Tag: Scarborough Fair

If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds

This is one of the most beautiful songs that Bob Dylan ever wrote. I learned this song on guitar and harmonica when I was in my twenties. When we were playing out the equipment would break down like the guitar player’s amp or my amp…I would grab an acoustic and a harmonica with my harmonica rack and play this one. It always went over well. The song hits me deeply for some reason…you can tell this song was genuine. 

I read Robert Shelton’s book about Bob Dylan, and the song appears to be about Echo Helstrom (If I would have had a daughter…I wanted to name her Echo), a girl he knew in Hibbing, Minnesota before he made it. As with every Dylan song, there is another rumor that it’s about a folk singer and actress named Bonnie Beecher. I tend to believe the Shelton book on this one and go with Echo but who knows which one it is? He knew both in Minnesota so it could have been either one. Some say Suzy Rotolo was it but he didn’t meet her until he was in New York.

It was originally released on his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and later re-recorded as a duet with Johnny Cash for Dylan’s 1969 album Nashville Skyline. Unlike some Dylan songs…this one is not a musical novel. It’s a little over 3 minutes and gets right to the point in the most elegant way. Bob did take the melody of Scarborough Fair for this one. 

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan peaked at #22 on the Billboard Album Charts and #1 in the UK in 1963. It was his second album and here is where he started to get real traction with people and build an audience, especially in the UK. The folk purists would get two more albums until the electric instruments of 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home would shatter their Dylan folk singer dream. 

Johnny Cash: “I had a portable record player that I’d take along on the road, and I’d put on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan backstage, then go out and do my show, then listen again as soon as I came off. After a while at that, I wrote Bob a letter telling him how much of a fan I was. He wrote back almost immediately, saying he’d been following my music since ‘I Walk the Line,’ and so we began a correspondence”.

This live clip is from Hard To Handle when Dylan used Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as his backing band. I learned it from this live version. 

Girl From The North Country

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

If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds

Please see for me if her hair hangs long
If it rolls and flows all down her breast
Please see for me if her hair hangs long
That’s the way I remember her best

I’m a-wonderin’ if she remembers me at all
Many times I’ve often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day

So 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