Untold Dylan seeks to explore the compositions of Bob Dylan, and the influences upon his creative work. Details of how to contact us are given at the end.
Here’s some background on those who are involved in creating the site, including both writers and researchers. This file was last updated in July 2024 following the announcement of the passing of our dear friend Aaron Galbraith. A copy of the article that appeared on this site at the time of his passing, is published below.
Tony Attwood gained his research degree at London University Institute of Education and has since spent his working life as a teacher, as a musician, as a university lecturer, in the theatre and as a writer of fiction and non-fiction books, and of advertisements. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Administrative Management (not that you would know it from the cock-ups that occasionally beset Untold Dylan).
Tony’s first engagement with the work of Bob Dylan (aside from being a fan) came when he negotiated the rights to arrange some Dylan songs for pupils and students to perform in school music lessons in the three-volume series “The Pop Songbooks” published by Oxford University Press.
Tony also runs a blog on his favourite football (soccer) club: Untold Arsenal, and runs the Arsenal History Society. He launched Untold Dylan on 29 October 2008, with a review of Mississippi. His hobbies, beyond Dylan and Arsenal FC, his three daughters and ten grandchildren, are dancing modern jive in dance clubs around England, and cross country walking with the national walking and footpath protection charity, The Ramblers.
Tony lives in Northamptonshire, a rural county in the middle of England. And very curiously like Mike Johnson (see below) spent a year working in Algeria! What are the chances of that?
In 2022, having lived his entire life believing himself to be an only child, Tony discovered he had a brother. Both brothers have become close friends and revel in their newfound kinship.
Jochen Markhorst.
Jochen Markhorst grew up in Arnhem and Hanover, with Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde as soundtrack, bought Blood On The Tracks and Street Legal from his pocket money, studied German language at Utrecht University, translated Russian at the Military Intelligence Service, teaches language training courses at companies and lessons in schools, translates German literature, Dutch websites and English subtitles and always plays the music of Dylan in the background.
Markhorst, however, is not one of the hardliners who honour the motto Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan – Jimi Hendrix is certainly not the only one who can brush up a Dylan song. He defends this controversial opinion, among other things, in his fourteen books on Dylan songs.
Jochen has been living in Utrecht since 1983, is still married to the same great, attractive woman and has two sons who have left home by now, but fortunately still study and live in Utrecht.
Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet) is a novelist and poet, born and raised in shit-faced little towns in the South Island of New Zealand. He graduated with a degree in Political Science from the University of Canterbury, and a sore head from too much educated rap.
He spent ten years in Europe, mostly Germany, working as teacher of English and trying to write. He did the long trek from Europe to India then known as the ‘hippy trail’ when it was still possible to travel through Afghanistan. He spent a year teaching in Algeria. The writing happened when he returned to NZ and his first book of poetry, The Palanquin Ropes, was co-winner of a literary award, and his first novel, Lear – The Shakespeare Company Plays Lear at Babylon, was short listed for the New Zealand Book Awards in 1987. Twenty books later he likes to astound his friends and detractors by rising at 4.30 a.m. and pounding the keyboard for a couple of hours. Commercial success has eluded him, but hell, it’s only money!
In 2014, tired of the machinations of the publishing industry, he and his wife Leila Lees established their own publishing company, Lasavia Publishing Ltd, which boxes along on a shoestring but is thriving with a little stable of nine writers and illustrators and more coming along. Through Lasavia Publishing Mike is slowly republishing his out of print backlist as well as new work. You can check that out at Lasaviapublishing.com. His dream is to one day publish somebody’s book on Bob Dylan.
His interest in Bob Dylan began when he first heard ‘Visions of Johanna’ on Blonde on Blonde and had a conversion/transmission experience. He was never quite the same again. You can read about that in a comment made to Tony Atwood’s article on that song.
He has four children from three different lives, he means wives, is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at AUT University in Auckland, and lives on Waiheke Island, once a peaceful rural kind of place to be.
Mike has contributed two major series to this site:
- Bob Dylan Master Harpist (concluded)
- Bob Dylan: the Never Ending Tour (still proceeding)
Other works includes
- Is the Great Cashout also the Great Renunciation?
- Masters of War & Extinction Rebellion: Bob Dylan’s ongoing contemporary relevance.
