3:32
Northern Lights - Southern Cross, 1975
Written by Robbie Robertson
This is a funky throwback Dixieland shuffle, with New Orleans style sax lines and Levon Helm on lead vocal. sounding regretful but undeterred. The lyrics tell of the narrator's attempt to find the titular Ophelia, who has left town, apparently in a hurry ("Boards on the window, mail by the door / What would anybody leave so quickly for?"). Some critics see Ophelia as a black woman in a Southern town, forced to flee because of Southern attitudes towards interracial relationships with the white singer: "Honey, you know we broke the rule / Was somebody up against the law?" The line "Please darken my door" seems to further support this interpretation.
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