If You’re Travelin’ in the North Country Fair…
Living in Minnesota, I enjoy the lyrics of Girl from the North Country. It is a tribute to Echo Helstrom, the girlfriend Bob Dylan left in Hibbing when he moved to pursue his music career in New York. The best version of this song is the Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan duet featured on The Essential Johnny Cash
Girl from the North Country
by Bob Dylan
If you’re traveling in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
For she was once a true love of mine.
Please see from me that her hair’s hanging down
That it curls and falls all down her breast
Please see for me that her hair’s hanging down
That’s the way I remember her best.
Well, if you go when the snowflakes falls
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see for me if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds.
If you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.
Well, if you’re traveling in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Please say hello to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine.
Dark as a Dungeon
“Dark as a Dungeon” is a song written by Merle Travis and first recorded in 1946. Merle Travis also wrote “Sixteen Tons,” which was recorded and made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
This song is most famous from “Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison” where Cash interrupts his performance of the song to remind some of the prisoners, “No laughing during the song, please.” And after the song, he announces, “”I just wanted to tell you that this show is being recorded for an album released on Columbia Records, and you can’t say ‘hell’ or ’shit’ or anything like that.”
Along with Johnny Cash, “Dark as the Dungeon” has also been recorded and performed by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Dolly Parton, Jerry Garcia & David Grisman, and Bob Dylan & Joan Baez.
Dark as a Dungeon
by Merle Travis
Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
‘Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.
It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines,
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
It’s a-many a man I have seen in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.
It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines,
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a-diggin’ my bones.
It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines,
It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.
(additional stanza rarely performed by Merle Travis:)
The midnight, the morning, or the middle of day,
Is the same to the miner who labors away.
Where the demons of death often come by surprise,
One fall of the slate and you’re buried alive.