July 27: Bob Dylan: North Country Blues, Newport, Rhode Island ...

Come gather ’round friends and I’ll tell you a tale

Of when the red iron pits ran plenty

But the cardboard filled windows and old men on the benches

Tell you now that the whole town is empty

Freebody Park

Porch # 1 of Newport Casino

Newport, Rhode Island

27 July 1963

In the north end of town, my own children are grown

Well, I was raised on the other

In the wee hours of youth my mother took sick

And I was brought up by my brother

The iron ore poured as the years passed the door

The drag lines an’ the shovels they was a-humming

‘Til one day my brother failed to come home

The same as my father before him

Well, a long winter’s wait from the window I watched

My friends, they couldn’t have been kinder

And my schooling was cut as I quit in the spring

To marry John Thomas, a miner

Oh, the years passed again and the givin’ was good

With the lunch bucket filled every season

What with three babies born, the work was cut down

To a half a day’s shift with no reason

Then the shaft was soon shut and more work was cut

And the fire in the air, it felt frozen

‘Til a man come to speak and he said in one week

That number eleven was closin’

They complained in the east, they are paying too high

They say that your ore ain’t worth digging

That it’s much cheaper down in the South American towns

Where the miners work almost for nothing

So the mining gates locked and the red iron rotted

And the room smelled heavy from drinking

When the sad, silent song made the hour twice as long

As I waited for the sun to go sinking

I lived by the window as he talked to himself

This silence of tongues it was building

Then one morning’s wake, the bed it was bare

And I’s left alone with three children

The summer is gone, the ground’s turning cold

The stores one by one they’re a-foldin’

My children will go as soon as they grow

Well, there ain’t nothing here now to hold them

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-Egil

Categories: Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan video | Tags: 1963, Bob Dylan, Newport, North Country Blues, Rhode Island, video | Permalink

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