Scarlet Town is one of the best songs from Tempest. It was also one of four songs he has performed live each night on the “2013 US Spring Tour”…. well he did actually drop Scarlet one evening and replaced it with Workingman’s Blues #2 – this was at Assembly Hall – University Of Illinois – Champaign, Illinois – 25 April 2013.
In this post I have collected videos & Audio clips I’ve found floating around on the the internet… There are some really wonderful performances here!
The sweetest girl in the world
Is my blue-eyed Jane
We fell in love like turtledoves
While the moon was shining down
I asked her then, I asked her when
Wedding bells would ring
She said, “Oh, dear, it seems so queer
That this could happen here.”
New Daisy Theater Memphis, Tennessee 5 February 1999
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning
–
… I was gonna put Positively 4th Street on the other side, but, uh… I didn’t figure anybody could understand it so…
~Bob Dylan (Bob Fass/WBAI Interview, 26 Jan 1966)
Outside of a song like Positively 4th Street, which is extremely one-dimensional, which I like, I don’t usually purge myself by writing anything about any type of quote, so-called,
relationships. I don’t have the kinds of relationships that are built on any kind of false pretense, not to say that I haven’t.
~Bob Dylan (Scott Cohen, Sept 1985)
This masterpiece would have fitted nicely on “Highway 61 Revisited”.. where it did belong.
There’s an evenin’ haze settlin’ over the town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down
Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak
The place I love best is a sweet memory
It’s a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad
Happy birthday “Modern Times”, here are 5 great live versions of “Workingman’s Blues #2”.
–
National Indoor Arena
Birmingham, England
17 April 2007
My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see
I’m listenin’ to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from
Creeping it’s way into my gut
Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues
