Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)

Subject: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay (Bok, Trikett, Muir)
From: BDenz
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 11:50 PM

Looking for the lyrics to this and having zero luck. Anyone got 'em handy?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay (Bok, Trikett, Muir)
From: Barbara
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 01:54 AM

If you spell it like this: Dillan Bay you will have better luck.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 16 Dec 10 - 10:26 PM

To make matters worse, at Allmusic.com, which is usually reliable (I should say, about as reliable as the record companies they get their information from) spells it DILLON BAY.

Folk-Legacy Records, which publishes Gordon Bok's album "Seal Djiril's Hymn," which contains the song, spells it DILLAN BAY on their web site.

I've been looking at several Gazetteers, and the only similar name I can find is Dillon Bay, which is part of Dillon Reservoir, adjacent to the town of Dillon, Colorado.

Subject: DT Corr: Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 01:27 AM

Here are the lyrics form the Folk-Legacy songbook, Time and the Flying Snow: Songs of Gordon Bok. The lyrics are just slightly different from what's in the Digital Tradition. The book spells the bay "Dillan," but doesn't tell where the bay is.

DILLAN BAY
(Gordon Bok)

Dillan Bay, laddie-o
Dillan-dau, laddie-ay
Dillan Bay, laddie-o
All the boats are gone

Gone away, laddie-o
Gone awa', laddie-ay
Gone away, laddie-o
With their topsails high

Topsail high, laddie-o
Topsail low, laddie-ay
Topsail high, laddie-o
When the wind's away

Wind's away, laddie-o
Wind's awa', laddie-ay
Wind's away, laddie-o
Down in Dillan Bay

Dillan Bay, laddie-o
Dillan-dau, laddie-ay
Dillan Bay, laddie-o
All the boats are gone

recorded by Gordon Bok
Copyright Folk Legacy Records, 1977
@sailor
filename[ DILLBAY
TUNE FILE: DILLBAY
CLICK TO PLAY
SOF

The book and the DT don't go right out and say it, but it appears to me that Gordon Bok is the songwriter.
-Joe-

Subject: ADD Version: Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 01:41 AM

I found a very nice recording of "Dillan Bay" (free for download) on the Website of the Northwest U.S. group Bold Horizon. Their lyrics are slightly different.

DILLAN BAY
(Gordon Bok)

Dillan Bay, laddie-o
Dillan Bay, laddie-ay
Dillan Bay, laddie-o
All the boats are gone.

Boats are gone, laddie-o
Boats are gone, laddie-ay
Boats are gone, laddie-o
With their topsails down.

Topsails down, laddie-o
Topsails down, laddie-ay
Topsails down, laddie-o
When the wind blows nigh.

Wind blows nigh, laddie-o
Wind blows nigh, laddie-ay
Wind blows nigh, laddie-o
Out on Dillan Bay.

Dillan Bay, laddie-o
Dillan Bay, laddie-ay
Dillan Bay, laddie-o
All the boats are gone.
All the boats are gone.
All the boats are gone.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 03:19 AM

Gordon did write this. Colorado? hardly. :-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 04:02 PM

Geography aside, since the song was written by Gordon Bok, I'd say he can spell it any way he wants.

Don Firth

(I've been singing this for years. Stole it off one of Gordon's records.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 05:38 PM

I had always vaguely imagined "dau" to be Welsh, and therefore Dillan to be in Wales. I see that there is a Welsh word "dau", but it means "two", which does not make sense in the context; what is more, Google does not find a Dillan in Wales.

I do not have to make sense of a song to like it, but I suppose it would be properly respectful to do so if possible.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 06:40 PM

Try "Dillon Bay."

There's a Dillon Bay in West Australia, near Bremer Bay, facing the Southern Ocean. Dunno if this is what Gordon had in mind. Actually, the one picure I saw if it makes it look more like a bit of recreational beach than a seaport.

Mebbe one of our Aussie confreres can enlighten us.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: maeve
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 06:48 PM

I'll ask him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 06:48 PM

This question of the location of Dillan Bay has puzzled me for years. Somebody here must know Gordon - can you ask him? If you do, ask him for his story behind the song.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: kendall
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 07:32 PM

Joe F, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 07:51 PM

Nope. Just checked the record itself. It IS "Dillan" with an "A."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: maeve
Date: 17 Dec 10 - 09:28 PM

As I offered a few hours ago, I'll ask Gordon. ;)Get it? Huh?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: maeve
Date: 18 Dec 10 - 04:57 PM

Nobody 'got' it. Not even Mr. Offer.

I'll still ask.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: maeve
Date: 15 Jun 11 - 06:49 PM

"Somebody here must know Gordon - can you ask him? If you do, ask him for his story behind the song." Joe Offer
******************************************
As promised...

Gordon tells me he wrote "Dillan Bay" long before he'd ever heard of Bob Dylan, and it was probably associated with a dream. He doesn't know where his Dillan Bay might be, and he's definitely never run aground there!

Maeve

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jun 11 - 12:02 PM

Thanks, Maeve. It took me since December to figure it out, but I finally "got" your intended pun....
Aaaaaaaaaaargh!
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: maeve
Date: 16 Jun 11 - 12:10 PM

Hehehe... You're welcome.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: GUEST,Bob Barnett
Date: 02 Dec 24 - 10:04 PM

I suppose if Dillan Bay comes from a dream there might be a similar answer for this question, but:

Does "-dau" have a meaning?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dylan Bay? / Dillan Bay (Gordon Bok)
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 03 Dec 24 - 04:04 AM

Bob Barnett asked:

Does "-dau" have a meaning?

I don't know the answer, but I strongly suspect not. Bok has described other songs where words and ideas came to him in his sleep, and he just transcribed what he heard. (See, for instance, "In the Kind Land" for another example of this happening.)

It's not an unusual phenomenon. It's just that it's a rare person who can put it to such good use as Bok.