"The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" is a song written by Robbie Robertson that was first released on the Band's 1970 album Stage Fright. It was also frequently performed in the group's live sets and appeared on several of their live albums. Based on Levon Helm's memories of minstrel and medicine shows in Arkansas, the song has been interpreted as an allegory on the music business. Garth Hudson received particular praise for his tenor saxophone playing on the song.

The song is based on stories Band drummer Levon Helm told Roberson about minstrel and medicine shows he remembered from his youth in Arkansas. The song's title is based on the name of one such traveling show, F. S. Wolcott's Original Rabbit's Foot Minstrels. The song lyrics describe the colorful characters in the show.Rolling Stone Magazine critic John Burks particularly praises the line describing the show's proprietor W.S. Walcott "Y'know he always holds it in a tent/'N if you're lookin' for the real thing he can show you where it went." Burks also praises the line "I'd rather die happy than not die at all/For a man is a fool who will not heed the call."

Music critic Barney Hoskyns criticized the lyrics for being "almost too contrived as tintype portraiture" and for asking the listener to be enchanted with the characters without the song creating a "compelling vignette from the material." Jason Schneider similarly describes the song as "overwrought." But other critics have found a deeper meaning to the lyrics. Allmusic critic William Ruhlmann states that the song comments "on the falseness of show business."The Band FAQ author Peter Aaron describes the song as "an allegory for the music business." Nick DeRiso sees the "escapades" and "ruses" described in the song as creating "an allegory on the dangers of the lifestyle that had rapidly ensnared the Band" during their meteoric rise to stardom with the two albums they released before Stage Fright. To DeRiso, the "snake oil" of the medicine show represents the "late-night escapades and mid-day binges — the mysterious, soul-deadening, very real temptations of the rock-star lifestyle" DeRiso believes that the message was primarily directed at Band pianist Richard Manuel, whose life was falling apart and who was also believed to be the intended recipient of the message of "The Shape I'm In," the song immediately preceding "The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" on the Stage Fright album. C. Michael Bailey had a different take on the song in the April 2012 issue of All about Jazz, stating that the song represented the American archetype of "celebration and good times."

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