Untold Dylan

 I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

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Once or twice: A review of some of the songs that Bob has performed just once or twice on stage, selecting those of which we have a genuine recording (and “genuine” is important here since I have found a few sites that seem to suggest they are a recording of a live version, but I have my doubts.)  Text and video selection by Tony Attwood.

I know it is singularly nerdish but I am fascinated by the way Bob so often decides to change the key that a particular song is played in – not least because I can’t think of other recording artists that do this so often.   The album version is played one tone lower than the “take 5” version.

The original Highway 51 song was released in 1938 by singer songwriter Curtis Jones who became well known later for “Lonesome Bedroom Blues” and  “Tin Pan Alley”

The significance of Highway 51 is reported as being the road taken by many African Americans who moved from the south to the north of the country.

In Chronicles Bob wrote, “Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I began. I always felt like I’d started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere, even down into the deep Delta country. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors … It was my place in the universe, always felt like it was in my blood.”

Dylan recorded his version on 22 November 1961 for release on his initial album although the lyrics are those written by Tommy McClennan when he released New Highway 51.  However Dylan varies the chords somewhat.  (According to Wiki).

“Dylan gave a performance at Eve and Mac Mackenzie’s home in New York in December 1961. He has performed the song in public at concerts only twice: at Carnegie Hall on September 22, 1962, and at New York Town Hall on April 12, 1963.”

Recordings of neither of these events appear to exist on the internet – but if you can find a link please do send it in.

But Aaron did find another recording of New Highway 51 which he included in his “other people’s songs” series.  I’ve expressed my thanks to Aaron for all his work on this site recently in Aaron’s obituary, but I just felt today that as it was time for another article in the “Once or Twice” series I’d offer up this recording Aaron found, as a final farewell.

Quite why Bob then didn’t ever want to revise the song on stage, especially having used the name of the song as the title of the album, I don’t know.  The answer is probably buried in a book on Dylan somewhere, but sadly, I can’t findit.

Postcript: as you will see from the comments below Larry has noted the full concerts are available on line – which I had missed.   Here’s a link

Previously in this series we have looked at 

• A satisfied mind
• Caribbean Wind
• The girl on the Greenbriar Shore
• Lay Down your weary tune
• Lily, Rosemary and Stage Fright
• Only a hobo
• Restless Farewell
• Roll on John
• Sally Sue Brown
• Spanish Harlem Incident
• You Angel You

 I don’t know what it means  either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

The Never Ending Tour Extended: This series primarily uses recordings selected by Mike Johnson in his inestimable masterpiece The Never Ending Tour, and looks at how those performances of individual songs change as time goes by.   The selection of songs from the series, and the commentary below, are by Tony Attwood.   A list of all the songs covered in the series is given at the end.

Goodbye Jimmy Reed had a short but intensive lifespan as a concert song, being played between 2 November 2021 and 6 April 2024: a total of 202 times.  Clearly for a while it was one Bob wanted to keep in the repetoire.

2001:  Down Electric Avenue

We get a whole verse introduction before Bob comes in with a half sung half recited version.   Instrumentally the performance keeps very close to the album version, including that signature descending sequence between each verse.

Bob sings this in an almost desperate way at times, emphasising the paranoia of being stuck in Mobile.  It makes me wonder if it really is such an awful place!

The instrumental break just keeps rolling along without anything very new to distinguish it.  There is a lot of repetition from a guitar playing one note over and over which I suspect is put in Bob – it is something he often does.

There is however also a good harmonica solo at the end, which helps quite a bit.  Even though it too uses the repeat repeat technique.

2005: God knows you gotta weep

If you are a trifle impatient I should point out the recording of the song doesn’t start until the 30 second mark, but it is worth waiting for as from the off we have a more relaxed accompaniment over that unmistakable arrangement.

To me, Bob sounds more engaged this time, even though he hasn’t done much with the song except make the lyrics come out a bit faster – along with those famous leaps in the vocal line of a 5th upwards.

Thus overall, it seems much more of a gentle stroll around an old favourite than before.  And that feeling is emphasised after the 6-minute 10-second mark when we get a fun, relaxed, and basically just enjoyable instrumental verse.  This in turn is followed by another variation with the same lead guitar going a little further but still keeping it all calm and relaxed.

Those two instrumental verses do really ensure the relaxed feel of the song is totally embedded in the performance.  After that there is yet another instrumental verse which really does take us on a step further.   Listen to the last instrumental version of the “Oh mama” section as we approach the end.  It is not spectacular, but it’s fun.

2008: Drowning in the honky-tonk Lagoon

There are subtle differences again – and to me that’s fair enough because the structure of the song with its unusual chord changes, and “Oh mama” section means that there is not too much one can do with the song.

Except…. then in comes Bob with a declamation performance we have not been expecting.  He really delivers something different here.   Whether this was worth waiting for, I am not sure, but it certainly is interesting.  As indeed are the further variations that we get as the song meanders through its eight-minute performance.

To be critical I would wonder if really there is enough here to make it worthy of eight minutes, but we do get a different harmonica solo at the end in which Dylan plays the same sequence over and over no matter what the band is doing.  It makes for a very curious clash of implied chords.

2010: Stay Dylan Stay

And was there to be a sudden and unexpected re-writing of the song as its lifetime comes to and end?  Well, no but the crowd appreciate it anyway.  The percussionist seems to want to have more of a say than normal, but Bob fights back with the harmonica solo we are now expecting with this song.

It is a song that has had some variations added to it along the way, but in essence it has remained unchanged, probably because of that signature arrangement to the chorus line of “Oh mam…”

Other articles in this series…

• A Hard Rain’s a-gonna fall 1988 – 1999
• Absolutely Sweet Marie
• Blind Willie McTell. 1997-2006
• Blowing in the Wind. 1991-2001
• Cold Irons Bound 1997-2002
• Desolation Row beyond imagination: 1992-2017
• Don’t think twice it’s alright 1993-1997
• Duquesne Whistle 2013-2018
• Early Roman Kings
• Forever Young 1987 to 2011
• Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• High Water
• Highway 61 1989-2003
• Honest with Me – 2001-2017
• I and I 1984-1999
• I don’t believe you – 1994 – 2013
• I shall be released 1975-2008 
• It Ain’t me Babe from 1994-1998.
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma – at least it was by 2001
• Lay Lady Lay 1993-2010
• Like a Rolling Stone 1988 to 2002
• Long and Wasted Years
• Love sick from the very start to 2000
• Love minus zero / No limit 1988 – 1996
• Maggies Farm – with a wonderful ending
• Masters of War 1978 to 2000.
• One too many mornings. 
• Pay in Blood
• Positively 4th Street, 1994-2006.
• Rainy day women, from push to stroke
• She Belongs to me: 1988 to 1995
• Shelter from the Storm 1989-96
• Simple Twist of Fate 1989-2003
• Spirit on the Water
• Summer Days
• Tambourine Man 1964-1995
• Tangled up in Blue 1988 to 1993
• The Times they are a Changing: 1987-1995
• Thunder on the Mountain 2006-2014
• The Drifters’ Escape. 1996-2005.
• The Hard Rain of 1988, 2003 and 2015
• Things have changed 2000-2007
• To Ramona. 1989 to 2000
• Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum – an unbelievable journey
• Visions of Johanna
• Watching the River Flow

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

by Tony Attwood

The Double Life of Bob Dylan by Clinton Heylin is a big book. Over 500 pages in fact, and it is only the first part of Heylin’s latest offering on Dylan.

I was given a copy for my birthday, and very grateful I was for it too, because I had been thinking in recent days, “what is the essence of Dylan?”   Or put another way, I was pondering, if I were going to write a mega-volume on Dylan, which was not an analysis song by song, what would be my core focus?

It didn’t take long to answer that – maybe five minutes, maybe less.  For I knew my theme would be Dylan’s creativity.  The creativity that has led him to create over 600 songs in a multiplicity of styles.  That is not to claim that this is the most by any songwriter, of course.  Irving Berlin wrote around 1,500 songs, including “Easter Parade”, “White Christmas”, and “There’s No Business Like Show Business” – and that list could go on and on with famous titles.

OK so Bob is only half way there, and with great temerity when speaking of the ultimate geniuses of songwriting, I’d say a few of the now forgotten Berlin songs were, well, not very good.  And yes, I’d say pretty much the same of a few of Bob’s now largely forgotten (although reviewed on Untold Dylan) were not so good (although we did find a few lost gems).

But there is a difference beyond numbers because Irving Berlin wrote his songs, and by and large handed them over. There is no comparison between Berlin and Dylan in terms of re-working the songs into new arrangements.

And this came home to me more than ever when about six weeks ago I sat down to write another episode in the series “The Never Ending Tour Extended” in which I traced the evolution of “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” from 2001 to 2014. I’m sure you know the original version – which is how it sounded across most of those yeras, but just in case you missed my article, here’s what I made the fuss about as the song was ready to be dropped from the tour once and for all.

2014: The survivors

Now my point here is that the lyrics have not changed, but the music is so utterly different from the original that this is a new song.

This is a very rare accomplishment for any songwriter, to keep the lyrics exactly the same and yet utterly change the music so as to make a new piece.  This is a moment (among many others with Dylan) of utterly sublime creativity.

And I mention it again, not just to push this particular recording down your throat, but rather because this was one of many thoughts that came to me as I started pondering how to write a review of “The Double Life of Bob Dylan”.  For I started to think, “what is it that makes Dylan stand out above all other songwriters?”  And I thought that because it struck me that in my imaginary book on Dylan that was where I would start: the extraordinary variety of his work.  In short his astounding creativity.

For the extraordinary variety of the songs comes in terms of both lyrical themes and music, and this (often ignored by critics) amazing ability to re-write his songs in a new form.

Now I am sure my memory is playing me false at this point, but I can’t think of another singer-songwriter who has changed his own work so often as Dylan.  Which means we have the fact that he is lyricist, lyric re-writer, composer, arranger and re-arranger…

In short in terms of composition, arrangement and performance Dylan is the great creative  genius.

