Northern Claim

Only clouds and rain
Are all that I find in this
Dreary northern claim.

A poor recording of a fragment of a song, "Northern Claim" has the intriguing makings of a real song, but it never got past this rough recording made with the Band in the Basement Tapes rehearsal sessions of 1967. I can't find lyrics anywhere, so I did my best to transcribe them. I don't know what a northern claim is, and I don't really have enough material here for a haiku, but I gave it a shot. I wonder if it's a homestead claim, such as the pioneers received as they moved west in the 19th century, but I really don't know. This song is available on volume 11 of the Bootleg Series.

xxxx Well I took
First 
On a xxxx charge
Ballin' to darling
And southern barge
Well it's hard to make my getaway 
With pouring rain
Left myself inside the northern claim
Northern claim
Such sound of rain
Northern claim
Now all my life dependents on a man of my dependence on a northern claim
Well I was found myself an ocean
With a $10 fly
And the tombstone ladies looking passed on by
Well it's a bodies' a coming
And my jap mobile
And I spend xxxxxx
I rob, murder or steal
And it was northern claim
Beg xxxxx sound of rain
Northern claim
Suicidal rain
Well it don't matter what you,
Don't matter, xxxxxxx
Southern claim