Lyrics:

The Song:

During his tour of Europe in 2001, Beck took to beginning his sets with a solo acoustic song. Sometimes, it was "Pay No Mind;" other times, it was a solo blues jam. Reports from people who saw the setlist say this blues song was referred to as simply "Acoustic Blues" or sometimes "Acoustic (in D)." Really, it's just an untitled blues song, cobbled together from old blues lines and images.

For instance, Beck sang the lines about "two white horses" in one of his live covers of "Ella Speed." I believe it originates in Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" where "there's two white horses in a line / will take me to my burying ground." It seems likely this came from an even older song called "Two White Horses In A Line." Blind Lemon is one of Beck's favorites: his songs include "Nobody's Fault But Mine" and "Keep Your Lamplight Trimmed and Burning."

Meanwhile, "take me to my burying ground" also shows up in at least one version of "John Hardy." See here.

Then in 2005, Beck mutated the song into "Farewell Ride" for Guero.

Live:

Played live 9 times:
Earliest known live version: June 23, 2001
Latest known live version: July 14, 2001

Beck did not play this song all that many times. But there are a few bootlegs of it, which I'll just take in order here.

The first one I have is from June 26, 2001. It shows a similar structure of the "road / soul / horses" verse with a short guitar solo in between. Beck plays acoustic slide guitar.

The next version from June 29, 2001 is just incredible. Haunting. Beck's voice is perfect, and he even adds some harmonica to the song, which really filled it out.

The July 1, 2001 performance has a very short harmonica bit, and Beck flips some of the verses around. Similarly, on July 12, there was again no harmonica at all, and verses are flipped. I do like how he ends the song with some fancy "take me to my last farewell / take me for my last / take me for..." improvised ending.