Song to Bonny: another unfinished Dylan set of lyrics now set to music

The idea of the Bob Dylan Showcase is twofold.  One part of it allows anyone who has recorded a Dylan song and who is a reader of our site to submit the recording and we’ll put it up.

The other surrounds the issue of a number of Dylan songs for which we have the lyrics and not any music.

Now I don’t know whether when we first stumbled on this project of writing the music to Dylan’s songs it attracted several talented writers along, and this put everyone else off, or whether people just got bored.  But one way or another, the entries have declined.  As a result we really have had to wait for the music to “Song to Bonny” to emerge, but now we have it.

And thus it is formally classified as “Song to Bonny” by Bob Dylan/Paul Robert Thomas.

Here is the music

Song To Bonny

And the lyrics

My Mother raised me tenderly
I was her pride and joy
She never meant for me to be
No wanderin’ homeless boy

I’m writing a song to a girl I once knew
It wasn’t so long but it seems so long ago
This ain’t no love song, none of its kind
It’s a song of remembrance of a girl in my mind

Hey Bonny I’m singing to you now
This song I’m singing is the best I know how
The songbirds are singing their voices do ring
And I’ll think of you as long as they sing

Hey Bonny Beecher I think that you know
What I am doing and where I must go
Can’t give you no ring of diamond or gold
But I’ll think about you wherever I go

Springtime’s a comin’ and the grass will turn green
The flowers’ll bloom and the leaves on the trees
Will all turn in color and all seem to shade
The wild Mississippi where you sit and wait

Where you sit and wait

Hey hey Bonny I wrote you a song
Cause I don’t know if I’ll see you again
I want you to know whatever I do
I’ll always remember that I once was with you

Remember me baby I’s good to you one time
I’m a wandering boy and you’re in my wandering mind

Spring Time's a comin’ and the grass’ll turn green
The flowers will bloom and the leaves on the trees
Will all turn in colors and all seems to shade
The wild Mississippi where you sit and wait

Where you sit and wait

Bob Dylan/Paul Robert Thomas