Yet another new Bob Dylan song: Home

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

The track is called “Home” and is credited to Gary ‘Mudbone’ Cooper/Dave Stewart/Bob Dylan.  Aaron discovered it and the background.  Tony however is not impressed.

It was released in 2006 On the Mudbone album Fresh Mud (produced by Dave Stewart). Dylan plays piano on the track.  However the opening piano sounds very much like “kum ba yah” – it is described in some reviews as blues piano, but I (Tony) don’t hear that at all.

If you want to check that assertion, have a listen

It really is an old song and was sung by slave workers in America.   There is a very early recording sung by H. Wylie, recorded by Robert Winslow Gordon in 1926 – and this is the first known recording of ‘Come by Here,’ – the song that came to be known as ‘Kumbaya.’
It is sung in ‘Gullah,’ – a dialect of the Sea Islands Creole Dialect.

You can download it at this link

The song fell out of fashion by the 1980s after it was picked up by many organisations as a sort of camp fire, everyone-join-in song and has not really been rehabilitated since.

Back to Bob’s recording, Gary ‘Mudbone’ Cooper was in the bands Funkadelic and Parliament. Dave Stewart had recorded Dylan’s piano part at Dylan’s home in 2002, they lifted it and wrote a track around it (along the lines of Worth The Waiting For), thus Dylan gets a credit on the track! The album came out a couple of weeks after Modern Times and got some great reviews

Mudbone – Fresh Mud

Here’s a full review.

And here are the lyrics…

As we walk this narrow highway
On the road to worlds unknown
Sometimes its hard to make our way
Help us lord to make it home
I made a promise yesterday t
Hat I will keep in every way
And every morning I will pray
To make it home
I had a feeling yesterday
As I was staring at the milky way
I knew that things would be okay
If I make it home...Oh lordy
Hmmm..
I made a promise yesterday
That I will keep in every way
And every morning I will pray
To make it home
I had a feeling yesterday
As I was staring at the milky way
I knew that things would be okay
If I make it home
Hmmm.
I made a promise yall im gonna keep it now
Home

Tony is not a fan: “My problem is twofold: that the introduction from Bob on the piano doesn’t really seem to have very much to do with anything else in the song, and what Bob is playing is not an original piece.

“Now the former arises because they simply seem to have bolted Bob’s work onto the rest of the song.  OK they might do that for publicity, and if Bob agreed, then he agreed, probably not even remembering at the time what he had played on that piano on that day.

“But everyone must be aware that this is not original Bob Dylan work, and I am surprised it was put forward as Bob as a co-composer.  Unless of course the story we have about this being Bob’s only contribution is not true.

“Of course I am not saying we won’t include it in the list of Dylan compositions – he (or his agent or copyright company) has claimed it, so we take their word, but it isn’t something I am going to come back to as a Bob Dylan co-composition.

“Besides, what does my opinion matter?  I’m just one fan.”

Untold Dylan: who we are what we do

Untold Dylan is written by people who want to write for Untold Dylan.  It is simply a forum for those interested in the work of the most famous, influential and recognised popular musician and poet of our era, to read about, listen to and express their thoughts on, his lyrics and music.

We welcome articles, contributions and ideas from all our readers.  Sadly no one gets paid, but if you are published here, your work will be read by a fairly large number of people across the world, ranging from fans to academics who teach English literature.  If you have an idea, or a finished piece send it as a Word file to Tony@schools.co.uk with a note saying that it is for publication on Untold Dylan.

We also have a very lively discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook with approaching 5000 active members. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

You’ll find some notes about our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page of this site.  You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.  Not every index is complete but I do my best.

But what is complete is our index to all the 604 Dylan compositions and co-compositions that we have found, on the A to Z page.  I’m proud of that; no one else has that many songs with that much information.  Elsewhere the songs are indexed by theme and by the date of composition. See for example Bob Dylan year by year.

And please do note our friends at  The Bob Dylan Project, which also lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, plus links back to our reviews (which we do appreciate).

If in reading the site and listening to some of the music you get even one tenth as much pleasure as I get in publishing the material, you’ll be having a good time.

6 Comments

  1. Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood,

    I Absolutely love this recording so much! The accompanying article which covers so much with so few words is totally congruent! It feels like such a gift hearing this right now! It brought back a happy memory of when I was 17. I looked after my sisters farm for the summer while she and my brother -in-law were out of the province. It was mostly just caring for there four horses and a great blue heron that could not fly. Anyway this one Appaloosa colt was crazy for me singing to him and so when I cleaned the barn and pushed the wheel barrow he would bite my shoulder. It was heavy work and so all I could manage to sing was Kum-Ba-Yah which I had learned in girl guides! 🙂 I plan on listening to this several times over the music is really unique and soulful!

    Thank you

  2. Proud this musico-peasant is that he immediatey recognized the tune before it’s name even gets mentioned (lol).

  3. I have listened to this several times now and I think I like it more and more! There is so much soul and I love the lyrics

  4. One more thing is I want to say thank you for the introduction to Mudbone it is just what I needed today and will enjoy for many days to come! Wow I love this incredible music and it content!!!

  5. Glad you like the track Denise, I like it myself and the album is pretty good too.

    I do understand Tony’s issue with the “Dylan-ness” of the piece though..he was clearly just playing around with Kumbaya, although i do think it does fit in nicely with the rest of the track (each to their own!). If nothing else its nice to hear Bob playing some lovely piano!

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