Bob Dylan & Willie Nelson Performing “Heartland” in Des Moines, Iowa – August 28, 2004 (video)

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“My American dream fell apart at the seam,” sing Nelson and Bob Dylan in this elegy to America’s family farmers. A track from Nelson’s 1993 Across the Borderline, the song details in plain language the war between forlorn farmers and unsympathetic bankers, with the latter undeniably the victor. Willie wrote the song with Dylan, who famously inspired Nelson’s annual Farm Aid benefit concerts with his off-hand remark at 1985’s Live Aid that something should be done to help U.S. farmers. The lyrics are unapologetic, brimming with as much indignation as Mellencamp’s “Rain on the Scarecrow,” but it’s the pairing of two of music’s most unconventional voices that makes it a must-hear.
rollingstone.com

Sec Taylor Stadium
Des Moines, Iowa
28 August 2004

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & piano)
  • Willie Nelson, (guitar & vocal)
  • Stu Kimball (guitar)
  • Larry Campbell (pedal steel guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • George Recile (drums & percussion)
  • , Lukas Nelson (guitar)
  • Micah Nelson (percussion)

There’s a home place under fire tonight in the Heartland
And the bankers are takin’ my home and my land from me
There’s a big achin’ hole in my chest now where my heart was
And a hole in the sky where God used to be

There’s a home place under fire tonight in the Heartland
There’s a well with water so bitter nobody can drink
Ain’t no way to get high and my mouth is so dry that I can’t speak
Don’t they know that I’m dyin’, Why nobody cryin’ for me?

My American dream
Fell apart at the seams.
You tell me what it means,
You tell me what it means.

My American dream
Fell apart at the seams.
You tell me what it means,
You tell me what it means.


-Egil

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