High Water (For Charley Patton)

The words

A rising flood sweeps over a Southern landscape, and the people in its path scramble for safety.

As floodwaters rise across the South, the singer surveys a scene of panic and ruin, crowded with blues singers, figures from old songs and stray characters each facing the deluge. The verses are fragmentary and ominous, threaded with dark humor and hints of judgment, and nobody seems sure where safety lies. A driving banjo pushes the band forward. The song is dedicated to the Delta blues pioneer Charley Patton, who sang of an earlier great flood.