Bob Dylan, "Girl From The North Country" (1963)

„Girl From The North Country“ is one of Bob Dylan's best early love songs. He wrote it in Italy in the winter 1962/63. In May 1963 he recorded it in New York City for "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"

- mp3: Bob Dylan, Girl From The North Country, "The World Of Folk Music" with Oscar Brand, WNBC radio (March 1963, broadcasted in May '63)


Sadly a lot of writers have been more interested in searching for the girl that song could have been written about. But this biographical approach is pointless. It is not that important if it is about Ms. H or Ms. B. Much more interesting is the songwriting process. Here Dylan already showed his wide ranging knowledge of popular music of all kinds and his ability to build a song mosaically from motives and lines from other songs while creating something new that was in every respect his own.

“Girl From The North Country” - lyrics at bobdylan.com - is partly based on and inspired by Martin Carthy's version of “Scarborough Fair”, a British ballad with an interesting and complex history. Dylan heard him sing this song in winter 1962 in London. Carthy only recorded it two years later for his first album (Fontana STL 5269, 1965). But according to Nat Hentoff's liner notes for “The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan” he also claimed that he had already conceived this song three years earlier.

---------------

From an interview with Martin Carthy by Dave Brazier in the Dylan fanzine Telegraph (Vol. 42, 1992, p. 94/5):

Q - Dylan based some of his songs on things he'd learned from you - "Girl From The North Country," for example, came from your "Scarborough Fair." Did he tell you at the time that that's what he was aiming at doing?

MC - Oh yes. He would always ask me to sing it, that one and Lord Franklin. And when he came back from... erm, I thought he went to Portugal but somebody told me he went to Italy, but anyway he went away [...] And when he came back, he'd written "Girl From The North Country", he came down to The Troubadour and said, "Hey, here's Scarborough Fair" and he started playing this thing. And he kept getting the giggles, all the time he was doing it. It was very funny. I think he sang about three or four verses and then he went. ''Ah man ah,'' and he burst out laughing and sang something else. So yeah, l knew what he was doing. It was delightful, lovely. 'cos I mean he... he made a new song.

Q - It's part of the folk tradition, isn't it, to base one song on another song?

MC - Well, I don't know whether it is a folk tradition or not, but I took it as an enormous compliment, to the song and, if you like, to me. You know, I thought he was a tremendously honourable bloke. Still do. It was a great thing to have done.

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Although occasionally referred to as an “old riddle song” “Scarborough Fair” is in fact a “modern ballad” collected only since the late 19th century (Harvey, p. 32). The song derives from “Elfin Knight” (Child Ballad # 2). The earliest known variant of this one can be found on a broadside printed ca. 1670: "A proper new ballad entitled The Wind hath blown my Plaid away, or A Discourse betwixt a young Woman and the Elphin Knight" (Child, version A):

My plaid awa, my plaid awa,
And owre the hills and far awa,
And far awa to Norrowa,
My plaid shall not be blawn awa.

The Elphin knight sits on yon hill,
Ba, ba, ba, lillie ba
He blaws his horn baith loud and shrill.
The wind hath blawn my plaid awa

[...]

But the line about “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” as well as the “true love of mine” - refrains are only known from variants found since the late 18th and early 19th century. Child's version G, “The Cambrick Shirt” (1810), starts with this verse:

Can you make me a cambrick shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Without any seam or needle work?
And you shall be a true lover of mine

The melody (c/o Digital Tradition Database) used by Carthy isn’t that old, in fact it seems to be a product of the Folk Revival era. Todd Harvey in “The Formative Dylan” notes that it was not that common. The only parallels were recordings by Audrey Coppard (1956 on the LP English Folk Songs, Folkways FW 6917), Ewan McColl (1957 on Matching Songs For The British Isles And America, Riverside RLP 12-637, later also as a printed version in McColl/Peggy Seeger, The Singing Island: A Collection of English and Scots Folksongs,1960 and in Sing Out! 12 No. 5, Dec/Jan 62/63) and Shirley Collins (1959 on False True Lovers, Folkways FG 3564). Martin Carthy, Ms Coppard and Ms. Collins all obviously had learned the song from McColl who claimed to have collected it “in part” from an old Yorkshire miner (quoted in Harvey, p. 33). But according to Alan Lomax’ liner notes for Shirley Collins’ LP his source was Cecil Sharp’s One Hundred English Folk Songs (1916).

The first two verses of Martin Carthy's version, quoted from Mainly Norfolk. English Folk And Other Good Music:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
For once she was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Without no seam nor fine needle work
And then she'll be a true love of mine

[...]

