The Band/YMMV

• Award Snub: Not even a nomination for The Last Waltz for the Best Documentary Oscar in 1978? How about "Evangeline" getting nominated for Best Original Song? Also no?
• Face of the Band: Clearly averted initially, with two principal songwriters and three different singers. Robertson's attempt to become this later on led to a great deal of ill will.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Robertson's musings in The Last Waltz about touring being "a goddamn impossible way of life" take on more meaning after Manuel's suicide during a tour.
  • Manuel's song "The Shape I'm In", with its lyrics about a man contemplating suicide, is another example.
• Mondegreen: Joan Baez never saw a copy of the lyrics to "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" before she made her excellent cover version. "Stoneman's cavalry" became "so much cavalry", "I will work the land" became "I'm a working man", etc. Did not prevent her version from becoming a top ten hit.
  • Not to mention, in the same song, the discrepancy between "there goes Robert E. Lee" (the Confederate general) and "there goes the Robert E. Lee" (a steamboat). Though, to be fair, Levon Helm himself often sang it the latter way in the Band's live concerts.
• Tear Jerker: "It Makes No Difference", "Acadian Driftwood", "Whispering Pines"
  • "Stage Fright" used to make me feel a bit sad.