Details of the previous articles in this series, which focus on Dylan’s music, rather than his lyrics, are given at the end of the article.
By Tony Attwood
My last article in the series “No Nobel Prize for Music” ( One musical line sung 12 times to 130 words) took us to the period after the Basement Tapes, when Bob utterly changed lyrical and musical direction for one album. Was he trying to prove that he could issue anything and it would be a hit, or was he deliberately seeking a new arena in which to work? Whatever the answer, what we got was an album unlike any offered to us before, and a song (The Watchtower, of course) which ended up being played on the Never Ending Tour, more than any other song Dylan has written or recorded.
And indeed, we might pause at this moment to reflect on which songs Bob has performed the most, for at this moment (October 2025) we can find ten songs that Bob has performed on stage over 1000 times each. Here’s the list as of today:
- All Along the Watchtower: 2338 performances
- Like a Rolling Stone: 2075 performances
- Highway 61 Revisited: 2029 performances
- Tangled Up In Blue: 1685 performances
- Blowin’ in the Wind: 1585 performances
- Ballad of a Thin Man: 1278 performances
- It Ain’t Me, Babe: 1123 performances
- Don’t Think Twice: It’s All Right: 1118 performances
- Maggie’s Farm: 1051 performances
- Things Have Changed: 1004 performances
I have often pondered what links these songs together, although maybe there is nothing except the fact Bob likes them. Personally, I’d drop “Thin Man” and “Maggie’s Farm” from the list, and only keep “Highway 61” because it is known as the Blues Highway. But of course it isn’t me, it’s Bob.
“Watchtower” has its special place because of Hendrix’ rearrangement, and that having heard that rearrangement, Dylan settled on the song for the end of the show. But Bob is the boss, and I’m just the observer, so he knows. And it really did give a good rousing end to the evening.
But to return to our main theme – Bob Dylan the musician… In the last episode, I noted that Bob had moved from the complexity of songs like “Sad Eyed Lady” to the utter simplicity of “the JWH songs in general, and “Watchtower” in particular. Where could he turn next as a songwriter?
In fact, the answer is nowhere. Or virtually nowhere until one starts to look at what Bob produced, in depth. The data suggests that yes, he did write one song in 1968, and a real masterpiece it truly is: the love song “Lay Lady Lay”. Although according to Wikipedia, “Lay Lady Lay” was originally written for the soundtrack of the film Midnight Cowboy, but wasn’t submitted in time to be included in the finished film.”
And then again, according to NBC, “In long-lost interviews, Bob Dylan…reveals he wrote the hit song,”Lay Lady Lay” for Barbra Streisand to sing.”
Either way, it was a song that stood alone in the list of Dylan compositions in 1968 – although most commentators who have noted the song have no idea what made it so very special. Indeed, I am not sure many of the people who have recorded the song since, quite realise what they are dealing with.
And in fact, when we come to look at the construction of this song, who can blame Bob for not composing anything else in that year? For what he did with this composition was create a popular song unlike anything that had gone before.
First, of course, we must admit it is a gorgeous song in its own right, a song which surely any songwriter would be proud of. And second, during the previous year, Bob seems to have done nothing but write, or at least rearrange songs for the Basement Tapes and the JWH album. If you want to see the list of the songs that emerged at that time, they are all noted in the first part of the list of Dylan compositions in chronological order. The total number of songs is around 100, and even if some were not actually Dylan compositions, it is an extraordinary number of tracks to lay down, not least when prior to this we were, most of us at least, already amazed at Dylan producing around 20 songs a year.
But now with “Lay Lady Lay” the first thing we notice musically is that Bob opens with a chord sequence that not only has he never used before, I can’t really recall anyone using it before: A, C#minor, G, B minor. I’ll try and explain what is going on and why it is so revolutionary.
Playing the chord of A major to begin announces the song is most likely in the key of A, and indeed the second chord of C# minor reinforces this thought as it is a perfectly normal chord to have as the second chord in a song in A. Especially a plaintive song – written in A. I can’t remember at this moment Bob doing that before, but he probably has, and really, it wouldn’t be noted as anything special. It’s a very reasonable way to start this sort of song.
