Recently on Untold Dylan
- Theme Time Radio Hour 8: Divorce. The recordings and the thoughts
- Key West part 7: I knew right then and there I was hooked
If you would like to offer an article to Untold Dylan please email details to Tony@schools.co.uk
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By Tony Attwood
Some songs get deeply inside me, and a few remain throughout my whole life. Then, as I look back, I find that they seem to have defined myself and my reaction to the world around me for years on end. Maybe I am odd because of that, but that’s really how it is for me.
Of course, now in old age and looking back, I remember my friends, some of whom have already passed away, and I mourn their memories and cherish a friendship now lost, even when as in some cases, I had not seen them for many decades before I heard of their passing.
Plus, of course, I mourn my parents, both now long gone. Although mine has also been a strange life in the sense that much of it was lived as an only child, and only now in my 70s have I discovered that all this time I had a brother, and I am thrilled beyond measure that we have become close friends.
And I think of these things as I look back to the 1960s and think of my life then, and of the Dylan songs that were part of it, as I try to develop this series nominating Bob’s best song of each year. We’ve had two so far
1961. “I was young when I left home”
1962: Tomorrow is a long time
… and I think I found selecting one song from those two years was fairly easy. But this year, no, it is more troublesome since 1963 was the year Bob’s songwriting exploded (I can find no other word for it) with
Only on episode 3, obviously 1963, I’m already stuck. For 1963 was the second year of Bob’s explosion as a songwriter, in which he wrote at least 31 songs (well, 31 songs that I have been able to allocate to that year – the details are on the Songs in chronological order page)
Of course, there are so many songs from that one year we might all instantly pick one as our own nomination of the “song of the year” for Bob. For example, “Restless Farewell” I love now as much as when I first heard it, but I won’t include it here as it is based on the Parting Glass. “Times they are a-changin” remains a work of utter genius, but I’ve heard it, and we have all heard it, so many times, there seems no point in speaking further of the piece.
So I look at what else Bob wrote in 1963. In fact, in our survey of Dylan’s compositions year by year, we noted 31 songs starting with Masters of War and ending with Restless Farewell with many songs tucked away in between now considered by most of us to be part of his fundamental collection of works of genius. Songs such as When the ship comes in and The Times they are a-Changing
But of course, some of these songs have been played endlessly in my house, and indeed some heard in concert so many times, that a little bit of their freshness and originality has gone.
But even them, I managed to come to one song that has never left me… It is not that well-known except to those who delve into every aspect of Bob’s music. But it has never left me.
And still the lyrics haunt me today as they did when I first came across the song. This for me represents everything that there is in early Dylan works. If I had to choose a second song for the year (and I don’t because I made up the rules) it would be “Restless Farewell” which has also had a gigantic impact on my life, but no, Seven Curses left its mark, and I guess will always do so.
The songs of 1963.
- Girl from the North Country (Lost Love)
- Boots of Spanish Leather (Song of Leaving)
- Bob Dylan’s Dream (Lost love)
- Farewell (a song of leaving)
- Talkin Devil (talking blues, the Devil is real)
- All over you (comedy alternative to talking blues)
- Going back to Rome (there is something about Italy)
- Only a Hobo (moving on)
- Ramblin Down Thru the World (moving on)
- Who killed Davey Moore? (Boxing, Inequality)
- As I rode out one morning (leaving, moving on)
- Dusty Old Fairgrounds (keep on moving)
- Walls of Red Wing (Protest: life is a matter of chance)
- New Orleans Rag (aka Bob Dylan’s New Orleans Rag) (Humour; life is chance)
- You’ve been hiding too long. (Our leaders have betrayed the ideals of our country)
- Seven Curses (Absolute betrayal of justice)
- With God on our Side (Protest)
- Talking World War III Blues (Protest, surrealism)
- Only a pawn in their game (Social commentary, protest)
- Eternal Circle (Nothing changes)
- North Country Blues (Rural protest)
- Gypsy Lou (Art, Protest)
- Troubled and I Don’t Know Why (everything is wrong)
- When the ship comes in (Protest)
- The Times they are a-Changing (Protest)
- Percy’s Song (The failure of justice)
- The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (Protest, racism)
- Lay Down your Weary Tune (the natural world is superior to anything mankind can make)
- One too many mornings (Song of Leaving)
- Restless Farewell (moving on)