Shotover river, your gold it is waning
It’s weeks since the colour I’ve seen
But it’s no use just sitting and Lady Luck blaming
So I’ll pack up and make the break clean

Farewell to the gold that never I found
Goodbye to the nuggets that somewhere abound
For it’s only when dreaming that I see you gleaming
Down in the dark, deep underground

It’s nearly two years since I left my old mother
For adventure and gold by the pound
With Jimmy the prospector - he was another
For the hills of Otago was bound

We worked the Cardrona’s dry valley all over
Old Jimmy Williams and me
But they were panning good dirt on the winding Shotover
So we headed down there just to see

We sluiced and we cradled for day after day
Making hardly enough to get by
Til a terrible flood swept poor Jimmy away
During six stormy days in July

From: Cover Songs Performed by Bob Dylan   http://www.bobsboots.com/info.html




Paul Metsers
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Information is current at the time of this writing (March 2005)
 
Paul Metsers' Farewell to the Gold has been performed live by Dylan
It can be heard on the boot release entitled Himself.

Paul Metsers is a singer-songwriter from New Zealand who played the Folk
clubs and festivals in the UK from 1980 to 1990 approx.  He was voted among
the top ten best male artists in the Folk music scene on Two polls, and is featured in the
Guiness Book of musicians.
He has 5 LP’s of his own songs and one song book, and is currently working on
putting out a double CD from the albums and a CD of previously unrecorded
material.

He wrote Farewell to the Gold in the late 1960’s in New Zealand and it was
first recorded in the UK on his first LP “Caution to the Wind” put out by
Highway Records in 1981.  Guest musicians on the track were Steve Turner
(concertinas) and Helen Watson and Nic Jones (harmony vocals).  The sleeve
notes from the LP say..

“Dedicated to the hundreds who sweated and risked life and limb in the hope
of striking it rich during the heyday of the New Zealand gold discoveries in
the latter decades of the last century.  Although the characters in the song
are fictitious, the flash flood did occur - in July, 1863, in fact - and
claimed the lives of tens of miners.  The Shotover and Cardrona valleys are
both in the South Island’s rugged and beautiful Central Otago.”

This song has had many covers over the years but the one Bob Dylan found was
by well known folk musician Nic Jones who recorded it on his LP “Penguin
Eggs” in 1980 (Topic Records TSCD411) having heard it on a tape of Paul’s
music before Paul came to the UK.  Sadly, Nic was seriously injured in a bad car
accident in 1982 and has never performed or recorded since... a huge loss to the folk music scene.

Paul currently lives and works in the English Lake District making wooden
board games (http://www.sagemcrafts.freeserve.co.uk/) and is thrilled that one of his songs
has been sung by Bob Dylan, who is the ultimate folk hero for many musicians
and songwriters.  He can be contacted by email -
paul@mintcottage.freeserve.co.uk.

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From: Cover Songs Performed by Bob Dylan   http://www.bobsboots.com/info.html