In this song The Band drummer Levon Helm sings about a woman named Ophelia who has skipped town. We know she left in a hurry and he would love to have her come back ("The old neighborhood just ain't the same"), but we really have no idea who she is what her relationship is with the singer. The song was written by the group's guitarist Robbie Robertson, and the ambiguity was intentional. "I was always fascinated by that girl's name," he told Melody Maker in 1976. "I always like the mystery factor. I may be writing a song and the music may imply a certain lyric, or vice versa. It's not that deliberate, or an intellectual exercise. It just comes out naturally."
The most famous Ophelia is a character in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. She is caught between her love for Hamlet and the wishes of her father, Polonius, who uses her to spy on Hamlet. She feels she has no control of her life and descends into madness, eventually drowning after falling out of a tree into a brook. The character in this song could certainly be an analog to Shakespeare's Ophelia, possibly driven mad by a lover.
A modest hit for The Band, this is a number they played at many of their shows, including their famous final show in 1976 that provided footage for the concert film The Last Waltz. In the film, we see Levon Helm belting it out from behind his drum kit.
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