Shortly after he recorded “Peggy Day” — exactly 56 years ago today, in fact, an appropriate choice for Valentine’s Day! — Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone magazine, “I kind of had The Mills Brothers in mind when I did that one.”
A laugh was shared by Dylan and RS Editor Jann Wenner over that thought. However, the remark later really would resonate in the world of The Flood, which has taken much musical inspiration from The Mills Brothers, on everything from “Up a Lazy River” and “Lulu’s Back in Town” to “Am I Blue?” and “Opus One.”
In other words, Floodsters heard in Bob’s little-loved love song a kind of pastiche of the 1930s and ‘40s, its rhythms recalling that era’s classic swing thing.
Stepchild
Still, "Peggy Day" remains one of the stepchildren in the Dylan oeuvre. In fact, the tune's only claim to fame is that it was the B-side when Bob released "Lay, Lady, Lay" as a hit single in the summer of '69.
Unlike a lot of Dylan songs, "Peggy Day" has no intriguing backstory or associated legend, no deep, nuanced lyrics to invite exegesis by college graduate seminars.
As a result, some Dylanologists seem to actually hate the tune. “Frankly, embarrassing,” Clinton Heylin once said of it, while Billboard magazine was even cheekier about the entire Nashville Skyline album from which it came: “The satisfied man speaks in clichés,” the magazine purred with a pucker.
Shout-Out to The Flood
No wonder “Peggy Day” is so seldom performed by other artists.
A few years ago, Tony Attwood started covering Dylan covers in a series of articles for his fascinating Untold Dylan web site.
When Tony turned to “Peggy Day,” he located only one non-Dylan recording of the song: The Flood’s version on its 2013 Cleanup & Recovery album.
Attwood was complementary of The Flood’s performance on the album, which featured the call-and-response vocals by Charlie Bowen and Michelle Hoge. (Click here to hear it, complete with solos by Sam St. Clair, Dave Peyton and Doug Chaffin.)
“It’s a jolly bit of fun,” Attwood wrote, “which shows this is certainly a song that has cover possibilities — in terms of a second vocalist — the harmonies in the middle 8 are gorgeous as is the instrumental break.”
A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ from The Vault
Actually, a decade before that the song almost made it onto an earlier Flood album. “Peggy Day” was among the dozens of numbers the band recorded during a 10-hour marathon studio session with the late, great George Walker, an evening that yielded 2003’s I’d Rather Be Flooded.
The tune didn’t make the cut for the album, but since things don’t get thrown away much around here, the rendition has been patiently passing its time in The Flood Files, just waiting for this moment to arise.
Click the button below to hear this archival “Peggy Day” treatment with Sam’s harmonica and Charlie’s vocals along with a bevy of late Flood tribal elders, including Joe Dobbs on fiddle, Chuck Romine on tenor banjo, Dave Peyton on Autoharp and Doug Chaffin on bass:
Our 2025 Take on the Tune
So, this bit of fluff from Bob’s fat and happy country squire days of the late 1960s is one of his least-recorded song, but The Flood obviously has always enjoyed playing it over the decades.
Here’s a joyous take on the tune from a recent rehearsal, featuring solos from everyone in the room, Danny and Randy, Sam and Jack. Happy Valentine’s Day, dear ones!
And Speaking of Love…
Finally, if you’d like a little more Flood in your day of love, remember The Valentine Blend playlist in the free Radio Floodango music streaming service. Click below to read all about it!
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