{"id":5446,"date":"2024-11-02T10:55:47","date_gmt":"2024-11-02T14:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=5446"},"modified":"2024-11-02T10:54:53","modified_gmt":"2024-11-02T14:54:53","slug":"north-country-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/north-country-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/irVqN1mrcCI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is another one I&#8217;ve known forever, and don&#8217;t even remember learning. It&#8217;s kind of an anomaly in Dylan&#8217;s oeuvre, since\u00a0 he tended to be better at break-up songs, and in particular nasty break-up songs (&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/dont-think-twice\/\">Don&#8217;t Think Twice<\/a>,&#8221; for example), than at love songs. I&#8217;ve already posted one noteworthy exception (&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/love-minus-zero\/\">Love Minus Zero&#8230;<\/a>, at least through its first verse&#8221;) and this is another: to my ears, the most straightforwardly romantic lyric he ever penned.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5451 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Echo-Helstrom-e1730414234748.jpg?resize=300%2C380&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" \/>The standard story is that he wrote it for Echo Helstrom, his high school girlfriend, and I like to think that&#8217;s true and the affection and nostalgia are genuine.<\/p>\n<p>He wrote a dedication in Helstrom&#8217;s high school yearbook that feels like a sharp teenager practicing his beat poetry:<\/p>\n<p><em>20 below zero,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>and running down the road in the rain<\/em><br \/>\n<em>with yo\u00b4 ol\u00b4 man\u00b4s flashlight on my ass.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Now yo\u00b4 mother shines it in my face.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>when we sat and talked in the L&amp;B \u00b4til two o\u00b4clock at night.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>I was such a complete idiot, thinking back,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>that the car was in the driveway all night.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Let me tell you that your beauty is second to none,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>but I think I told you that before.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Well, Echo, I better make it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Love to the most beautiful girl in school.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Bob<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In her recollection, they got together around a shared love of R&amp;B: she was sitting with a friend in the LB Cafe in Hibbing, drinking a soda; he came in with a friend, they got to talking, and she mentioned liking &#8220;Maybelline,&#8221; which she&#8217;d heard on a late night show beaming out of Shreveport, Louisiana &#8212; the same show young Bobby Zimmerman was listening to, and thought was his secret world.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201c \u2018Maybelline,\u2019 he screamed \u2018Maybelline\u2019 by Chuck Berry&#8230;? And on and on about Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, everybody that was popular at that time, about their music and how great it was, how he loved to play it himself and how someday he wanted more than anything else to be a rock and roll singer&#8230;&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In high school, Dylan led a rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll band, mostly playing piano, and Helstrom said she was disappointed when she heard his first records. After he left Hibbing, they didn&#8217;t see each other for a few years, and then they met briefly in Minneapolis&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>He called me and asked if I wanted to go to a party. I said okay \u2019cause I hadn\u2019t seen him for so long or anything. He\u2019d changed a lot. He was skinny, whereas he\u2019d always been sort of chubby. He had on bluejeans and a workshirt and was\u2026 dirty. I asked him about New York and the music he was playing, and whatever had happened to the hard blues stuff? He said, \u2018Oh don\u2019t worry it\u2019s still there, but folk music is what\u2019s really going to be big,\u2019 and that\u2019s how he was going to make it. I told him I didn\u2019t like the sound of it as well as the other stuff, and he said \u2018I know, but this is the coming thing.\u2019&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know how accurate those recollections are &#8212; presumably they were colored by hindsight, and just what she said to one interviewer, on one day.\u00a0 The first thing that struck me was the cynical careerism, and that may have been her point, but on second thought, I&#8217;m struck that he was still trying so hard to impress her, and to convince her that he was still a member of the secret club they&#8217;d shared in high school.<\/p>\n<p>Helstrom was sure this song was about her, and seemed proud of that, as well, though it is certainly on the soft, folk side. To some extent, it feels to me like Dylan was doing an exercise, listening to old ballads and trying to write something in that tradition, without modernisms or irony. And it works. He starts by paraphrasing &#8220;Scarborough Fair,&#8221; just as many traditional ballad composers built on previous models, and carries it through to the end, beautifully. It doesn&#8217;t feel archaic; it feels heartfelt, and if he consciously set out to write a traditional love song, I still like to think it was about Echo, and expresses something simple and real.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is another one I&#8217;ve known forever, and don&#8217;t even remember learning. It&#8217;s kind of an anomaly in Dylan&#8217;s oeuvre, since\u00a0 he tended to be better at break-up songs, and in particular nasty break-up songs (&#8220;Don&#8217;t Think Twice,&#8221; for example), than at love songs. I&#8217;ve already posted one noteworthy exception (&#8220;Love Minus Zero&#8230;, at least &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/north-country-girl\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan) - 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Aside from Chuck Berry and Ray Charles,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Coasters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Coasters-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4736,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/contrabando-y-traicion\/","url_meta":{"origin":5446,"position":2},"title":"Contrabando y traicion (Los Tigres del Norte)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/t-RGZEh1RsE I first heard Los Tigres del Norte while hitchhiking around Mexico in 1986. I was sitting in a park in Oaxaca one evening, playing guitar and waiting for something to happen, and some young guys came over and requested \"Rock de la c\u00e1rcel\" (Jailhouse Rock), so I played that,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Emilio-Varela-vs-Camelia-La-Texana.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4704,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/west-texas-waltz\/","url_meta":{"origin":5446,"position":3},"title":"West Texas Waltz (Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, accordion)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This is kind of a ringer, since I haven't filmed a live video to go with it, but \"West Texas Waltz\" was the only song I ever performed on diatonic accordion, which kind of required a band, and for a moment I had the band... so I'm posting that version.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/West-Texas-Waltz-EW-cassette-release-scaled-e1660431211470.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4026,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/mr-mudd-and-mr-gold\/","url_meta":{"origin":5446,"position":4},"title":"Mr Mudd and Mr Gold (Townes Van Zandt)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Another from Townes Van Zandt, though I don't play his chords. I don't remember why I changed them, or even if I was aware I had, and when I recently listened to his version I thought his were more interesting... But I've been playing it this way for a quarter\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Townes-van-Zandt-live-297x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4441,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/watermelon-dream-guy-clark\/","url_meta":{"origin":5446,"position":5},"title":"Watermelon Dream (Guy Clark)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 16, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This is probably my all-time favorite summer song -- partly because of the lyrics and the way they fit with the melody, and partly because the guitar arrangement fell together so comfortably. It may have taken an hour or so, just playing and seeing what felt right, and that was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Guy-Clark-old-no1-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5446"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5458,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions\/5458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}