Robbie Robertson turned 72 yesterday. Here’s the only Band song on which he sang the lead vocal: Music From Big Pink‘s “To Kingdom Come.”

Now you look out the window, tell me/What do you see?/I see a golden calf pointing/Back at me.

As regular readers know, I have become more and more enchanted by the biblical story of the Golden Calf as prophesying certain conservative belief-systems that divinize property rights. So here to accompany Robbie’s song is Nicholas Poussin’s 1634 painting, “The Adoration of the Golden Calf.”


“GoldCalf” by Nicolas Poussin – http://www.cts.edu/ImageLibrary/Public_domain.cfm. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Ed Kilgore

Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.