By Tony Attwood
As part of my work in publishing a new article about Bob Dylan about 350 times a year I also do a fair amount of checking back through the almost 4000 articles already on the site, and in doing that I thought it might be an idea to maybe pick out a few of those series which have stood the test of time.
Unfortunately, “stood the test of time” is merely my own view, and since I wrote the articles, that is liable to be very untrustworthy. But maybe it will stimulate you to think of some of Bob’s songs that were performed once but could and perhaps should have gone further.
So, having offered the series on The album Covers as being an Untold series that can stand being reviewed, this time I would like to highlight a series that I found absolutely fascinating to research (even if my subsequent articles were not always very informative) – a series which gave me, as I wrote it, a huge number of surprises.
This was the series that focused on the songs that Bob has only performed once or twice, and it arose out of the realisation that the majority of Bob’s compositions have never been performed by him at all.
Now I guess most of us know immediately that the song Bob has performed most on stage is “All along the Watchtower” – the official Dylan site clocks that as having been performed 2320 times by Bob, just a bit ahead of the 2075 performances of “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Andd fortunately, it is possible to put the song list in the order of the number of times played, and I must admit I was a little surprised when I found that the collection of songs that had never been performed at all, was greater than the list of songs that had been performed once or more (all the way up to 2320 times).
Quite why Bob has chosen to ignore totally such songs as (just by way of example) “No Time to Think” or “Farewell Angelina”, (or indeed “Angelina”), or “Abandoned Love” or indeed why he didn’t take “Ballad for a Friend” further and record that, is totally beyond me. But he’s the genius composer, and I’m just the guy who writes about him, so of course he knows best.
So arose the series “Once or Twice” – the songs that Bob wrote, and played in public once or twice before leaving them behind. And actually, I did have to change the title to Three Times and Out when I realised that “When the Ship” had been performed three and not twice – but we all make mistakes, and as long as I say “sorry” I guess that is ok.
The series went on for quite a while – I think it got to around 25 entries and as with so many series I indulge in, I really didn’t know where it would go when I started. But I was stunned to find some songs in the list that, in my opinion, at least. really did (and indeed do) deserve a much wider audience. It makes me think that maybe there should be a series on some of the songs that Dylan has composed but never performed. Especially if we could find some recordings by other artists. In fact now I think of it, I did write maybe half a dozen articles on that series and then got distracted. Maybe it is time to try again. Unless you’d like to volunteer….
Meanwhile, here is the list of articles on the songs that Bob performed once or twice but then left. If you have suggestions of any kind (as long as they are moderately polite) you can write to me at Tony@schools.co.uk
From a Buick 6 – see “Meet me in the Morining” below
The Girl on the Greenbriar Shore
Lily, Rosemary and Stage Fright
Meet me in the morning and From a Buick 6