BETA   Bob Dylan Song Ratings | Bob Dylan Album Ratings | Bob Dylan's New Album | Bob Dylan iTunes Albums

"The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3", Track #56

NICK: If any song proves that Dylan is one of the greatest blues singers & musicians ever then this is it - it seems to me almost the definition the blues. (02/03/09)

L.LUB: Many times the sad images in blues songs were a way of dealing with the problems in life by singing about them openly and relieving the burden for a while. This song evokes the images of the Black slaves, chain gangs, slave ships, hard work on big plantations, and injustice all under a sweet magnolia tree and the aloneness under the starry Southern sky. This could have been written 150 years ago. Not only are his words evocative of the pain of injustice, but the driving melody sinks it deeper into your mind and memory. It is a fine song, and I think it's one of many Dylan gifts to us. (01/17/08)

JOE DODGE: TO BEN:THE ELECTRIC VERSION IS AN OUTTAKE ON THE DEEDS OF MERCY,OR OH MERCY OUTTAKES BOOTLEG CD.WELL WORTH FINDING. (09/20/07)

JOE DODGE: I KNEW I WAS NOT ALONE.SO MANY COMMENTS,NOT TOO MANY SONGS DESERVE THIS KIND OF INTROSPECTION,IT FEELS LIKE THE WORLD JUST ENDED ON THE LAST NOTES.THEN YOU WANT TO DIE ALL OVER AGAIN. (09/20/07)

BLUESMAN MIKE: This is genius. WHY didn't he put on INFIDELS?... Many have said that sometimes Bob can't hear his own songs. This is the best example. (03/19/07)

RICHARD: Simply the best record ever (11/02/06)

MICK GOLD: Haunting vision of American history & African American music, beautiful imagery of sound & smell & visions. (10/31/06)

LINDA APTON: Worth price of the album. " Pain and greed and coruptable seed seems to be all that there is", what more can you say, after that line. I also the the piano, (03/30/06)

IAIN G: Go and listen to this song in a dark room, and see how you feel when Knopfler plays that last note. This is a masterpiece of art. (03/29/06)

ISIS: This one made me forget to breathe for a few seconds. (03/15/06)

BETH: only Bob makes sad so beautiful, couldn't believe Blind Willie McTell wasn't released for so long, love the piano. (03/03/06)

BEN: Where did you hear the electric version? (01/13/06)

MATTHEW: A trip through the Southern Mystic as viewed through the eyes of a legendary blues singer. The very concept is stunning. The images evoke feelings as powerful as Faulkner or O'Connor, although neither wrote anything that can match the last verse of this song. Personally, I prefer the electric version. Had Bob not coughed/laughed/bumped the mic (hard to say what the gaff was), it might have been released on Infidels, which would have placed that disc on par with Highway 61. (11/25/05)

GRUNT: Nina, you should listen to this song over and over again and than you'll here the beauty beyond the sadness. (11/23/05)

NINA: I've listened to this song three times, with weeks spaced between listenings. It is too sad, it is even sadder than the descriptions I'd read of it, before I bought the recording. Every word is another separate planet of sad, and how it is that every noun and adjective and verb is instantly visible, is spooky. The first time I heard it, I saw the dress the woman by the river is wearing, I saw the bottle swinging from the fine handsome fellow's hand--I saw exactly the quality of the sunlight reflected on the river. Too much. And then you need spend only a moment looking at what it means to want what god has--god sees and understands everything--and how the song is nothing but however many minutes (four? eleven thousand? ) of everything that can be seen and felt and everything that's forever out of reach. And on top of that you can't ever prepare for the sadness. (06/01/05)