Songfacts®:

• Written on a trip to California with Joan Baez, Mimi Fariña (Joan's Sister), and Richard Fariña, this song, along with "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll," was the only other reported song on this trip. Its first live performance was with Joan Baez struggling to sing harmony.
• Dylan wrote in the Biograph notes: "I wrote that on the West Coast, at Joan Baez's house. She had a place outside Big Sur. I had heard a Scottish ballad on an old 78 record that I was trying to really capture the feeling of, that was haunting me. I couldn't get it out of my head. I wanted lyrics that would feel the same way."
• This song was recorded as a demo for The Times They Are a-Changin', Dylan's 1964 release, but was cut from the album. It didn't appear until 1985 on his compilation Biograph.
• The song's melody closely resembles the folk standard "The Water is Wide."
• Dylan recorded the song on October 24, 1963, which was the same day he recorded the title track for The Time They Are a-Changin'. He performed at Carnegie Hall two days later and did "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" for the song's first and only known live performance. In 2005 Columbia Records released that live version on Live at Carnegie Hall 1963.
• In The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, Michael Gray points out that this song shares many commonalities with the Elven songs celebrating the homeland of Lothlorien in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (LoTR). Gray sees a clear influence both thematically and in terms of verse construction.
  
  It's an interesting analysis that might seem silly at first, but LoTR did indeed impact the '60s counterculture, so much so that "Frodo Lives" was a common hippie term. The words could be seen in graffiti all over the US and the UK, and were even on buttons, shirts and bumper-stickers.
  
  It wouldn't be the first time that Tolkien inspired music of the '60s and '70s. Led Zeppelin has referenced LoTR, most notably in "Ramble On."