As many of you may know, Garth Hudson, the last surviving member of The Band (second from the right above), passed away recently on January 21, 2025. Today’s article is dedicated to one of Canada’s finest musical exports – The Band. However, as my blogger friend Max at PowerPop pointed out in his article on King Harvest (where I first heard this song), while Levon Helm was from Arkansas, the rest of the group were Canadian. The Band have already appeared here 7 times and their previous entry was Stage Fright from their legendary The Last Waltz concert.
King Harevst is the chronicle of an unlucky farmer who suffers a steady stream of disasters in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when severe drought caused massive dust storms and economic devastation. He turns to organized labor for hope. This perhaps referencing the organizing drives of the communist-affiliated Trade Union Unity League, which created share-cropper unions from 1928 to 1935, throughout the U.S. South. Robbie Robertson is a fan of John Steinbeck’s novels about this time, including The Grapes of Wrath. The Band’s music was often deeply rooted in historical and geographical narratives, and King Harvest is no exception.
Robbie Robertson: “It’s just a kind of character study in a time period. At the beginning, when the unions came in, they were a saving grace, a way of fighting the big money people, and they affected everybody from the people that worked in the big cities all the way around to the farm people. It’s ironic now, because now so much of it is like gangsters, assassinations, power, greed, insanity. I just thought it was incredible how it started and how it ended up.”
King Harvest originally appeared as the final track on their second album The Band and is credited solely to guitarist Robbie Robertson, although drummer/singer Levon Helm claimed that King Harvest was a group effort. It is a slow-burning, brooding piece which starts with a subdued, almost ghostly opening, before swelling into a blues-inflected groove which lends to its themes of rural hardship and desperation. The song features The Band’s signature mix of rustic Americana, country, and rock elements, with Garth Hudson’s swirling organ. The vocals embody the broken spirit of the farmer, with his earthy, Southern-tinged delivery and was tailor-made for this tale of hardship.
The title itself, King Harvest, refers to a fruitful harvest season – a metaphor for prosperity – but the song’s tone suggests that such rewards remain just out of reach.
[Chorus 1]
Corn in the fields
Listen to the rice when the wind blows ‘cross the water
King Harvest has surely come
[Verse 1]
I work for the union ’cause she’s so good to me
And I’m bound to come out on top
That’s where she said I should be
I will hear every word the boss may say
For he’s the one who hands me down my pay
Looks like this time I’m gonna get to stay
I’m a union man, now, all the way
[Chorus 2]
The smell of the leaves
From the magnolia trees in the meadow
King Harvest has surely come
[Verse 2]
A dry summer, and then come fall
Which I depend on most of all
Hey, rainmaker, can’t you hear the call?
Please let these crops grow tall!
Long enough I’ve been up on Skid Row
And it’s plain to see, I’ve nothing to show
I’m glad to pay those union dues
Just don’t judge me by my shoes
[Chorus 3]
A scarecrow and a yellow moon
Pretty soon, the carnival on the edge of town
King Harvest has surely come
[Verse 3]
Last year, this time, wasn’t no joke
My whole barn went up in smoke
Our horse Jethro, well, he went mad
And I can’t ever remember things being that bad
Now here come a man with a paper and pen
Tellin’ us our hard times are about to end
And then, if they don’t give us what we like
He said, “Men, that’s when you gotta go on strike!”
[Chorus 4]
The music video below was filmed in 1970 at Robbie Robertsons’ studio in Woodstock.
References:
1. Band – King Harvest (Has Surely Come) ….Canadian Week – PopwerPop
2. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) – The Band
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Great and timely pick. While I’ve listened to The Band’s self-titled sophomore album, I didn’t remember “King Harvest (Has Surely Come).” The two songs off that albums that mostly stuck with me are perhaps the two obvious tracks: “Up On Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
“Up On Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Both of those tracks you mentioned I adore and will feature here when we get down the listing.
I’ve always loved The Band. I have lived most of my life in Buffalo, NY, & all Canadian bands get a lot of airplay & of course, I listened to radio stations from Toronto, because that’s what the cool kids do & the music is better. Of course, now it’s been years since I listened to the radio LOL
I saw The Band open for the Grateful Dead at the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University in 1983. Robbie Robinson wasn’t with them anymore but it was a great set they did. Everyone sang along to “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Your comment reminds me of this exquisite, yet crude version Dylan did at Buffalo NY of his ‘Emotionally Yours’ which far supersedes IMHO his studio version. I hope you don’t mind me sending it to you at the bottom of this post.
Your recollections about Canandian music and Toronto radio stations being for the hip listeners was fabulous reading. I of course being Australian and living in Colombia had no idea of any of that, but I feel all the more enlightened having read it.
I can’t imagine what it was like to see The Band post Robbie open for the Dead. How could y’all not belt out “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” I only know of it because of Scorsese’s document of THAT CONCERT!
Matt… this became one of my favorites by the Band…this one and Daniel And The Sacred Harp. Thank you by the way for the link… this song is brilliant.
I know people who were at that concert. They said Dylan was better than the Dead.
As for “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, I first heard Joan Baez’s version back in 1971, when I was 11.
I do love that song, except for the Lost Cause aspect of it. As a Northerner, & as someone who thinks that the Confederate Rebels were traitors, I have a hard time getting into anything that valorizes the southern view of the war & its aftermath. Especially since they seem to have won ~ 160 years later.
I’ve heard Colombia is beautiful. One of my best friends married a Colombian woman & they go down there every year to visit her family. He loves it there.
‘I know people who were at that concert. They said Dylan was better than the Dead.’
Oh really wow! It’s a small world. That’s saying a lot if they made that comparison.
Seeing Petty with him on their Australian tour would have been something else too, but I was just 12 year-old.
I’m afraid I haven’t heard Joan’s version of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. I had no idea of the history surrounding the song and the civil war connection. Your views of its relevance in light of recent political events are fascinating.
Colombia is indeed beautiful. The native flora and fauna and sightseeing is nothing short of spectacular. If it were not for the entrenchment of socialist ideology, warfighting and civil wars etc, I have no doubt Colombia would ben a tourist mecca of the world and a ‘rich’ country at that.
Well, most of the problems of South America can be blamed on the USA.