogue. So I have about 23 songs to choose from, which really isn't a whole lot. And before today, I probably could have thrown out half of them.

Now I just want to give her both of the CDs I have.

I mainly had this problem with their self titled--probably because I listened to it twice. Essentially I was going to just include "Rag Mama Rag" and "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" because they've always been my favorites from the album. Especially "Rag Mama Rag." The Band was essentially the most bad-ass 1890's group to ever perform.



The next song was "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"--which might be one of their most famous songs, but I never really dug for some reason. Well it clicked today. The chorus is killer, basically. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find an appropriate version on YouTube--just live versions that either suck or are un-embeddable, and one that seemed OK but is slowed down just a little bit and annoys the crap out of me. So... here's Across The Great Divide, which is another great song that I feel is worthy of inclusion.)



(For the record... all the rootsy-folk/rock/whatever stuff that's popped up a lot recently on the indie stations/websites--doesn't hold a candle to any of this.)

After a while I'm considering pretty much everything. Including the following song... which I would never include if I could only pick 2 or 3 songs by The Band... but if we're getting into 5 or 6, then why not include this one too? I mean... it's weird, and you'd have to really like their music in order to enjoy it... but still.



I would include more songs, but... Sara might be the only one to read this. And I don't want to show my entire hand.

(My hand, by the way, is "Music From Big Pink" and the self titled album--both of which are easily downloadable and streamable, illegally and legally. But still.)