The French Girl

French girls are trouble.
They will love you and leave you.
Au revoir? Jamais.

This is a song from Ian & Sylvia's 1966 album "Play One More." It's a bittersweet tale of what happens when you hook up with a French girl who won't tell you her name. She's undoubtedly bent on maintaining her independence, as you can see:

1. She wears three silver rings on the crazy Saturday night that you spent at her place.
2. But first: Saturday morning! It's raining, you go walking on winding roads back to her house.
3. You drink Red wine (French wine, of course) at her place. You get it on, fall asleep.
4. She wakes up and you make small talk. You have to go, but you promise to meet her. She names a place.
5. When you go to the French cafe, nobody there speaks English so they can't tell you where she is. (This is Canada, so I'm assuming that the inability to find a single person to speak English on such an important affair is stretching it.)
6. You tell another guy that he might run into this girl in Canada, and that the chances of managing to keep her are low because she's too much for you.
7. PS, after your affair with her, you'll never be the same.

Dylan recorded the song with the Band during the Basement Tapes sessions in 1967.

Four Strong Winds

Canada drifter
Invites girl to Alberta,
But halfheartedly

If you're not listening closely to the words in this Ian and Sylvia song, you (as in "I") get the impression that it's a weepy song about lost love and the pain of enforced separation of lovers. But it's not. It's a far more ambiguous song about the selfish singer and the lover whose affections seem real, while his are suspect. 

The song begins with the brilliant beginning of the repeated chorus:
"Four strong winds that blow lonely, Seven seas that run high."
"All these things that don't change, Come what may.

And then...
"But our good times are all gone,
And I'm bound for moving on.
I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way."

You can tell that he's not into it anymore, so he's looking to light out on the road. To where? The middle of frigging nowhere, of course. And he leaves her with a promise, of course. "I'll look for you if." If!

At that point, he thinks:

"Think I'll go out to Alberta,
Weather's good there in the fall.
Got some friends that I can go to working for..."

Just at the point you think that he's happy that he's gotten her out of his hair, he makes this plea:

"Still I wish you'd change your mind
If I asked you one more time,
But we've been through that a hundred times or more."

Who's the ambivalent one in this relationship? My money is on the singer, especially given the maybe-maybe-not of the next lines:

"If I get there before the snow flies,
And if things are going good,
You could meet me if I send you down the fare.
But by then it will be winter, there ain't too much for you to do,
And those wind sure can blow way out there."

Maybe I read too cynically. Maybe they both know the relationship is dead, and he can't bring himself to make a clean break.

Whatever it's all about, it's a lovely song, and it hits you with the heartbreak of the big sky and the prairie just like a good song should.

Bob Dylan recorded this with the Band during the 1967 Basement Tapes sessions. It's a rough job, but has its own flawed beauty. Here it is, followed by a live performance by Ian and Sylvia from 1986 and Neil Young's performance of it from the film "Heart of Gold." I recommend his studio version on "Comes a Time." It's my favorite version.

Song for Canada (One Single River)

Ian Tyson's song
Might be a love letter to
Quebec separatists.