High Water (For Charley Patton)
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"High Water (For Charley Patton)" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, released as the seventh track on his 31st
studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
'' "Love and Theft"'' in 2001 and anthologized on the compilation album ''Dylan'' in 2007. Like much of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the track himself under the pseudonym
Jack Frost Jack Frost is a personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold. He is a variant of Old Man Winter who is held responsible for frosty weather, nipping the fingers and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, ...
. The song draws its title from
Charley Patton Charley Patton (April 1891 (probable) – April 28, 1934), also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American mus ...
's "
High Water Everywhere "High Water Everywhere" is a Delta blues song recorded in 1929 in music, 1929 by noted blues singer Charley Patton. The song is about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it affected residents of the Mississippi Delta, particularly the mistr ...
", and is meant as a tribute to that bluesman although Dylan scholar Tony Attwood notes that the song, both musically and lyrically, has little point of contact with the original Patton work.


Composition and recording

Lyrically, "High Water (For Charley Patton)" is similar to Dylan's 1983 song "
Blind Willie McTell Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was a Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont bl ...
" and his 2020 song "
Goodbye Jimmy Reed "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" is an uptempo blues song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and released as the sixth track on his 2020 album '' Rough and Rowdy Ways''. A tribute to blues giant Jimmy Reed, the song has been si ...
" in that it pays tribute to the titular blues singer only indirectly. In spite of the title, and references to the
Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
in the lyrics, the song is not itself a blues but rather a three-chord banjo-driven
folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...
song. It is performed in the key of
G major G major (or the key of G) is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp. Its relative minor is E minor and its parallel minor is G minor. The G major scale is: Notable compositi ...
. In their book ''Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track'', authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon describe the song's creative arrangement: "The instrumental arrangements of this country-rock song highlight the two banjo parts provided by
Larry Campbell Larry W. Campbell (born 28 February 1948) is a Canadian politician that served as the 37th mayor of Vancouver, Canada from 2002 until 2005 and since 2005 has been a member of the Senate of Canada. Before he was mayor, Campbell worked for t ...
and the rhythm section on accordion by
Augie Meyers August "Augie" Meyers (born May 31, 1940) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, performer, studio musician, record producer, and record label owner. He is perhaps best known as a founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas ...
. Percussion added by
David Kemper David Law Kemper (born 1947/8 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American rock drummer who was a member of the Jerry Garcia Band (1983–1994) and Bob Dylan's band (1996–2001). He was with the Jerry Garcia Band from 1983 until January 1994, when he w ...
(timpani, shaker and tambourine overdubs) is also prominent. Finally, in each verse, there is an unidentified high-pitched voice far back in the mix". This was Dylan's first use of backing vocals since
David Crosby David Van Cortlandt Crosby (born August 14, 1941) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Crosby joined the Byrds in 1964. They got ...
sang on two songs on ''
Under the Red Sky ''Under the Red Sky'' is the Bob Dylan discography, 27th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 10, 1990, by Columbia Records. It was produced by Don Was, David Was, and Dylan (under the pseudonym Jack Frost). ...
'' in 1990 and would be the last such use of backing vocals on any original Dylan song until "
I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You "I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and released as the fourth track on his 2020 album ''Rough and Rowdy Ways''. The song is performed in 6/8 time and has a lilt ...
" and "
Key West (Philosopher Pirate) "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and released as the ninth track on his 2020 album ''Rough and Rowdy Ways''. It is a mid-tempo, accordion-driven ballad that has been cit ...
" on ''
Rough and Rowdy Ways ''Rough and Rowdy Ways'' is the 39th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on June 19, 2020, through Columbia Records. It is Dylan's first album of original songs since his 2012 album ''Tempest'', following three releas ...
'' in 2020. According to engineer Chris Shaw, ''Love and Theft'' was recorded entirely using analog equipment (before Dylan switched to
Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...
for ''Modern Times''), which resulted in the original master tapes being chopped up when Dylan decided he wanted to re-arrange a song's verses during the mixing process. As Shaw explained in ''Uncut'', "There was a lot of editing done on '''Love and Theft. Like, the song 'High Water', for example, the verse order of that was changed quite a few times, literally hacking the tape up. He was like, 'Nah, maybe the third verse should come first. And maybe we should put *that* *there*'. There was a lot of that".


