Lyr Req: Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan)
From: Mick Woods
Date: 02 Aug 09 - 02:28 PM

Yes thanks Calum, great site. Here's the clicky link Dylan Chords

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan)
From: GUEST,Calum
Date: 02 Aug 09 - 12:29 PM

For all your Dylan lyrics and chords, you need dylanchords.info - just about every bit of tape in the wild has been transcribed on there, and very well, too.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Aug 09 - 06:52 PM

This is a song I often perform. I think it numbers among the 10 or 20 best Dylan songs ever.

Subject: Lyr Add: BLIND WILLIE McTELL (Bob Dylan)
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 07:13 PM

Songwriters: Dylan, Bob


BLIND WILLIE McTELL

Seen the arrow on the doorpost

Saying, "This land is condemned

All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem."

I traveled through East Texas

Where many martyrs fell

And I know no one can sing the blues

Like Blind Willie McTell

Well, I heard the hoot owl singing

As they were taking down the tents

The stars above the barren trees

Were his only audience

Them charcoal gypsy maidens

Can strut their feathers well

But nobody can sing the blues

Like Blind Willie McTell

See them big plantations burning

Hear the cracking of the whips

Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
(
And) see the ghosts of slavery ships

I can hear them tribes a-moaning
(I can) hear the undertaker's bell
(
Yeah), nobody can sing the blues

Like Blind Willie McTell

There's a woman by the river

With some fine young handsome man

He's dressed up like a squire

Bootlegged whiskey in his hand

There's a chain gang on the highway

I can hear them rebels yell

And I know no one can sing the blues

Like Blind Willie McTell

Well, God is in heaven

And we all want what's his

But power and greed and corruptible seed

Seem to be all that there is

I'm gazing out the window

Of the St. James Hotel

And I know no one can sing the blues

Like Blind Willie McTell

Copyright ©1983 Special Rider Music

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: Gern
Date: 12 Nov 00 - 02:11 PM

Little Hawk, that was the best Dylan encapsulation/social commentary I've come across at this location. Even a "Slow Train Coming" will eventually arrive.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: LDave
Date: 12 Nov 00 - 01:18 PM

Well said.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 00 - 03:41 PM

Bob is fond of using various historical figures as archetypes in his songs. Blind Willie McTell becomes a symbolic figure in this song, representing a time of honesty and legitimacy in America that Dylan feels is long gone. His liner notes for the album "World Gone Wrong" also expound on that same them of social and cultural disintegration very strongly. Take a look at them.

Blind Willie McTell is an incredible song that might better be seen as a parable, a lament for a whole nation, than as a literal take on the blues singer himself.

As Bob said in another great song: "Eden is burning...either get ready for elimination or else your hearts must have the courage of the Changing of the Guards".

It's Valley Forge out there, people...for the homeless, the disenfranchised and the forgotten, the "countless, confused, misused, accused, strung-out ones and worse". Either help the ones in need or you might "go down in the Flood" yourself.

- LH

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 11 Nov 00 - 12:11 PM

"The story" in Dylan's fine song is fanciful rather than based on any factual accuracy. My guess is that Bob was moved (as many of of us were) by the liner notes to the "Mctell's Last Sessions" album. I first bought that album when I was about 16, and it remains fascinating to this day.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: Matt_R
Date: 10 Nov 00 - 11:11 PM

I just learned heard this song this afternoon, and now I'm playing it. O My God what a powerful song! I have one question, and I may seem pretty stupid, but what WAS the story behind Blind Willie that the song seems to tell? Or is there a thread about him anywhere? All I could seem to find where just about songs, and not his life.

--Matt

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Dec 99 - 11:32 AM

It is on the Columbia "official" 3 volume bootleg (first released in 1992 I think). You can hear a recent discussion of it whenever Rick's CIUT radio program of Nov 29 gets on the Mudcat lines (I was privileged to be in the audience for that program)! yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 10:30 PM

I think it's one of Dylan's best. My guess is that he listened to the album Blind Willie MacTell's last Sessions, probably when he was in his late teens. He uses the tune to St. James Infirmary, with a little bit of Hotel California (I'm not kiddin') thrown in. Fine song.
Rick

Subject: RE: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 09:32 PM

Hi Bluesy....For all of your "One Stop Shopping" Dylan stuff CLICK NASALLY HERE.

Spaw

Subject: Dylan's Blind Willie McTell
From: Bluesy
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 09:01 PM

I'm looking for Dylan's 'Blind Willie McTell', does anyone know what album it's from?