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- Can a Dylan song be a life changing experience? The Drifter’s Escape expresses it all.
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- Philosophy of Modern Song: Old and Only in the Way. And McKinley.
- Key West part 27 (final): A tapestry of rich and royal hue
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Recent articles
- Can a Dylan song be a life changing experience? The Drifter’s Escape expresses it all.
- Mother of Muses 1: The lyre and the laurel tree
- Dylan songs as a life changing experience: Every grain of sand
- Mani And Mona
- Untold Dylan: the book series
- Philosophy of Modern Song: Old and Only in the Way. And McKinley.
- Key West part 27 (final): A tapestry of rich and royal hue
- Dylan’s song of the year: 1980. Yonder Comes Sin
- Can a Bob Dylan song be a life changing experience? Visions of Johanna
Monthly Archives: December 2008
“When the ship comes in.” Bob Dylan as a prophet of vengeance and a better life to come.
By Tony Attwood This review updated July 2018, with the addition of one of Dylan’s rare outings for the song, and two totally different renditions linked at the end. Amidst all the moral relativism of Dylan, all the references to … Continue reading
Spanish Harlem Incident: The meanings behind Bob Dylan’s extraordinary song
By Tony Attwood This is one of Dylan’s unsung masterpieces – an extraordinary piece of music to the accompaniment of lyrics about a visit to a fortune teller / possible lover. (She’s one or the other, or both, possibly at … Continue reading
Posted in Another Side
6 Comments
Bob Dylan’s “Highlands”; its origins in Burns poetry, and a beautiful rare reworking in concert
By Tony Attwood This review updated 26 June 2018, with addition of this live version – I really would recommend a listen to these, particularly this one below Also now included are references back to the origins of the song … Continue reading
Posted in The Songs, Time out of mind
9 Comments
Lay Lady Lay: Three Bob Dylan transformations of his song & a look at the meanings.
By Tony Attwood In returning to this song I didn’t really feel I wanted to change any of the original commentary, but I did want to add a couple of live recordings as they show the power of Dylan’s reinvention. … Continue reading
See that my grave is kept clean
It is strange to think that all those years ago, my feeling about the very first Dylan album (“Bob Dylan”) was that the producer of the album had made a very odd choice as to the order of the songs. … Continue reading
Posted in Bob Dylan
2 Comments
Bob Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm. 3 very different versions; but why play it so often?
By Tony Attwood (revised March 2013 and again June 2018) Between 1965 and 2009 Bob Dylan performed Maggie’s Farm 1051 times on stage – often as an opening song; an interesting outcome for a song that was a last minute … Continue reading
Don’t think twice by Bob Dylan. Looking back to 1962 and a beautiful live version
This article was updated in May 2018. This song is based on the folk song “Who’s gonna buy you ribbons” which has both music and some lyrics that closely resemble Bob’s song. This version recorded in 1960 was made by … Continue reading
Posted in Freewheelin, No Direction Home, The Songs
7 Comments
What’s going on here?
This web site aims to build up a commentary on the music and lyrics of Bob Dylan. My belief is that most sites on Dylan faithfully record who performed on each record, what Dylan was doing at the time, and … Continue reading
Posted in Editorial
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Lenny Bruce is Dead: Dylan’s eulogy to the man who man fun of religion
by Tony Attwood This article updated 22 June 2018, with the addition of two superb live versions at the end and some additional thoughts. In his interviews Dylan says that he wrote the Lenny Bruce song in about five minutes. … Continue reading
Posted in Shot of Love, The Songs
9 Comments
It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry. Bob Dylan works out the Phantom Engineer
By Tony Attwood This is one of the songs that I reviewed twice. Once in the version below which I wrote very early in the history of the site, and once much later I’m not trying to suggest this original … Continue reading
Posted in Highway 61 Revisited
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Love Sick. Bob Dylan’s unexpected brilliant masterpiece of decline that surpasses all lost love songs before or since
Revised 14 May 2018. by Tony Attwood You want a masterpiece from the old boy – here it is. Unexpected, it seems to have come out of nowhere after seven years. The opening seconds present a growl of uncertainty, before … Continue reading
Posted in The Songs, Time out of mind
6 Comments
Desolation Row by Bob Dylan. It doesn’t get more frightening than this.
By Tony Attwood with help from Pat Sludden. This review was one of the first ones I wrote in 2008 not long after conceiving of the idea of this web site, and while I was still trying to work out how … Continue reading
Posted in Highway 61 Revisited, The Songs
25 Comments
Subterranean Homesick Blues: the meaning of the music and the lyrics
By Tony Attwood Revised 13 October 2017 This was Dylan’s first successful attempt to integrate the emotions of the Beat Generation which he had understood from Alan Ginsberg and others combining the thoughts of the moment with three minutes of … Continue reading
Love minus Zero / No Limit. Bob Dylan takes a Zen approach to the perfect relationship
By Tony Attwood This review revised May 2017 The second of the two love songs from the first side of “Bringing it all back home” is infinitely more complex than “She Belongs To Me”. While musically it seems to be … Continue reading