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Seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying, "This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem."
I traveled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, I heard the hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
(And) see the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
(I can) hear the undertaker's bell
(Yeah), nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
There's a woman by the river
With some fine young handsome man
He's dressed up like a squire
Bootlegged whiskey in his hand
There's a chain gang on the highway
I can hear them rebels yell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what's His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of the St James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Saying, "This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem."
I traveled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, I heard the hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
(And) see the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
(I can) hear the undertaker's bell
(Yeah), nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
There's a woman by the river
With some fine young handsome man
He's dressed up like a squire
Bootlegged whiskey in his hand
There's a chain gang on the highway
I can hear them rebels yell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what's His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of the St James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
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After the first verse sets the tone, the second paints a tableau of charcoal gypsy maidens (or is that "chaco"? I love Dylan's use of descriptive words!) below a hoot owl in barren trees. I see the moment depicted as one before the discovery of the New World, a time when the Americas where sparsely populated, "barren". Trees are barren of course in winter, at the start of the the year, so it also refers to the start of America's story.
Then the white men arrive in the next verse with slaves in tow. It's powerful and mostly self-explanatory, but when Dylan sings of "tribes moaning" - is it the tribes of Africa torn apart by slave traders, or the tribes of Native Americans overran by Manifest Destiny, or both? The tolling of the undertaker's bell signifies the end of the old way of life.
The next scene could at first be a moment from anywhere and anytime, but a young man "dressed up like a squire / Bootlegged whisky in his hand" can only be found in the 1920s and 30s, a point backed up with the chain gang on the highway image that immediately follows. By the way, when he hears "them rebels yell" are we still in the 1930s or have we jumped forward to the 1940s and the greatest generation fighting in WWII, rebelling against the evil Nazis? Of course, a lot of the chain gangs of the 1930s would have been conscripted into the armies of the following decade!
The last verse I see as Dylan's condemnation of modern America, greedy and grasping and so busy trying to be the greatest without stopping to think that maybe it's the little moments that count, that make life worth living in the first place. As other posters have commented, the St James Hotel was a real hotel in New Orleans, tying the story back to the opening verse, but for St James Hotel, even though I'm not religious I read also St James Bible. Is Dylan saying that we've lost our way and should look to the Bible to find ourselves again?
That's my interpretation anyway and I'm sure everyone has their own. As far as I'm concerned, this just beats Mr Tambourine Man as my favourite Dylan song.
And we all want what's his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
I'd comment, but there's nothing I can say that would add anything to this. In fact whatever I'd say would only take away from it, even this.
I'm posting to correct an error in the lyrics. It should be:
Well, I heard that hoe-down singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Was his only audience
A hoedown is an outdoor musical dance, that the narrator was commenting on, and had finished, and so McTell sat alone under the stars after the party was done and gone, and played his blues and true music perhaps at the site of the stage where the performers sang. No one there, but the stars and trees. Beautiful image.
One of his best lines ever:
Well, God is in heaven
And we all want what's his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
"This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem."
"But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is"
So like everythings falling to peices but the only one who worthy of mourning this tragedy is blind willie Mctell but he dead
Mind the fact that Dylan has changed the lyrics of the first stanza at live concerts into: `All the way from New Orleans to New Jerusalem` This part seams to deal with the hard times of a black blues singer who`s struggles will go on till`kingdom come. In the same verse he tells the story of many slaves who died by the hand of the KKK for their believes in Eastern Texas.
The second verse probably is somewhat more autobiographical since its telling the story of people who work at a carnival. Dylan used to work at a gypsy circus in his younger years (listen to the gaslight tapes)
The third verse then again tells the story of the slaves who came in oproar against their opressors. This part is written in beautifull imagery. For example: The magnolia starts to bloom as soon as it gets the possibility to do so. Many magnolias die because they bloom to soon.
I Truly don`t know what the fourth verse means. It might be the immage of love for woman and booze in Blind Willie`s early career.
The last verse is pretty clear as it deals with the preaching of blind willi mctell. He told people that no matter how hard live is only God will care for you. We should never give up the struggle even though there is so much pain in this world. the second part of this verse seams pretty clear to me now thanks to this qoute of geranium kisses:
the St james was a real place that opened as a hotel in New Orleans in 1859 but during the civil War was converted by occupying Union troops into a military hospital.
well that about wraps it up for today.