- Pay in Blood and the American Imperium
- Dancing to Dylan (or just be amazed at Dylan)
- Mishearing Dylan: Did he really sing that?
- Listening to Dylan in the Age of Plagues
- How can a non Christian relate to Dylan’s Gospel songs?
Filip Łobodziński never thought of Dylan knowledge being an area of research. Especially in his native Poland where Bob Dylan’s name is well-known, recognized… and almost totally ignored as a pillar of modern culture. Until he found Untold Dylan (and read some thick volumes on BD).
He got his master’s degree in Spanish culture & language at Warsaw University in 1987. Meanwhile, and when not reading or listening to music (to which his parents had got him addicted), he started an acoustic band whose repertoire consisted of Spanish, Catalan, Sephardic and French songs translated into Polish, arranged and interpreted by the guys themselves.
He worked as a music journalist working for several Polish influential rock magazines, then turned to journalism per se, working for years for the radio and for the television news programmes. But, as public expectations of journalism switched to superficiality, he quit the business and since 2013 he works for central institutions.
But… there’s always a ‘but’… he still carries on performing with his band and, in 2014, he formed a new band called dylan.pl, dedicated exclusively to arranging and performing his own translations of Bob Dylan’s songs. He’s been translating Spanish, French and English language books since mid-eighties and songs from different languages since 1979. With his Dylan translations’ folder containing over 130 lyrics he gathered them in a book and selected 29 of them as a repertoire for this dylan.pl
Since then he has compiled all of Dylan’s studio albums in cover versions with plenty of bonus tracks, and has done that same with the Beatles’ albums and singles. And inevitably on October 10, 2016, he got about a hundred phone calls from different Polish media begging for a comment.
He’s published also a huge anthology of Patti Smith’s lyrics in Polish and is working on a major anthology of rock & pop important singer-songwriters’ lyrics, including over 40 artists from Hank Williams and Willie Dixon through Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and David Thomas to Elvis Costello, Björk, P.J. Harvey and Joanna Newsom.
Aaron Galbraith
In June 2024 we received the utterly devastating news that our fellow-writer Aaron Galbraith had passed away.
Below is the tribute that was carried on the site
Farewell Aaron: wonderful Dylan fan, and such a great friend who I never met
I am desolated beyond measure to have to report the passing of Aaron Galbraith, one of the great friends of this site, a terrific researcher and writer, and an absolute Bod Dylan fan.
Although Aaron wrote and co-wrote well over 300 articles for this site, he and I never met (what with living on different continents), and we never even got to talk on the phone (although I did ask), but his contribution to Untold Dylan was immense and invaluable.
One day back in 2018 (just six years ago but it seems so much longer) he simply sent me an email with an article he thought might fit into Untold Dylan. From that piece it was obvious at once that here was a writer with imagination, original thoughts and a lot of knowledge about Dylan and the music that influenced Dylan. Of course I was delighted to oblige and publish it. I wrote back and begged for more, and Aaron returned the favour over and over and over again
I did also suggest we might have the occasional chat but no, he was just happy writing, and coming up with ideas.
For what Aaron was, was a guy who not only knew about Dylan and the music that influenced Dylan, he was also brilliant at considering new ways in which we could look at Dylan – ways that would give us greater insights into this work. Ideas that could make a one-off article, or turn into a series which could run to maybe 5 or 10 or 100 articles on specific Dylan topics we hadn’t previously covered.
These included having the brilliant idea of creating albums that Dylan didn’t make but should have done. I am hoping in the near future that I will be able to go back and pick out some of those articles and bring them to the fore once more – although of course they all remain on the site.
In short, Aaron was one of the exclusive band of people who, for reasons that will never become clear, was willing to give up hours of his time writing for and creating ideas for Untold Dylan, just because he enjoyed doing it He wanted no reward. In fact, I doubt if he would have objected if I’d left his name off one of the articles he wrote or contributed to. I hope that never happened, because I valued his input so much, but it always struck me he was that kind of guy. He just enjoyed having the ideas and doing the research.
I never learned much about his life (although I did ask) but somehow we always got on well as we exchanged emails about the topics we might cover. Indeed if you want to see what Aaron wrote just go to the Dylan site and type in “by Aaron Galbraith” in the search box (using the inverted commas) top right and they will all come up.
