So there is that film out, called North Country, from the soundtrack to which comes Dylan’s new song Tell Ol’ Bill. I have no opinion about the film, because I haven’t seen it. The Duluth News Tribune has a story about how the makers found Dylan’s music to be a perfect fit for their movie. Other Dylan songs that are used include Sweetheart Like You, Lay Lady Lay and Girl of the North Country.

Oddly, of-course, one song that they don’t use - and which doesn’t get mentioned in the article either - is North Country Blues, from The Times They Are A-Changin’. It’s particularly odd because that song is specifically the tale of a north country mining town, and it is told from the point of view of a woman.

However, the woman in this case is not a miner herself (as is the character portrayed by Charlize Theron in the film), but is married to one, and we see the story of the town’s decline through her weary eyes. It’s really a wonderful song, and one that always tends to surprise me when I put that album on. It’s a good example of Dylan taking a topic that someone else would make into only a political diatribe (”the capitalist oppressors raping the land and discarding the workers”) and instead weaving an intimate poem that - more than anything else - shines its light on human nature itself.

So the mining gates locked
And the red iron rotted
And the room smelled heavy from drinking.
Where the sad, silent song
Made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking.

The summer is gone,
The ground’s turning cold,
The stores one by one they’re a-foldin’.
My children will go
As soon as they grow.
Well, there ain’t nothing here now to hold them.

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