A traditional ballad of the California Gold Rush, credited on Self Portrait as arranged by Alan Lomax, John Lomax and Frank Warner.
The words
An old prospector looks back on the wild days of the gold rush and the rough companions now long gone.
The song is a monologue from an aging forty-niner, recalling the gamblers, brawlers and dreamers who chased gold with him in California. One by one he tells how each came to a bad end, until he alone remains, poor and forgotten. Dylan sings it in a rough, weathered voice that suits the old man telling it. His reading leans into the ballad's mix of humour and melancholy about the American frontier.
A traditional song
Lyrics on bobdylan.com ↗Listen and watch
The words
An old prospector looks back on the wild days of the gold rush and the rough companions now long gone.
The song is a monologue from an aging forty-niner, recalling the gamblers, brawlers and dreamers who chased gold with him in California. One by one he tells how each came to a bad end, until he alone remains, poor and forgotten. Dylan sings it in a rough, weathered voice that suits the old man telling it. His reading leans into the ballad's mix of humour and melancholy about the American frontier.
A traditional song
Lyrics on bobdylan.com ↗In threads
The same year · 1970
Read onMusicBrainz ↗