LILY OF THE WEST
“Lily of the West” is a traditional Irish folk song, best known today as an American folk song. The American version is about a man who travels to Louisville and falls in love with a woman named Mary, Flora or Molly, the eponymous Lily of the West. He catches Mary being unfaithful to him, and, in a fit of rage, stabs the man she is with, and is subsequently imprisoned. In spite of this, he finds himself still in love with her. Bob Dylan among others has recorded the song. (More from Wikipedia)
Dylan is a recent rescue from Katrina, however, and I found it surprisingly easy to listen to. The album is entirely cover songs, many of them quite familiar; and if Dylan’s performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” leaves no impression at all, that is not true of the lesser known songs.
The opening track, a traditional folk song called “Lily of the West” is beautifully performed; and the album is well worth owning for that song alone. Personally I am at least as big a fan of Bob Dylan as a folksinger as I am of Bob Dylan as a rocker, and this song was a welcome return to the performances that I remember so well from his early albums.
(August 2014)
