That Fort Worth performance from the Rolling Thunder Revue is perhaps Bob Dylan‘s finest hour. A few caveats to that, of course. It’s his best live album (Hard Rain) release to date and will likely remain as such unless there’s an official release for his Time Out of Mind shows in the works. Those were glorious listens, and bootlegs are available for just about every one of those shows. That’s the case for the 1976 tour too, where Dylan performed some of his at-the-time contemporary powerhouses alongside a variety of classics from his discography. The John Wesley Harding song, I Pity the Poor Immigrant, has been ignored entirely by Dylan since his ’76 performances. This one from Fort Worth is one of the last. Like Going, Going, Gone from the same live show, Dylan throws in a few slight changes that make all the difference to the context of the song. I Pity the Poor Immigrant is turned into a celebration of those who managed to find their freedom after hardship.
An enjoyable rendition of the song, absolutely, but understandably cut from Hard Rain. It fits well as the precursor to Shelter from the Storm but feels a touch too close to ragtime to leave much of an impact, particularly when it’s sandwiched between the roaring, electric guitar-led work heard in the highs of Hard Rain. I Pity the Poor Immigrant here feels more like a bit of a loose jam than anything else. A nice interpretation that, in isolation, is good fun. But as part of the wider performance heard on Hard Rain and soon to come on this fleshed-out Fort Worth release, it doesn’t add much. That’s not to discount the thrills of this piano-led piece from the Fort Worth spectacle. There’s an inevitable end in sight for I Pity the Poor Immigrant that relies on that piano-led instrumental jam and the noodling explosion, where all the instrumentals sync up and end on that same thump. It doesn’t do much for the message of the song, but it keeps to the expectations of the era.
You can hear Dylan doing this on earlier tours, just not with I Pity the Poor Immigrant. It’s not like you’re missing all that much in not having this printed on your copy of Hard Rain. But then with the context of songs yet to be released, particularly the preceding duo of Deportee and Railroad Boy, the inclusion of I Pity the Poor Immigrant feels only natural as a conclusion to a three-track run of socially conscious songwriting from Dylan. He, as well as the audience, needed a rest from the heavy heartbreaks heard elsewhere in the set, and I Pity the Poor Immigrant serves its purpose well. It sounds solid, too, it’s just not a song that’s ever going to blow away an audience, even when performed with all the swagger of a drunk at the piano and a nasally, career-best Dylan at the microphone.
Who knows why Dylan dropped I Pity the Poor Immigrant after his 1976 tour? It’s anyone’s guess, really. This Fort Worth live version may shine a light on the problems of adapting it to the stage, though. It needs that languid piano work even if it kills the momentum of what Hard Rain has been defined by, the electrified, drug-fuelled rock of the times. Joan Baez provides some solid backing vocals, those harmonies overshadowed somewhat by a piano player hoping to impress, trying just a touch too much to do so and becoming the core of the song in the process. A touch forgettable this interpretation, but then the John Wesley Harding version had the benefit of being a slowed, touching, harmonica-driven ballad. Dylan adapted almost all of his greatest hits into rock and roll territory during the Rolling Thunder Revue, and this is simply a worthy casualty.
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