- The utterly brilliant Angelina, plus Maybe Someday, Under you spell
- The album title songs Dylan wrote and ignored: JWH, Nashville Skyline.
- The songs Bob has never performed: Temporary Like Achilles
- No time, time passes and Dirge
- World Gone Wrong, She’s your lover, Foot of Pride
- Abandoned Love and Up to Me
By Tony Attwood
In this series I’m looking at a few of the songs Bob Dylan put onto an album, but then didn’t play in concert and asking (although quite often not answering) the simple question, “Why go to all the trouble of getting a recording good enough for an album, and then never include the song in the rosta?”
With “Dirt Road Blues” I think we have more of an answer than we have had in some other cases for as I noted when I first reviewed the song, it has to be seen not as a stand alone song but in the context of Time out of Mind where it was the second track, between Love Sick and Standing in the Doorway.
To me that suggests that the song is a reminder to the audience that yes although the album is about lost love, which suggests slow, often depressing songs, it is possible to be a bit more upbeat about the subject. And although we know that Bob has almost always had control over what goes on his albums as much as what songs he plays on stage, it might be possible here that someone said, “Bob you’ve got to lighten it up a bit near the start.” So he did.
And having done that, Bob then felt that there was no reason to play it in concert.
In fact “Dirt Road Blues” is, as far as I can tell, the only song from Time Out of Mind that Bob has never performed live. And yet it obviously occupied him for a while during the recording of the album, because we know of at least two other versions, beside the one that appeared on the album, and both are clearly highly arranged, complex versions that would have taken a fair bit of rehearsal. Indeed although the version below says “Version 1” there must have been a lot of rehearsing (and thus possibly recordings) before the band got to make this recording.
We can certainly say both recordings we now have are well rehearsed, rather just knocked out as a spot of relief between the very, very downbeat opening tracks. Indeed just listen to the middle 8 in the version 1 recording above.
And irrespective of whether my view of why the song was not played in concert is right or wrong, I must say I love this first version; a version which I would have thought could have fitted well into any gig. OK the lyrics are just the standard blues lyrics, but the overall effect of the recording really gives us a bit of uplift – the uplift Bob clearly decided in the end that he didn’t need given how the lyrics pan out…
Gon’ walk down that dirt road, ’til someone lets me ride Gon’ walk down that dirt road, ’til someone lets me ride If I can’t find my baby, I’m gonna run away and hide
And as we move on through the song nothing really changes….
Gon’ walk on down that dirt road ’til I’m right beside the sun Gon’ walk on down until I’m right beside the sun I’m gonna have to put up a barrier to keep myself away from everyone
There was also another version…
This version really does take us away from the essence of the album as a whole, although personally I think this has to be my favourite approach – it has a perfect swing to it which counteracts the fact that it still is that old 12 bar blues approach.
There is also a beautiful contrast between what the band does when Bob is singing and in those intermissions between each line. I really would have loved to hear this in concert.
But let’s move on. Here’s a second “never released” song, and this one is very different in that the recordings we have of Bob performing the song clearly were not ready to be released. So my point here is quite different – I think that with a bit more work this could have been a superb Dylan track. But two things took the song in a wrong direction I believe – one is the falsetto voices in the chorus, the other is the step by step rise in the music for “When it’s all been done before”… the build up to that chorus.
Take two of the song shows (to me and of course as ever this is just my view) Bob struggles to know how to deliver these lyrics which are of themselves pretty apocalyptic. In short, I think he got stuck – and that is not me suggesting that I would have found a way out of the dilemma; I don’t think that at all.
In fact I only think there is a way out of the problem because Peter Paul and Mary ripped up the whole concept of the music representing the lyrics, and instead gave the whole piece a bounce.
Yes if one takes the lyrics as the starting point, this song becomes impossible, but there is nothing in the book of musical rules that says it has to be this way.
The PPM version isn’t perfect by any means, and I think the ending is horrible, but the concept of this final verse with bounce and energy is interesting and fun.
Too much of nothin' can turn a man into a liarIt can cause some man to sleep on nailsAnother man to eat fireEverybody's doin' somethin', I heard it in a dreamBut when it's too much of nothin', it just makes a fella mean Say hello to Valerie, say hello to MarionSend them all my salary on the waters of oblivion