Magic: Bob Dylan’s most unlikely choice for “Shot of Love”

by Tony Attwood

Many of the songs I’ve been looking at, of late, exist just as ideas – short sequences which turn into jam sessions, but are clearly not yet worked out.   And some of these are very good indeed.

This song is different however for it was worked through and almost made it onto Shot of Love album – it was only removed at the last.

And indeed this is a bit of an oddity for it retains the frothiness of some of the incomplete songs recorded around this time but which were not completed, but doesn’t have any of the solidity and bite of other songs that Dylan composed immediately after.

But Dylan was serious about “Magic” – it was recorded three times in two different sessions in April 1981 and we do have a recording of the first of these takes – the one that was considered for the album.  The picture given with the video is irrelevant – it is a full band performance, and well rehearsed.

Heylin notes that the song was not copyrighted until much later, and he suggests that could be because of the problem of transcribing the lyrics – which I guess means no one had the nerve to go up to Bob and ask him what he was singing.  It’s another one where I certainly would not want to guess.

It is also interesting that here we really in the era of the recording and mixing Caribbean Wind, and yet this song is so light and frothy – it hardly seems to come from the same songwriter.  It is as if Bob wants to prove that he can work in all genres at once.

Certainly musically Bob is moving a long way away from the three and four chord pieces which go around and around, as he had been playing with on the proto-tracks recorded as he worked on the album.

The two introductory instrumental bars (the guitar melody and the triple drum beat at the end) are very much standard pop concepts, which make me feel that maybe Bob really was saying, I can do some basic pop as well as the religious stuff and the heavy duty meaningful lyrics, and the blues and…

And yes he can, but whether it is a song worthy of the album, I think not – at least not at this stage.  It certainly doesn’t qualify (for me at least) as anything like a “lost gem”.

I think to make this point more solidly one might also consider that also in these sessions Bob was trying out Dead Man Dead Man which has so much more power and force – contrasting these two songs which must have been written within a few days of each other, one would hardly believe that the same person could have written them.  It’s not that I’m not aware of how many different formats Dylan can write it, it is just the speed at which he can jump from one to another that continues to take me by surprise.

“Dead Man” is musically much, much simpler than “Magic” and yet somehow it seems to say much more.

But “Magic” was most seriously considered for the album and seemingly was only dropped right at the last.

Think there’s something missing or wrong with this review?

You are of course always welcome to write a comment below, but if you’d like to go further, you could write an alternative review – we’ve already published quite a few of these.  We try to avoid publishing reviews and comments that are rude or just criticisms of what is written elsewhere – but if you have a positive take on this song or any other Dylan song, and would like it considered for publication, please do email Tony@schools.co.uk

What else is on the site

1: 500+ reviews of Dylan songs.  There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology.  We’ve taken the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums.  The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site.  We have also produced overviews of Dylan’s work year by year.     The index to the chronologies is here.

3: Bob Dylan’s themes.  We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions.  There is an index here.

4:   The Discussion Group    We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook.  Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link 

5:  Bob Dylan’s creativity.   We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further.  The index is in Dylan’s Creativity.

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines and our articles on various writers’ lists of Dylan’s ten greatest songs.

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7 Comments

  1. Something like:

    Mmm mmm ahh ahh day by day
    Say your cards fell that way
    Away
    If I’d a million, I will give it to you
    Had another billion, I will sell it to you
    Leave it on you phone, and I will get it for you
    Because it’s magic
    Magic
    Oh, oh, oh oh, magic

  2. I never really appreciated this song probably because of the difficulty in hearing the words. I have listened to it on the link above and it is wonderful. I can now understand why it was almost on the released album and it would have been great to hear it performed live in 1981. Tony, I also feel ‘Lenny Bruce ‘ is a great song, as you do, ever since I first heard it ( performed live in Birmingham in 1981 ). Have you heard the fairly recent ‘After The Empire’ bootleg with songs such as ‘ Baby Coming Back From The Dead ‘ and ‘ Nothing Here Worth Dying For ‘ ?

  3. Actually, I think this is a great discovery and in the top tier of his discards — not lyrically, but certainly melodically and exuberantly. I only wish it had made it to the the boxed set. I’d love it if you put out either the other takes or, even better, any higher fidelity version of this you find. Thanks for the gem!

  4. Muse – thanks – it is a case of finding the versions and ensuring that no one is going to sue. Where both conditions are met I am trying to put up more links every day.

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