By Tony Attwood
Recently Mr Tambourine wrote to Untold Dylan presenting his latest project: an audio of the Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour. He kindly gave me free rein to present it in any way I wanted.
I’ve consulted fellow writers and fans, but none of us really can see what we can do other than offer you the full programme along with Mr Tambourine’s opening notes….
So here we go
Mr Tambourine: Hello everyone. I wanted to present to you what I’ve been working on for a while now. Not long ago, I set out to do something that was a dream of mine for so long. It’s nice to finally be able to share it with all of you. I wanted to cover the entire RARW tour from beginning to end, which is why I began a project I’m eventually going to complete called “Searching The World Over”, which will be a summary of the entire 2021-2024 RARW tour.
I knew this wasn’t going to be a one person job, so I figured I needed to share this journey with another compilation maker. I managed to find help in one of my dear subscribers that goes by the name of bollykecks – who not long ago started a channel of her own. If you ever have the chance, please subscribe to her channel. You won’t be disappointed. You’ll be supporting a very good person, if anything. I want to take a chance and thank bollykecks for her wonderful energy, dedication and time while we were working on this project so far.
Tony: Here’s the index for the opening 17 songs…
- 01. Watching The River Flow (Columbus, November 6, 2021) 00:00
- 02. Most Likely You Go Your Way (Moon Township, November 15, 2021) 04:57
- 03. I Contain Multitudes (Charleston, November 13, 2021) 09:15
- 04. False Prophet (New York, November 21, 2021) 14:40
- 05. When I Paint My Masterpiece (Chicago, November 3, 2021) 21:03
- 06. Black Rider (Washington, December 2, 2021) 26:31
- 07. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (New York, November 19, 2021) 30:57
- 08. My Own Version of You (Hershey, November 16, 2021) 35:30
- 09. Early Roman Kings (Chicago, November 3, 2021) 43:26
- 10. To Be Alone with You (New York, November 20, 2021) 49:20
- 11. Key West (New York, November 19, 2021) 54:06
- 12. Gotta Serve Somebody (Cleveland, November 5, 2021) 01:02:47
- 13. I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You (Charleston, November 13, 2021) 01:08:00
- 14. Melancholy Mood (Columbus, November 6, 2021) 01:14:03
- 15. Mother of Muses (Port Chester, November 24, 2021) 01:16:53
- 16. Goodbye Jimmy Reed (New York, November 19, 2021) 01:23:20
- 17. Every Grain of Sand (Charleston, November 13, 2021) 01:29:46
And I did try and write a few thoughts with the view of maybe offering a guide to the whole concert. They began…
So the first song on the agenda is “Watching the River Flow” – there is some introductory improvisation I guess to get the audience settled and then on we go. You can of course run the whole five hours if you wish but I’m going to try and take it more slowly, considering the performances as we go. It starts at the one minute mark.
This was a very logical piece to start the new journey with: Dylan seeing himself as an observer of the world. He’s been away for the duration of covid, but the world just moves along.
Indeed the whole concept of moving on is continued with the second song “Most Likely You Go Your Way” – we’ve all been going our own way through the days when Dylan wasn’t on the road. Here the essence of the song in the sense of the counter melody and the rhythms is the same as we know, but Dylan has retreated into a way of declaiming the piece, before bringing it to an absolute stop… and then we get going again.
It’s hard to avoid the notion that these songs were chosen specifically for the occasion of getting going again.
Then came “I contain multitudes” and I really found I didn’t know what to say, apart from a variety of things that were completely obvious. So, for the rest of the programme I’ll let you settle down and listen and leave you with the problem I have been facing these last days listening to this compilation. Is there anything one can do other than just listen to it?