Personnel

In addition to Dylan, the song features
Larry Campbell Larry W. Campbell (born 28 February 1948) is a Canadian politician that served as the 37th mayor of Vancouver, Canada from 2002 until 2005 and since 2005 has been a member of the Senate of Canada. Before he was mayor, Campbell worked for t ...
on banjo,
Charlie Sexton Charles Wayne Sexton (born August 11, 1968) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Sexton is best known for his years as a guitarist in Bob Dylan's band, though also has become well known as a music producer. Sexton co-founded the Ar ...
on guitar,
Augie Meyers August "Augie" Meyers (born May 31, 1940) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, performer, studio musician, record producer, and record label owner. He is perhaps best known as a founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas ...
on accordion, Tony Garnier on bass and
David Kemper David Law Kemper (born 1947/8 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American rock drummer who was a member of the Jerry Garcia Band (1983–1994) and Bob Dylan's band (1996–2001). He was with the Jerry Garcia Band from 1983 until January 1994, when he w ...
on drums and percussion. The backing vocalist(s) are unidentified but are likely Sexton and/or Campbell since they often harmonized with Dylan on vocals in live performance around this time.


Critical reception

Andy Greene, writing in ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'', where the song placed second on a list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century" (behind only "
Things Have Changed "Things Have Changed" is a song from the film ''Wonder Boys'', written and performed by Bob Dylan and released as a single on May 1, 2000, that won both the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. ...
"), notes that, for Dylan,
Charley Patton Charley Patton (April 1891 (probable) – April 28, 1934), also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American mus ...
's title was "really just a jumping-off point for a mythic ramble through 20th-century Americana that touches on
Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...
’s '
Dust My Broom "Dust My Broom" is a blues song originally recorded as "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" by American blues artist Robert Johnson in 1936. It is a solo performance in the Delta blues-style with Johnson's vocal accompanied by his acoustic guitar. A ...
',
Big Joe Turner Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American singer from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." His greatest fame was due to ...
, the
Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...
, and the folk ballad ' The Cuckoo'. (As the title of the album suggests, these songs contain both things he loved and things he stole.)" ''Spectrum Culture'' included the song on a list of "Bob Dylan's 20 best songs of the '00s". In an article accompanying the list, critic Tyler Dunston saw the line "Folks are leaving town" as a reference to the Great Migration of African-Americans displaced by the
Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States, with inundated in depths of up to over the course of several months in early 1927. The uninflated cost of the damage has been estimat ...
and notes that "Dylan’s referentiality casts light on a web of interwoven threads of U.S. history which are impossible to disentangle—disaster, displacement, systemic racism and the history of popular music". In a 2021 essay, Sean Latham discussed the song in relation to both Patton's work and the Mississippi flood: "
atton Atton () is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in northeastern France. Population See also *Communes of the Meurthe-et-Moselle department The following is a list of the 591 Communes of France, communes of the Meurthe-et-Moselle Dep ...
famously coaxed an extraordinary range of sounds from his voice and guitar to describe the devastation of a 1927 flood on the Mississippi that killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands of black families, thus helping to propel a new wave of the Great Migration. In Dylan's version of the song, the waters crash through the entire sweep of human history, from the biblical flood to the
Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, the
Jim Crow South The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
, and even modern philosophy. Charley Patton thus jostles with
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
, Big Joe Turner (the blues shouter who sang
Shake, Rattle and Roll "Shake, Rattle and Roll" is a song, written in 1954 by Jesse Stone (usually credited as Charles Calhoun, his songwriting name). The original recording by Big Joe Turner is ranked number 127 on the ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of The 500 Gr ...
), and the English materialist philosopher
George Lewes George Henry Lewes (; 18 April 1817 – 30 November 1878) was an English philosopher and critic of literature and theatre. He was also an amateur physiologist. American feminist Margaret Fuller called Lewes a "witty, French, flippant sort of ...
". A 2021 ''Consequence'' article ranking Dylan's top 15 albums placed ''Love and Theft'' 10th and cited "High Water" as the highlight, claiming it is "notable that in approaching complex histories on this record, Dylan doesn’t simply paraphrase the story in his own words; rather, he lets the stories of others show through the cracks in his song, interweaving their voices with his". Josh Hurst, writing for ''In Review'' 20 years after the release of ''Love and Theft'', saw the song as emblematic of a pessimistic worldview that runs through the album as a whole: "It’s easy to trace a faint misanthropy through these songs, or at least a dim view of our species’ capacity for forward momentum and growth. 'High Water', a jaded reckoning with ecological, social, and/or financial collapse, shrugs at the notion of Darwinian evolution and lands on this inspiring line: '''As great as you are, man, you’ll never be greater than yourself. Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon write in their book that "Dylan's splendid vocals make 'High Water (For Charley Patton)' one of the best pieces on the album". ''
The Big Issue ''The Big Issue'' is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or indivi ...
'' placed it at #62 on a 2021 list of the "80 best Bob Dylan songs - that aren't the greatest hits" and implied that apocalyptic lines like "“It’s bad out there, high water everywhere” seemed to chime with the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
.