The melodies of “Scarborough Fair” and “Girl Of The North Country” are not the same. Dylan only “retains elements of the 'Scarborough Fair” melodic contour and phrase structure for his new song” (Harvey, p. 33). The harmonic structure is changed, too and instead of the 3/4 or 6/8 meter he uses 4/4. In fact the differences are so great that it can be easily called an original melody.

The lyrics are also for the most part Dylan's own. He deletes nearly all of the motives of “Scarborough Fair”, uses lines 3 and 4 of verse 1 as a starting point and turns it into a song about nostalgia for an former love, a major topic in popular music. I wonder if he deliberately tried to write something like Scott Wiseman's “Remember Me (When The Candlelights Are Gleaming) ” (1940) , a song he was obviously fond of – we have a private recording from East Orange 1961 of him singing that song:

- mp3: Bob Dylan, Remember Me, East Orange, NJ 1961

Remember me when the candle lights are gleaming,
Remember me at the close of a long, long day.
It would be so sweet when all alone I'm dreaming
Just to know you still remember me

Another parallel coming close to the basic topic of “Girl Of The North Country” is Jimmie Rodgers' ”My Old Pal” (1928):

I'm wondering just where you are tonight, old pal.
And if you ever think of me.
It would make my weary heart so light, sweetheart,
Your face again to see.
[...]
Still you always be a pal of mine,
though it may be only in dreams.

The messenger sent to the girl is retained. But it's not his duty anymore to give her tasks to fulfill, as in “Scarborough Fair”. He is simply on the way to remind her of her former love. And that's another common motif in popular song. Examples pre-dating “Girl Of The North Country” are Johnny Cash's “Give My Love To Rose”, the Everly Brothers' hit “Take A Message To Mary” (B. & F. Bryant), both songs definitely known to Dylan. Also worth mentioning is “Tell Him I Said Hello” (Hagner/Canning, 1956), a song recorded for example by Betty Carter, that obviously inspired Dylan - as Andrew Muir has noted - when he returned to that topic for “If You See her Say Hello”:

When you see him
Tell him things are slow
There's a reason and he's sure to know
But on second thought, forget it
Just tell him I said hello

If he asks you when I come and go
Say I stay home 'cause I miss him so
But on second thought, forget it
Just tell him I said hello

Look into his eyes
When you speak my name
Maybe there's a spark to start another flame
Do I love him?
Don't say yes or no
If he should ask you
But he won't I know
Cause it's all over and forgotten
Just tell him I said hello

The “north country fair” is of course an allusion to “Scarborough Fair” , but the messenger is not travelling to that fair but to the fair North Country. This inversion of noun and adjective makes the language sound somehow old fashioned (or he simply wanted to keep the rhyme fair/there). Surely there is also an autobiographical connotation but more important is the fact that in English folk songs the “North Country” is occasionally referred to as a land of pastoral beauty different and far away from the unpleasant modern towns, as in "The Northern Lasses Lamentation" (Roud ID 1367, variants are called for example "A North Country Maid" or "The Oak And The Ash"):

A North country lass
Up to London did pass,
Although with her nature it did not agree,
Which made her repent,
And so often lament,
Still wishing again in the North for to be,
O the oak, the ash, and the bonny ivy tree,
Do flourish at home in my own country.

[...]

(quoted from: Thomas Evans, Old Ballads, rev. edition 1810)

This contrast, although never explicitly stated in “Girl Of The North Country”, is still there. It's a nostalgic juxtaposition of present and past (also the topic of “Bob Dylan`s Dream”): by remembering the girl in the North Country he reconnects to this mythical place - which is obviously very different from the one in Dylan's “North Country Blues” (1963) - and searches for the lost youth.

An interesting precursor using a similar set of motives is Dylan's “Ballad For A Friend” (1962). Here the singer is reminiscing about an old, deceased friend and the time he spent with him in a pastoral “North Country”:

Sad I'm sittin' on the railroad track,
Watchin' that old smokestack.
Train is a-leavin' bit it won't be back.

Years ago we hung around,
Watchin' trains roll through the town.
Now that train is a-graveyard bound.

Where we go up in that North Country,
Lakes and streams and mines so free,
I had no better friend than he.

[...]

Verses 2 and 3 of “Girl Of The North Country” paint an image of the girl. But it's surely not a “real” girl. It's an image of purity and innocence that sounds old fashioned and is based on archetypical male fantasies. Also here – as with the North Country – there is some kind of juxtaposition in the background. When painting such a picture of a pure girl there must be somewhere other girls not so pure and innocent. In fact this girl is as mythical as the North Country. On the other hand this is the first instance of Dylan creating an image of an idealized woman, a topic he returned to later with more mature and opulent songs like “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” or “Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands”.

