A Forward-Looking Song Instead Heralded the Band's Sad End
They were moving toward something with elements of modernity that might clear the way for new explorations. But it was not to be.
I think what I hear on “Let the Night Fall” is a group trying to move forward, despite its arrival as part of the Band’s hodge-podge 1977 contract-filler Islands.
Their journeys back into the American mythos remain the most celebrated, but that path eventually becomes a dead end. The terminus is at a been-there, done-that moment of freeze-dried ennui. So, the Band – granted, in fits and starts – appeared to be turning toward a redefinition.
As on the more synth-laden moments from the preceding Northern Lights-Southern Cross, the Band was evolving toward something with elements of modernity that might clear the way for new explorations. Unfortunately, they never quite got there, as Islands somehow became the Band’s last studio album to be issued with Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel.
Still, in this dying light, some long-time listeners wrongly ignore what might have been by wishing too much for what once was. The early music is perhaps over-fetishized, and the latter-day stuff too quickly dismissed. It’s a shame, in particular when unabashedly lovely things like “Let the Night Fall” become forgotten.
Sung by Manuel, who was born on this date in 1943, “Let the Night Fall” is not essential so much as deeply intriguing. This is the sound of the Band with one foot in their fertile past and another in the then-current melding of pop and soul being fashioned by the Michael McDonald-led edition of the Doobie Brothers.
There’s plenty of conjectural subtext. Is Manuel, in the way he sweetly calls for twilight’s comfort, bidding a sad farewell to the Band? After all, by the time Islands appeared, both Rick Danko and Levon Helm had already signed solo deals. The Last Waltz, their much-ballyhooed ‘70s-era farewell, was in the editing stage.
It was, without a doubt, all over. Manuel stands, as always, apart – a wise old owl with something important to impart, though (as with many of Robertson’s best lyrics) we know not what.
The Band would ultimately disappear surrounded by a similar sense of mystery. Much had changed for them in the intervening years – and, in particular, for Richard Manuel, who struggled to regain his muse while his voice became spidered with oaken cracks.
As he recedes into that gathering dark on “Let the Night Fall,” Manuel’s brethren encircle his still-very-resonant vocal for one of the final times on record. Robertson urgently plucks at his guitar, and Rick Danko’s voice trails behind like the moon’s silvery light. Garth Hudson jabs at his organ, even as Helm unleashes fills that work like a warm summer breeze at Manuel’s back.
Nevertheless, as we now know, that night was most assuredly falling. It’s almost unbearably sad.
Amazon bestselling rock-band biographer Nick DeRiso’s next book is ‘Forever Young: How the Band and Bob Dylan Made the Only ’60s Music That Still Matters.’ Visit www.nickderiso.com.