In fact Aaron didn’t just invent series, he invented series that kept Untold Dylan going, such as “Other people’s songs”, and “Why does Dylan like” and then would often very gently and kindly point out where I’d missed something out in one of my articles, or gone off on the wrong track. Indeed we even created albums together that Dylan didn’t make but should have made. Not just a list of songs, but the actual recordings.
But beyond all that Aaron did a huge amount of uncovering of songs Dylan wrote which I had missed – indeed he was part of a tiny group whose work allowed me eventually to claim that we had the definitive list of Dylan compositions. My goodness, I really do hope that I said thank you enough to Aaron for that and that he fully appreciated how much I felt I owed him. When Dylan himself passes on, I expect at least a postcard from on high thanking Untold for creating the definitive list of Dylan compositions. I’ll refer Bob to Aaron who will be waiting up there, finally able to say hello.
And there was so much more. Aaron also invented the wonderful series that ran and ran – “Other people’s songs”. That contained recordings I’d never come across before – my education continued.
But mostly, our list of Dylan compositions was added to many times by Aaron (https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-reviewed-on-this-site) and is now seen by quite a few people as the definitive list. Indeed over the years Untold Dylan has become seen as an important Dylan site for those seriously interested. Wiki occasionally quotes us when talking about a Dylan song and ludicrously calls me “Dylan scholar, Tony Attwood….” But really they should be paying tribute to those other writers who have made this site what it is. I just pull the strings and give some opinions: Aaron was one of those who did the hard work.
But my main point is that Aaron’s approach always added a different flavour from that of the rest of us writing on this site, and his is one of the voices that has helped Untold keep going down the track we have chosen.
In later days, I guess when Aaron was perhaps not feeling so well, or maybe was getting more tired (he never said) he would select songs, and I’d write a meandering review of them for me to develop. Some people treat them as my articles, but the key point was I would never have been able to write that review without Aaron being there making the selection. He really did take the word “Untold” seriously and took us into new dimensions.
Aaron never dictated what he wanted (and you may have heard, some authors really can be very demanding in terms of the way their work is treated – very pesky creatures these authors…) and indeed he seemed very happy to come up with ideas and let me meander off with them probably in ways that he would not have taken. At least he never once complained at anything I did with his work. If only every author could be like that.
I want to give one example of this which appears at https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/8637
I mention Aaron’s work at the top in finding this, and then go onto a ramble of my own. But the key point is that it was Aaron who pointed out that we could do an article on this – and then he left it in my hands. So my name is on the article and Aaron gets his mention – but the key point is there would have been no article without Aaron.
I knew inside me things were not right for Aaron when he stopped writing for Untold, for he told me in several emails just how much he had enjoyed what he had been doing. Knowing he was having a break I wasn’t pushing for anything more from him, but as he had created albums of Dylan songs – if you want to see an example take a look at https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/26235 -…. I was hoping I might persuade him to do that again. Sadly that hope has now gone. I suspect he is entertaining all the other good people with whom he is now sharing the afterlife.
So overall, if it was possible for two guys of the older variety, who had never met and never even spoken on the phone to have one hell of a good time together, this was it. And indeed it was, from my perspective, Aaron and me. He was my great friend that I never got close to… In the way I published the articles I felt I was respecting how he wanted things to be; I do hope I got it right.
Indeed when he pulled out of writing for Untold I really tried to get the balance right between saying that I would welcome an article from him any time, but at the same time not hassling him for more. I do hope I got that right too.
Take a look at https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/21863 and you will see just how we worked together and how it was Aaron’s ideas that allowed me to expand Untold Dylan.
Occasionally I get emails from senior academics thanking me for Untold Dylan and the variety of work therein. Not notes correcting an error, not pointing out something we missed, but thanking me for Untold Dylan. Aaron was very much part of creating the environment that it seems some people now do consider worthy of study.
And indeed “creating this environment” was what Aaron helped bring to the show. That idea of going somewhere else, thinking about Dylan in the way others had not done, and then allowing us to see where it goes… that was Aaron.
When writers have written more than a few articles for Untold I ask them to write a piece in the Untold writers page. I haven’t changed what he wrote as yet, but I will do in due course to pay proper tribute to him. For the moment it remains as he wrote it….
https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/9215
Aaron Galbraith grew up in the west of Scotland and was educated at Glasgow University. Always a massive music fan, the first concerts he attended were Paul McCartney and Neil Young. He recently counted and has seen over 100 different acts live (several more than once), ranging from Bowie, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison to BB King, The Strokes, Blur and Adam Ant.
