Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Tony Attwood Whoever said that lyrics have to make sense? I guess the people who like to write or talk about contemporary music but have never listened to Nottamun Town… They laughed and they smiled, not a soul did … Continue reading →

By  Larry Fyffe The fuzzy-categorized, overlapping writings in the Judeo-Christian Bible, in Romantic Transcendentalist poetry, in Romantic Gothic poetry, in Symbolist poetry, in Neo-Romantic and AntiRomantic Modern poetry, and in Post-Modern poetry, all have influences to varying degrees on Bob … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood The original title of “Clothes Line Saga” was “Answer to ‘Ode’,” which helps us confirm what is fairly obvious, that just as Bob parodied “Norwegian Wood” in “Fourth Time Around” so he was doing the same here. … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood In many respects I find 1984 a year in which Dylan was once more casting around for a new vision, a new idea.  Part blues, part religion, part love songs, part experiment… that was the sort of … Continue reading →

By Larry Fyffe God having cast Adam and Eve from Eden, the Deists returned the favour by casting God out of the Universe. With God uninvolved, two major wars occurring, ending with the dropping of the atomic bomb, existence is … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood Heylin, in his commentary on Dylan’s works across the years, is particularly disparaging about the Wilburys and the way Bob’s work was treated therein.  His view is that the real talent was Dylan’s, the rest of the … Continue reading →

Bob Dylan: The Property Of Jesus By Larry Fyffe The poets of the Transcendental Romantic movement react to the stand-offish examination of the natural world by a science that casts “God” off to the outside of the Universe. Influenced, like … Continue reading →

This article comes from the series “Bob Dylan: Year by Year”.  You can see all the articles in the series by following the link. by Tony Attwood Much of the dating of when Dylan wrote songs comes from his touring, … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood In 2005 Bob Dylan wrote but two songs – both (so it is said) for movies.  First came the utterly sublime Tell Ol’ Bill and then came “Can’t escape from you.”  I have, I think, spent more time writing … Continue reading →

Eden Is Where You Find It: Frederich Nietzsche, William Blake, And Bob Dylan By Larry Fyffe William Blake admonishes organized Christianity for its black-and-white portrayal of morality, its defining of human behaviour as either ‘good’ (of God) or ‘evil’ (of … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This article is one of a series that reviews Bob Dylan’s writing in regards to the songs he wrote, and the order he wrote them in, rather than what Bob chose to put on each album.   … Continue reading →

By Larry Fyffe Bob Dylan often uses Biblical stories as a template for his own narrative songs, with women characters patterned after the three Mary’s of the New Testament: “Hot chillie peppers in the blistering sun Dust on my face … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood It is said that the second Wilbury’s volume was originally mostly a Bob Dylan creation and that after he had slipped away for his touring duties those left in charge of the editing set about removing quite … Continue reading →

. The Line Forms From the  Right: Bobby’s Back In Town By Larry Fyffe A number of Bob Dylan’s story-telling  songs are wonderful reworkings of the Kurt Weill  and Bertolt Brecht’s  1928 burlesque musical, with its sexual puns abounding, called … Continue reading →

by Tony Attwood Dylan had spent the whole of 1979 writing primarily Christian songs and continued this theme into 1980.   All of the early songs of the year were clearly Christian in message and Property of Jesus was perhaps the most … Continue reading →

Bob Dylan And Walt Whitman: Writing In The Captain’s Tower By Larry Fyffe Bob Dylan draws water from the poetic well of the American Romantic writer Walt Whitman, a transcendentalist inspired by the regenerative powers of Nature. “With music strong … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This is one of the Wilbury Volume 3 songs that is very obviously a Dylan piece from beginning to end, a sort of reversal of “She to Belongs to Me.”   But I must admit that both … Continue reading →

By Larry Fyffe A reason for Bob Dylan’s winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, not recognized by most ‘pure poets’, is his masterful transforming of the literary technique, known as the ‘dramatic monologue’, popularized by the Victorian poet Robert Browning, … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood Ever since I first heard this song I have had this strange image of Bob coming into the recording studio and talking to the band. “I’ve got a new song,” he says. “OK,” say the guys, “have … Continue reading →

Dylan On Dylan: The Songs Of Bob Dylan And The Poems Of Dylan Thomas By Larry Fyffe Bob Dylan works Christian teachings into his artistic endeavours as does William Blake: that is, its teachings before they are corrupted by social … Continue reading →