Which brings me to my point.  As I start reading “The Double Life” there is not a single mention of Dylan’s creativity.  And this really hit me when on page 48 there is a quote from Dylan apparently said in May 1966, “Writing is nothing, anybody can write really if they got dreams at an early age.”

Now clearly that is a challenging view – that anyone with “dreams” (which I take to be “imagination” in my vocabulary) from an early age, can write.  And yes it is probably true.  But that doesn’t actually tell us anything, except that it suggests that something in our society that knocks the ability and desire to create out of most people.

If course this didn’t happen to Dylan because in 1962 alone Bob had written

1. Ballad for a friend
2. Rambling Gambling Willie
3. Standing on the highway
4. Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues
5. Let me die in my footsteps
6. Blowing in the wind 
7. Corrina Corrina
8. Quit your Lowdown Ways
9. Down the Highway
10. Tomorrow is a long time 
11. Hard Rain’s a gonna fall
12. Ballad of Hollis Brown
13. John Brown
14. Don’t think twice
15. Paths of Victory
16. Walking Down the Line
17. Oxford Town
18. Kingsport Town
19. Hero Blues
20. Whatcha Gonna Do? 

Now I have published that list before but I do it again to show that Bob the musician was adopting numerous musical forms in 1962 as well as developing lyrics from all sorts of subject matter.

But what Heylin in fact does at the very start of the book is spend more time debating whether Bob was in one place where he says he was, or not, while at the same time (page 49) dismissing a rival writer as a pseudo-biographer, for getting the details of a camp that Dylan went to, wrong.

For me (and here I must admit I think this point is utterly obvious) the essence of Dylan is his creativity.  Not just the phenomenal number of songs written, but also the range of his output that was being demonstrated, for even by 1962 he was writing songs covering issues such as Death, It’s up to each of us how we see the world, Leaving, Moving on, Lost love, Optimism, Racism, Right-wing politics, War, the Evolution of society, Poverty, the Blues, and Being an outsider.  

That in itself is of note, but behind it there is another enormous point: where did all this creativity come from?  How did Bob find it, how did he deal with it, how did he use it?

So maybe it is true that Dylan “found out real quick that playing and singing was a good way of impressing the girls.” (page 51)   But even if that was a prime motivation we still have not a single insight into the creativity which is what we all celebrate in Bob Dylan.

As a result we get some interesting snippets in the telling, for Heylin makes quite a bit of the fact that the way that Bob told his story, through phrases like “nothing could be further from the truth” (page 55).

Which I take as another hint at what we have got here; which is to say, early signs of what Dylan became as a writer and performer – a person who endlessly re-creates his own world including everything from his own past to his own songs.  It is a fascinating part of his creative make-up and although quite possibly in these early times he was simply lying in order to create what he took to be a new and more exciting persona, the fact is that in his lyrics this is what Dylan did throughout.  Although of course when it turns up in a song, as when it turns up in a novel, we don’t call it lying, but rather the art of the writer.

Thus I would argue that even within Heylin’s book we have the clear hints as to what the dominant force was in Bob Dylan at a young age: the inventiveness, the storytelling.  And of course, you could reply, “but all the kids do that”.  Which is true – except that most kids don’t turn it into an art form.  Yet this is the debate we don’t have, because, quite simply, Heylin doesn’t do “creativity”.

Dylan, we are told, tended to be quiet except when he performed.  It is a sign of an artist – he comes alive when involved in his art.  But Heylin, not having the time or inclination to consider such matters as performance or the aforementioned creativity, almost sees it as a failure or an oddity.

The fact is that for the creative youngster, the lack of creativity exhibited by those around him/her is often a significant issue, and it can make the creative person look like an outsider.  But one only gets to understand any of this by considering the artist’s creativity, and how the artist uses his creativity.

And I’ll continue that then in my next article on this volume, in a few days time.

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

For more details on this new series on cover versions of Dylan songs that were not previously considered in the last series, please see the intro to the first article in this series.

• Saturday Night Fry – 2×2
• Abandoned Love
• Ain’t Talkin
• All along the Watchtower
• All I really want to do

Songs and recordings researched and suggested by Jürg Lehmann.

All the Tired Horses

 Surprisingly, there are quite a number of covers. This doesn’t seem obvious for a song that is so reduced in musical and lyrical terms, but obviously this reduction also opens up space for the performers. Unfortunately, only a few know how to utilise this, but those who dare to do so achieve fantastic results.

An emotive version by Irish folk musician Lisa O’Neill soundtracks the climactic ending to Peaky Blinders in the 2022 series finale, “Lock And Key”

O’Neill, who wrote a song called “Bobby D” about her admiration for Dylan, is a big fan of “All The Tired Horses”, but a straight re-creation wouldn’t work for the scene.

“I had to do something different with it,” she explained in a 2023 Songfacts interview. “I guess I went in the opposite direction, and they slowed it right down. I had to figure out how low I could go with my voice and how high I could go.”

O’Neill had help from fellow Irish musicians, who contributed ideas and played on the track. They recorded the song over the course of two days at an old horse stables in Cabinteely, South Dublin, by constant candlelight in honor of O’Neill’s friend, the Irish singer/fiddler Mick O’Grady, who was dying at the time. “This all contributed to the energy and the charge of the final track,” O’Neill noted.

Another cover comes from Tim Heidecker (2012)

Tim Heidecker, half the duo responsible for Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!.

During his traveling promotion of Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, he found the time to record a dreamy rendition of All The Tired Horses.

“I was sitting around in my hotel in Austin, reading this article about the new Dylan covers CD called “Chimes of Freedom.” I had some spare time and thought it’d be fun to try and make my own Dylan cover on my laptop and post that I was angry Amnesty International cut mine from the record.”

Heidecker announced on Twitter that he was looking for a studio to record in while in Chicago. Local band The Earth Is A Man were happy to help out. The result is a cover reminiscent of the soft 70s rock that has played a huge role in Heidecker’s previous musical endeavours. Eventually Heidecker’s cover was not included on the Amnesty album.

Other covers come from

The Sports (1981)

Ellie Come Home – Milion Dollar Bash (2006)

Autumn Dirge – Forever Autumn (2009) 

The Narrator (2013) 

Patrick Chabot (2014), who calls his rendition “a requiem”

Tobacco City (2021)

Family Values (2023)

The most convincing cover version in terms of musical quality is by American songwriter, lyricist and composer Ashley Raines&The New West Revue. In fact, it is superb, a real gem.

One critic has described Raines’ music:

Ashley Raines wants you to think about the spaces between a whisper and a shout. If you can’t do that on your own, his voice and the words he sings might be able to help you. Many music critics have compared him to the likes of Tom Waits and Nick Cave, but he’s having a completely different conversation than anyone before him.

While those other singers might know the darkness like an old friend, Ashley asks the listener to discover it for themselves, along with his humble aid. It might be more prudent to compare his songs to a Lynch film. Moving beyond the obvious aesthetic commonalities of the blues and the underlying darkness in all stories, Raines ends up giving a bit of realistic hope that the darkness and the light can live together in harmony. Listen in to hear a flock of doves being released into an endless night.

The 18-part review of the Rough and Rowdy Way Tour with videos selected by mr tambourine is available on this site.  Links to all the episodes can be found at the end of the final instalment here.

By Tony Attwood

I am desolated beyond measure to have to report the passing of Aaron Galbraith, one of the great friends of this site, a terrific researcher and writer, and an absolute Bod Dylan fan.

Although Aaron wrote and co-wrote well over 300 articles for this site, he and I never met (what with living on different continents), and we never even got to talk on the phone (although I did ask), but his contribution to Untold Dylan was immense and invaluable.

One day back in 2018 (just six years ago but it seems so much longer) he simply sent me an email with an article he thought might fit into Untold Dylan.  From that piece it was obvious at once that here was a writer with imagination, original thoughts and a lot of knowledge about Dylan and the music that influenced Dylan.   Of course I was delighted to oblige and publish it.   I wrote back and begged for more, and Aaron returned the favour over and over and over again

I did also suggest we might have the occasional chat but no, he was just happy writing, and coming up with ideas.

For what Aaron was, was a guy who not only knew about Dylan and the music that influenced Dylan, he was also brilliant at considering new ways in which we could look at Dylan – ways that would give us greater insights into this work.  Ideas that could make a one-off article, or turn into a series which could run to maybe 5 or 10 or 100 articles on specific Dylan topics we hadn’t previously covered.

These included having the brilliant idea of creating albums that Dylan didn’t make but should have done.   I am hoping in the near future that I will be able to go back and pick out some of those articles and bring them to the fore once more – although of course they all remain on the site.

In short, Aaron was one of the exclusive band of people who, for reasons that will never become clear, was willing to give up hours of his time writing for and creating ideas for Untold Dylan, just because he enjoyed doing it  He wanted no reward.  In fact, I doubt if he would have objected if I’d left his name off one of the articles he wrote or contributed to.   I hope that never happened, because I valued his input so much, but it always struck me he was that kind of guy.  He just enjoyed having the ideas and doing the research.

I never learned much about his life (although I did ask) but somehow we always got on well as we exchanged emails about the topics we might cover.  Indeed if you want to see what Aaron wrote just go to the Dylan site and type in “by Aaron Galbraith” in the search box (using the inverted commas) top right and they will all come up.

In fact Aaron didn’t just invent series, he invented series that kept Untold Dylan going, such as “Other people’s songs”, and “Why does Dylan like” and then would often very gently and kindly point out where I’d missed something out in one of my articles, or gone off on the wrong track.  Indeed we even created albums together that Dylan didn’t make but should have made. Not just a list of songs, but the actual recordings.