But the next chord of G major is utterly unexpected. Yes, in the blues, you will often hear A followed by G, but not with a C# minor in between. And as if to show what an intruder that chord of G is in this sequence, we then have B minor – another chord perfectly acceptable within a song written in A major, but not in relation to the changes that have come just seconds before.
In fact, what we have are two pairs of chords that themselves are fine as pairs of chords, but in which the two pairs are not related to each other in any way. In other words, A major and C# minor work together perfectly. And G and B minor work together perfectly. But the two pairs are really from different keys. I’m almost tempted to write, “from different universes.”
And yet, and yet, the song works brilliantly. Maybe Bob did hear another song that has used this four-chord combination, or maybe he was playing the guitar or piano and happened upon it – but either way, it is most interesting. But to make this chord structure work you still need a melody that fits.
I took some time a while ago to review some of the performances of this song by Bob in the Never Ending Tour series, and if you have time you might pop into this link In that article are four recordings of Bob performing the song on the Tour, and what is so noticeable is that no matter what Bob does to the melody (especially in the fourth example in that article) the chord sequence is utterly unchangeable. In short, this unique chord sequence is the song. Bob can play around with the melody as much as he likes, but the song is only the song because of that unique sequence.
So here we have a year in which Bob wrote one song which is founded upon, and gains all its originality and momentum from, a simple, but very unusual four-chord sequence.
But we should notice that Bob the songwriter goes further. Because while verse one has four easily understood lines.
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Whatever colors you have in your mind
I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile
Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you're the best thing that he's ever seen.
Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too?
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he's standing in front of you?
Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead
I long to see you in the morning light
I long to reach for you in the night
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead.
Now, what we have to remember here is that Bob had just had a long period without writing new songs, which itself had followed a period of recording every song he could possibly think of (ie the Basement Tapes era). And suddenly he comes out not just with a beautiful new composition, but one which takes song-writing into totally new territory. Songs, we had always learned before this point, had verses in which the lyrics changed but the music stayed the same, and choruses that return regularly, to repeat their same music and lyrics. And tradition demands, in these two structures, the music stays the same while the lyrics evolve. Musically, the song is in a particular key and stays there except possibly for an occasional modulation to the dominant in the chorus.
But suddenly, Bob said no, it doesn’t have to be like that. Suddenly, the number of lines in a verse can change, and the chord sequence doesn’t have to relate to a particular key. Suddenly, in one song, and seemingly without anyone noticing, Bob has evolved a totally new structure for a popular song. And of course, typical of Bob, he never talked about what he had done. He just did it. And what an utter masterpiece of four and five-line verses we have.
The great wonder of this song is not that Bob decided to have four lines in some sections and five lines in others, but rather that he does it, and basically no one notices, except to feel that slight “something”, that slight uncertainty in the singer’s lines as he is begging her to stay and not go.
Previously in this series….
1: We might have noted the musical innovations more 2: From Hattie Carroll to the incoming ship 3: From Times to Percy’s song 4: Combining musical traditions in unique ways 5: Using music to take us to a world of hope 6: Chimes of Freedom and Tambourine Man 7: Bending the form to its very limits 8: From Denise to Mama 9: Balled in Plain 10:Black Crow to All I really want to do 11: I’ll keep it with mine 12:Dylan does gothic and the world ends 13: The Gates of Eden 14: After the Revolution – another revolution 15: Returning to the roots (but with new chords) 16: From “It’s all right” to “Angelina”. What appened? 17: How strophic became something new: Love is just a four letter word 18: Bob reaches the subterranean 19: The conundrum of the song that gets worse 20: Add one chord, keep it simple, sing of love 21: It’s over. Start anew. It’s the end 22:Desolation Row: perhaps the most amazing piece of popular music ever written 23: Can you please crawl out your window 24: Positively Fourth Street 25: Where the lyrics find new lands, keep the music simple 26: Tom Thumb’s journey. It wasn’t that bad was it? 27: From Queen Jane to the Thin Man 28: The song that revolutionised what popular music could do 29: Taking the music to completely new territory 30: Sooner or Later the committee will realise its error 31: The best ever version of “Where are you tonight sweet Marie?” 32: Just like a woman 33: Most likely you go your way 34: Everybody must get stoned 35: Obviously 5 Believers 36: I Want You Creativity dries up 37: Creativity dries up - the descent towards the basement. 38: One musical line sung 12 times to 130 worlds