 Dylan biographer Sid Griffin has noted that , because no written records were kept of these 1967 recording sessions , " the world will have to live with the fact that it will never know exactly which Basement Tapes tune was recorded when and where " . Nonetheless , using clues such as the sound quality of different batches of songs , and where they appear on the original reels of tapes , attempts have been made to place the songs into a rough chronology and guess the locations at which they were likely recorded . Biographer Clinton Heylin places " Santa @-@ Fe " in the summer of 1967 at Big Pink . The liner notes of The Bootleg Series Volumes 1 – 3 date it in the fall of that year . Griffin lists it among the probable Big Pink recordings , and in a group of songs from around July , but <unk> it is also " unlikely [ but ] possible " it came from the Red Room . 
