Roots of Bob

Percy's Song

From the Biograph notes:

The beautiful melody line came from folk artist Paul Clayton.

"Paul was just an incredible songwriter and singer," said Dylan. "He must have known a thousand songs. I learned Pay Day at Coal Creek and a bunch of other songs from him. We played on the same circuit and I traveled with him part of the time. When you're listening to songs night after night, some of them rub off on you. Don't Think Twice was a riff that Paul had. And so was Percy's Song. Something I might have written might have been a take off on Hyram Hubbard, a civil war song he used to sing, but I don't know. A song like that would come to me because people were talking about the incident. A lot of folk songs are written from a character's point of view. House of the Rising Sun is actually from a woman's point of view. A lot of Irish ballads would be the same thing. A song like Percy's Song, you'd just assume another character's point of view. I did a few like that. There's another song called Dink's Song, which is sort of a work song, sung fro a woman's point of view, that a lot of guys used to sing...I wrote a song called Donald White which was about somebody else that I sang in the first person."

(end of Biograph notes)

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The similarity between "Percy's Song" and this variant of "Two Sisters" is striking. Aside from the repeated refrain of "the dreadful wind and rain", which Dylan (or maybe Paul Clayton?) changed to "the cruel rain and the wind", note the similarity between the last verse of these lyrics and Dylan's last verse of "Percy's Song" - "and the only song my guitar would play, was oh the cruel rain and the wind"

THE WIND AND RAIN (Two Sisters)

Two loving sisters was a-walking side by side,
Oh the wind and rain.
One pushed the other off in the waters, waters deep.
And she cried, "The dreadful wind and rain."

She swum down, down to the miller's pond,
Oh the wind and rain.
She swum down, down to the miller's, miller's pond.
Amd she cried, "The dreadful wind and rain."

Out run the miller with his long hook and line,
Oh the wind and rain.
Out run the miller with his long hook and line.
And she cried, "The dreadful wind and rain."

He hooked her up by the tail of the gown.
Oh the wind and rain.
He hooked her up by the tail of the gown,
And she cried, "The dreadful wind and rain."

They made fiddle strings of her long black hair,
Oh the wind and rain.
They made fiddle silings of her long black hair'
And she cried, "The dreadful wind and rain."

They made fiddle screws of her long finger bones.
Oh the wind and rain.
They made fiddle screws of her long finger bones,
And she cried, "The dreadful wind and rain."

The only tune that my fiddle would play, was
Oh the wind and the rain.
The only tune that my fiddle would play, was
And she cried, "The dreadful wind and rain."

From Southern Folk Ballads, McNeill, Collected from Dan Tate, VA,
1962
See also  TWOSIS ,  TWOSIS2
Child #10

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