Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Tony Attwood This article is part of a series in which the  Dylan’s songs, considered in the order in which they were written, are considered as a sequence of writing, in order to see how the themes within his … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood Dylan exploded onto the music scene as a composer in 1962 writing 20 songs of great accomplishment, most particularly such masterpieces as Blowing in the wind  Hard Rain’s a gonna fall Don’t think twice These three songs … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood I have “Only a Hobo” down as a 1963 composition, but there is a recording on the internet which lists it as 1962.   We know that it was recorded on August 12 1963 as part of the … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood The Chronology Files of Bob Dylan for 1961 show that Bob wrote four songs that are particularly remembered today (although not considered in any way to be masterpieces), three of which are strongly related to life in New … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood Two versions, one from November and one from December 1962.  One is on the Witmark Demos and the other is linked below; I am not sure which is which. But I do think the non-Witmark version is … Continue reading →

by Tony Attwood Hero Blues is, to tell the truth, nothing special, and in my original list of compositions of 1962, I didn’t include it.  It was only because I realised that Dylan had revived it some years later that … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood It is quite clear that during 1962 Dylan was exploring the various types of folk genre just to see what he could do with them, and included in the range of songs he experimented with he found … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This is another Dylan song that appears in slightly differently guises on the Whitmark album and on Bootleg 1-3.  A two chord song in which again Dylan manages to play the chords against the melody in a … Continue reading →

by Tony Attwood There is of course no single agreed set of hymns to sing in Christian services, and so there are hundreds – probably thousands – of hardly used songs that turn up in some hymnals, and not in … Continue reading →

by Tony Attwood It didn’t take long (once he got to writing full time) for the rest of the world to find out that one could do all sorts of things with Dylan songs, and “Quit your lowdown ways” – … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This is the version of Rambling Gambling Willie that you might know from its revivals… but stay with us, because there is another Rambling Gambling Willie which we’ll come to later. The outsider, the outlaw, the loner, … Continue reading →

by Tony Attwood The four original songs that stand out from this year (the first in which we can recognise Dylan emerging as a singer/songwriter of note) consist of three humorous pieces and a commentary on the inhumanity of modern … Continue reading →

by Tony Attwood Updated 25 Sep 2020 with defunct video replaced The fourth and final song from Dylan in 1961 is “Hard Times in New York Town” which takes the melody, accompaniment and opening of “Down on Penny’s Farm” and … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood Dylan originally called this plaintive two chord song, “Old Man (John Doe”), a title which refers us back to a 19th century song which may have been by Fred J. Mackley or Walter Phoenix – opinion seems … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood Way back in my younger days, I taught a university undergraduate course “Art and the Environment”. The essence of  the year long course (which covered all the arts) was that although some art work was carefully planned … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood This review updated November 2019. https://youtu.be/hmtZ-i1jhTQ This is an absolutely straightforward talking blues.  If lines such as Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told The streets in heaven are lined with gold I ask you how … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood I often wonder about the songs Dylan performs just once on stage (as with this one on 9 June 1986) and then leaves.   Caribbean Wind, Can you Please Crawl out your Window, Handy Dandy, Lay Down … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood As I have tried to suggest through the reviews of Dylan’s Christian songs, he had a very particular vision of what it meant to be a Christian, and I am not sure that it is a view … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood Throughout 1984 and 1985 Dylan had worked on finding a new “voice” – a new way of writing music, another approach to move on to, as he had moved so many times before.  During this period he … Continue reading →

By Tony Attwood The more I have worked on this series of reviews of Dylan’s songs, the more I have reached the conclusion that while Dylan does often write about ideas and issues that concern him, and while he does … Continue reading →