By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood
Just recently we’ve been engaged in a project listening back to some of the outtakes from the 1986 and 1987 sessions that produced the majority of Bob Dylan’s “Down In The Groove” album, as well as some of the live shows from the era.
As many people said at the time, the album is, to be fair, not very good. So we decided to see if we could compile a better album ourselves from the outtakes and live shows from the period which you never know, might one day turn up on the Bootleg series.
We’ve done nine tracks so far and they are listed at the end. Now for the conclusion.
And for this final track on the vinyl edition (there will be 2 or 3 bonus tracks on the CD) we’ve chosen Dylan’s live take of “Go Down Moses” recorded with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers in London on 17th October 1987.The band only played the song twice during the Temple In Flames tour. They closed the show in Israel in September. Then again in London on the last night of the tour, the finale of the show appeared to be “Rainy Day Woman” with George Harrison and Roger McGuinn guesting on guitar, but then Dylan changed his mind and led the band back out on stage and played this wonderful version of the old spiritual. So it would seem appropriate to end our album with it too.
The song was made famous by Paul Robeson, whose voice, deep and resonant as it was, was said by Robert O’Meally to have assumed “the might and authority of God.”
Go down Moses way down in Egypt land Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go When Israel was in Egypt land Let My people go Oppressed so hard they could not stand Let My people go So the God seyeth, “Go down, Moses way down in Egypt land Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go” So Moses went to Egypt land Let My people go He made all Pharaohs understand Let My people go Yes The Lord said, “Go down, Moses way down in Egypt land Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go” Thus spoke the Lord, bold Moses said Let My people go “If not I’ll smite, your firstborns dead” Let My people go God, The Lord said, “Go down, Moses way down in Egypt land Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go” Tell all Pharaohs to let My people go
The lost Dylan album – the tracks
- Track 1 Twist and Shout
- Track 2: Just when I needed you most
- Track 3: Willie and the Hand Jive
- Track 4: Important words
- Track 5: Uranium Rock (Rock ’em dead)
- Track 6: Lucky old Sun
- Track 7: Got Love If You Want It
- Track 8: Treasure of Love
- Track 9: Sidewalks Fences and Walls
- Track 10: Let my people go.
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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 found 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.
Untold: “Bob Dylan And Paul Robeson” (I & II) expands on the singer’s influence on Dylan’s work.
In fact Moses was an incredibly poor speaker, so he let Aaron his brother speak for him.
One man had the visions. Another man had the gift of speech, and because they united their skills, they made progress.
But of cause Aaron Galbraith knows the story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron
I don’t know about that …was it Aaron who thought it was a ‘hake’ that disappeared down by the lake in “Man Gave Names To All The Animals” when he ought to have known it was a ‘drake’?
Serious mistakes like that cast doubt on any of his thoughts about Dylan’s songs.
Nursery Rhymes are just for fun to expand the children´s playfulness and imagination. OK let us play.
He saw an animal as smooth as glass
Slithering his way through the grass
Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake . . .
Hakes live in water. Drakes just don´t exist. What can it be? What can it be?
I have got it. A snake.
Snake!!!! Nah……..Dylan says ‘he’ for a purpose…it’s gotta be a male duck – a ‘drake’!
As you say, not a ‘hake’ because they live in water!
* Sorry- ‘his”, not ‘he’
Babette is being very funny, but of course ‘drake’ puns with Drake, making a joke on the rap singer so I’m positive my answer, not ‘snake’, is the absolute without a shadow of a doubt, correct 125%( or even more so) answer.
Besides Dylan seldom if ever ever uses symbols from the Bible – everybody knows( or should know) that!
He saw an animal as smooth as glass
Slithering his way through the grass
Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake rat
Ah, think I’ll call him a Bob cat.
A Bobcat is a mysterious, illusive cat.
A lake rat can be a rat in the lake, but also a beer.
Here is a video about the Bobcat. fYou will smile when you hear the text.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIAEy5aOb9g
Lake cat? I’ve seen a Bob cat swimming across the river a few years ago very close to where I live.