Dylan Songs: "Girl from the North Country" Quiz

Answer: Johnny Cash

Dylan's duet with Johnny Cash was the opening track of Dylan's 1969 country album "Nashville Skyline." Johnny Cash contributed both vocals and guitar for the song. Marshall Grant played bass guitar on the song, while W.S. Holland was on drums and Bob Wootton on electric guitar.

Answer: Boots of Spanish Leather

In Rolling Stone magazine, Keith wrote that he saw these songs as a sort of trilogy: "Is Ramona the girl from the north country? Is she the same chick who sends the boots of Spanish leather? There's some connection between them." He points out that the guitar lick is "almost the same" in "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "Girl From the North Country," concluding, "It's like an extension of the same song."

Answer: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

The song was recorded on April 24 at Columbia Recording studio in New York and released as a single from the album on May 27. An alternate title for the song is "Girl of the North Country" (rather than "from"). According to Matt Steichen in the Star Tribune, the song was written for Bob Dylan's high school sweetheart Echo Helstrom Casey, but others have suggested it might have been inspired by his then girlfriend Suzie Rotolo.

Answer: Live at Budokan

Live versions of the song are recorded on "Real Live", on the soundtrack to the 2005 Martin Scorsese Documentary "No Direction Home," and on "The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration," which was released in 1993. Versions of the song can be found on both Bootleg Volume 13 and Volume 15. Dylan has performed the song live in concert more than 565 times.

Answer: on the borderline

"Girl from the North Country" has a similar feel to Dylan's song "If You See Her, Say Hello." In the case of "If You See Her, Say Hello," however, it is the woman who roams away instead of the man:

"If you see her, say hello
She might be in Tangier
She left here last early spring
Is livin' there, I hear..."

Answer: a coat so warm

"If you go when the snowflakes falls
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see for me if she's wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin' winds."

Tony Attwood on the "Untold Dylan" blog reports that Dylan, before performing this song live, used to have a habit of announcing, "this was a song about the first girl I ever loved, but she left me for an older man and she's in the audience tonight."

Answer: With her hair hanging down

"See for me if her hair's hanging down
It curls and falls all down her breast
See for me that her hair's hanging down
That's the way I remember her best."

On the "Untold Dylan" blog, Tony Atwood points out that the concept of the "north country" features prominently in English folk music "as a symbol of a place unharmed by the horrors of industrialisation, where people live still in a calm way at one with each other and nature."

Answer: Joe Cocker

The live Joe Cocker album was recorded live at Fillmore East in New York City on March 27 and 28 in 1970. It included numerous covers, including "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" by the Beatles.

Answer: Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart's fifth studio album, "Smiler," was released on October 4, 1974, and contained a version of Dylan's song. "Girl from the North Country" was also covered by the Counting Crows on their 2013 live album "Echoes of the Outlaw Roadshow" and by Neil Young on his 2014 album "A Letter Home."

Answer: Sons of Anarchy

The Lions were a rock band from Austin, Texas who were active from 2005 to 2010. Their version of the song has a very different feel from Dylan's original - more psychedelic rock than folk. Other musicians who have covered "Girl from the North Country" include The Clancy Brothers, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, John Waite, Tony Rice, and Roseanne Cash.