Tears of Rage

Bob Dylan wrote the words and Richard Manuel the music. Dylan and the Band first recorded it in 1967 at Big Pink with Dylan singing, and that version was not released until The Basement Tapes in 1975. Their own recording opens Music from Big Pink, with Manuel on lead vocal. Helm said Manuel sang one of the best performances of his life. The critic Bill Janovitz described the Band's version as a passionate, gospel-informed, New Orleans-style lament slowed down from the Dylan demo.

Pitchfork's Erlewine heard it begin with a guitar line phased so heavily it sounds like an organ, and noted that it is well over a minute before another voice is heard. Dylan has said the dropping of China's first hydrogen bomb was one impetus for the lyric. Gene Clark recorded it for White Light in 1971.