High Water (For Charley Patton)

"High Water (For Charley Patton)" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as the seventh track on his 31st studio album "Love and Theft" in 2001. The song draws its title from Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere", and is meant as a tribute to that bluesman[1] although Dylan scholar Tony Attwood notes that the song, both musically and lyrically, has little point of contact with the original Patton work.[2]

"High Water (For Charley Patton)"
Song by Bob Dylan
from the album Love and Theft
ReleasedSeptember 11, 2001
RecordedMay 2001
GenreFolk rock, blues, Americana
Length4:04
LabelColumbia
Songwriter(s)Bob Dylan
Producer(s)Jack Frost
Love and Theft track listing
12 tracks
  1. "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum"
  2. "Mississippi"
  3. "Summer Days"
  4. "Bye and Bye"
  5. "Lonesome Day Blues"
  6. "Floater (Too Much to Ask)"
  7. "High Water (For Charley Patton)"
  8. "Moonlight"
  9. "Honest With Me"
  10. "Po' Boy"
  11. "Cry a While"
  12. "Sugar Baby"

Andy Greene, writing in Rolling Stone, where the song placed second on a list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century," notes that, for Dylan, Patton's title was "really just a jumping-off point for a mythic ramble through 20th-century Americana".[3]

Cultural references

The song directly quotes three classic folk and blues songs in the last two verses:

"The cuckoo is a pretty bird / She warbles as she flies" is taken from the traditional ballad "The Cuckoo".

"I'm getting up in the morning / I believe I'll dust my broom" is a quote from Robert Johnson's "Dust My Broom".

"Bertha Mason shook it – broke it, then she hung it on the wall" is Dylan's amended version of a refrain in Charley Patton's "Shake It and Break It".

An instrumental portion of "High Water" is prominently featured in the Richard Gere-starring "Billy McCarty" segment of I'm Not There, Todd Haynes' unconventional biographical film about Dylan.[4]

Live performances

Since 2001 Dylan has performed the song 725 times on the Never Ending Tour.[5] A version of the song from August 2003 is included in The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs (2008).

Cover versions

English singer Barb Jungr covered the song on her 2003 album Waterloo Sunset.

Joan Osborne covered the song on her 2017 album Songs of Bob Dylan.

References
  1. Ward, Thomas. "High Water (For Charley Patton)". allmusic.com. Retrieved February 9, 2013.
  2. "High Water (For Charley Patton) | Untold Dylan". Bob-dylan.org.uk. 2013-05-05. Retrieved 2013-06-30.
  3. Vozick-Levinson, Jon Dolan,Patrick Doyle,Andy Greene,Brian Hiatt,Angie Martoccio,Rob Sheffield,Hank Shteamer,Simon; Dolan, Jon; Doyle, Patrick; Greene, Andy; Hiatt, Brian; Martoccio, Angie; Sheffield, Rob; Shteamer, Hank; Vozick-Levinson, Simon (2020-06-18). "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  4. I'm Not There (2007) - IMDb, retrieved 2020-12-13
  5. "Bob Dylan Tour Statistics | setlist.fm". www.setlist.fm. Retrieved 2020-12-24.
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