Boots Of Spanish Leather (Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary – Live 1992) – Nanci Griffith & Carolyn Hester

There are very few Bob Dylan covers I prefer over the originals, but the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert (Live at Madison Square Garden, New York, October 1992) featured two exceptions: Lou Reed’s Foot of Pride and today’s song, Boots of Spanish Leather, performed by Nanci Griffith and Carolyn Hester. I would like to give a shout-out to Neil Young’s version of Just like Tom Thumb’s Blues which rocks, but Dylan’s version of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues from his legendary 1966 Live Bootleg album pips it for mine. For more information on Bob’s covers you can read Rolling Stone’s list of The 80 Greatest Dylan Covers of All Time.

Dylan liked Griffith and Hester’s version at the concert enough that he added his own harmonica to Griffith’s magnificent studio version, released the next year, in 1993 on her signature covers record Other Voices, Other Rooms. Griffith plays ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’ completely straight, laying bare the song’s heartbreak and agony by letting the song speak for itself, praises the Rolling Stone magazine. There are a whole host of covers of Boots of Spanish Leather (including Richie Havens and Joan Baez) which you can read in more detail at the Untold Dylan blog site.

You may have noticed that Girl From the North Country and Boots of Spanish Leather are very similar because they link strongly to the traditional song “Scarborough Fair“. Dylan drew upon it for aspects of the melody and lyrics especially Girl from the North Country, including the refrain, “Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine”. Ewan MacColl who featured here only recently with The Shoals Of Herring, first made the Scarborough Fair better known to contemporary audiences in 1947. Bob credited both Martin Carthy and Bob Davenport with helping him discover and understand the implications of these English folk songs.

Most of the following was abridged from the Wikipedia reference below:

Bob wrote Boots off Spanish Leather in 1963 and released it in 1964 on The Times They Are a-Changin’ whose title track appeared here just 4 days ago. It takes the form of a dialogue between two lovers, one of whom is going away on a long journey with the first six stanzas alternating between the two and the last three stanzas are given by the lover who has been left behind. She writes, asking whether her lover would like any gift and he refuses, stating that he only wants her back. Towards the end it becomes clear that she is not returning, and she finally writes saying she may never come back. Her lover comes to realize what has happened and finally gives her a material request: “Spanish boots of Spanish leather“. It has been described as a “restless, forlorn ballad for the ages and sages—a classic Dylan tale of two lovers, a crossroads, and the open sea“

[Verse 1]
Oh, I’m sailin’ away, my own true love
I’m a-sailin’ away in the mornin’
Is there somethin’ I can send you from across the sea
From the place that I’ll be landin’?

[Verse 2]
No, there’s nothin’ you can send me, my own true love
There’s nothin’ I’m a-wishing to be ownin’
Just a-carry yourself back to me unspoiled
From across that lonesome ocean

[Verse 3]
Ah, but I just thought you might want somethin’ fine
Made of silver or of golden
Either from the mountains of Madrid
Or from the coast of Barcelona

[Verse 4]
But if I had the stars of the darkest night
And the diamonds from the deepest ocean
I’d forsake them all for your sweet kiss
For that’s all I’m wishin’ to be ownin’

[Verse 5]
Well, I might be gone a long old time
And it’s only that I’m asking
Is there somethin’ I can send you to remember me by
To make your time more easy passin’?

[Verse 6]
Oh, how can, how can you ask me again?
It only brings me sorrow
The same thing I would want today
I would want again tomorrow

[Verse 7]
Oh, I got a letter on a lonesome day
It was from her ship a-sailin’
Sayin’, “I don’t know when I’ll be comin’ back again
It depends on how I’m a-feelin'”

[Verse 8]
If a-you, my love, must think that-a-way
I’m sure your mind is a-roamin’
I’m sure your thoughts are not with me
But with the country to where you’re goin’

[Verse 9]
So, take heed, take heed of the western winds
Take heed of the stormy weather
And, yes, there’s somethin’ you can send back to me
Spanish boots of Spanish leather

References:
1. Covers in Depth: Boots of Spanish Leather (part 1) – Untold Dylan
2. The 80 Greatest Dylan Covers of All Time – Rolling Stone (Australia)
3. Girl from the north country / Boots of Spanish Leather, the music and the lyrics – Untold Dylan
4. Boots of Spanish Leather – Wikipedia