Traditional / Arrangement Bob Dylan / 3:24
Musician
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: November 20 and 22, 1961
Technical Team
Producer: John Hammond
Sound Engineers: George Knuerr and Pete Dauria
Originally a Scottish ballad called “The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie” and “Pretty Peggy of Derby” in England, it tells of the thwarted love between a soldier and a young girl. “The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie” is one of those little treasures unveiled by Cecil Sharp during his travels in the Appalachian mountains in 1916 and 1918. Meanwhile, this traditional song has evolved: the lyrics were changed and the title changed to “Pretty Peggy-O.”
Bob Dylan’s version is different from the original spirit of the song. He seems to want to tell pretty Peggy that the time has come for her to have some fun, insofar as both contenders are gone: the lieutenant who went to the rodeo in Texas, and the captain who died and was buried in Louisiana. The best later renditions include those of Simon & Garfunkel, Joan Baez, and the Grateful Dead.
Dylan sings this “Pretty Peggy-O” in a country style. The influence of Woody Guthrie is still present, with the guitar and harmonica (in G) to remind us. Dylan opened a concert on November 4, 1961, at Carnegie Chapter Hall in New York with “Pretty Peggy-O” before an audience of fifty-three people, eighteen days before entering the studio. On November 22, during his second recording session, “Pretty Peggy-O” was recorded in just two takes, the second being the best. Note that at 0:37 you can hear a plosive on the word pretty, which confirms Hammond’s judgment about Dylan’s lack of technical expertise at the microphone. In Dylan’s defense, “Pretty Peggy-O” is the worst nightmare for sound engineers: two successive plosives!