\n
\u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d isn\u2019t the Band\u2019s best song (that\u2019s \u201cAcadian Driftwood\u201d), and it isn\u2019t even the best Last Waltz<\/em> performance (that\u2019s \u201cHelpless\u201d), but I do love picking a favorite. And \u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d is certainly mine. In my dreams I hear Danko singing, \u201cWell, I love you so much and it\u2019s all I can do. Just to keep myself from telling you,\u201d and in my dreams I hear his bandmates singing \u201cthat I\u2019ve never felt so alone before\u201d back to him. And then the duet comes, as Robbie Robertson\u2019s guitar and Garth Hudson\u2019s saxophone harmonize in anguish\u2014as if a final conversation written off instinct alone. And the audience\u2014some 5,000 folks full on 200 turkeys, 300 pounds of salmon, 1,000 pounds of potatoes, 90 gallons of gravy, 500 pounds of cranberry sauce, 400 gallons of cider, and 400 pounds of pumpkin pie\u2014remain quiet the whole way, listening to what Danko and his bandmates had to sing about for seven brilliant minutes.<\/p>\nThere was always something easy about the Band, wasn\u2019t there? Even in my rock and roll youth, no one ever made much of a fuss over them. They were Ronnie Hawkins\u2019 rockabilly backing band, and then they were Bob Dylan\u2019s muscular, bluesy contemporaries. And somewhere within all that commotion, they changed their name and made two of the greatest albums of all time: Music from Big Pink<\/em> and The Band<\/em>. But The Last Waltz<\/em> is an exhaustive, living biography spanning 42 songs, its inclusion of \u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d heightening what I\u2019ve grown to love most about albums like Stagefright<\/em> and Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross<\/em>: a loose, scratchy, and telepathic balance shared between five players, all of whom seemed to be playing in tribute to one another, no matter how heavy the volatile, accumulating years on the road had begun to weigh on each of them.<\/p>\nThe Northern Lights \u2013 Southern Cross<\/em> version of \u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d was caustic and balmy, written by Robertson with a distant finale in mind. But the Last Waltz<\/em> version is deeply crushing: Danko was hooked on smack by then and visibly taking the Band\u2019s imminent, pre-planned split harder than his four bandmates. Sometimes during the film, he is rosy and glad on stage. Other times, you\u2019re not totally sure he\u2019ll even finish<\/em> the gig. The Last Waltz<\/em> was weird and unlikely like that, because it was kind of impossibly put together. You had this all-star cast of players helping an all-star band say \u201cfarewell.\u201d Muddy Waters would have been kicked off the bill had Levon Helm not protested his dismissal, yet there was no question that a bumbling and awful Neil Diamond was an essential player in the bloated runtime. Scorsese and the production team\u2019s set design was leftover from the San Francisco Opera Festival\u2019s La Traviata<\/em> setup. The wooden pillars and chandeliers gave the Band little room to stretch out. The red drapery in Bill Graham\u2019s Winterland Ballroom hideously swallowed the backdrop.<\/p>\nWatching The Last Waltz<\/em> on Thanksgiving or the night before is a tradition kept by many, myself included. Every year I find a way to put it on. Last fall, it was me cramming my Criterion blu-ray into an on-the-fritz PlayStation 4. Last night, it played from the Tubi app on a television set in a house overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. This is the first Thanksgiving I\u2019ve celebrated in seven years, because I am now madly in love with somebody who loves this holiday. So I took a plane to get here, and \u201cIt Makes No Difference\u201d was again in my headphones for the landing. Because: wherever I go, there you are. Even when the scabs of this troubling holiday get rubbed open, I know what voices await my small, evaporating light.<\/p>\nThe older I get, the less infatuated I am with the household names scattered across The Last Waltz<\/em>. Van Morrison\u2019s Rockette high kicks, the coke rock like a stalagmite in Neil Young\u2019s nose, Mavis Staples\u2019 \u201cbeautiful\u201d exhale, Joni Mitchell singing the \u201cHelpless\u201d harmonies from behind the curtain, and the rollicking ensemble conclusion of \u201cI Shall Be Released\u201d all pale under the soothing light of the Band doing a number all by their lonesome, because those five guys were at their very best when they were performing songs that sounded a couple-hundred years old, in a pocket everybody wanted a piece of\u2014a pocket as grooving as it was smart, because the Band gave a commanding, ineffable meaning to the idea of \u201cplaying by feel.\u201d The Last Waltz<\/em> makes me cry, laugh, and scream. Mostly, it makes me cry, cry, cry. But some years, especially this one, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m still alive enough to love the comedy, suffering, and brief togetherness of such a sprawling and glorious ur-text. And how comforting to hear Robertson\u2019s tremendous solo, which spans and spans. Even when Danko\u2019s voice, strained and on-edge, can barely hit the big notes on \u201cIt Makes No Difference,\u201d he hits them anyways. He was just making music, you know?<\/p>\n