He became acquainted with the work of Bob Dylan whilst at Uni due to one of those 3 CDs for a tenner deals popular at the big music superstores of that time. On a whim, he picked up Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. He then proceeded to collect the entire back catalogue and has since seen Dylan over ten times in concert.
He now resides in Virginia in the Good Ol’ US of A with his wife and young daughter. His hobbies, beyond Dylan and other musical acts, include following the Scotland national football team and attending various tennis tournaments throughout the world, primarily to see Andy & Jamie Murray in action.
———————–
My goodness I really do hope that I said thank you enough to Aaron for that and that he fully appreciated how much I felt I owed him. When Dylan himself passes on, I expect at least a postcard from heaven thanking Untold for creating the definitive list of Dylan compositions with a full acknowledgement to our dear, dear friend who I never got to talk to: Aaron Galbraith.
Patrick Roefflaer
Patrick Roefflaer lives in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium. As a young punk (as in punk-rock), he got interested in Bob Dylan after seeing the Hard Rain special in December 1976. It was the passion that Dylan displayed end his attitude that mesmerised him and made him a lifelong fan.
Around 2005 Patrick started a blog writing about music. The articles on Dylan were well appreciated, especially since he regularly got new info by contacting people who had actually worked with the singer-songwriter. It caught the attention of a publisher who suggested to bundle them as a book. In Bob Dylan in de studio (Epo, 2011) Dylan’s astonishing ways to record in the studio is detailed chronologically. Much to his surprise and delight it got mostly great reviews.
Some years later, a local library asked Patrick to give a lecture on Bob Dylan as part of a month long festive around the singer-songwriter. One of the other things they organised was an exhibition of the artwork of Dylan’s albums. To give a guided tour to this, Patrick dived into the history of the artwork and this led to the series of articles published on Untold Dylan.
There is an index to all of Patrick’s illustrated articles on the artwork of Dylan’s albums in the Album Artwork index.
Joost Nillissen grew up in Amsterdam and was educated by Jesuits who made him loose his faith. For almost 30 years he lived and worked in Israel where he discovered the history of the Bible. Tourism was his trade and ever since he bought his first album in 1971 Bob Dylan was the soundtrack of his life.
Painting and writing were his serious hobbies and in the late nineties his stories were published in literary magazines in The Netherlands and Belgium.
After his divorce in 2004 he returned to the Netherlands and decided to take writing seriously. Hundreds of advertorials on any subject imaginable flowed from his pen. He wrote and published three novels and a collection of short stories.
Joost is semi-retired, wears a brand new suit, has a brand new wife, a son in Israel and a daughter in Amsterdam, no grandchildren that he is aware of and loves working on the retelling of some of Dylan’s songs, to be published in a book.
Larry Fyffe, a fan of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen from time out of mind, has an honours BA degree in Literature and Sociology from the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada.
He has researched the history of chess for the authors of a number of books thereon, and written published articles on the subject.
Larry’s mother was born in England and she moved to Canada as a war bride of a Canadian soldier. (May they both rest in peace.) Larry’s older brother was born in England; Larry and his identical twin were born in Cornhill, NB; he has a younger brother and three sisters. His bewitching better half is Carolyn, and Margaret, his beautiful daughter.
If you want to write to Untold Dylan with a view to submitting an article or a series of articles, or indeed on any matter that you don’t want to appear as a comment, please email Tony@schools.co.uk and send a copy to TonyAttwoodofLondon@gmail.com (just in case I am on the road).
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Can’t believe I’ve just discovered your site – really great, and some brilliant interpretations of songs. Duequese Whistle led me here.
Just stumbled upon your site whilst listening to ‘Dark Eyes’, final track on Empire Burlesque.
Have thouroughly enjoyed reading your interpretations of Dylan’s (and others) lyrics that the great man has performed/recorded over the years. I now find myself going back to those songs and rediscovering them from a wholly new and different perspective.
Do you intend to cover his entire back catalogue? 😉 Keep up the good work.
Regards
Lee
I think we can all agree that we at best are having educated guesses at what all the lyrics mean.
