The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show - The Band

The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show - The Band

2:59

Stage Fright, 1970

Written by Robbie Robertson

Like Neil Diamond's "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show," released a year earlier, this song is about a long gone slice of Americana, the traveling medicine show.  This one is a bit darker, more carnival than faith healer, and is based on a specific minstrel show from Levon Helm's youth in Arkansas, F. S. Wolcott's Original Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, which began around 1900 as "The Rabbit's Foot Company."  On the surface, the lyrics sketch colorful performers and carnival atmosphere ("There's a young faith healer / He's a woman stealer / He will cure by his command"), but the song can also be read as a commentary on show business itself: part celebration, part cautionary tale about spectacle and excess ("Come on out and catch this show / There'll be saints and sinners, you'll see losers and winners").  It starts with funky guitar, leading into Helm's countrified vocal with Danko's backing.  Garth Hudson's buzzy sax adds some vaudevillian swagger.

Johnny Todd - Bob Dylan & the Band

Johnny Todd - Bob Dylan & the Band

2:05

The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete, 2014 (recorded 1967)

traditional

This is a 19th century morality tale about a sailor who goes off to sea only to find that his love has married another fast-talking sailor who promises her "golden blankets" and a wedding ring.  "All you men who go a-sailing / For to fight the foreign foe / Don't leave your love like Johnny / Marry her before you go."  Over a drunken carnival piano line, Dylan sings it with a wink, playing the story straight but not exactly with reverence. 

Ophelia - The Band

Ophelia - The Band

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.