Author Archives: TonyAttwood

By Tony Attwood Steel Bars is a song that Bob Dylan wrote with Michael Bolton for his Time, Love & Tenderness album. Commenting very briefly on this song Heylin makes two points.  One was that Dylan was at a very … Continue reading →

  By Sandra Tibble He feels helpless to rescue her from her fate which is  inextricably tied to their sad ending in marriage. It is a fait accompli. He had the strange joy of loving her and now the awakened mind sings … Continue reading →

  By Jochen Markhorst Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota. On a freezing January afternoon in 1961, the then sixteen-year-old narrator walks back from school with his best friend and neighbour, Gene. They are overtaken by sirens and flashing lights, … Continue reading →

  By Larry Fyffe In the song ‘Maybe Someday’, Bob Dylan takes a somewhat Gnostic point of view – physical human bodies are bound up in a physical world from which there is no happy escape – alas, imagined spiritual … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood The first thing to say is that although we don’t know of any songs Bob has written in recent years that isn’t definite proof that he hasn’t been playing around with some new ideas while on tour.  … Continue reading →

By  Jochen Markhorst Chronocentrism, it is called; the very human phenomenon in which one believes to be living in an exceptional time. With politicians it is a chronic ailment; they refer to ‘these difficult times’ in every discussion, or ‘these … Continue reading →

by Jochen Markhorst The gatekeeper of Pontius Pilate, one Cartaphilus, is a most unpleasant man. When Jesus tries to pass, at the beginning of the Stations of the Cross, this Cartaphilus strikes a nasty blow on His back and snarls … Continue reading →

by Larry Fyffe In his basement, singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan mixes up various forms of artistic medicine. In the romantic drama, ‘Now And Forever’, Gary Cooper stars as an unscrupulous swindler named Jerry Day who plans to sell the custody rights … Continue reading →

by  Jochen Markhorst Through the diaries of Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), the English have inherited an enviable cultural and historical treasure. For ten years, from 1660 to 1669, the senior official (a Secretary of the Admiralty and reorganiser of the Royal … Continue reading →

by  Jochen Markhorst “Nobody has ever captured the sound of 3 a.m. better than that album. Nobody, even Sinatra, gets it as good.” (Al Kooper) Synesthesia is the peculiar disorder in which the holder mixes up sensory perceptions. He sees … Continue reading →

by  Jochen Markhorst In May 2018, television company Fox announces that after three seasons the plug is to be pulled from the popular series Lucifer. The announcement provokes the predictable  protests, sadness, indignation and the inevitable #savelucifer action, but Fox does have a … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

By Larry Fyffe The unifying theme (expressed throughout the Untold articles on singer / songwriter / musician Bob Dylan) that brings Bob Dylan’s works together is not so much found in the Holy Bible as it is in the movie … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood When Jochen Markhorst made the comment that he had collected about 9000 Dylan covers over which roughly 1200 are worth a second listen and that “out of those 1200 there are (so far) 152 really, really good covers … Continue reading →

  By Larry Fyffe In a funny film noir ‘All Through The Night’, Humphrey Bogart plays gangster-turned-gambler ‘Gloves’ Donahue. He and Leda are chased by Nazis through the streets of New York – she finds out how it feels to … Continue reading →

by Larry Fyffe “What’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?” is the question asked over and over again when Bob Dylan sings ‘Sweetheart Like You’. The question is taken from the Humphrey Bogart, somewhat humorous, film … Continue reading →

  By Larry Fyffe Many well-respected interpreters of Bob Dylan’s song lyrics focus on biographical information about Bob Dylan when doing so. They fail to examine his work as a whole, as art in and of itself; in a nutshell, … Continue reading →

Commentary by Tony Attwood; lyrics by readers of this site, as noted in each case. This song is the most popular of what one might call, “the more obscure” or even “lost” or perhaps “bootleg only” Dylan songs on this … Continue reading →

  By Larry Fyffe Detected in his song lyrics is Bob Dylan’s keen interest in American history from the first settlements to the Western Frontier, the Civil War, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the World Wars, and the Nuclear … Continue reading →

Intro by Tony Attwood; new lyrics and commentary by Julian Morgan. We first published a review of “To fall in love with you” two years ago and during the past 12 months that review has been the fourth most viewed … Continue reading →