By Tony Attwood
Of course I can’t do the actual greatest reworkings of songs by Dylan, because there are so many new workings of the songs and new recordings appear – and sadly disappear. But I can pick a few that I rather enjoy, just in case you missed them.
I’ve also noted a few other articles related to the song, that you might (or might not) find interesting.
But…
This has turned out to be a far more time consuming exercise than I thought, since I’ve ended up listening to more and more and more Dylan reworkings of Dylan, not to mention correcting a few broken links in the reviews.
If you’d like to help me out, send in any lings to live performances that really do add something new to the original recorded version and I will continue to head towards the 50 promised in the article title.
1: Things have changed
- Dylan: Things Have Changed or have they?
- Things have changed: the meanings behind Bob Dylan’s song
- Bob Dylan’s ultimate message: there is nothing you can do, nothing will be changed.
2: Visions of Johanna
In this it is not so much the singing that shines out, but rather the accompaniment which allows everything in those words (which of course we all know by heart, and which if I was going to be buried rather than cremated I’d consider having on my gravestone) suddenly rise up and turn us over, inside out and upside down.
- Long distance operator: putting the call through for the Visions, by looking at what Dylan wrote immediately before Visions.
- Visions of Johanna: the meaning of the music, the lyrics and the rewrites
- Visions of Johanna: The Old Crow Medicine Show version of Dylan’s masterpiece has me in tears.
- Dylan’s Scarlet Town decoded; from the nursery to Johanna, from Tangled up to Set em up Jo.
3: It ain’t me babe
Even Heylin called this live 1965 performance “spell binding”
4: Not Dark Yet with extra edge, not to mention steel.
- It’s not dark yet: Bob Dylan and Existentialism
- Bob Dylan in 1977: the preparation work for “Not Dark Yet”
- Reading Dylan as Poetry: It’s not dark yet
- Not Dark Yet: Bob Dylan as 20th century Keats and the memories that still linger
5: Blind Willie McTell
- Why can’t Bob Dylan appreciate which are his best compositions
- How to ignore a masterpiece
- Bob Dylan’s forgotten gems
6: Positively 4th Street
As I said in the reworked review “goodness this is painful”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIHQ-90muY
Positively 4th Street, the meaning behind the music – and a variant
“Are you ready” The Christian side of Positively Fourth Street.
7: She Belongs to me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn00A2IQ8MQ
or if you prefer, try this
- She Belongs to Me – never has a 12 bar blues sounded more beautiful
- Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me”: the reinterpretation of Greek mythology
- “If you belonged to me” – the reinterpretation of “She Belongs to Me”
What else is on the site?
You’ll find an index to our latest posts arranged by themes and subjects on the home page. You can also see details of our main sections on this site at the top of this page under the picture.
The index to the 500+ songs reviewed is now on a new page of its own. You will find it here. It contains reviews of every Dylan composition that we can find a recording of – if you know of anything we have missed please do write in.
We also now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link
And please do note The Bob Dylan Project, which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews