dinsdag 8 mei 2012

Bob Dylan - I Pity The Poor Immigrant (1968)



We gaan even verder in op de vorige post over "the Ballad of Donald White"


I Pity The Poor Immigrant (1968)

I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would’ve stayed home
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone
That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with ev’ry breath
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise, fears his death

I pity the poor immigrant
Whose strength is spent in vain
Whose heaven is like Ironsides
Whose tears are like rain
Who eats but is not satisfied
Who hears but does not see
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me

I pity the poor immigrant
Who tramples through the mud
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass
I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass






Dylan leende de melodie van een traditionele Schotse ballad “Tramps and Hawkers.”

De oudste opgenomen versie is van Jimmy McBeath uit 1951, opgenomen door Alan Lomax .

Schotse come-all-ye. Zou kunnen doorgaan als het lijflied van de doorwinterde trapper, trekker, traveller, tramp, hobo, hawker of hoe je ze ook noemen wil.

Jimmy McBeath werd geboren in Portsoy, Banffshire, in 1894. Na school werd hij hulpjongen op de boerderij.

Volgens Jimmy was het “All hard slavery work – up at five in the morning to sort your horse, and you didn’t fasten your boots until after you got your breakfast.  You went in at half past five and got a cog o’ meal and milk and bread, oat-cakes and a cup o’ tea wi’ it.  You had to carry on fae that, from six till twelve o clock and started again tae one.  You stopped at six and came in and sorted your horse and then you went away to your tea at twenty minutes to seven at night.  Some farms were very tight wi’ the food, oh yes, very, very, very tight wi’ the food.  Some farms were very good wi’ the food again.  But it was slavery days all the same.  You workit the whole six months before you got money at all.”

Jimmy werd lid van de Gordon Highlanders in 1914, waarschijnlijk om aan het zware boerenwerk te ontsnappen, en diende aan het front in Vlaanderen en in Ierland. Later werd hij een straat zanger na een suggestie van Geordie Stewart, een schroot-dealer die de broer van Lucy Stewart, de fijne ballad zanger van Fetterangus.

Jimmy werd ontdekt in 1951 door Alan Lomax en Hamish Henderson die deze opname maakten.




Jimmy McBeath - Tramps and Hawkers



Bob Dylan - I Pity the Poor Immigrant




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