But beyond all that Aaron did a huge amount of uncovering of songs Dylan wrote which I had missed – indeed he was part of a tiny group whose work allowed me eventually to claim that we had the definitive list of Dylan compositions.   My goodness, I really do hope that I said thank you enough to Aaron for that and that he fully appreciated how much I felt I owed him.  When Dylan himself passes on, I expect at least a postcard from on high thanking Untold for creating the definitive list of Dylan compositions.   I’ll refer Bob to Aaron who will be waiting up there, finally able to say hello.

And there was so much more.  Aaron also invented the wonderful series that ran and ran – “Other people’s songs”.  That contained recordings I’d never come across before – my education continued.

But mostly, our list of Dylan compositions was added to many times by Aaron (https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-reviewed-on-this-site) and is now seen by quite a few people as the definitive list.  Indeed over the years Untold Dylan has become seen as an important Dylan site for those seriously interested.   Wiki occasionally quotes us when talking about a Dylan song and ludicrously calls me “Dylan scholar, Tony Attwood….” But really they should be paying tribute to those other writers who have made this site what it is.  I just pull the strings and give some opinions:  Aaron was one of those who did the hard work.

But my main point is that Aaron’s approach always added a different flavour from that of the rest of us writing on this site, and his is one of the voices that has helped Untold keep going down the track we have chosen.

In later days, I guess when Aaron was perhaps not feeling so well, or maybe was getting more tired (he never said) he would select songs, and I’d write a meandering review of them for me to develop.  Some people treat them as my articles, but the key point was I would never have been able to write that review without Aaron being there making the selection.  He really did take the word “Untold” seriously and took us into new dimensions.

Aaron never dictated what he wanted (and you may have heard, some authors really can be very demanding in terms of the way their work is treated – very pesky creatures these authors…) and indeed he seemed very happy to come up with ideas and let me meander off with them probably in ways that he would not have taken.  At least he never once complained at anything I did with his work.  If only every author could be like that.

I want to give one example of this which appears at https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/8637

I mention Aaron’s work at the top in finding this, and then go onto a ramble of my own.  But the key point is that it was Aaron who pointed out that we could do an article on this – and then he left it in my hands.  So my name is on the article and Aaron gets his mention – but the key point is there would have been no article without Aaron.

I knew inside me things were not right for Aaron when he stopped writing for Untold, for he told me in several emails just how much he had enjoyed what he had been doing.   Knowing he was having a break I wasn’t pushing for anything more from him, but as he had created albums of Dylan songs – if you want to see an example take a look at https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/26235 -….  I was hoping I might persuade him to do that again. Sadly that hope has now gone.  I suspect he is entertaining all the other good people with whom he is now sharing the afterlife.

So overall, if it was possible for two guys of the older variety, who had never met and never even spoken on the phone to have one hell of a good time together, this was it.  And indeed it was, from my perspective, Aaron and me.  He was my great friend that I never got close to… In the way I published the articles I felt I was respecting how he wanted things to be; I do hope I got it right.

Indeed when he pulled out of writing for Untold I really tried to get the balance right between saying that I would welcome an article from him any time, but at the same time not hassling him for more.  I do hope I got that right too.

Take a look at https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/21863 and you will see just how we worked together and how it was Aaron’s ideas that allowed me to expand Untold Dylan.

Occasionally I get emails from senior academics thanking me for Untold Dylan and the variety of work therein.   Not notes correcting an error, not pointing out something we missed, but thanking me for Untold Dylan.   Aaron was very much part of creating the environment that it seems some people now do consider worthy of study.

And indeed “creating this environment” was what Aaron helped bring to the show.   That idea of going somewhere else, thinking about Dylan in the way others had not done, and then allowing us to see where it goes… that was Aaron.

When writers have written more than a few articles for Untold I ask them to write a piece in the Untold writers page.   I haven’t changed what he wrote as yet, but I will do in due course to pay proper tribute to him.   For the moment it remains as he wrote it….

https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/9215

Aaron Galbraith grew up in the west of Scotland and was educated at Glasgow University. Always a massive music fan, the first concerts he attended were Paul McCartney and Neil Young. He recently counted and has seen over 100 different acts live (several more than once), ranging from Bowie, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison to BB King, The Strokes, Blur and Adam Ant.

He became acquainted with the work of Bob Dylan whilst at Uni due to one of those 3 CDs for a tenner deals popular at the big music superstores of that time. On a whim, he picked up Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. He then proceeded to collect the entire back catalogue and has since seen Dylan over ten times in concert.

He now resides in Virginia in the Good Ol’ US of A with his wife and young daughter. His hobbies, beyond Dylan and other musical acts, include following the Scotland national football team and attending various tennis tournaments throughout the world, primarily to see Andy & Jamie Murray in action.

———————–

My goodness I really do hope that I said thank you enough to Aaron for that and that he fully appreciated how much I felt I owed him.  When Dylan himself passes on, I expect at least a postcard from heaven thanking Untold for creating the definitive list of Dylan compositions with a full acknowledgement to our dear, dear friend who I never got to talk to: Aaron Galbraith.

By Tony Attwood

This song from Oh Mercy was performed 286 times by Dylan between 1989 and 2013.  The video below starts with a few seconds silence.

The lyrics are at first hard to grasp although the chorus line is unmistakable:

Not a word of goodbye not even a note
She gone with the man in the long black coat

And that of course gives us the clue to the essence of the whole piece – along with the fact that the mysterious man is so evidently portrayed in the way the music is written and performed.

It is a very unusual approach for Dylan, spending this time as he does creating the atmosphere – in fact so much atmosphere that it took me a while to get to listen to the lyrics when I first heard the song.  The beat doesn’t start until the 30 seconds marker and the melody only appears at one minute 15 seconds.

And indeed after a while we get the feeling this is never going to change, but finally we have a “middle 8” – much later than we expected.  And very obviously the harmonica is used to add to the atmosphere.  In fact we could say it is all atmosphere.

So everything about him is strange to the point of being utterly weird.  And the relief we feel both lyrically and musically when the middle 8 does finally get there, is overwhelming.

There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don't live or die people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat

But people don't live or die people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat

She never said nothing there was nothing she wrote
She gone with the man in the long black coat

The mystery of the situation and the inexplicable events are everything – and the music ensures that is all that we see and hear.

But by 2013 Bob was performing it with a beat so clear that one can dance to it.   The notion of the man walking in, taking the woman, walking on, is no longer there.   We can swing back and forth.   It has become lighthearted.  They leave.  Now it is no longer the end. There is no longer an issue.  The mystery is gone.  It’s just something that happens.

Softly softly golden oldies

It doesn’t mean the song has been destroyed.  Rather, it’s a different song with a completely new feeling, and indeed a new meaning.

The songs reviewed from the music plus lyrics viewpoint…

• A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall. 
• Abandoned Love
• All along the watchtower
• Angelina
• Ballad for a Friend
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
• Black Diamond Bay
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Caribbean Wind – Dylan’s musical exploration of evolving uncertainty
• Chimes of Freedom
• Cold Irons Bound
• Cover Down Pray Through
• Dark Eyes
• Desolation Row
• Drifter’s Escape
• Don’t think twice it’s all right.
• Early Roman Kings
• Every grain of sand
• Everything is broken
• Foot of pride
• Gates of Eden
• Goodbye Jimmy Reed, and the 13 bar blues
• High Water, a rise, a fall, a bounce, a flood
• Highway 61 Revisited
• I believe in you
• “I Want You”. It was never meant to be like this.
• If not for you
• It takes a lot to laugh
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma: life really is ok despite everything.
• Idiot wind
• Isis
• It ain’t me babe
• Jokerman
• Just like a woman
• Key West
• Lenny Bruce is Dead
• Mississippi
• Not Dark Yet
• Shelter from the Storm
• Sign on the window
• Tangled up in blue
• Tombstone Blues
•  Yonder Comes Sin

When I Paint My Masterpiece (1971) part 14

by Jochen Markhorst

XIV      Un appuntamento con la nipote di Botticelli

 Legendary German band BAP’s contributions to the European canon are of course 1981‘s “Verdamp lang her” and especially 1982’s “Kristallnaach”, but the oeuvre has plenty of candidates at least as strong. The intimate masterpiece “Do kanns zaubere” with its delightful melodies, for instance, or the moving, abrasive “Jupp”, the story of the old alcoholic bum who spends his days on the park bench, with his plastic bag and his mammoth bottle of cheap Lambrusco. He is a great storyteller, old Jupp. He has been everywhere, balanced on the equator, danced with cobras, played poker in Kathmandu, his romance in Beijing with a blonde fairy, how he lived as a Robinson stranded on an island, and Jupp has lived a gold rush. But then the final lines:

Nur vun Stalingrad verzällt e’ nie:
“Wo litt dat, Stalingrad? Enn welchem Land ess dat?”
Stalingrad pack e’ nie, irjendwie

Only Stalingrad he never mentions:
“Where is that, Stalingrad? What country is that in?”
He never gets to Stalingrad, somehow ...

… sung as usual in the Cologne dialect, Kölsch.

Before he got really big with his band BAP, Wolfgang Niedecken sometimes performed solo. With acoustic guitar and harmonica, and not only for that reason he is called the “kölsche Dylan”. Social commitment, moral missionary zeal and fighting spirit he has been demonstrating since the late 60s, and that remains the lifeblood of BAP as well when, in the 80s, the band has long since become a European titan and effortlessly breaks through one million-dollar barrier after another.

Meanwhile, the songwriter never hides that Dylan is his great role model. Demonstrating it on stage with Dylan covers sung in Kölsch, and even more when he presents a monthly radio programme on WDR4 from 2017. In 1995, the Dylan love culminates with the release of a solo album: Leopadenfell. Seventeen Dylan covers, one (“Jeder’s manchmol einsam” – “It’s All Over Now, baby Blue”) even more beautiful than the next (“Nix andres em Kopp” – “License To Kill”).

