Reflections on Richard & Rockin’ Chair
Piece from Breanna McCann, curator of The Richard Manuel Archive.
“Oh, to be home again/Down in Old Virginny/With my very best friend/They call him Ragtime Willie”
The refrain of The Band’s “Rockin’ Chair,” sung in one of the best harmonies of their canon led by Richard Manuel, immediately conjures vivid imagery. An old man, wisened by age, sitting in his rocking chair and just breathing in the world around him as he looks back on his life. It is one of the most emotionally investing and evocative songs the group ever made. However, on an album full of iconic songs (1969’s The Band), it tends to be underappreciated. This is especially tragic because it is a uniquely reflective and heartrending song in Richard Manuel’s life, an aspect of it that largely goes undiscussed, but one that I find intrinsic to the song’s beauty and poignancy.
“It’s for sure, I’ve spent my whole life at sea/And I’m pushin’ age seventy-three”
It is challenging not to get emotional listening to Richard sing this line. Sinking into the character he plays in narrating the song, every word of this lived experience sounds real, and you do not doubt it for a moment. This is especially remarkable considering Richard was 26 at the time and could so fully embrace a nostalgic wisdom that could only come with fifty more years of living. But Richard did not get that. He did not even get twenty more years. This is the true heartbreak of this line and one that could only come as a tragic retroactive reflection. Richard died at 42, just weeks short of his 43rd birthday. He never lived to fulfill the image he so beautifully evokes here. The only time he ever got to say he was 73 was within the lines of “Rockin’s Chair.” It becomes devastating in that lens.
“Slow down, Willie boy/Your heart’s gonna give right out on you”
So many of Richard’s best songs are the ones that feel at least semi-autobiographical. “Rockin’ Chair” certainly fits in this category, albeit in unexpected ways. Richard sings with a wisdom far beyond his years from the perspective of an old man reflecting back on his life with a younger friend, Willie. I have always felt Richard truly represented both characters, whether or not he realized it at the time. This line always feels to me like that older Richard looking back to his younger self from some other physical or spiritual plane, telling him to slow down, that his heart will give out on him.
However, he sings with the kind of knowing smile one can almost picture from an older person reflecting on their own youth and knowing such an admonition almost certainly will not be heeded. In that way, perhaps “Rockin’ Chair” is the most autobiographical of the songs Richard sang because it represents him in a past, present, and future sense. It is a truly exquisite and spiritual blend of all these different experiences, and he feels very alive in it, even listening to it thirty-five years after his death.
While there are a few live recordings of the song, there are not many videos of Richard singing it, making this footage from the 1970 Festival Express Tour particularly special. Beyond its relative rarity, it perfectly encapsulates this simultaneous past, present, and future Richard lives in singing this song. He looks his youthful 27 years, yet one cannot help but feel they must be watching someone much older just by his voice and the way he conveys that nostalgia and wisdom so authentically. By all accounts, Richard was an incredibly philosophical, deep man- perhaps it is not then truly so surprising how deeply he can envelope himself in this story, but it is the Band song that lets him show this deeper, contemplative side of himself more than anything else. Here, through his own voice, we see him embody all of the lives and times he lives in this song.
“I can hear somethin’ callin’ on me”
“Rockin’ Chair” is the only time we get any glimpse of a reality where Richard lives past 42. Even in his portrayal of a character, he is so raw and so real that it feels entirely authentic. It is him. Richard deserved this sunset-of-life peace he sings about here. He deserved the happiness of looking back on the incredible things he created in his life. However, that is something we never see, something he never gets. We are left to try and imagine it, but in “Rockin’ Chair,” we get some image of an older, peaceful Richard, looking back on it all.
This is always how I like to picture him and why I always name these as my favorite vocals from Richard. As long as we keep playing this song and cherishing it, he is allowed to live on, allowed to experience this peace. As he sings here, something called on him, and in a parallel to another intensely autobiographical song he sings, “Sleeping,” he was called too soon. But Richard still calls on us, too, in songs like “Rockin’ Chair,” and we are all the better for it.
There are few clips as impactful in the extended history of The Band, at least in my mind, as Levon Helm revisiting “Rockin’ Chair” decades later. As he listens through the song, pointing out Richard’s vocals and the intricate harmonies, he still seems so in awe of Richard (the moment where he just whispers “Richard” does not leave a dry eye). You can see him in that moment just grinning, looking into the distance, perhaps remembering fond memories with Richard or picturing what life would have been like if he could sit alongside him right then and reflect on the magic they created together. Above all else, watching Levon be so overcome listening to his former bandmate and brother proves that Richard Manuel is alive and well within the notes and lines of “Rockin’ Chair.”
