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When I Paint My Masterpiece

A Bob Dylan song, written and first recorded by Dylan himself in 1971, that the Band claimed as their own almost as thoroughly as anything Robertson wrote for them directly. Levon Helm sings lead on a wistful, half-comic lyric about an artist wandering Europe, seeing the Coliseum and the Spanish stairs, dreaming of the great work he'll finally make when he gets home. Garth Hudson's accordion and Helm's own mandolin give the arrangement a deliberately old-world, almost European folk-song flavor that suits the travelogue lyric.

The song became one of the record's most enduring tracks despite Cahoots' otherwise mixed reception, and it stayed a fixture of the group's live shows for the rest of their history, including a prominent slot in the encore of The Last Waltz. It's also one of relatively few Dylan songs the Band recorded after their 1966 touring partnership, a sign of how much trust remained between Dylan and the group even years after their working relationship had officially ended.

Notable versions