Superb interpretations, thanks in part to the exceptionally successful translations of the Dylan lyrics – known to be a huge pain point in 99 out of 100 Dylan translations. Niedecken has made his own translations – in Kölsch, of course – and ignored the German standard work Bob Dylan Songtexte 1962-1985 by Carl Weissner and Walter Hartmann. Producing a quality impulse that also permeates “When I Paint My Masterpiece”. Weissner & Hartmann translate as much as possible one-to-one, thereby accepting rigidity. Which is not entirely culpable: on the first page of the monumental work, the translators publish, as a kind of disclaimer, the requirements they had to meet in order to obtain the licence:

“In the license agreement for this German edition, Bob Dylan demands that the rhyme of the original be maintained as much as possible. Operations like these are always problematic. In many cases it is inevitable to deviate from the content of the original. It is clear that the extent to which one may go there is quite debatable. We have tried to keep it within reasonable limits, without doing things by half.”

“Maintain the rhyme of the original as much as possible” … apart from inferring that Dylan has no understanding of foreign languages, the requirement also demonstrates that he values form over content. Consequently, the best translations are those that, like Niedecken’s Kölsch, ignore this weird requirement, and rather try to capture the poetry of the text. Niedecken, for example, understands that the wordplay in Botticelli’s niece evaporates in German (Weissner & Hartmann: Botticellis Nichte), and sings Nix wie heim en ming Hotelbett, wo Botticelli’s Venus waat – “Quickly home to my hotel bed, where Botticelli’s Venus is waiting”. Just as he can ignore the awkward Eines Tages wird es sein wie eine Rhapsodie (“one day it’ll be like a rhapsody”) and take the poetic liberty to make of it: Hück Morjen stund ich noch op irjendeiner griechische Bröck (“Just this morning I was still standing on some Greek bridge”) – a griechische Bröck in this second verse that subtly builds a bridge from the spanische Trepp in verse 1 to the Belgian landing in Brussels in verse 3.

Niedecken is one of the few who feels free within the constraints. A journey around the world in 80 languages reveals much translator’s suffering, much laborious toil to build in some kind of coherent narrative and to stay as close to the source as possible, as well as feeble compromises to “maintain the rhyme”.

Swede Mikael Wiehe (“När mitt mästerverk blir klart”, 2007), for example. Minimal liberties. Such as promoting the pretty little girl from Greece to en häftig liten grekisk dam, a cool Greek (or “hot”, depending on the listener’s perceived value of häftig), and Mikael does not sigh that he has happily returned to the land of Coca-Cola, Nej, låt mej få simma i ett hav av Coca Cola, “no, let me swim in a sea of Coca-Cola”. The only other text aberration is the most ferocious. The young girls pulling muscles are given more erotic allure in Sweden: in Brussels, gyttjebrottning drottningar come to say hello – “mud wrestling queens”, in other words. Musically an excellent cover by the way – great organ.

Even less freedom French Dylan fan Pierre Mercy allows himself, translating “Quand je peindrai mon chef-d’œuvre” as literally as possible, even abandoning rhyme and metre. And thus faithfully presents la nièce de Botticelli, the wild geese are un troupeau d’oies sauvages and young girls training their muscles are des jeunes filles bandant leurs muscles. It does not rhyme anywhere, but the content is completely copied. Pierre is even vivement de retour au pays du Coca-Cola.

Identical to the crippling respect with which Neapolitan Michele Murino treats the lyrics for his likeable project Mirino & Maggie’s Farm, an occasional project of talented Italian musicians who fill the 2023 album La Nostra Versione Personale di Te with 14 Dylan covers in Italian. The press release even considers the non-rhyming literal translation a selling point: “Fourteen Bob Dylan tracks interpreted with Italian lyrics, all by Mirino, trying to respect, if not one hundred per cent, at least as closely as possible, più vicino possible, Dylan’s original lyrics.”

And indeed, in Mirino’s “Quando il mio capolavoro (io) dipingerò”, the opening song, the narrator again has un appuntamento con la nipote di Botticelli, the day will be a rhapsody, the wild geese fly, we are happy to be back in the land of Coca-Cola, and we see the Brussels girls che stiravano i muscoli, stretching their muscles. But then again, in Italian everything sounds good, of course.

At the other end of the spectrum are the ambitious show-offs. Translators who are suspected of trying to hitch a ride on Dylan’s name and use the source text as a stepping stone for frustrated literary aspirations. In the Netherlands, the translator duo Bindervoet and Henkes have made a name for themselves with large, in itself very admirable projects like translating such untranslatable monuments as Finnegans Wake, Ulysses, Hamlet, all the Beatles songs and more. A love of James Joyce can lead to professional deformity, it turns out. As with their “Schilder ik mijn meesterwerk”, which is very Joycean laced with alienating archaisms like stervenswee (an extinct word, approximately: “moribund”), abundant, distracting poetic tricks like alliteration and inner rhyme Snoepgrage journalist die sjort en port / Sterke agenten stellen paal en perk (“candy munching journalist lashing and prodding / Strong cops putting limits”) and inexplicable extra layers like Botticelli’s nicht bezoekt me na de kerk (“Botticelli’s niece visits me after church”) – everything has to give way to rhythm, apparently.

Ironically, in their own manifesto on translation studies (“Meta-language Reflection” in Filter, a journal of translation and translation studies, volume 15), the men comment with disdain on translators who miss “that there is more behind the words than the communication alone”. Ironic, as the men then miss virtually every shade behind Dylan’s words – the association Venus under Botticelli’s niece, the homophone muscles/mussels, the charge of Spanish Stairs (with them: “Spaanse Plein – Spanish Plaza”) and through the narrator’s memory rumbles a “stoomtrein – steam train”, suddenly taking us back to the days of Mussolini.

It is, in short, certainly a challenge to do justice to the Holy Trinity, to the indefinable magic of the Poetry-Euphony-Colour trinity of a Dylan text. It’s a long hard climb. But some craftsmen do reach that summit. Not coincidentally men like Wolfgang Niedecken or, as we shall see, Romanian Alexandru Andries and Japanese Haruomi Hosono – successful songwriters who have decades of songwriting experience in their backpacks.

————–

To be continued. Next up When I Paint My Masterpiece part 15: An absolutely personal interpretation

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang
• Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
• Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
• Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
• Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
• I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
• Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
• Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)

 I don’t know what it means  either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

The Never Ending Tour Extended: This series primarily uses recordings selected by Mike Johnson in his inestimable masterpiece The Never Ending Tour, and looks at how those performances of individual songs change as time goes by.   The selection of songs from the series, and the commentary below, are by Tony Attwood.   A list of all the songs covered in the series is given at the end.

I and I

I and I was played 204 times by Bob and the band between 1984 and 1999.  And before I offer the earliest recording we have from the Tour (in 1987), I would like (if I may) to remind you of just how the song sounded on the album.

Now if you have taken that in, or indeed if you have a perfect musical memory and you remember that original recording without having any need to remind yourself, have a listen to this, from  first ever article from Mike Johnson’s Never Ending Tour series of articles…

1987 Farewell to all that

It is that introduction that surprised me – the way the guitar is played and the speed change.  This is a really lively, bouncy song, and the way Bob half-sings and half-recites the song from the one minute mark onwards certainly suggests a total rethink of the song.  As indeed does the instrumental work that follows.

And the instrumental section led by the organ just over halfway through also really takes us into a new land.

Plus if that is not enough the constant repeat of a line by the chorus from around 3 minutes 18 seconds on, is something else again.  Come to that so is the prolonged ending!

So what would Bob do after that?

1992: Heading for the promised land

Well, the answer turned out to be something of a retreat after that staggering re-appraisal five years earlier.

There is an almost tired feeling that comes across in the singing. The re-worked instrumental verses certainly do put across a new mood and the percussionist is given a free rein, but everything positive seems to have been lost.   But where this version most certainly does fit musically is that doom-laden final verse.

Noontime, and I'm still pushin' myself along the road, the darkest part
Into the narrow lanes, I can't stumble or stay put
Someone else is speakin' with my mouth, but I'm listening only to my heart
I've made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot

And then we have the long instrumental, where the percussionist has his say.  But for me, what is said is not at the level of that amazing earlier version.

1994: Dancing to the nightingale’s tune

So now jumping forward again, we have an even slower version, with the percussion once more given the freedom to do, well, anything I guess.   For me this is as if Bob is seeing just how depressing he can make the song.

And yes I do understand that there is that line “One said to the other, “No man sees my face and lives””.  But even so…  By now the question is, could the performances get any slower or have and more doom written into them?   Or come to that could the percussionists do anything else?

1998: You won’t regret it

And now having gone as low as possible in terms of the way the meanings are extracted from the song emotionally, we are on the way back.  Not all the way back of course, but still some distance away from the depths.

And having run through these recordings I just find myself still wondering why Bob moved away from that 1987 version.

1999: Inside the museum.

And here we are as the song is ready to be put away for the last time – and what a curious journey this has been.   Just as I adored the very first performance in this selection, so I love this last one.   It is a totally different approach, but the speeding up helps.

Indeed although I haven’t been back to check it really does linger in my mind that this is not the first time that Bob has given up a song after producing a really excellent, insightful and utterly enjoyable performance.

Is that what he does?  Take the song to a new place, and feel “yes, that’s about as far as I can go”? And then (unlike most performers of the genre) admits that is it, and stops?

Well maybe so, but also this time, he seemed to have started at a remarkable new place and wandered backwards and then tried to recapture that first version.  (Which makes me wonder, does Bob have access to recordings of his own earlier shows?)

But of course he’s the boss.  I’m just the guy with the computer keyboard.   But just one last thought – do stay with this 1999 performance to the last note – it is a wonderful farewell.