To ask the messenger to see if she “has a coat so warm to keep her from the howling winds” plays with the male instinct for protection and is a somehow unusual motif in 20th century popular song. This is usually either used jokingly, as in “Button Up Your Overcoat” (DaSylva/Brown/Henderson, 1928):

Button up your overcoat, when the wind is free,
Take good care of yourself, you belong to me”

Or else making love is proposed as the best means against the cold. Irving Berlin used this motif in his classic “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” (1936):

The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing
But I can weather the storm
What do I care how much it may storm?
I`ve got my love to keep me warm.
[...]
Off with my overcoat, off with my glove.
I need no overcoat, I`m burning with love.

Other examples are Frank Loesser’s “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (1949) and Dylan's own “On A Night Like This” (1973). That song sounds in some way like an ironic return to some motives of “Girl Of The North Country”. It reads as if the boy himself has returned to the North Country to keep the girl warm instead of sending someone else to see if she has a coat "so warm".

[...]
We got much to talk about
And much to reminisce,
[...]

Let the four winds blow
Around this old cabin door,
If I'm not too far off
I think we did this once before.
There's more frost on the window glass
With each new tender kiss,
But it sure feels right
On a night like this.

The girl's long hair, rolling and flowing “all over her breast” is another old fashioned, antique image, maybe directly taken from a fairy-tale book and already in use in the 19th century, for example in “Sweetly She Sleeps My Alice Fair” by Stephen Foster & Charles Eastman (1851):

Sweetly she sleeps, my Alice fair,
Her cheek on the pillow pressed,
Sweetly she sleeps, while her Saxon hair,
Like sunlight, streams o’er her breast

The first line in the the fourth verse - “I'm wondering if she remembers me at all” - is clearly a paraphrase of line from either Scott Wiseman’s “Remember Me”:

It would be so sweet […] to know you still remember me

or Jimmie Rodger’s “My Old Pal”:

I`m wondering [...] if you ever think of me

But this motif can also be traced back to the 19th century, see for example John Greenleaf Whittier's “My Playmate” (1860), a poem about someone reminiscing about his childhood girlfriend, another work thematically related to “Girl Of The North Country”:

[...]
I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems, -
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice:
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?

Dylan's next three lines:

[...]
Many times I've often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day

may have been inspired by line from a 1930 torch ballad, “Something To Remember You By” (Schwartz/Dietz), a song that is thematically related to (and may have been the starting point for the lyrics of) “Boots Of Spanish Leather”:

[...]
Though I'll pray for you
Night and day for you[/i]

Examples from the 19th century in a more florid language are:

I will be true to thee;
I will pray for thee night and day;
Wilt thou be true to me,
As in years that have rolled away?
[Stephen Foster, I'll Be True To Thee, 1862]

If to dream by night and muse on thee by day,
If all the worship wild and deep, a true one's heart can pay.
If pray'rs in abscence said for thee to Heave'ns protecting pow'r,
If winged thoughts that flit to thee, an thousand in an hour".
[Jane Sloman, Forget Thee, 1843]

But all these three example show someone praying for the other one's well-being while Dylan only has prayed “many times” that she remembers him, which seems to me a little overblown.

Nostalgia for a former love is a major topic of 20th century popular music. One of the most perfect examples is Johnny Mercer`s “I Thought About You” (1939):

I took a trip on a train
And I thought about you
I passed a shadowy lane
And I thought about you

Two or three cars parked under the stars
A winding stream
Moon shining down on some little town
And with each beam, the same old dream

And every stop that we made, oh,
I thought about you
[...]

This is mature, grown-up nostalgia, songs about real people in an urban context. But I think that's not what Dylan intended with “Girl Of The North Country” although he freely borrowed from 20th century songs. Instead he made a trip straight back to 19th century nostalgia. If there is something that comes close in mood and in intent then it's a Stephen Foster song like “Voice Of The Bygone Days” (1850):

[...]

Ah! the voice of by gone days
Bid my memory rove
To the fair and gentle being
Of my early love.
She was radiant as the light,
She was pure as dews of night,
And beloved of angels bright,
She join’d their bless’d and happy train.

This song contains the major motives Dylan used in “Girl Of The North Country”: the evocation of the lost youth through nostalgia for an early love as well as the images of purity and innocence used to describe that girl. In the first half of the 60s Dylan tried to avoid the language and sentiments of the songs of the generation before and create something different. He used different strategies but in this case – as for example also in the verses of “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” - he circumvented the Berlin tradition by reanimating 19th century sentiments. Instead of becoming a new Johnny Mercer he fosterisized himself. But this helps to make the song special and to overcome its inherent sentimentality.

