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Seven Curses 03:34
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about

The roots of Seven Curses spread wide and deep through countries and centuries. The song is part of folk music’s living tradition that binds past, present and future. Let’s begin in the present. Type “Fehér Anna” into an internet search engine and you’ll find plenty of present day Hungarian women of that name. In English, they are called Anna White. Fehér Anna is also a widely known song in the Hungarian folk tradition. The composer Béla Bartók included it in a book of folk songs published in 1906. Nobody knows how old it is, but the best bet is eighteenth century or earlier. Versions are found in other European countries including Greece, Spain and Italy.
Now A.L. (Bert) Lloyd enters the story. Bert (1908-1982) was a founding father of the British folk revival that was gathering pace half a century ago. He was a professional folklorist, song collector and singer who introduced a host of traditional songs to folk artists. Some songs were from Eastern European versions. He was no purist, and often embellished the originals. The evidence points to Bert translating Fehér Anna, or having it translated, then introducing it to Britain as Anathea (Fehér Anna... Anna Fehér... Anathea). In this translation, Anathea’s brother Lazlo is to hang for stealing a stallion. The judge promises to spare him in return for sex with her, but breaks the bargain. She curses him: Cursed be that judge so cruel, /Thirteen years may he lie bleeding. /Thirteen doctors cannot cure him, / Thirteen shelves of drugs can’t heal him.
Folk songs are great travellers. Anathea quickly crossed the Atlantic and was picked up by Judy Collins. She sang it widely on the US folk circuits in 1963 and still sings it thrillingly today. At the time she attributed the words to Neil Roth and the tune to Lydia Wood. This remains a puzzle. They may have worked on it, but it’s substantially the same as Bert Lloyd’s version which was also being sung by British folk artists such as Dave and Toni Arthur.
Bob Dylan’s first trip to England was in the winter of 1962-63, and he briefly experienced London’s thriving folk club scene. It’s possible that he heard Anathea sung during that trip, but he would certainly have heard Judy sing it on his return to the US. They were friendly at the time, and played on the same circuits. Dylan was just 22, a young man in a hurry, with brilliant songs bursting out of him. He was already an inspired borrower and shaper of traditional songs.
So Dylan re-wrote Anathea as Seven Curses – probably at speed, without knowledge of its history. He kept the basic story and some of the imagery, changed the hanged man from brother to father, and changed the curses. Both sets of curses say that death is too good for the cruel judge, so let him suffer enduring torment. Dylan’s curses are equally powerful but more mysterious. I can’t find references to them in folk traditions, and I think they came from his own imagination. Dylan’s Seven Curses retains the pity, rage and terror of Anathea. Both songs can make tears well up and hairs stand on the back of the neck. That’s what matters most, beyond questions of lineage.
The Spritely Records research budget is approximately nil. Trips to trawl through Hungarian libraries or to interview icons (just supposing the icons wished to be interviewed) are out of the question. So, needs must, I’ve relied on the internet. I’ve cast a critical eye over the fairly extensive material, and tried to discard the dodgy stuff. Probability has played a large part in the story so far. Certainty takes the starring role in what follows.
Dylan is known to have sung Seven Curses twice in concert. The first was at City Hall in New York in April 1963, not long before the release of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan LP. The second was in late October 1963 at Carnegie Hall in New York. The song was recorded in August 1963 for The Times They Are A-Changin’ LP. Dylan was in such a prolific phase of songwriting that it didn’t make the final cut when the album was released in January 1964, but its theme of injustice would have fitted in well. Seven Curses was not released until March 1991, on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-91. Bob didn’t share the credit with “Traditional” or anyone else. The song has been covered by Joan Baez and Tom Russell among others.
And that’s nearly it. But folk songs are like extended families, and I must introduce you to some important cousins of Fehér Anna / Anathea / Seven Curses. There’s a huge set of songs called Maid Freed From The Gallows or The Prickley Bush in Britain, Gallows Pole in the US, and other things in just about every country in Europe. In most versions a young woman will be hung unless the ransom is paid to the hangman. Her father, mother and brother fail her but her sweetheart pays it and all’s well. In some versions, the person to be hanged is a man and the ransom is paid by a woman. Gallows Pole has been recorded by Leadbelly and Led Zeppelin, among many others. In Zeppelin’s unique version, on their sometimes folky third album, the hangman accepts money from the convicted man’s brother and, by inference, has sex with his sister but still carries out the execution. Which brings us some of the way back to Seven Curses....
From Anonymous back in the mists of time, through Béla Bartók, Bert Lloyd, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, to Tim Bowden, Andrew Cowen and Hunt Emerson. So it goes on.

Tony Hendry

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released September 29, 2011

Seven Curses written by Bob Dylan

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