Other articles in this series…

• A Hard Rain’s a-gonna fall 1988 – 1999
• Absolutely Sweet Marie
• Blind Willie McTell. 1997-2006
• Blowing in the Wind. 1991-2001
• Cold Irons Bound 1997-2002
• Desolation Row beyond imagination: 1992-2017
• Don’t think twice it’s alright 1993-1997
• Duquesne Whistle 2013-2018
• Early Roman Kings
• Forever Young 1987 to 2011
• Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• High Water
• Highway 61 1989-2003
• Honest with Me – 2001-2017
• I don’t believe you – 1994 – 2013
• I shall be released 1975-2008 
• It Ain’t me Babe from 1994-1998.
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma – at least it was by 2001
• Lay Lady Lay 1993-2010
• Like a Rolling Stone 1988 to 2002
• Long and Wasted Years
• Love sick from the very start to 2000
• Love minus zero / No limit 1988 – 1996
• Maggies Farm – with a wonderful ending
• Masters of War 1978 to 2000.
• One too many mornings. 
• Pay in Blood
• Positively 4th Street, 1994-2006.
• Rainy day women, from push to stroke
• She Belongs to me: 1988 to 1995
• Shelter from the Storm 1989-96
• Simple Twist of Fate 1989-2003
• Spirit on the Water
• Summer Days
• Tambourine Man 1964-1995
• Tangled up in Blue 1988 to 1993
• The Times they are a Changing: 1987-1995
• Thunder on the Mountain 2006-2014
• The Drifters’ Escape. 1996-2005.
• The Hard Rain of 1988, 2003 and 2015
• Things have changed 2000-2007
• To Ramona. 1989 to 2000
• Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum – an unbelievable journey
• Visions of Johanna
• Watching the River Flow

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

————

For more details on this new series on cover versions of Dylan songs that were not previously considered in the last series, please see the intro to the first article in this series.

This new series is selected and written by by Jürg Lehmann

Ben Sidran

Ben Sidran is an American jazz and rock keyboardist, producer, label owner and music writer.

Sidran is one of those musicians who have done an incredible amount for the reception and promotion of Dylan.

He has released two albums with excellent Dylan covers, a studio album and a live album.

Sussan Deyhim – La Belle et la Bête (2012)

Sussan Deyhim’s cover was originally a part of the Amnesty International release Chimes of Freedom, an album in celebration of Bob Dylan’s 70th Birthday with 70 international artists contributing their interpretations of his songs. Sussan’s version is in collaboration with composer Anton Sanko on Ukulele, Bass synthesist Peter Freeman and produced by Richard Horowitz.

Asked how she arrived at that very particular arrangement of “All I Really Want to Do”, Deyhim said: “I’ve been really involved with human rights organizations for the last 15 years. Amnesty International called me and said they had an idea to get dozens of artists to cover songs by Dylan. It was his 70th birthday, so it was also celebrating that.

“I said I’d do it and it was quite a challenge to choose something that hadn’t been taken by the more well-known artists. Then I ran into “All I Really Want to Do” which had a lot of potential. Dylan sings it with passion, but there’s also an element of anger at the same time. I chose to do it in a very feminine way. I was very self-conscious about it, initially, but my collaborators convinced me it was a really good idea.

“I also thought about doing it in a very punk way, which would have been interesting too. But my friends said let’s do it the other way. I like how it came out, but I wish we had mixed the guitars a little louder and made it more of a literal pop song. But when you’re doing projects like this, you don’t have the luxury of time. You have to deliver quickly and there’s never a budget. It’s labor of love and your choices are influenced by that.

Sussan Deyhim is an Iranian-American composer, singer, performance artist and activist. She is internationally recognised for her unique language of sound and song, imbued with a sense of ritual and the unknown.

She has been a member of the Iranian National Ballet since the age of thirteen and has travelled all over Iran to study with folk musicians and dancers. In 1976, she joined the Béjart Ballet in Europe after receiving a scholarship. In 1980, she moved to New York and began a career spanning music, theatre, dance, media and film.

Deyhim’s contribution to the Amnesty album is a great, very individual cover, and if you’re wondering what language it is at about 3:40 and 4:28: it’s Farsi.

• The Covers We Missed 1: Saturday Night Fry – 2×2
• The Covers We Missed 2: Abandoned Love
• The Covers We Missed 3: Ain’t Talkin
• The Covers we missed 4: All along the Watchtower
• The Covers We Missed 5: All I really want to do

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.    A list of the previous articles in this series appears at the end.

“The Lyrics and the Music” is a series by Tony Attwood which tries to find out what happens when one reviews a Dylan song not primarily as a set of lyrics, but as a piece of music which includes lyrics.   An updated list of previous articles in the series is given at the end.

Lenny Bruce

We only have to look at the opening verse to understand why the music of “Lenny Bruce is dead” is as it is.   Dylan is not offering an opinion, he is absolutely telling us how it is.

Lenny Bruce is dead, but his ghost lives on and on
Never did get any Golden Globe Award
Never made it to Synanon
He was an outlaw, that's for sure
More of an outlaw than you ever were
Lenny Bruce is gone, but his spirit's livin' on and on

But as we will see from the two musical examples offered below, these lyrics can be interpreted in utterly different ways, while still carrying the same meaning.

The music to accompany these lyrics needs to be clear – it can’t have a range of violins giving an ethereal backing.   But ut can be gentle or it can be solid and pounding musically – which is quite remarkable because this is not how songs about the departed generally are.   They often highlight the good parts in a person’s life, and have a certain gentility, but Bob will have none of that.

But if we move on to the last verse we can see that this is very much a fighting song.

They said that he was sick, 'cause he didn't play by the rules
He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools
They stamped him, and they labeled him like they do with pants and shirts
He fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts
Lenny Bruce was bad, he was the brother that you never had

That line “where every victory hurts” tells us what this is about – but then it is followed by probably one of the most powerful lines in the whole of Bob Dylan’s songwriting: “he was the brother that you never had”.

So let’s turn to the two arrangements of the music…

Maybe in the end the attraction between Bob and Lenny Bruce is to be found in one particular line

He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools

And that line can be sung with aggression and anger or with a deep sadness.

But the point about the song, is that even whichever of these two ways it is performed the music still carries the message.  In the original Bob is much more sympathetic far less forceful.  Later he was powerful to the point of aggression in blaming those around Lenny Bruce.

And yet the same basic musical structure works, whatever the arrangement.   And that is a remarkable musical achievement, to make the music work whether it is performed in a sad and regretful manner or making it quite clear that this is our loss.

Personally I prefer the forceful performance above rather than the original version below, but either way the music fits utterly with the lyrics – and that is quite a remarkable achievement.

The songs reviewed from the music plus lyrics viewpoint…

• A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall. 
• Abandoned Love
• All along the watchtower
• Angelina
• Ballad for a Friend
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
• Black Diamond Bay
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Caribbean Wind – Dylan’s musical exploration of evolving uncertainty
• Chimes of Freedom
• Cold Irons Bound
• Cover Down Pray Through
• Dark Eyes
• Desolation Row
• Drifter’s Escape
• Don’t think twice it’s all right.
• Early Roman Kings
• Every grain of sand
• Everything is broken
• Foot of pride
• Gates of Eden
• Goodbye Jimmy Reed, and the 13 bar blues
• High Water, a rise, a fall, a bounce, a flood
• Highway 61 Revisited
• I believe in you
• “I Want You”. It was never meant to be like this.
• If not for you
• It takes a lot to laugh
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma: life really is ok despite everything.
• Idiot wind
• Isis
• It ain’t me babe
• Jokerman
• Just like a woman
• Key West
• Mississippi
• Not Dark Yet
• Shelter from the Storm
• Sign on the window
• Tangled up in blue
• Tombstone Blues
•  Yonder Comes Sin

by Jochen Markhorst

XIII       I spent time with Bob. Got two words.

Every Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead rendition is at least highly enjoyable and usually hypnotic, yet the finest “Greatest Hits version” is made on the other side of the world in Australia: Jeff Lang and Chris Whitley’s 2005 collaborative project Dislocation Blues, a great album that also includes a breathtaking cover of Dylan’s “Changing Of The Guards”. Whitley distinguishes himself often enough with excellent Dylan covers (“Spanish Harlem Incident”, “Fourth Time Around”), if only because of his unique vocals: a husky falsetto and stunning phrasing. Here on “When I Paint My Masterpiece” entwined with the mean, swampy, ZZ Top-like licks of Jeff Lang’s guitar, and above all shining in full glory thanks to the sound, the very sound Dylan is always looking for in the twenty-first century:

“Jimmy Reed is about space. About air being moved around the room. You feel like you can see the light hitting the dust as it swirls under the sway of music.”
(The Philosophy Of Modern Song, 2022)

… the air, the space, “the sound of a guitar in a room where you can hear the air around it,” as Henry Rollins puts it. Like Dylan in, say, “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” and especially in “Crossing The Rubicon”, a quality you achieve if you’re not afraid to leave voids between the notes, but with Whitley & Lang even more spacious thanks to the metallic sound of Whitley’s resonator guitar (Chris was an avid collector of antique Dobros, numerous Nationals and eccentric Regals), and by the placement of the drums with an extremely tightly stretched snare – which by the sound of it are allowed to leak into Whitley’s vocal microphone.

Chris Whitley himself did not live to see the success of Dislocation Blues, unfortunately; he died of lung cancer on 20 November 2005, nine months before the album’s release.

Jeff Lang and Chris Whitley – When I Paint My Masterpiece:

A third and final category of cover variants is the “Lyrics version”, as we may call it for convenience: artists following the official publication of the lyrics, as first published in Writings & Drawings, and later in Lyrics and on the site – but never put on tape like this, neither by Dylan nor by The Band.

Notable in that category is Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, who always does sing the Coca-Cola bridge when Garcia is not around. To this day, by the way. Take late January 2024, when Weir contributes to a benefit concert in The Masonic in San Francisco for his now 92-year-old, still spry friend Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and chooses “When I Paint My Masterpiece” for unclear reasons. Wonderful rendition, but at least as much fun is the seven-minute introduction over the opening chords of Masterpiece, with the grey-haired Weir, barefoot, relaxed and funny, recounting the story of his first encounter with Ramblin’ Jack (according to Dylan the “king of folk singers”).