Usually in 19th century songs and poetry it is an old man who remembers a dead (or – as in Greenleaf Whittier's “My Playmate” - otherwise unreachable) girl: “The death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic in the world” (Edgar Allan Poe). The “Girl Of The North Country” is not deceased. And the singer is no old man – although Dylan has experimented with the old man persona in some of his early songs and performances -, otherwise the messenger would be on the way to meet the granny in the north country. But by alluding to this ancient motif and transferring it into the 20th century he suspends the song from time and creates a air of timelessness and antiquity. This is a complicated process and I don't know if Dylan did it on purpose but the result he achieves is impressive.

But the song's sentimentality is still obvious. In fact it is much more sentimental than for example Johnny Mercer's “I Thought About You”. Dylan is walking on rather thin ice and only reading the lyrics on page without knowing the song might make some readers cringe. I presume that songwriters from the generation before would have regarded the lyrics as somehow corny and awkward. But Dylan manages to create an aura of authenticity that is essential for the song's effectiveness.

Personal authenticity and communication between performer and listener on a personal basis are major assets of 20th century popular song. This was developed by singers, songwriters and musicians at least since the twenties with the rising importance of the new technical innovations like electrical recording, radio, microphone and movies. Singers were forced to create personalized singing styles and innovative songwriters like Irving Berlin quickly responded to this new challenges. Berlin's 20s ballads “imply a solitary listener” , his songs create a “lyrical 'space' [...] that is designed for the self absorbed, plaintative singer who inhabits it. The solitary consumer [...] inhabits the same space” (Philip Furia, p. 58).

That is exactly the effect that Dylan achieves with “Girl Of The North Country” and many more of his love ballads. The only difference is that he has created a new – his own – authenticity. Singers like Crosby or Sinatra were as authentic to their audiences as is Dylan to his. One of the reasons for the popularity of Irving Berlin's love ballads in the 20s was his audience's tendency to understand them as growing out of his personal experiences. Of course he – like Dylan later, as in his famous comment about “You're A Big Girl Now” not being about his wife – denied any autobiographical connotations.

Authenticity is a matter of style, it's in no way universal. It is developed in interaction between the artist and his audiences. It's dynamic and permanently developed anew. Also the authenticity value of genres, performers or writers can change over time, as we can see for example in the history of Blues reception: revivalist listeners of today have completely different values than the original audiences. “Girl Of The North Country” is one of those songs of Dylan that can demonstrate in detail how he managed to build his own brand of personal authenticity and credibility as a singer and writer.

- Authenticity of genre

“Girl Of The North Country” is in no way a traditional, it's an original song. But the relationship to the folk ballad “Scarborough Fair” is clearly recognizable and sets his new song in the context of Folk music, a genre that at that time for his listeners had more credibility than the so-called commercial Pop song. But Dylan was never a revivalist, he was and is a popular music songwriter. In this case he was able to make a new song sound old and antique and in that way set it apart from the standard love song of that time.

- Authenticity of language

Also Dylan's use of language demonstrates his search for a different kind of authenticity. He doesn't try to achieve the refined quality of the best songwriters of the generation before and he obviously didn't want to sound like a professional writer but more like someone who tries to express something without knowing exactly how. This is characteristic for a lot of his early songs ("Tomorrow Is A Long Time" is another striking example).

The "antique lyric quality" (Todd Harvey) of "Girl Of The North Country" was somehow outdated at that time, the inversion of adjective and noun in "north country fair" and the second line of verse 4 ("many time I have often prayed" ) would be regarded as corny and unprofessional by songwriters with a different background. And also the rhyme scheme isn't that perfect.

Stylistical traits like these have led fundamentalist writers of the older generation like Gene Lees to regard Dylan and the new wave of songwriters as illiterate amateurs. But that misses the point. It was a change in style: the refined language and the artful composition of the lyrics is replaced by a "new authenticity". Credibility, sincerity and naturalness is achieved here by imperfection. Dylan has often been a master in using language – or better: different sets of languages – in his songs, for example antique Folk ballad speech, Blues lyrics, his different amalgams of poetic or quasi-poetic languages and the vernacular, to create an authentic mood, an atmosphere. “Girl Of The North Country” is one of the best early examples.

