"Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)" is a minor-key ballad written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and released as the sixth track (or the second song on Side 2 of the vinyl) of his 18th studio album Street-Legal (1978). The song was produced by Don DeVito and later anthologized on the Biograph box set in 1985. Street-Legal was remixed and remastered for a 1999 compact disc release, with a further 5.1 remix done for a Super Audio CD release in 2003. Both re-releases featured the song.
It is the song from Street-Legal that Dylan has played the most in live performance,[1] and the one that has been covered the most by other artists.[2]
Background and recording
Dylan has told several somewhat contradictory stories about the origins of "Señor". When introducing the song in live performance in 1978, he told the story of how "he was on a train going from Mexico to San Diego and how a strange old man got on the train, and Dylan felt the urge to talk to him. Apparently, the story told in the concerts started off fairly simply and gradually expanded adding the notion that when Dylan finally did want to talk to the man, he had gone".[3]Rolling Stone quoted Dylan as describing the man on the train as "150 years old… Both his eyes were burning, and there was smoke coming out of his nostrils".[4]
Another time, Dylan introduced the song by saying it had been inspired by actor Harry Dean Stanton with whom he had starred in Sam Peckinpah's 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.[5] Finally, in an interview accompanying the Biograph booklet, Dylan said it was "about the aftermath of when two people who were leaning on each other because neither one of them had the guts to stand up alone, all of a sudden they break apart". He added, "I think I felt that way when I wrote it".[6]
In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon compare it to Dylan's earlier south-of-the-border adventure songs "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" from 1965 and "Romance in Durango" from 1976. They interpret the song as being narrated by a man who "hopes to find the woman who has left him" while he "questions the one who appears as his guide (or is it his conscience?). Which road to follow? Where is his loved one hiding? This long journey, full of terrifying scenes, ends with a final struggle between good and evil (like the New Testament's Battle of Armageddon)". They also note that "the atmosphere of the song is Spanish or Mexican, without lapsing into caricature".[7]
Critical reception
Spectrum Culture included the song on a list of "Bob Dylan's 20 Best Songs of the 1970s". In an article accompanying the list, critic Justin Cober-Lake calls it "the highlight" of Street-Legal and praises it for the way it blends "mythic language" with "concrete detail". He specifically sees the song as juxtaposing the "Old West" and the Bible, noting that this imagery is well-served by the music: "The thoughtful orchestration and arrangement develop the song by leaving enough space for the sand to get in (in 1978, Dylan needed to resist over-complicating the track). The horns create the setting but then get out of the way. The song builds just a little, peaking with Dylan’s frustration at his unanswered questions. The horns pick up again to lead us out of the wilderness without letting us forget the desolation, the band ending an apocalyptic vision with a strange (but fitting) decrescendo".[8]
A 2021 Guardian article included it on a list of "80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know".[9]Rolling Stone listed the song at #100 on its list of 100 greatest Bob Dylan songs, describing it as a "baffling-yet-haunting country-rock epic".[4]
The song is also featured in Conor McPherson's musical play Girl from the North Country, which is scored entirely by Bob Dylan songs and had its premiere at the Old Vic in London in 2017. The song is included on the Original London Cast Recording album, also released in 2017,[16] and the Original Broadway Cast Recording album released in 2021.[17]
^Margotin, Philippe; Jean-Michel Guesdon (2015). Bob Dylan : all the songs : the story behind every track (First ed.). New York. ISBN978-1-57912-985-9. OCLC869908038.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Margotin, Philippe; Jean-Michel Guesdon (2015). Bob Dylan : all the songs : the story behind every track (First ed.). New York. ISBN978-1-57912-985-9. OCLC869908038.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