Weir has been playing the song for 50 years now, has performed it perhaps more often than Dylan himself, and – like Dylan – keeps getting better. Opting for a similar set-up as well: upright bass, violin, steel guitar and two guitars. He does however seem to surprise the band with his decision to do the Coca-Cola bridge – breaking the flow, the guitarist and violinist losing it, the steel guitarist hesitating and only the drummer and the bassist pump along unconcernedly. Of course, it cannot spoil the fun, nor take away the admiration for the now 76-year-old Bob Weir, whose voice – bizarrely – seems to age like fine wine.

Still, he must leave the honour for the finest “Lyrics version” to his English colleague Steve Harley. “When I Paint My Masterpiece” is the closing track from 2020’s Uncovered, Harley’s last studio album, recorded five years before his death in 2024. The album is an extraordinary, dignified and unusual swansong: the album contains almost exclusively covers. Charmingly motivated:

“I play guitar for hours most days I’m at home. And I play songs I respect deeply and wish I had written. Some of those songs are included here. Lyrics full of imagery, philosophy and wit abound amongst them.”

Many highlights. A surprising, beautiful rendition of Bowie’s “Absolute Beginners” for example, and an equally surprising, heart-breaking interpretation of Hot Chocolate’s “Emma”. But Masterpiece still stands out above them all. Largely acoustic, folky violin, particularly attractive percussion and – again – an irresistible sound;

“I wanted it to sound like I’m in your living room when you play it through your speakers. The voice is up front and everything around me is as if we were playing in your house. No effects. It’s as organic and natural as a recording could possibly be, I’m really proud of that. My engineer Matt Butler is the man who made it sound so fabulous.”

One cheeky artistic liberty Steve permits himself, at the very end: “Someday, everything is gonna be different – when I write my masterpiece.” But Steve is allowed to do so, as he delighted us with one of the most amusing Dylan anecdotes. After Harley has already mentioned a few times in interviews and stage talk that he once met Dylan, he finally tells the whole story in October 2017, from the stage at Nell’s Jazz and Blues in London:

“I’ve had time with Dylan, I met him. He was very very sweet to me. It’s a long story, I won’t bother you with it. He was very sweet to me. He didn’t say anything for ten minutes. I had to say everything. For ten minutes. And my lips dried up. You know, I ran out of energy. And words. You know, when you meet a hero after 45, 50 years, you’ve got all these things, you accumulated thoughts, words, questions, that you’ve got to have to put to this idol of yours, and you meet this person, and you haven’t got a word to say. It just all goes, it just disappears, through a sieve. And that kind of happened to me, but it was quite good with him. But he didn’t talk back. It’s hard work. It’s like hard work. And when it was over, when he wanted to go, he stood up and shook my hand, and he said four words to me. No wait, it was two words. But he repeated. He stood up, and he took my hand to say goodbye, he said: [growling imitation of Dylan’s voice] ‘The weather, the weather.’ [audience laughter]
[Smiling proudly]: I spent time with Bob. Got two words. It’s good enough for me.”

What Dylan meant by “the weather, the weather” will probably always remain a mystery. That it was a cold dark night on the Spanish Stairs, perhaps.

To be continued. Next up When I Paint My Masterpiece part 14: Un appuntamento con la nipote di Botticelli

————–

Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang
• Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
• Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
• Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
• Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
• I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
• Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
• Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)

 I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

——————–

Once or twice: A review of some of the songs that Bob has performed just once or twice on stage, selecting those of which we have either a live recording or failing that something of interest to offer Text and video selection by Tony Attwood.

Satisfied Mind appeared on the album “The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete”. recorded in 1967, released in 2014.   Aaron also had a look at the song in the Other People’s Songs series.

The song written by Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes. Red Hayes said in an interview that the lines in the song were the things he had heard his mother say across the years.

Bob’s recording in the studio ran like this….

The Basement Tapes complete recording sounded rather different

And so onto the one time Bob seems to have performed it on the Never Ending Tour, and fortunately for this series it was included in Mike Johgnson’s series which charts the NET from its origins in 1987 to the present day, with multiple examples of Dylan’s performances through the period in question.  The full index is here.

The one performance was in 1999 and Mike found the recording and included it in part six for that year: Honky Tonk Dylan: Despair and sentimentality.

So let us jump forward again, this time to 1999.  And once more the feel of the song is completely different.  Still those same lyrics, and those same three chords, but now the lead guitar is much more gentle, and Bob’s voice is almost regretful that he ain’t gonna work there no more.

The instrumental break is different and highly inventive given the limited amount of material there is to play with, and that’s the point, there isn’t much there.  But what we do have, especially in the instrumental break, is something of a jaunty feel.  A sort of lightheartedness that was never there before.  True the “sing while they slave” still has an edge, but not so much of an edge.

1999   Every night in a combustible way.

And now jumping forward again we get another new sound – still with those same lyrics and just those same three chords.   But again the interval between each verse is different.

2004 Rocking on

So I thought, that must be about it.  A song that Bob plays with, but really, doesn’t add that much too.  However I also thought, let’s have just one more – although as ever of course there are many more versions to be found within the Never Ending Tour series on this site.

Thus I jumped from the 2004 to the totally new rhythm we have in 2009.  Now suddenly we have a transformation of the song in every way.   And this is one of those moments (and by no means the only one) that I work my way through the various recordings sometimes wondering if you, my reader, will actually want to go through the recordings, only to find at the end a real revolution.

OK Bob is still constrained by the chords but that adds to the surprise that he really can do something here.   And goodness me he does.   (Indeed have we heard Bob sing the bass line like he does somewhere around 2 minutes 50 at the end of that verse).

Oh yes, this is the recording, as has happened before, the one recording that really makes me think this was so worth the journey.  Thank you Bob.  Forever in your debt.

2009 Rolling the Rock

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.    A list of the previous articles in this series appears at the end.

“The Lyrics and the Music” is a series by Tony Attwood which tries to find out what happens when one reviews a Dylan song not primarily as a set of lyrics, but as a piece of music which includes lyrics.   An updated list of previous articles in the series is given at the end.

“If not for you” was performed by Dylan 89 times between 1992 and 2004.

However although Bob started to perform it as noted above it was written in 1970 or before, as it appeared on New Morning, and in fact was issued as a single the following year.   He also performed with George Harrison

As we know from most reports, it was written for Bob’s wife Sara, and was recorded with George Harrison soon after the break up of the Beatles.

The solo version (the top one above) has for me a feeling of being rushed musically, which may come about because the lyrics are much simpler than those we normally associate with Dylan.  And indeed the song includes rhymes which are generally associated with pop songs, once again rather than with Dylan.

Indeed there is a curious moment in the middle 8 where the lyrics do become slightly more adventurous with “My sky would fall, rain would gather too” – an interesting combination of a metaphor and the everyday, but the section ends with the mundane, “And you know it’s true.”

If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I’d be nowhere at all
I’d be lost if not for you
And you know it’s true

It is as if Bob really did want to write an ordinary everyday pop song, but his natural ability with words occasionally pokes through.

Indeed, the ending is much more interesting…

If not for you
Winter would have no spring
Couldn’t hear the robin sing
I just wouldn’t have a clue

There would be eternal winter without you, and worse one of the few reliefs from the rain and the cold (the singing of the robin) would be lost through his misery.

But in many ways the delicacy and interest evoked by those final lines are completely lost because of the way the music jogs along at a fair old pace.  Worse, the instruments are all going their own way without any clear musical direction, and eventually seem to be waiting for Bob to start.

And yet it all works because the music, the lryics and the accompaniment have a certain clear simplicity about them.   A contrast or maybe even a contradiction is formed however because Bob’s singing sounds genuine and heartfelt while the music really is bouncing along like a two and a half minute 45rpm hit, and the two sets of emotions generated don’t seem to mix very well.

And indeed the harmonica solos that occur a couple of times appear to be added for no real reason other than the fact that well, it’s Bob, so the producer knowing it is all fairly mundane anyway says “we ought to have some harmonica”.

Whenever I heard this I just wished for a much slower version so that although the everyday world portrayed in the lyrics would still be there. the music would be less boppy.  Soon after getting the album a few of us actually tried playing it this way and found it could become a rather lovely gentle lullaby.

But I guess the record company required a two and three quarter minute pop song complete with fade out, so that is what is produced.

George Harrison did indeed take the approach of slowing it down with his live performance of the song.  What’s more the accompanying counter melody becomes far less prominent and we do finally have a love song that feels like the singer-songwriter actually meant it.

George Harrison also adds a few minor but very welcome variations to the melody.

So in the end we can see it is actually a rather beautiful love song which was in my view spoiled both by the accompaniment and the speed it was taken at.

And indeed I think Bob got the message too, for in the end he seemed to agree.  This version comes from our Never Ending Tour series 2003, part 6: The Ragged Clown

Now that’s more like it.  And again we can see that the lyrics are still the same, but the music can change – and sometimes for the better.  I think Bob overplays the matter in that middle 8, but clearly he’s seen the possibility of enhancing the song by taking the song at a slower pace.

