The album title songs Dylan wrote and ignored: JWH, Nashville Skyline.

By Tony Attwood

As if putting a song on an album, and then never once, in a lifetime of touring and performing, actually play it, is not strange enough, it is surely even stranger to record a song, put it on an album, never play the song in public, and then name the album after the song.

But that is exactly what Bob did with Nashville Skyline (although there is the song called Nashville Skyline Rag) and again with John Wesley Harding.   Title tracks of albums, but never played.

And indeed you would be fully excused if you could not recall Nashville Skyline Rag, but it is indeed a real piece…. a jolly little song in two sections that follow the classic A B A format – meaning you get the first section, then the second then the first.

There is however one particular point about this song, in that the middle section modulates – and for the moment I can’t think of any other composition by Dylan that modulates. I think there are one or two but not that many.

Modulation is a simple musical technique in which the music changes key, and it generally happens in the middle of the song before moving back again.  In musical terms the piece changes key from the tonic (the basic key the piece is written in) to the dominant (the fifth note of the scale).   It stays there for a few bars and then comes back.

This is not to say that this is not a jolly little tune, but for me it has all the flavour of an afterthought, and indeed one can understand why there has been no inclination to play it on stage.  But that still raises the question, why name the album after this song?

The title track of John Wesley Harding suffers the same fate and again it is a very simple song, although it too has a hint of a modulation – although this time it is within the verse, and the music moves straight back to the tonic (the key it starts in).

And here I really am a bit puzzled – why name an album after a song which is in the same format as almost every other song on the album but not play that song?

I did a piece a few years back in the “cover a day” series on this song, and I must admit I didn’t find too much to excite me then, and there seems to be not much more to offer three or four years later.

The recording by Phil Cunneen is ok, but it still leaves me with the feeling of “why bother?”

But this takes us back to the question of why Bob named the album after this song – for surely he must have known at the time that he was unlikely ever to play the piece.

Of course, this contrasts with “All along the Watchtower” which was played over two thousand times in concert, generally as the end piece, and utilising the Jimi Hendrix reworking of the song, so of course at the time of making the album Bob would not have known what a universal appeal that song would have.

But when you come to think of it “All along the Watchtower” would have made a better title for the album.  For those of us who knew nothing of JWH and what he represented, “All along the Watchtower” is a much more atmospheric, and thus a much more inviting phrase.

And just in case you missed it, try this

Oh what memories these recordings bring back!

Obviously we were all going to buy the album anyway when it first came out, but a change of title might have broadened the appeal.

Indeed a similar argument could have been made over “I’ll be Your Baby Tonight” which was played over 600 times, and indeed by far my favourite song from the album, “Drifter’s Escape” which racked up 256 performances and remains forever in my list of absolute favourite songs.

Even Frankie Lee and Judas Priest got over 20 performances in public, but for the title track, and “Lonesome Hobo” no, not a performance.

And this got my rambling brain wondering about other songs that were album titles.   “Times they are a changing” is obviously one, “Highway 61 Revisited” each came before JWH and Nashville Skyline – the two albums with never performed title songs, and in both those earlier cases the title song did get a lot of performances.

This doesn’t mean that Dylan generally performed the title song of his albums a lot but they did tend to get a bit of a run out in most cases – although there never seems to have been a particular extra boost for a song just because it was the title of the album.

Which then led me to wonder, how did Bob choose the titles for his albums?  I can’t recall reading much about this, and I am sure in the early days the record company would have had an input, but after a while it would have been all down to Bob.

So, here’s my thought, if you know how Bob came to choose the titles of albums, would you like to write an article about it?  I can assure you it would have a readership of at least one (ie me), but I suspect others might be interested.  If you fancy taking this on please email Tony@schools.co.uk and give the email the title “How Bob Dylan chose his album titles”.  Or of course just write a comment below.

Incidentally, I am guessing but I suspect the album with the most non-performed tracks is Fallen Angels, which includes Young at Heart, Maybe you’ll be there, Polka Dots, All the Way, Skylark, Nevertheless, On a little street and It had to be you.

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