The Band's self-titled second album is generally acknowledged as a rock masterpiece. I certainly agree, and today and tomorrow, I'd like to discuss two of its songs. Let's start with the final track. "King Harvest (Is Surely Come)" is a rock and roll song in the best sense of the word - because it mixes many styles, including blues, country, and r&b into something completely new. And it's full of surprises - from its intro to its unusual structure that juxtaposes different measure lengths and moods, to its use of two lead singers, to Levon Helm's brilliant drumming - it all combines into exceptionally dramatic music. And then there's the lyrics.

The song tells the first-person story of a bewildered, destitute farmer who turns everywhere for help, without getting any. The chronology of the song (or lack of it) mirrors his sense of bafflement, and suggests the way that one's past can be looked at from so many angles that the order of events may become confused. It also brilliantly examines the way a mind can jump around when it's under duress - and lines that treat the beauty and mystery of nature ("The smell of the leaves from the magnolia trees in the meadow...") are followed abruptly with references to time spent on skid row. Like the greatest artistic events, it's hard to pin down and it keeps adding meaning, but it isn't vague - as a matter of fact, if any rock song could be used to illustrate Stanislavsky's great dictum, that "generality is the enemy of all art", it's this one.