The songs reviewed from the music plus lyrics viewpoint…

• A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall. 
• Abandoned Love
• All along the watchtower
• Angelina
• Ballad for a Friend
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
• Black Diamond Bay
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Caribbean Wind – Dylan’s musical exploration of evolving uncertainty
• Chimes of Freedom
• Cold Irons Bound
• Cover Down Pray Through
• Dark Eyes
• Desolation Row
• Drifter’s Escape
• Don’t think twice it’s all right.
• Early Roman Kings
• Every grain of sand
• Everything is broken
• Foot of pride
• Gates of Eden
• Goodbye Jimmy Reed, and the 13 bar blues
• High Water, a rise, a fall, a bounce, a flood
• Highway 61 Revisited
• I believe in you
• “I Want You”. It was never meant to be like this.
• It takes a lot to laugh
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma: life really is ok despite everything.
• Idiot wind
• Isis
• It ain’t me babe
• Jokerman
• Just like a woman
• Key West
• Mississippi
• Not Dark Yet
• Shelter from the Storm
• Sign on the window
• Tangled up in blue
• Tombstone Blues
•  Yonder Comes Sin

When I Paint My Masterpiece (1971) part 12

by Jochen Markhorst

XII        A Bob Dylan song, for those of you with Google

“When I Paint My Masterpiece” is among the handful of songs whose cover we get to know earlier than the original. Hardly the lesser songs, by the way. “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” has appeared about 10 times on other people’s records (Ian and Sylvia, Odetta, Judy Collins, Elvis) before we get to hear what Dylan himself does with the song, also on Greatest Hits Vol. II in 1971. Dylan’s own interpretations of Basement songs like “Quinn The Eskimo” (Manfred Mann), “This Wheel’s On Fire” (Judie Driscoll), “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” (The Byrds) and “I Shall Be Released” (Boz Burrell) we don’t hear until years after the premieres either. Or never at all, like, say, “Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word” (Joan Baez) or “Sign Language” (Clapton). And then we have “Seven Days” (Ron Wood), “Blind Willie Mctell” (The Band), “Make You Feel My Love” (Billy Joel)… well alright, it’s more than a handful, but within Dylan’s vast oeuvre still no more than a fraction anyway.

One difference with all those recordings is the side effect, the consequence that most of those songs get confiscated, as it were. “Quinn The Eskimo” is not a Dylan song, it has since long become a Manfred Mann song, and of “Make You Feel My Love” an estimated three-quarters of the audience singing-along with Adele does not even know it is a Dylan song. Which seems to be the case for “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” as well, since Guns ‘n’ Roses.

But the status of “When I Paint My Masterpiece” is diffuse – there are about as many music fans who deem it a Band song as fans who consider it a Dylan song. Plus a splinter fraction of Masterpiece fans who think it has become a Grateful Dead song. At least, that can be gathered from the many, many covers of the song. Musically from all corners of the globe, of course. Bluesy, bluegrass, rock, folk and all their mixtures, translated into Japanese, Finnish, German, Romanian and whatnot, but at least textually we can make a three-way split: The Band’s version from Cahoots, the Dylan version from Greatest Hits and the fictional version as chronicled in the official lyrics.

We hear the “Cahoots version” – obviously – on the wonderful 2007 tribute album Endless Highway: The Music of the Band, on which Josh Turner accounts for “When I Paint My Masterpiece”. An impeccable folk-rocking performance with banjo, fiddle and steel guitar for the rustic couleur, though not too adventurous. However, the contribution to the tribute album does demonstrate that the song is considered a Band song by its compilers. Which also seems to be the case with A-listers Emmylou Harris and Blake Mills. Identifiable by the choice for the girl from Greece and the Coca-Cola bridge, rather than Botticelli’s niece and no bridge.

Emmylou’s cover (on the compilation box Portraits, 1996) is gorgeous and rather safe; largely acoustic, not substantially different from The Band. Not surprising – it is a 1993 recording with her own Nash Ramblers, the band featuring highly skilled men like Sam Bush on mandolin and Al Perkins on resonator guitar, guys who have Americana in their blood.

More idiosyncratic and therefore more interesting is the 2015 exercise of the rightly acclaimed Blake Mills, five years before he will put such a brilliant mark on Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways. In a dilapidated side room, alone on a kitchen chair, a guitar amplifier and a microphone, and above all: Dylan’s Stratocaster. The Dylan-goes-electric-guitar from Newport 1965. The 1964 Three-Tone Sunburst Strat he had left behind in a private plane at the time and only found in the attic years later in 2004, by the daughter of the now-deceased pilot Victor Quinto.

Mills knows how to appreciate it. He conjures a magical, supremely elegant and tasteful arrangement of Masterpiece from the antique treasure (the Strat was eventually auctioned for the staggering sum of $965,000), reverently turns the guitar towards himself after the last note and says: “Wow. Awesome. Thank you, guys.” Introducing the clip is a confession of love from die-hard Dylan fan Blake Mills: “To me he is a torch and an example of a lot of bravery”. And at later concerts where Masterpiece is on the setlist he always faithfully mentions that this is a Dylan song (“A Bob Dylan song, for those of you with Google”), though he still sings the Cahoots version of the first verse (with the girl from Greece). Then again, he does not sing the bridge – but sometimes incorporates it instrumentally in the virtuoso guitar interlude between the second and third verse (the live performance at the Greek theatre Los Angeles 2016 is a highlight after the chilling opening with his own brilliant song “If I’m Unworthy”).

Comparable in terms of idiosyncrasy is the most compelling cover of this variety: Elliott Brood, the Canadian band obviously staying true to their compatriots’ version: “We recorded this Dylan cover at Revolution Studios in Toronto. I think some of the words are wrong, but we had a blast doing it. We were referencing The Band’s version anyways.” The three-man band is usually pigeonholed as an “alternative country band”, but this interpretation is steeped in grunge. Thanks to the heavy, lingering fuzz guitar, illuminated by the heavenly harmony of the second and third vocals, and an irresistible harmonica.

The Dylan faction, the artists who got to know and love the song via Greatest Hits Vol. II is about the same size and is led by Jerry Garcia. Masterpiece was on his setlist as early as ‘72: with Merle Saunders on 6 February at Pacific High Studios. Like the Leon Russell version of Greatest Hits without bridge, but remarkably this one time with the pretty little girl from Greece, whom Jerry in February ’72 can only know thanks to The Band. He converts quickly, though. In the many, many solo and Grateful Dead renditions hereafter, then usually sung by Bob Weir, she remains Botticelli’s niece. As do such tribute bands as Dark Star Orchestra and Uncle John’s Band – Grateful Dead tribute bands, so apparently they consider it a Grateful Dead song.

With which, incidentally, Dylan surely would have no problems at all. His love for the Grateful Dead, and Jerry Garcia in particular, is well-documented, and takes on another layer when concert promoter John Scher gives us a behind-the-scenes look on the Bob Lefsetz Podcast in December 2023. He reminisces about Garcia’s funeral in 1995. Scher is on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle the next day: “Bob Dylan with an unknown person leaving Jerry Garcia’s funeral,” Scher quotes with a laugh. What were you guys talking about, host Bob Lefsetz wants to know.

“What I really remember about it is while we were walking out, Dylan leaned over to me and said, ‘You know what, John?’ I said, ‘What, Bob?’ He said, ‘The guy lying there (referring to Garcia), he’s the only one in the world who knows what it’s like to be me.’ Which was pretty profound.”

Thus Dylan gives, indirectly and posthumously, his blessing to whatever Dylan song has been covered by Jerry. And a quarter of a century after Jerry’s funeral, he is even more outspoken in The Philosophy Of Modern Song, chapter 55. “One thing Jerry knew was his place in the universe,” Dylan says, then bringing Garcia back to the Roman Empire:

“He knew, as the great Roman orator, philosopher, and statesman Cicero did, that there is assuredly nothing dearer to a man than wisdom, and though age takes away all else, it undoubtedly brings us that.”

He did leave some ancient footsteps, Jerry Garcia.

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To be continued. Next up When I Paint My Masterpiece part 13: I spent time with Bob. Got two words.

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Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:

• Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
• Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
• Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
• Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
• Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
• Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
• Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
• John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
• Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
• Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
• Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2^nd Big Bang
• Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
• Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
• Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
• Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
• I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
• Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
• Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)

 I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

Once or twice: A review of some of the songs that Bob has performed just once or twice on stage, selecting those of which we have either a live recording or failing that something of interest to offer Text and video selection by Tony Attwood.

—————

Sally Sue Brown appeared on Down in the Groove and according to the official Dylan site was performed live twice in April 1992.  It was written by Arthur Alexander, (1940-1993), also known as June Alexander for reasons that will not become clear at this time.  Aaron wrote an article about the song a couple of years ago for the other people’s songs series, and I really enjoyed discovering it then.  And since it fits in here too…

We have a recording from the Seattle performance that year.

As you can hear it is quite a rocker, and it sounds to me like a song Bob could easily have grown into and seriously enjoyed playing, as well as keeping the audience happy, but those two performances were all the song got.

But it did make it onto the album… and complete with a backing female voice

The song was first recorded in July 1960 by June Alexander (real name Arthur Bernard Alexander, Jr), and it is worth a listen.

I am fascinated by this.  Bob chose the song to put on the album, played it twice, and then… nothing.  I mean if it was good enough for the album (which it clearly is) why leave it at just two performances.

But still, this is Bob.

Previously in this series we have looked at

• Caribbean Wind
• The girl on the Greenbriar Shore
• Lay Down your weary tune
• Lily, Rosemary and Stage Fright
• Only a hobo
• Restless Farewell
• Roll on John
• Spanish Harlem Incident
• You Angel You

 I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.

The Never Ending Tour Extended: This series primarily uses recordings selected by Mike Johnson in his inestimable masterpiece The Never Ending Tour, and looks at how those performances of individual songs change as time goes by.   The selection of songs from the series, and the commentary below, are by Tony Attwood.   A list of all the songs covered in the series is given at the end.

———

Lay Lady Lay was played by Dylan for the first time on 31 August 1969 and was finally retired on 27 November 2010 after 407 performances across 41 years.

1993: The epic adventures of Mr Guitar Man

At the time we pick up on the song on the Tour Bob had kept the essence of the accompaniment and the feel of the song but had changed the melody considerably along with his singing style.  Lines are extended, the melody vanishes sometimes or becomes something quite different.   Altogether it gives a sense of relaxation and do-as-you-please, as if the message is everyone can do as she or he wants.  He wants her to stay, but really it is up to her.  He is asking, not begging.

And as happens most of the time the song is extended way beyond its original recording.  That lasted three minutes 19 seconds, this live version is around nine minutes, thanks not least to a very prolonged instrumental break which starts around 3 minutes 50 seconds, and takes us down to almost nothing (suggesting the end of the song) at around 6 minutes 30 seconds, before building up again as Bob uses one of his favourite instrumental techniques of playing the same musical pattern over and over again.   Indeed given the chattering in the background it could be that by around 7 minutes 20 seconds the audience is thinking it is all over.