I’ve just discovered your site because I was looking for an article that discusses the structure of the song Spanish Harlem Incident in detail . I was listening to it and I was trying to learn to play it in the guitar by ear and I notice how unusual his guitar parts are in that song. I usually don’t go to ultimate guitar to learn to play songs because I can usually learn easily how to play songs by myself but this song in particular is complex or unusual I think. I think the guitar tab by maguri in ultimate guitar site is good and I think he got almost everything correct. There are parts there I think that just stays in one bass note while changing a couple of notes thus changing chords but stays in one bass note. I think in some parts of the song he’s playing a C major with a bass note of E so when he plays the usual G major to C major progression it sounds a little different than the usual. I think he really listened to it very closely. Even though I know something about chord progressions and some scales I really needed some guide on how to play this song hehe. Anyways, you have a very cool site Mr. Tony Attwood. I’m a really big fan of Dylan and I think fans of Dylan around the world can really enjoy and have a really good time reading your articles.
Very much appreciate your research on Dylan. I’ve been haunted by “Too Much of Nothing” figuratively and literally. Understanding the connection to T.S. Eliot enriched my experience. I even found my anthology with Waste Land and read it again after 40 plus years! Keep up your posts. I’ll be looking for your book!
Margie, thank you for your very kind comments.
How are you, Mr. Attwood?
Thank you for your excellent work on the bard. It is always exciting and comforting to find still another admirer (and researcher) of what the great man did and said. Your site will be of much help when I listen to his songs and think and write about his lyrics. Look forward to your book!
Thanks – just discovered this site. Your writing om Dylans lyrics set my mind going. A Dylan fan since 1970 but first and foremost his music – now at last descending into the “mysteries” of his texts. (By the way listening to his early monorecordings triggered my interest in the lyrics alone). Enjoy reading your comments on Dylan. First one was about As I Went Out One Morning. Really enjoyed that one.
I also just “discovered” your wonderful site, while browsing around for comments on “Sign On The Window.” As I wrote there, thank you! I hope to read much more of you once the semester calms down, and this nightmarish USA election is over. . .
Thank you, Tony. I just read your critical essay on “Long and Wasted Years.” It rings true through and through. One of the best pieces of Dylan criticism I have read.
I will be teaching a course at the University of Texas at Austin this spring “Bob Dylan: History Imagination” I imagine now there will be quite a few students I send to your takes on Bob’s songs.
If you have an email I’ll send you some of my writings of reviews and commentaries on feature pieces on Dylan in places like Times Higher Education.
Tom Palaima
I have learned so much from your thinking about this song, Tony. Thank you! I marched during the 60s singing, “Blowing in the Wind,” but “Hard Rain” hit me
hardest and still haunts me most. In this Age of Trump, we must all stand on the ocean until we start sinkin’ and REALLY know our song — because “the answer, my friend,” is STILL blowing in the Wind. And Dylan can help us listen for it.
William thank you for your kind comments.
Tom, that is so kind, I really appreciate it. Tony
Great stuff. Keep on keeping it on.
I always thought The Times They Are a Changin was in 3/4 time NOT 12/8?
Andy, it depends how you hear the song. You can write it out as either, and Bob would never have written it down himself in conventional notation. For me writing it in 3/4 makes it very fast and loses the feel that is inherent in Dylan’s own performance of the song. Better put, I think if someone who had never heard the song picked up the sheet music with the song in 3/4 they would produce a performance that didn’t have the feel of Dylan’s recording. If they saw it as 12/8 they are more likely to produce a rendition much closer to that on the record.
I’ve just read your piece on Jokerman. I’ve long seen this song in a way which I find wholly satisfying.
This is Bob’s life story being told in the verses, from a third person perspective. From the start of his journey as an artist, feeling immensely powerful as he surveys his options. The ‘idol with the iron head’ is surely a train, glowing in the night, an alternative to the ships that might carry him away across the great lake.
The chorus is an appeal, an invocation, to that part of himself that could once write without thinking about it. Because he’s been in a dry spell, he’s not been feeling it for a while, he doesn’t know if he can get there again. He’s ready and waiting. The Jokerman is the character Shakespeare called the fool – the one person at the court of an all-powerful king given a licence to speak truth to power – and that’s what Dylan has been. He’s had to make an entertainment of it, of course, like any other jobbing jester. Provided he kept on delivering, he was in a unique and privileged position.