Cultural references

The song directly quotes three classic folk and blues songs in the last two verses: * "The cuckoo is a pretty bird / She warbles as she flies" is taken from the traditional ballad " The Cuckoo". * "I'm getting up in the morning / I believe I'll dust my broom" is a quote from
Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...
's "
Dust My Broom "Dust My Broom" is a blues song originally recorded as "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" by American blues artist Robert Johnson in 1936. It is a solo performance in the Delta blues-style with Johnson's vocal accompanied by his acoustic guitar. A ...
". * "
Bertha Mason Bertha Antoinetta Rochester (née Mason) is a character in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel ''Jane Eyre''. She is described as the violently insane first wife of Edward Rochester, who moved her to Thornfield Hall and locked her in a room on the ...
shook it – broke it, then she hung it on the wall" is Dylan's version of the refrain in Charley Patton's "Shake It and Break It", which he has amended to include a character from
Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She enlisted i ...
's novel ''
Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
''.


In popular culture

An instrumental portion of "High Water" is prominently featured in the
Richard Gere Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Heaven'' (1978). He came to prominence with ...
-starring "
Billy the Kid Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty; September 17 or November 23, 1859July 14, 1881), also known by the pseudonym William H. Bonney, was an outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West, who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at t ...
" segment of ''
I'm Not There ''I'm Not There'' is a 2007 musical drama film directed by Todd Haynes, and co-written by Haynes and Oren Moverman. It is an unconventional biographical film inspired by the life and music of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors de ...
'',
Todd Haynes Todd Haynes (; born January 2, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender ...
' unconventional biographical film about Dylan.


Live performances

Since 2001 Dylan has performed the song 725 times on the
Never Ending Tour The Never Ending Tour is the popular name for Bob Dylan's ongoing touring schedule which began on June 7, 1988. During the course of the tour, musicians have come and gone as the band has continued to evolve. The tour amassed a huge fan base with ...
. A live version of the song performed in
Niagara Falls, Ontario Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is on the western bank of the Niagara River in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario, with a population of 88,071 at the 2016 census. It is part of the St. Catharines - Niagara Census M ...
on August 23, 2003 is included in '' The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs'' (2008). A live version of the song performed on February 1, 2002 in Sunrise, Florida was made available to stream on Dylan's official website in April 2002. Another live version of the song, performed in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on April 25, 2005, was also made available to stream on Dylan's official website in May 2005. The live debut occurred at the
Staples Center Crypto.com Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Downtown Los Angeles. Adjacent to the L.A. Live development, it is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex along Figueroa Street. The arena opened on October 17, 1999; it was ...
in
Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
on October 19, 2001 and the last performance (to date) took place at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center in
Midland, Texas Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States. A small part of Midland is in Martin County. At the 2020 census, Midland's population was 132,524. It is the principal city of the Midland, Texas metropolitan ...
on October 9, 2018.


Notable cover

Joan Osborne Joan Elizabeth Osborne (born July 8, 1962) is an American singer, songwriter, and interpreter of music, having recorded and performed in various popular American musical genres including rock, pop, soul, R&B, blues, and country. She is best kn ...
covered it for her 2017 album ''Songs of Bob Dylan'', a version that was released as a single in advance of the LP.


References


External links


Lyrics
at Bob Dylan's official site
Chords
at Dylanchords
Bob Dylan's "High Water" - for Charley Patton - an analysis- Part 1 by Kees de Graaf
{{Bob Dylan Cultural depictions of blues musicians Songs written by Bob Dylan Bob Dylan songs 2001 songs Song recordings produced by Bob Dylan