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- Bob Dylan’s greatest compositions year by year: 1969 – I’ll have you any time
- Key West part 15: Amelia
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- Do the earliest of Dylan’s recordings actually entertain, or indeed tell us anything?
- The Philosophy of Modern Song: Key to the Highway – the origin of the blues
- Dylan’s song of the year: 1968. Bob stops, but even so….
- Key West part 14: To make this Key West dock my home
- Theme Time Radio Hour: Eyes – and one of the greatest songs Bob selected
- Beyond the era of the genius composer – the utterly unexpected journey of one Dylan song
- Key west Part 13: She tears again my bleeding heart
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Recent articles
- Bob Dylan’s greatest compositions year by year: 1969 – I’ll have you any time
- Key West part 15: Amelia
- Theme Time Radio Hour: Dogs and neighbours
- Do the earliest of Dylan’s recordings actually entertain, or indeed tell us anything?
- The Philosophy of Modern Song: Key to the Highway – the origin of the blues
- Dylan’s song of the year: 1968. Bob stops, but even so….
- Key West part 14: To make this Key West dock my home
- Theme Time Radio Hour: Eyes – and one of the greatest songs Bob selected
- Beyond the era of the genius composer – the utterly unexpected journey of one Dylan song
Monthly Archives: November 2008
Gates of Eden: two revised renditions & the meanings behind Bob Dylan’s masterpiece
At times I think there are no words but these to tell what’s true. If you have never heard this version above, do give it a listen – the differences between this version and the album version are subtle but … Continue reading
Posted in Bringing it all Back Home, The Songs
4 Comments
Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind”: the meaning of the music and the lyrics
By Tony Attwood There can be few opening chord sequences as distinctive as Dylan’s minor-4th, 5th, Tonic sequence which opens “Idiot Wind”. And there can be few opening lines to a song as distinctive as “Someone’s got it in for … Continue reading
Dylan’s “We better talk this over”: the last ever performance changes the feeling
By Tony Attwood “We better talk this over is hardly a great song, but it does have a way with words that is unusual even for Dylan.” That comment above was made when I first wrote this review. Over the … Continue reading
Posted in Street Legal
3 Comments
Dylan’s “Where are you tonight?” – the meaning of the music and the lyrics
by Tony Attwood There’s a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write. There is a set of Dylan songs where each line is a song – you can take the line and it has an … Continue reading
Posted in Street Legal
11 Comments
Jokerman: the meaning of the lyrics and the music
By Tony Attwood Numerous reference books suggest that Jokerman is one of Dylan’s masterpieces. A great poetic adventure that encapsulates everyone and everything from Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats (1884) to… well, anything you like. All mixed with … Continue reading
Posted in Infidels, The Songs
92 Comments
Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me”: never has a 12 bar blues sounded more beautiful
by Tony Attwood, updated 5 August 2018 with additional video links. https://youtu.be/Wy7UNuw81Ig Of course you never know with Dylan, but it is hard to put any interpretation on “She Belongs to Me” other than that it is about a child … Continue reading
Bob Dylan’s “Dignity”. A work of genius, or neat but unfinished idea?
By Tony Attwood And what are we to make of Dignity? Raved over by many Dylan fans, it didn’t turn up on the mainstream albums, but appeared on the Essential album, and twice on the 2008 outtakes album. https://youtu.be/2Dlh-X1fpoQ The … Continue reading
Posted in Essential Bob Dylan
6 Comments
Bob Dylan’s Mozambique; a simple, bouncy, jolly tune. What’s wrong with that?
by Tony Attwood According to Wikipedia “Mozambique” was just a game, based on how many words rhymed with Mozambique. If that is the case the answer is three. More interestingly perhaps, according to Allen Ginsberg writing the sleeve notes, if … Continue reading
Don’t Take Everybody to be your Friend: part of Dylan’s inspiration
The Theme Time radio programmes resulted in at least one album: a double sided affair which includes “Don’t Take Everybody to be your friend” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Sam Price Trio. Recorded in 1947 when Dylan must have … Continue reading
Posted in The Songs, Theme Time Radio Hour
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Bob Dylan’s “Isis”: the meaning of the music and the song
By Tony Attwood Isis. A song so revered that the longest running Dylan magazine is named after the song. But why – what is it in Isis that is so powerful, so overwhelmingly important in terms of the Dylan genre? … Continue reading
Posted in Desire, The Songs
19 Comments
Changing of the Guards: The meanings behind Bob Dylan’s song
By Tony Attwood The original review was written in 2008, and then updated in 2013. Coming back to it in 2018, I found myself very unhappy with what I had written, and thus decided to start again. Changing of the … Continue reading
Posted in Essential Bob Dylan, Street Legal, The Songs
52 Comments
Things have changed: the meanings behind Bob Dylan’s song
By Tony Attwood Dylan’s commentary on being dislocated from the world, while being within it – here but not here – spreads across a multiplicity of his songs. It wasn’t there at the start – Times they are a-changing dripped … Continue reading
Posted in Essential Bob Dylan, The Songs
20 Comments
Dark Eyes: the meaning behind the Bob Dylan song
This review was updated in September 2016 By Tony Attwood There is a picture on the inner sleeve of Empire Burlesque of a dark haired woman, drawn in the same style (although without the broken face) of the woman who … Continue reading
Posted in Empire Burlesque, The Songs
16 Comments
What was it you wanted?
A revised version of this review has now been posted and updated – complete with a link to a Willie Nelson version here. Apologies for the mix up. Tony
Posted in Oh Mercy, The Songs
2 Comments
Blind Willie McTell: the meaning behind Bob Dylan’s song
Blind Willie McTell This review updated 8 October 2016 including the addition of the link to the Dylan recording of the electric version of this song – see the end of the review, and some further thoughts on the lack … Continue reading
“Where were you last night?” by Bob Dylan. The meaning behind the lyrics and the music
Updated July 2016 By Tony Attwood The songs on the Traveling Wilburys albums are credited to the band as a whole rather than individual artists, but it is clear that this track from Volume 3 is a Dylan composition with … Continue reading
Posted in The Songs, Traveling Wilburys
5 Comments
Not Dark Yet: Bob Dylan as 20th century Keats, and the memories that still linger
by Tony Attwood. Revised April 2018, with links to recordings by Dylan and other artists. “I try to live within that line between despondency and hope.” Bob Dylan 1997. Not Dark Yet is one of the triumphs of … Continue reading
Posted in Essential Bob Dylan, The Songs, Time out of mind
21 Comments
All along the watch tower: Bob Dylan’s eternal masterpiece.
By Tony Attwood According to some the imagery in this song comes from the 21st chapter of the prophet Isaiah when a watchman on the watchtower sees two riders approaching. Here is the text in the King James Version. 6 For … Continue reading
Posted in Essential Bob Dylan, The Songs
15 Comments
Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” – from “Go way from my window” to “Yeah yeah yeah”
By Tony Attwood This review revised on 10 February 2018 Listening again (in 2018) the Dylan performing It Ain’t Me Babe in 1965 I’m struck by how clear and powerful the performance, and how carefully thought through are the variations … Continue reading
Posted in Another Side, Essential Bob Dylan, The Songs
4 Comments
Blowing in the wind (1962). The meaning of the music and the lyrics.
By Tony Attwood Coming back to Blowing in the Wind after 45 years is a strange experience. There was a time when I, and all those like me, not only listened to it every day but also played it every … Continue reading
Posted in Freewheelin, The Songs
5 Comments