Indeed by eight minutes 10 seconds we are almost at silence, but there is still a coda to be added and the performance takes its final bow at nine minutes 12 seconds.  Three times as long as the original.  And I wonder, listening now at home without the excitement and enthusiasm of fellow fans around me, if this coda really adds anything to the song.   Perhaps it does but that coda is almost as long as the song, and it feels a little like an indulgence to me.

Such extemporisations are fun to play I know from my own experience, but musically for the audience, I am not sure.

1995: The Prague Revelation and other astonishment 

Two years on, it feels from the opening as if Bob has taken the notion of this song as relaxation to heart, as this feels even slower than before.  Much of the original melody has gone but there is enough of it to remind us (if we needed reminding) that this is indeed “Lay Lady Lay”.   There’s a lot of emphasis on “I LONG to see you,” too, which I had never taken from the original recording – although maybe I just wasn’t listening closely enough.

The instrumental break is shorter and I think that helps – it now has almost become a song in its own right – although then the guitar  (I presume that is Bob) starts to take it in a more energetic direction before the song winds up at five and a half minutes – a considerable retreat from the epic approach of two years earlier.

2001: Down Electric Avenue

And now we have even more of the original melody removed with Bob adopting the style of one reciting a poem.   The length of the performance is back up again – and what is noticeable is that aside from Bob’s own guitar playing (his usual picking out of phrases and notes to be repeated over and over) the accompaniment is pretty much the same as where we started.

Although about the four minute 20 second mark the middle 8 does take on a different form – but this is mostly to contrast with the rest of the song which seems by and large to drift along.

2010: Stay Dylan Stay (part 2)

So the question remains, did “Lay Lady Lay” ever move onto anywhere else?   Well yes and no.  The music was eventually speeded up just a little, and Bob emphasised the gruff voice approach, taking elements from his various earlier outings we have sampled above.

Yet there is something else that is different by the time of this final departure from our collection of recordings made on the Tour.  It is in many ways a summary of the journey rather than the final part of the journey.  Emphasising perhaps that he is not the man he was 40 years before when he wrote it.

But we have the harmonica here once more.  Although the sudden accent of words that are just passing and not of central importance (such as “For”) continues, overall there is a sense of goodbye to an old friend, rather than the transformation that we have seen with other songs.

Indeed if that final harmonica burst says anything, it says goodbye old friend.

Other articles in this series…

• A Hard Rain’s a-gonna fall 1988 – 1999
• Absolutely Sweet Marie
• Blind Willie McTell. 1997-2006
• Blowing in the Wind. 1991-2001
• Cold Irons Bound 1997-2002
• Desolation Row beyond imagination: 1992-2017
• Don’t think twice it’s alright 1993-1997
• Duquesne Whistle 2013-2018
• Early Roman Kings
• Forever Young 1987 to 2011
• Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• High Water
• Highway 61 1989-2003
• Honest with Me – 2001-2017
• I don’t believe you – 1994 – 2013
• I shall be released 1975-2008 
• It Ain’t me Babe from 1994-1998.
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma – at least it was by 2001
• Like a Rolling Stone 1988 to 2002
• Long and Wasted Years
• Love sick from the very start to 2000
• Love minus zero / No limit 1988 – 1996
• Masters of War 1978 to 2000.
• One too many mornings. 
• Pay in Blood
• Positively 4th Street, 1994-2006.
• Rainy day women, from push to stroke
• She Belongs to me: 1988 to 1995
• Shelter from the Storm 1989-96
• Simple Twist of Fate 1989-2003
• Spirit on the Water
• Summer Days
• Tambourine Man 1964-1995
• Tangled up in Blue 1988 to 1993
• The Times they are a Changing: 1987-1995
• Thunder on the Mountain 2006-2014
• The Drifters’ Escape. 1996-2005.
• The Hard Rain of 1988, 2003 and 2015
• Things have changed 2000-2007
• To Ramona. 1989 to 2000
• Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum – an unbelievable journey
• Visions of Johanna
• Watching the River Flow

I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.    A list of the previous articles in this series appears at the end.

By Tony Attwood

Foot of Pride is a song of lyrics and atmosphere – it starts out sounding like it is going to be a 12 bar blues playing the chords we would all recognise of the standard blues format (in musical terms that means chords I and IV), but then suddenly it all breaks up with the line “There ain’t no going back”.

Played in B the chorus line has the chords of G#m, E, B, which are perfectly normal if playing in the key of B, just somewhat unusual as a chorus of a blues format song in B (which itself is a very unusual key to choose).

But the music is spooky, and repetitive, and hence mostly we focus on the lyrics – especially in the version above (Spring time in New York).  In fact the song is primarily about the atmosphere created by living in a world where everything is already doomed.   And here we can see (as I believe we often see) Dylan is not primarily about the lyrics, but is equally about the music which creates the atmosphere surrounding the lyrics.

And the point here is that this song is not about melody or chord sequence, but is about the way the music creates an atmosphere.   Indeed I would say that the atmosphere in the recording above is unique in Dylan.   (And I know I can often go wrong in my claims of uniqueness in Dylan but if it isn’t unique, it sure is unusual).   This really is music and atmosphere, atmosphere and music.

Certainly, the melody, although present, often gives way to recitation, and this recording makes me wish that Dylan had taken this notion of music as atmosphere further.  But then I guess you have to be pretty desperate in terms of your vision of the future of the race to be thinking this way.

This last recording is one that I have picked up before and highlighted several times, Lou Reed performing the song live.   I’ve also mentioned before Lou is actually reading the lyrics from the monitor, which is itself interesting.  Why choose a song that for which you have not learned all the lyrics?  Maybe Bob suggested it.  Maybe Lou fully understood the message and agreed with it totally.

So to return to the key point of this series of articles: what about the issue of the music AND the lyrics, which is after all the very heart of this series.

The fact is the music is little beyond the recitation of the lyrics plus the atmosphere created by the way the guitar is played; that is the key issue.  The music here is not about an interesting, or plaintive or memorable melody, it is about the repetition of our foolish, hopeless lives – how for many people life can go on being the same monotonous and tedious repetition of hopelessness over and over again.

And to do that without making any of the versions of this song monotonous and repetitive is a very clever trick to pull off. It works because for me at least the lyrics themselves are absolutely fascinating, just as I find the atmosphere created by the song fascinating.  What Dylan is doing is writing about contemporary life which can be the same dire situations and outcomes over and over again, and that is the antithesis of what most songs are about.

In contrasting this ceaseless beat and guitar accompaniment with lyrics such as

in these times of compassion 
when conformity's in fashion
Say one more stupid thing to me 
before the final nail is driven in.

he forces anyone who cares to think about the feeling that the music presents.  As a result anyone who can listen to the lyrics has to hear the music and hence is pushed toward understanding the thought that we are all being slaughtered by the tedious humdrum existence of working life and TV, that so many people are forced to take.

That line, “Conformity’s in fashion” is one of the keys to the song: we no longer value the new, the unexpected, the different, everything now has to be the same, which is what that pounding unending guitar accompaniment says.   And worse, “There ain’t no going back”.  We have created this and we are stuck with it.

In fact the lines are telling us our lives are now meaningless because life is just a repetition.  Consider

If you don't mind sleepin' 
with your head face down in a grave.

and remember the music at the same time.

Being an atheist myself (something that makes me virtually an outcast in today’s world – or at least I can feel like that in today’s Britain) I also appreciate what this song says about religions in general – for Dylan in this song is being quite clear that religion is part of the problem, and not in any way the solution.

They like to take all this money from sin, 
build big universities to study in
Sing "Amazing Grace" all the way to the Swiss banks

And all the while the music goes on and on the same, verse upon verse, ramming home the message that there is no way out for their ain’t no going back.

Of course such a powerful song needs a powerful ending and it has to come from the lyrics because the song itself is not going to, and indeed cannot, change.  So we get the ending…

Ain't nothin' left here, partner, 
just the dust of a plague that has left this whole town afraid
From now on, this'll be where you're from
Let the dead bury the dead. Your time will come
Let hot iron blow as you raise the shade

Well, there ain't no goin' back 
when your foot of pride come down
Ain't no goin' back

If you are going to write a song in which the last verse ends “Let the hot iron blow as you raise the shade” you really need music that is forcing itself deep into the audience’s mindset so that they ultimately feel the message: this world is screwed, there is no way out, there ain’t no going back” and we certainly get this.

No other music could fit this message.  Dylan, the extraordinary composer, once again has met Dylan the extraordinary poet.   And as so often we need both lyrics and music to make it work.

The songs reviewed from the music plus lyrics viewpoint…

• A Hard Rain’s A-gonna Fall. 
• Abandoned Love
• All along the watchtower
• Angelina
• Ballad for a Friend
• Beyond here lies nothing
• Blind Willie McTell
• Black Diamond Bay
• Can you please crawl out your window
• Caribbean Wind – Dylan’s musical exploration of evolving uncertainty
• Chimes of Freedom
• Cold Irons Bound
• Cover Down Pray Through
• Dark Eyes
• Desolation Row
• Drifter’s Escape
• Don’t think twice it’s all right.
• Early Roman Kings
• Every grain of sand
• Everything is broken
• Foot of pride
• Gates of Eden
• Goodbye Jimmy Reed, and the 13 bar blues
• High Water, a rise, a fall, a bounce, a flood
• Highway 61 Revisited
• I believe in you
• “I Want You”. It was never meant to be like this.
• It takes a lot to laugh
• It’s all over now baby blue
• It’s all right ma: life really is ok despite everything.
• Idiot wind
• Isis
• It ain’t me babe
• Jokerman
• Just like a woman
• Key West
• Mississippi
• Not Dark Yet
• Shelter from the Storm
• Sign on the window
• Tangled up in blue
• Tombstone Blues
•  Yonder Comes Sin