57. The Band, The Band (self-titled, 1969)

Such a fun album from these guys. This time around, I think my favorite song from this self-titled LP is "Jawbone." Had heard it so many times previously but this time it really hit right.

One of my favorite songs of all time is "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" but as I get older I have a less comfortable relationship with it. It's essentially mourning the fall of the Old South subsequent to the Civil War.

But thank goodness for that unconditional surrender! And what did the Old South really stand for? Sure, it was an agrarian society, the likes of which Thomas Jefferson praised, but it was basically an aristocratic slave society, the plantation owners on one side, black slaves on the other, and then the poor whites who were used as a wedge to keep the racial division and the whole agrarian economy in tact.

I don't mean to get up on my high horse, but sometimes we have to admit a thing is what it is and not another thing.