The verses tell the story of how Bob Dylan managed that, seen in flashes. The years are necessarily compressed, but the order is strictly chronological. I could go into approximate dates and partial explanations for each verse, but maybe this isn’t the best place to do that.
Anyway, what’s satisfying about the whole recording in that light is how the the feeling of the words and the music do work as one, bass and drums propelling the thing forward like ambition, the uplift of the choruses soaring like a bird. By the final verse, his story has reached the present, and he is full of self-confidence again. And he’s going to ride out and take up arms against the foe – Mystery, Babylon the Great, personification of wickedness in the fallen world.
And in the meanwhile, his prayer got through, and it was answered. Because he made this recording of this song.
The radical juxtaposition of opposites is a cornerstone of great literature, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Twain to Steinbeck to Hemingway to McMurtry. (I only include people I’ve read, but I presume it’s more widespread than being confined to them.) “Sweetheart Like You,” like many Dylan songs, portrays it in each stanza. The general idea is that ruthless tragedy is just around the corner, so make sure you know what you’re doing, which you currently do not. It’s a very pessimistic song, but a lot of what Dylan has written is pessimistic, and the original title of the album this song is on, Infidels, was Surviving a Ruthless World.
Here are examples of juxtapositions from the song.
“They say that vanity got the best of him” —condemnation of something internal
“But he sure left here in style” —superficial worth begets approval
“She used to call me sweet daddy when I was only a child”—a radical misperception; I don’t know what it means
“In order to deal in this game, got to make the queen disappear
It’s done with a flick of the wrist” — You can effortlessly exit a dominating force. Recent example is Luke Skywalker’s brushing off his shoulder after being targeted by withering bombardment. It’s a positive statement unaffirmed by the rest of the song.
“What’s a sweetheart like you doin’ in a dump like this”—based on the rest of the song, I interpret “dump” to mean an unreasonable state of depression
“Just how much abuse will you be able to take?
Well there’s no way to tell by that first kiss” —don’t confuse easy solutions with an exit strategy, they could make things worse
“You can be known as the most beautiful woman
Who ever crawled across cut glass to make a deal”—having a glorious reputation can’t spare one from emotional terror
“They say in your father’s house there’s many mansions
Each one of them got a fireproof floor”— The presence of heavenly comfort must be strongly guarded against the proximity of hell (Dylan uses slang grammar intentionally; this is confirmed by looking at his face while he distinctly enunciates each syllable of this song.)
“Snap out of it baby people are jealous of you
They smile to your face but behind your back they hiss”—Don’t worry about what people think, they’re hypocrites and you’re more exalted than them
“Got to be an important person to be in here, honey
Got to have done some evil deed”—you’re paying for something you didn’t do, a good reason to stop
“Got to have your own harem when you come in the door
Got to play your harp until your lips bleed”—Playing a harp (harmonica) is fun, toot your horn too much will result in a really bad experience
“Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king”—A juxtaposition, not original
“There’s only one step down from here, baby
It’s called the land of permanent bliss”—there’s no avoiding pain (permanent bliss is impossible)
Now if you agree with me, that’s okay. But please don’t shower any radical juxtapositions on me.
Unless one considers death to be permanent bliss because there’s no more pain.
Just came across Tony’s site via his May 2015 piece re Sign On The Window. Pretty much my view in the excellent write up! I was putting an eco-related music compilation together and looked at the “Build me a Cabin in Utah” verse which led me to here. I live near Hastings UK , not far from Brighton and looked for the “Brighton Girls” possible origin for many years. A good question for Bob should I come across him! I rather favour Coney Island which has a Board Walk and the girls!
It’s all in the voice as well as the unlikely key change, which I don’t think is so abrupt but that often makes a song anyway. “Like the moon” and the [resigned] “My best friend said [kindly] “Now didn’t I warn you?” These are amazing phrases! I knew about Irving Berlin’s black notes preference and Dylan’s outer to inner keyboard style also favouring black keys. I think Berlin had a special piano built with a handle to change key while playing the black notes.
May I thank everyone who has used this page to say thank you to myself and all my fellow writers on the site. On making a few minor changes to this page I have read your comments again, and I am quite overwhelmed. Thank you to everyone – you make it all so worthwhile.
Tony
I am glad to find another listener who appreciates “Up to Me” my favourite Dylan track. It describes so many of life’s experience.