- Authenticity of performance

Important for Dylan was also a new set of performance values developed as a contrast and counterpoint to the music of the parents' generation. This older set of values were regarded as inauthentic and untrustworthy by a part of the new generation. Dylan's new "authenticity", derived from Folk, Blues, Rock'n Roll, television and poetry and reflected by his image, his singing style and his music was a result of the generational gap of the 50s and 60s. He surely didn't look and sound like Father Bing and this completely different performance style could even make an old fashioned and rather sentimental love song like “Girl Of The North Country” sound credible again.

I think Dylan in fact reanimated and re-established the love song for a new generation that was extremely skeptical of the older generation's way of writing and singing about love. But it should be noted that he was working on the same basic premises developed since the 20s. Dylan as a singer is still part of the Crosby school in his use of technical means (microphone, the record) to create a sense of intimacy with his listeners, to communicate with them “on a personal basis”. His direct role models may have been Guthrie, the “Singing Cowboys” from television like Gene Autry (surely the first “hero with guitar” he encountered in his youth) and maybe Buddy Holly, but he was still walking the same road that had been built by Crosby & Co. His new authenticity in performance and image was in no way a revolutionary change but a set of new clothes for a new generation.

- Autobiographical authenticity

Though a new kind of personal authenticity was very important for artists at least since the 20s, this romantic concept had much more impact on the audiences since the 60s. A new confessional quality of songs led in extreme to a tendency to regard personal or even autobiographical authenticity as the “hallmark of a 'good' song” (Jeness/Velsey, p. 277). In Dylan's case we are still confronted with endless discussion like: who is the “Girl Of The North Country”? Who is Johanna? He of course often enough alluded to an autobiographical context, not only with songs like “Sara” or “Ballad In Plain D”. But at times he obviously seemed to feel plagued by this approach, as in his comment about “You're A Big Girl Now” in 1985: “'You're A Big Girl Now' well, I read this was supposed to be about my wife [...] Stupid and misleading jerks sometimes this interpreters are [...]”. Or he joked about it, as in 1975, when he introduced “It Takes A Lot To Laugh” as “an autobiographical song for ya”.

I don’t know how important biographical interpretations were in the early 60s. But at least since Anthony Scaduto's biography the reception of “Girl Of The North Country” has been dominated by wondering if it was Ms H. or maybe Ms. B. For a lot of listeners this shaped a special context for understanding this song: by obviously singing about a real girl the singer shares his personal life with the audience and makes the song more “real”, more authentic. But: is “Girl Of The North Country” really about “someone”? Todd Harvey correctly notes that “the lyrics do not, however, contain enough specific information to suggest that Dylan was leaving clues about his personal life”. I agree.

But in fact this question is not that important! “Girl Of The North Country” is a song, it's in no way autobiography. It's an expertly crafted song - where even possible lingual and stylistic lapses sound appropriate - , drawing from a set of wide-ranging sources and recreating the sentimental, nostalgic love song in a new historical and cultural context for a new audience.

Literature & Links:

• BBC Radio 2 - Sold On Song: Scarborough Fair (it seems to me that it is not possible anymore to listen to Martin Carthy's version there, at least it doesn't work for me)
• Traditional Ballad Index: The Elfin Knight (a list of printed and recorded versions)
• Francis J. Child, The English And Scottish Popular Ballads, Boston 1882 (online available at archive.org)
• Philip Furia, Poets Of Tin Pan Alley. A History Of America’s Great Lyricists, New York 1990
• Todd Harvey, The Formative Dylan. Transmissions And Stylistic Influences, 1961 - 1963, p. 32 - 34
• Clinton Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind The Shades. Take Two, London & New York 2000, p. 105 - 111
• David Jeness & Don Velsey, Classic American Popular Song. The Second Half-Century, 1950-2000, New York 2006
• Andrew Muir, Troubadour. Early And Late Songs Of Bob Dylan, Bluntishsam 2003, p. 22, 127-146 (he was the first one - in his thought provoking chapter about “If You See Her Say Hello” - to write about the similarities of that song to “Tell Him I Said Hello” [p. 144/5] and to note the relationship to “Take A Message To Mary” and “Give My Love To Rose” [p. 134 - 136] )
• Oliver Trager, Keys To The Rain. The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, New York 2004, p. 204 - 206
• Jon W. Vinson, The Voices That are Gone. Themes In 19th Century American Popular Song, New York & Oxford 1994, p. 3 - 42
• For more about Scott Wiseman see the Dreamtime blog

Quotations of lyrics from different online resources.

Thanks to Stewart Grant in Scotland for support and some ideas!

This is a revised version of a text first postedon www.morerootsofbob.com in November 2006