Sign on the Window isn't the Bob Dylan podcast you need, but it's definitely the one that you want! Each week we select a Dylan song at random, live with the song for a week (or two) and then get together to discuss. This week we return to Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (and to Nashville Skyline for the first time) with "Girl From the North Country."
Kelly and Daniel talk Echo and Bonnie (3:00), pull of a quick reaction to our favorite track of last year, "Boots of Spanish Leather," (12:00), go over all the versions we listened to (12:00), note the "Scarborough Fair" connection (26:00) and really dive into the intricacies of Dylan's masterpiece (30:00).
Next week: 2am booty call
CONTEXT (3:00)
Dylan first began performing "Girl from the North Country" in March 1963. He recorded it in Studio A on April 23, 1963 in 6 takes (take 2 is on Freewheelin' Bob Dylan). It was re-recorded with Johnny Cash in February 1969 and featured on that year's Nashville Skyline (coincidentally, our first track from that album).
The sibling of “Boots of Spanish Leather” (and the angel to the devil that will be "Ballad in Plain D") — although who the song is about is still up for debate. Suze? High school sweetheart Echo Helstrom? (In 1978, he'd introduce this song with "First girl I ever loved is here in the house tonight. I wrote a song about her, though she left me a long time ago for an older man" but by 1986 she was just "a girl from the North Country through and through")? His Minneapolis girlfriend Bonnie Beecher (who, two days before shouting out Echo, alluded to Bonnie)? Maybe Gretel Hoffman? Judy Rubin?
From Clinton Heylin:
What finally sent him into ‘reminiscence blues’ mode again was surely the unprecedented weather he had encountered in England. Just as when he first came to New York, he arrived in London as the worst winter in living memory set in. Airports were closed, train services were suspended, and the country all but ground to a halt. As a house guest to the Carthys one evening, he had joined in chopping up a piano for firewood in a desperate attempt to stay warm. No wonder he felt inspired to muse upon ‘the north country fair / where the winds hit heavy on the borderline’!
Dylan has performed the song 546 times from May 31, 1963 (Dylan's website places it at "The Home of Tony Glover") to August 27, 2014.
INITIAL THOUGHTS & VERSIONS (12:00)
This song is a masterpiece — Kelly and I agree. Kelly is trying not to cry talking about it. It's hard to talk about this separate from "Boots" because they're so similar. But "Boots" is sadness and melancholy, "Girl" is reminiscence and treasured relationships.
We listened to multiple versions:
the original on Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
the May 1963 (sans harmonica) Witmark version on Vol. 9
the May 1964 live performance at Royal Festival Hall (on Live 1962-66: Rare Performances From the Copyright Collections)
his and Johnny Cash's Nashville Skyline recording
the June 27, 1981 performance at Earl's Court, London on Vol. 13
the July 8, 1984 performance at Slane Castle, Ireland on Real Live
the musical cover by Sheila Atim for the Girl from the North Country musical
SONG ITSELF (26:00)
We talk about English folksinger Martin Carthy’s arrangement of "Scarborough Fair" and the opposite kind of drama than when Dylan took “With God On Our Side.” More "north country" and less "country fair" made all the difference.
This song is less about loving someone than loving the memory. Everything works toward accentuating that point: the romantic "north country" of England, of Minnesota; the antiquated language that elevates the entire piece; the longing and idealization of Please see if her hair hangs long, If it rolls and flows all down her breast, despite being 21 years old; and the echoes you can hear in the futures of "Simple Twist of Fate" and "If You See Her, Say Hello."
It concludes with our narrator wondering if his love remembers him at all. That act of remembrance, of what could be brought back to remember one by, is the idea of the perfect “Boots of Spanish Leather” and is at work here. Years from then, from now, with those boots of spanish leather or not, he thinks of her — in the darkness of my night and in the brightness of my day — and sings to her, or about her. He remembers. He hopes you will too.
DOES IT WORK IN 2019?
My god, yes. This is the perfect song to really tear down the trivial demand of who this song is about. It doesn't matter who he wrote it for. What matters is that it was written. What matters is that it was performed and cut onto tape and can be heard today with the same level of intiamcy and immediacy as 1963.
This is a rare song that will work from the first time you hear it as a teenager — when you long to feel this way — to an adult — if you're lucky enough to have this kind of love even once in your life — and beyond. This is the kind of love that makes you sad always: before, during and after it's gone. It's a gift. And it's never been sung as gorgeously than by Bob Dylan.
THE EPISODE’S BOOKLET & PLAYLIST
RECOMMENDATIONS (46:00)
Kelly: La Chica Cambio. Gem Club (s and s presents). Thin Lips (who Kelly missed seeing with Hop Along last summer and will not live it down).
Daniel gives a quick fuck you to Budweiser for using "Blowin' in the Wind' for their latesr Super Bowl commercial. A shitty commercial for a shitty Super Bowl.
Otherwise: Germs GI and Laura Nyro New York Tendaberry (as I go through the 1960s).
Also, Bill Evans Trio Sunday at the Village Vanguard. Miles Davis said of Bill Evans, the pianist on his Kind of Blue:
Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall. I had to change the way the band sounded again for Bill's style by playing different tunes, softer ones at first.
Apparently Evans wrote "Blue in Green" and when Davis credited to himself and Evans suggested he get royalties, Miles wrote him a check for $25
ENDINGS (53:20)
Removing "Girl from the North Country," although I'm sure it'll be at the top of both year end lists. We're down to 433 songs. Kelly guessed #206, which would have been us listening to At Budokan. Phew! It's #54, "Cry A While."
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078 – "Girl From The North Country"