A friend wants to play it on Sax, needs the sheet music.

I can find lyrics and chords, but no sheet music.
Anyone have any leads (no pun intended)?

I pulled in to Nazareth, was feeling 'bout half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
"Hey mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, "No" was all he said

Take a load off, Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Fanny
And you put the load right on me

Such a great song, from a time of a great flowering of creativity in music. A golden age, really; just think who was working at that time. Genius musical creatives, a grassroots base; people could play and be heard in a fairly direct way, before the industry took off in a big-money death spiral.

Of course, the lyric is as cryptic as it was forty years ago. I keep thinking there's some inner meaning beyond the obvious inner meaning. Maybe the emotional reality comes through though the referent is lost to time... though I did hear it in an elevator not long ago, and felt nothing but horror.

Anyway, having the chords and lyric, it should not be so hard to write out the notation to the melody line for your sax-playing buddy. It's really more of an ensemble work than one for a solo instrument, but who's to say something couldn't be made of it.

I thought Jackie DeShannon's version was excellent. Ah, but The Band... thank you for bringing a much-loved favorite group back to mind.

Try just writing it out. For a saxophone it's just one note at a time! ;-)

God bless Levon Helm - Yeah, they put da load right on me!

Agreed, was trying to take the lazy way out to help a friend, as I don't really have the time to listen and write it out.

I think the piano vocal guitar version is in the Piano White pages book if that helps

maybe not, looks like the import version may but not the US. I had looked at this before and didn't realize might have different contents but seems they may

You can say THAT again. All these years I thought they were singing "Take a load off Annie". Puts a slightly different complexion on things.

I never knew what they were saying either. I was a big Beverly Hillbillies fan in those days (still am!), and I figured it had something to do with Granny.

"The Weight" isn't mentioned in Wikipedia's article on mondegreens, but it must be a frequently cited example.

"There's a Bathroom on the Right" (from Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising") has got to be one of the most hilarious.

Steven