Author Archives: TonyAttwood

by Larry Fyffe To draw the attention of the listener to his thoughts concerning the alienation wrought by an industrialized society, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan compares humans to machines (See:”Bob Dylan And Depersonalization“). He’s not a one-trick pony, however – Dylan … Continue reading →

Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread (1967) by Jochen Markhorst In 1968 Beatty Zimmerman, Dylan’s mother, stays with the young family of her son in Woodstock for a while. In an interview with writer Toby Thompson (Positively Main Street, … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood The classic analysis of the content of lyrics of popular songs is that there are three options: love, lost love and dance.   And indeed for many a long year those three subject areas have dominated popular music. … Continue reading →

 by Larry Fyffe Bob Dylan’s oft down in the basement mixing up the musical medicine in a big pot. He notes that a good medecine man always attempts to balance the elements of  earth, air, fire, and water. Could be … Continue reading →

Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)  by Jochen Markhorst At most concerts in 1978 Dylan has a hardly enlightening introduction talk to the Tales Of Yankee Power. A chat which, as the year progresses, fans out wilder and wilder. Initially, Dylan … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This article is part of our occasional series on why Bob Dylan likes specific songs that he either mentions in interviews or occasionally performs.  Other articles in the series are listed at the end. “Not Fade Away” … Continue reading →

  By Larry Fyffe Most analysts of the song lyrics of Bob Dylan do not grasp that all of his musical works are closely interconnected, centred on mankind’s existential condition with lyrics focused on common human needs. They see him … Continue reading →

  by Jochen Markhorst  After Star Trek he certainly has an admirable follow-up career. Prizes (a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for his role in Boston Legal, for example), bestsellers, amassing a fortune of around $450 million with a … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This is a rather obscure Dylan song about which different people have written different things (not for the first time!)  For example it is stated in some quarters that the first and last performance was at the … Continue reading →

Bob Dylan: Strengthen The Things That Remain  By Larry Fyffe Make the style of art over anew, says Ezra Pound,  holding that a thing of beauty, a piece of art well done, is a joy forever; however, its wishful thinking … Continue reading →

  by Jochen Markhorst   The world’s best songwriter does not always strike home and occasionally misses to such an extent that simple mortals overcome all humility and dare to bark at the boss. Wiggle wiggle like a bowl of … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This review updated 25 September 2020 With much thanks to Aaron Galbraith for his help in unearthing this, and many of the other more obscure Dylan moments that we’ve added to the site of late. This article originally … Continue reading →

by Larry Fyffe Robert Frost is a middle-of-the-road poet. In his lyrics about the cosmos, nature, society, and the individual, Frost swings back and forth between a gnostic-like vision and a romantic transcendentalist one: I’d like to go by climbing … Continue reading →

by Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet) ‘Cast your dancing spell my way I promise to go under it…’ Ever since Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, there has been a tendency to think that the best way to appreciate a … Continue reading →

by Jochen Markhorst The Alabama woman who is introduced in “Slow Train”, has a motherly, stern message: Boy, without a doubt Have to quit your mess and straighten out You could go down here, be just another accident statistic Stop … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood After the Empire is a recording session in which Bob Dylan and his fellow musicians work through a number of ideas that are not particularly well evolved.  I have reviewed the first track elsewhere (Baby’s coming back … Continue reading →

By Larry Fyffe Songs sung by the late and great Paul Robeson have a tremendous impact on singer/songwriter Bob Dylan: Well, I don’t know how it happened But the riverboat captain, he knows my fate But everybody else, even yourself … Continue reading →

The Man In Me (1970) by Jochen Markhorst The colourful crackerjack guitarist and full-blooded musician Jack White may consider himself one of Dylan’s more intimate acquaintances and lives in a large house with a large piece of land in Nashville. … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood A song that I have missed while working through all the Dylan tracks, and (wrongly as it turns out) claiming that we have reviewed them all.  Apologies, this one should have been included long ago  It turns … Continue reading →

by Larry Fyffe Right wingers in American politics, prior thereto and during the 1960’s, see a hard-line Communist behind every bush, as they still do today. The folk-singing ‘Weavers’ member Jackie Alper notes that Bob Dylan spends a lot of … Continue reading →