Previously in this series
By Tony Attwood
The idea behind “The series we should never forget” is simple. Untold Dylan was started in 2008, and since then we have published nearly 4,000 articles, some of which (and not, I hasten to add, the ones written by me) have started to be used as part of the broader study and analysis of Bob Dylan’s lifetime of songwriting.
All the articles that we have published across these 17 years are still on the site, but I felt that it would be good to have a sort of “Best of” set of articles, commemorating, and indeed making it easy to find, some of the series that to me, if no one else, has helped deepen the understanding of Bob’s work.
Being as self-centred as I am I nominated one of my own series Once or Twice but at least had the sense not to start with me, but rather to initiate the review with the brilliant series which looked in greater depth than I have not seen elsewhere, at the covers of Dylan’s albums.
Of course, having got going with the series, I asked Jochen to nominate one of his own many series on this site and he mentioned “Desolation Row” – but the problem with that was twofold. One is that only parts of the whole series of articles he wrote were published here, and the rest, quite reasonably given their importance and innovative analysis, were retained for the book. Which of course was fine, except that Jochen now tells me the book is almost out of print. Just a few copies left.
So, without that input, I moved on to one of Jochen’s reviews that we did publish in full – a review of one of Dylan’s more recent compositions; a composition which has had a particular effect on me: “I contain multitudes.” That series was published here, and quite seriously, I feel honoured to have been able to publish it.
Whether you love the song or not, whether you read the whole series of articles on the song when we first published them, I’m sure you would agree, this series of articles takes you into the song in a way that nothing else does.
Of course I don’t have pretensions that what we do here ever reaches the eyes and ears of Bob or his band, but I’d like to think that maybe one day, one of Bob’s close associates will come across this series of articles and say to Bob, “you ought to read this Bob”.
Well, you never know.
“I contain multitudes” – the series on Untold Dylan, with my eternal thanks to Jochen for writing it and offering it to Untold to publish.
Tony
1: Two Irish counties at odds 2: To the buried that repose around us 3: The thrill of rhyming something that’s never been rhymed before 4: Boogaloo dudes carry the news 5: All the people on earth… all you 6: All things lost on earth are treasured there 7: Allen’s outer ear 8: Time is a river, a violent torrent of events 9: None of this has to connect 10: Don’t you step on my pink pedal pushers 11: She’s the queen of all the teens 12: They’re not metaphors 13: A little bit of Lincoln can’t park the car 14: I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in 15: The aim of all life is death 16: Have at it, ladies 17: An inarticulate proposition 18: Thou art at last—just what thou art 19: Burping and belching and other bodily functions 20:The elegance of Euler’s identity