Levon Helm, the great drummer and singer of The Band, died on April 19, 2012. In his obituaryin the New York Times, Jon Pareles wrote “Mr. Helm didn’t call attention to himself. Three bass-drum thumps at the start of one of the Band’s anthems, “The Weight”, were all that he needed to establish the song’s gravity. His playing served the song.”To me, Levon Helm's drumming on “The Weight” is sublime in its simplicity. There’s nothing melodramatic, sanctimonious or grandiose about his playing. His drumming captures the gravity, the seriousness, the import, the meaning of the song with three bass drum thumps and nothing more.And what is the gravity of “The Weight”? In one sense, it’s obvious from the lyrics of the song. The singer implores everyone he meets to “take a load off” of him. But everyone he meets “put[s] the load right on me”. He’s weighed down not only by his own burdens but by the burden of living in a world in which others actively refuse to share our worries and obligations.But there is another kind of gravity to “The Weight”-- a counter-gravity, if you will. To me, it’s captured in the two sentences that frame Pareles’ description of Levon Helm’s introduction to “The Weight”: “Mr. Helm didn’t call attention to himself...His playing served the song”.We often think of serving something as doing someone else’s will-- my boss, if I’m serving the company; my commanding officer, if I’m serving my country as a soldier. This kind of service requires me to do what someone else wants, often at the expense of my own independent thinking and judgment.No one has the power to make anyone play a song a particular way. Shortly after Levon Helm died, I heard Rosanne Cash do a sad and joyous version of “The Weight” that served as a way for the audience to celebrate his life and his music. But the lyrics could also be interpreted cynically or nihilistically, as a portrait of a world with no hope of redemption.Levon Helm serves the song by playing it as he hears it. But his playing doesn’t feel confessional. Its point is not to call attention to the weight of his personal burdens. Instead, it speaks to a common condition, to how we, as listeners, share the burden of living in the world the song describes. And in doing so, in relieving us of our worry that we're the only ones who feel this way, it lifts the weight off of our shoulders.I think the most common question I’m asked in my work is some version of “Do other people feel this way” ? We can’t always take away other peoples’ burdens. We can't bring a loved one back to life. We can't make an abusive parent understand the harm he or she has done. But we can let people know that they're not alone. We can defy gravity, in our emotional lives at least, and take a load off someone without putting it on anyone else. 5.29.12