Episode 1 – 1961. “I was young when I left home”
By Tony Attwood
This is a just-started series of articles in which I take a look back at Dylan’s compositions year by year and choose one that still appeals to me, and indeed still moves me, even after sixty or more years. It’s a totally personal selection, but of course you are very welcome to join in with alternative suggestions either with your own article, or a comment. A list of all the songs Bob composed in 1962 is given here.
Previously in the first episdoe of this new series I’ve offered, “Five versions of “I was young when I left home”
So, on we go…. In 1962 Bob Dylan’s compositional ability exploded (at least in terms of him writing songs and recording them for posterity) and as far as we know, he composed and kept an astounding 36 songs that year, including a range of masterpieces that we all still know and adore, even 64 years later.
In fact, being now a very elderly gent (although not quite as old as Bob) I have a few memories of 1962. I do recall going to the English seaside town of Bournemouth to buy Freewheelin’ on the basis of having heard “Blowing in the Wind” – but of course that might well have been 1963, or even 1964. I didn’t keep a diary.
Butfor this series I have been asking myself, what has stayed with me from that year, even if I didn’t hear the song until some years later. I’ve mentioned “Ballad for a Friend” so many times over the years on this site, I feel I can’t nominate that yet again, and I don’t really want to stay with the two most famous songs from the year (“Blowing in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice”) as wonderful though they are, they are rather obvious. And besides, just picking the obvious seems a bit pointless.
But there is one song that leaps out at me from this year which has always been with me, although I have not written much about it, nor indeed particularly mentioned it in the occasional talk I have bored people with my thoughts on Dylan as a composer. It is Tomorrow is a long time a very plaintive and utterly, uterly beautiful tale of lost love.
Now of course, 1962 was also the year of “Hard Rain”, and “Hollis Brown,” but still, there is something so wonderfully meek and mild in “Tomorrow” that even all these decades later, it still utterly moves me. And moves me more than those more famous songs do.
Bob hung onto the song for many, many years, playing it 69 times between 1969 and 2008, and not for the first time am I brought to the feeling: “how could the composer of such a stunning work simply let it go?” if playing it 69 times is “letting it go.” Mind you, I have the same thought about William Shakespeare, who gave up London life and play writing and returned to Stratford in 1613. I guess he’d just had enough and wanted to be with the family.
But to return to Bob, “Tomorrow…” did turn up in 2017 in the movie “The Vanishing of Sidney Hall” but long before that Elvis had recorded it – that is the recording Bob said that he treasured the most of all the covers of his song. The beat has changed, and I’ve never been sure of this, but Bob valued it, so who am I to argue? But somehow the musical extras that are slipped in by the arranger, for me, reduce my feeling about the song….
And the problem for me was that this Elivs version seemed to influence other subsequent arrangers, singers and musicians. From here on it wasn’t a case of going back to Bob’s own version of the song, but instead taking the Elvis version and seeing what could be done with that. We can hear it again with Odetta Holmes’ version
I have always been a fan of the musical performances of Judy Collins, and of course, she has recorded the song – it was on the “Fifth Album,” but when I got that album, I was disappointed by what she had done. You can find her recording on the internet if you need to hear it.
ButI move on because I then heard Sandy Denny sing it and I regained a bit of faith in the song
But even so I felt that somehow there was something more that could be taken from this utter masterpiece.
Barb Junger makes me feel that she really, really does understand. And not least because of her work with the Core Theatre in Corby, the nearest town to the village in which I am seeing out my later years. The town was already on the map, but actually not for all the right reasons. Somehow, this event started the return to sanity. As Wik says “This concert started the Made in Corby Arts Council England initiative.” And I guess if you are English, and you know about Corby, you’ll understand.
Nick Drake recorded the song, and I am so glad that his memory can be continued in this way. His is one of the saddest stories in music, and I don’t want to repeat it here – you can look it up if you must. But just listen to this talent and maybe reflect for a moment on how we can allow such musicianship to be lost at such an early age.
But picking myself up, I do have one particular version that has stayed with me over the years and genuinely can still move me to tears. The band kept playing until December 2019. They won’t know me, but I got to know their music.
There are so many covers of this song, I am getting to the stage in this already overlong piece wherein I don’t know which to include, but I think do know where to end. Chrissie Hynde once again is a person who won’t know who the hell I am, but through her music, I have always felt I know her. I met he once, I think she must have thought I was very weird. This was recorded in 2021.
There are of course hunderds more versions of this utterly amazing song.
Bob performed the song 69 times, but it touched the hearts of millions of listeners and thousands of performers. Even if we owed him for nothing else, we’d owe him for this wonderful composition.
And here’s a PS – I think this is the most emotionally tainted series I have ever tried. I am not sure I want any of that to come across, but I do hope you find something in these recordings. Maybe 1963 will have less to do with my feelings when I tackle it next week.