This is part of a series of articles, each of which summarises Bob’s compositional work year by year, focusing on the music. A list of the articles so far in this series is given at the end of the article. To see all the songs Dylan wrote, in the order he wrote them, with links to the reviews on this site, follow one of these lines
- Dylan songs of the 1960s
- Dylan songs of the 1970s
- Dylan songs of the 1980s
- Dylan songs of the 1990s
- Dylan songs of the 21st century
By Tony Attwood
It is possible to see 1970 as a year when Bob tried hard to find a new way to express himself musically (as opposed to primarily finding new ways to express himself lyrically), but really found it hard going. Of the 15 songs written that year, several seem to have a very limited musical input, such as “All the tired horses”, “Three Angels,” and “If dogs run free,” while it may be argued that some of the other songs also reveal a composer struggling to find anything new musically. One might consider “One more weekend” – a classic 12-bar blues – as an example of this.
Of course, we can all have our own personal opinions of each song, but I would suggest that it is particularly hard to find very much in this year’s output that one would wish to include as a fine example of Bob Dylan, songwriter.
And indeed from a musical point of view we can see this view amplified in the following year for in 1971 Bob only wrote six songs – or at least I should say “six songs that have survived”. And of those six, I would suggest only two are remembered by all but the most devoted fans and collectors of everything Bob wrote.
But these are two wonderful songs. Songs, indeed, that would mark the high point of any songwriter’s work across the years. But we are thinking of Dylan here, and these are two songs that most of us would opt to play as a demonstration of the multiple skills of Bob the songwriter. And what makes them particularly interesting is that they came in the midst of a a fairly meek output for the man who had been used to writing 30 or more songs a year, with over half of them still being played.
The full list of 1971 songs and indeed my earlier musings on Bob’s decline at this time are given here, but I would like to focus on the two great songs of the year When I Paint My Masterpiece (performed 456 times up to December 2025) and Watching the river flow (performed 772 times again up to the time of writing this article). Nothing else from the rest of this year’s output has ever been performed by Bob.
Quite what it was that allowed Bob to create two such masterpieces in a year of nothing else of significance, I can’t say, but I would add that the most likely reason is that for Bob, like many songwriters, songs simply come to him while playing the keyboards or guitar. Of course, I have no direct insight here into what he did for these songs at this time, but many songwriters I have spoken with say they just start playing the instrument, putting a few chords together, and some lyrics or a melody appear in the mind.
On other occasions, the key phrase from the lyrics comes first, and it is so powerful that the melody and then everything else just falls into place. But we must note that so strongly does Bob appreciate his own work that he can devote weeks to re-writing songs as he goes – even if he is using the opening of the song “Istanbul not Constantinople”.
Here’s the inspiration from some 30 years earlier…
And here is Bob rewriting that opening and putting it in his own song
Of course, the debate can be on whether Bob and/or his musicians simply remembered the opening of the earlier song, without actually realising they had pinched it, but given Bob’s extraordinary knowledge and memory of music, I doubt that. I think he was just having some fun, quite possibly after a member of the band played the start of “Constantinople” during a pause in rehearsals.
But it is worth hearing Bob’s original version because it really does have all the elements we look for in a Bob Dylan masterpiece.
And I really do think it is worth pausing and listening to how Bob conceived of this song in his original demo version. The lyrics are pure Bob, but then so is the music – although with some interesting twists which I think really are the key to understanding Bob at this time.
The song is played in various keys, but as ever, I take my lead from Dylan Chords, which has it in A major. And at once we feel something odd, because the song doesn’t start with the chord of A but the related chord of D only coming to A major on the word “Rome”.
But then we do have a real Dylan-esque shift, which I have copied here from the aforementioned Dylan Chords.
Dm A
"Sailin' 'round the world full of crimson and clover
C# D
oh Lord sometimes I feel just like my
B E /d C#m Bm7
cup is runnin' o - ver
Now this is the equivalent of the oft-mentioned “middle 8” – a variation on the verse which helps give the song some extra diversity, and indeed if we look at the official Dylan site we can see exactly how this works with two eight-line verses, and then the middle 8 separated out. But what is so weird is not just the shortness of the middle eight compared with each verse (most middle 8s are the same length as a verse but just using a different melody and chord sequence) but it is in A minor, at least for a moment before modulating to, well, we can all have an opinion….
The chord sequence shown above is … the best word I can come up with is “weird” or perhaps I should say in writing about a genius, “unprecedented”. Even the final chord of B minor 7, although being a chord that is to be found in the key of D major, is not an obvious or by any means common way of leading back to the key chord. It is weird, it is (to me at least unprecedented), and it works perfectly.
So the question is, how and why did Bob do this? I don’t think he had ever done anything like this before, so why here and now? Did a member of the band show him?
What we can say is that it is incredibly effective in relation to the lyrics.
Dylan Chords also gives us an alternative version from Shadow Kingdom which runs
Cm G
"Sailin' 'round the world full of crimson and clover
Bm . C
sometimes I feel just like my cup is
D . . . /c . . . /b . . . D
Runnin' o - ver
which is just as effective and just as powerful.
So how did this come to Bob – using this complex set of modulations in what is an enjoyable, but musically a fairly mainstream song? I have no idea, but it does show us that in this period of not writing songs in the way he used to, Bob must have been using his time to find ways in which he could come out with something as extraordinary as this in terms of the music.
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 39: Bob invents a totally new musical form 40: There is a change we can see and a change we can't see 41: A sign on the window tells us that change is here 42: One more weekend and New Morning: pastures new 43: Three Angels, an experiment that leads nowhere 44: An honorary degree nevertheless. But why was Bob not pleased?