by Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood
If you are a regular reader of Untold Dylan you will appreciate that not only is the site written by a variety of people, but it is written by a variety of people living not just in different countries but on at least three different continents.
To make the whole thing work we correspond primarily by email with Jochen, Larry, Aaron, Mike, Filip, mr tambourine and others feeding ideas and articles into Tony who then gets them in a hopeless muddle, loses them, finds them and ultimately publishes them – sometimes (but not always) even in the right order and under the right author’s name.
It is this combination of independent writers that makes Untold so vibrant – everyone is working alone but to the central idea of finding new things to say about Dylan’s music that have not been said before. So the emphasis is: we each come up with our own ideas.
What follows is the text of an email from Aaron in the USA to Tony in England, and this time I (Tony) thought I would publish the email, just so you can see how Untold works – and to say, if you feel like joining this band of merry men (all men simply because as yet no women have offered us articles on a regular basis as yet but I am hopeful that will change), we are by and large mostly harmless. Just email Tony@schools.co.uk
And there is an idea for a new series of articles if you feel like joining in – more details below the extracts from Heron’s album (or you can come up with your own idea for your own series if you wish).
Here is Aaron’s email to Tony
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I just found out that Heron (who made the version of John Brown we wrote about recently) got back together in the early 2000s and made a Dylan cover album in 2013 called Jokerman. I’ve been listening to it all day today and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite Dylan covers albums.
It’s not just the usual tracks you find on Dylan covers discs, but also includes several more unusual songs, like Jokerman, Is Your Love In Vain and If Dogs Run Free. All the arrangements are really interesting and take the songs down a different path from anything I’ve ever heard before.
The opening version of It Ain’t Me Babe is done almost like an old spiritual, and by the time of Slow Train coming you might just be in love with the album.
Then introducing Is Your Love In Vain with the music from This Land Is Your Land followed by the “Judas…I Don’t Believe You” clip, might just be genius!
There is some really great stuff on the album so I thought I’d pass it along to you to take a listen if you had the time…
This is Jokerman
And It Aint Me Babe
The videos do connect to each other but here’s one more selected
There’s a very English joke at the start of this concerning the railway links from the south west of England into west London.
Heron have their own website if you want to find out more.
If you would like to gain admission to our little group of writers, it is simple: just read some of the 1600+ articles on this site, and send me (Tony) an article that you should could be of interest to our readers. Send it as a Word file attached to an email – not in the email itself – it makes my life so much easier. Tony@schools.co.uk
Indeed Aaron has suggested that we might initiate a “Readers Choice” section wherein readers of Untold choose one track not by Dylan and write about it. So not a cover of a Dylan song, nor Dylan covering someone else’s song, but a performance that is not Dylan at all but that Dylan fans might enjoy. And we want not just a suggestion but a little article about the performers, and/or the song or album.
Come and join us. We’re mostly harmless.
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 around 5500 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 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.