Untold Dylan

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

Aaron: “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” is a song by Willie Nelson and released in 1980 on the Honeysuckle Rose soundtrack, and later as the soundtrack’s second single in January 1981. The single was Nelson’s seventh number one on the country chart as a solo artist and stayed at number one for one week and spent a total of fourteen weeks on the country chart.

Tony: As you’ll probably know by now after all the writing Aaron and I have done together, he’s in the USA and I’m in England, and sometimes we have a problem in that a video he selects which works in America, doesn’t work in the UK.   So if the first one here doesn’t work for you (as it doesn’t for me), there is a second video beneath.

Tony: So I don’t know if this is the same version as you have been listening to Aaron, but I’m hoping it is close enough.

Here are the lyrics

If you had not a-fallen, then I would not have found you
Angel flying too close to the ground
And I patched up your broken wing
And hung around a while
Trying to keep your spirits up
And your fever down

I knew someday that you would fly away
For love's the greatest healer to be found

So leave me if you need to, I will still remember
Angel flying too close to the ground

It is completely emotional – helping someone repair their life and letting them go even though it leaves a vast gap in one’s own life.   A song of self-sacrifice indeed.

Aaron: Bob Dylan covered the song during the recording sessions for his 1983 album Infidels. The song appeared as the B-side to four different international single releases in support of the album and later The Bootleg Series Vol. 16: Springtime in New York 1980–1985.

Tony: Bob plays it dead straight – as indeed is the only way to approach this song, along with the harmonies behind – until we get to the harmonica solo.  But Bob’s harmonica playing (covered so well and in so much detail in the Master Harpist series on this site) carries on its own so many implications and feelings that I was somewhat taken aback by the first introduction of the instrumental verse.

However by the second section of harmonica playing the emotions had risen so far that I guess it fits in better.  And indeed it seems that the whole point of Bob’s version is the coda in which the chorus is repeated several times.   In fact this almost seems to make the main body of the song irrelevant – which of course in the original it wasn’t.

I am really uncertain about this… I love Bob’s work for the musical and lyrical invention but here we have one line repeated over and over both lyrically and musically, and I just wonder why.   It seems very un-Bob-like to me, almost as if he was told to make the track, and did so, without much musical thought.

Of course Bob can do anything he likes, but I just wonder why he chose to do this song.  It is also (to me, and as ever it is just me) as if someone persuaded him to, and he agreed.   But of course, as always, these are just my thoughts, and could be completely out of place.

Aaron: Alison Krauss included it on the Target exclusive version of her 2017 release Windy City.

Tony: Now we are back to the original style and approach of the song, and I do think the piano accompaniment is emotionally appropriate and at the same time inventive.   Yes, I’ll go with this completely as the instrumental verse also fits in with the whole essence of the piece.    It’s not a track I would want to play over and again, but for me it has a coherence of music and lyrics which Bob’s approach loses.   (The track stops suddenly, but I am sure that must be a fault of the video, it can’t have been how the recording was made).

Aaron: Willie Nelson’s son Lukas Nelson recorded a version with Neil Young for the Paradox album and movie

Tony: What an amazing cover illustration on the record – but I am not at all sure of the point of the first 20 seconds of the music, nor indeed the first moments of the song… but it is delicate and sincere.  Although there are elements therein that do disturb me a bit at the start with the repeated notes and moments of the guitarist repeating notes and trying out virtuoso inserts.   Somehow the guitarist is, to me, occasinally showing off when in fact the recording should, in my view, be about the song, not about the technical ability of the instrumentalists.

Overall it is a strange interpretation – just as the cover illustration is strange.   But the vocals are beautiful – a perfect interpretation in my view.   So if we could have these vocals, and a backing in which the musicians just kept it dead simple, that would work for me.

Goodness, I think I am getting very curmudgeonly in my old age.

Meanwhile here are the previous editions…

1. Other people’s songs. How Dylan covers the work of other composers
2. Other People’s songs: Bob and others perform “Froggie went a courtin”
3. Other people’s songs: They killed him
4. Other people’s songs: Frankie & Albert
5. Other people’s songs: Tomorrow Night where the music is always everything
6. Other people’s songs: from Stack a Lee to Stagger Lee and Hugh Laurie
7. Other people’s songs: Love Henry
8. Other people’s songs: Rank Stranger To Me
9. Other people’s songs: Man of Constant Sorrow
10. Other people’s songs: Satisfied Mind
11. Other people’s songs: See that my grave is kept clean
12. Other people’s songs: Precious moments and some extras
13. Other people’s songs: You go to my head
14. Other people’s songs: What’ll I do?
15. Other people’s songs: Copper Kettle
16. Other people’s songs: Belle Isle
17. Other people’s songs: Fixing to Die
18. Other people’s songs: When did you leave heaven?
19. Other people’s songs: Sally Sue Brown
20. Other people’s songs: Ninety miles an hour down a dead end street
21. Other people’s songs: Step it up and Go
22. Other people’s songs: Canadee-I-O
23. Other people’s songs: Arthur McBride
24. Other people’s songs: Little Sadie
25. Other people’s songs: Blue Moon, and North London Forever
26. Other people’s songs: Hard times come again no more
27. Other people’s songs: You’re no good
28. Other people’s songs: Lone Pilgrim (and more Crooked Still)
29. Other people’s songs: Blood in my eyes
30. Other people’s songs: I forgot more than you’ll ever know
31.  Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
32. Other people’s songs: Highway 51
33. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
34. Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
35. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
36. Other people’s songs: Highway 51 Blues
37. Other people’s songs: Freight Train Blues
38. Other People’s Songs: The Little Drummer Boy
39. Other People’s Songs: Must be Santa
40. Other People’s songs: The Christmas Song
41. Other People’s songs: Corina Corina
42. Other People’s Songs: Mr Bojangles
43. Other People’s Songs: It hurts me too
44. Other people’s songs: Take a message to Mary
45. Other people’s songs: House of the Rising Sun
46. Other people’s songs: “Days of 49”
47. Other people’s songs: In my time of dying
48. Other people’s songs: Pretty Peggy O
49. Other people’s songs: Baby Let me Follow You Down
50. Other people’s songs: Gospel Plow
51. Other People’s Songs: Melancholy Mood
52. Other people’s songs: The Boxer and Big Yellow Taxi
53. Other people’s songs: Early morning rain
54. Other people’s Songs: Gotta Travel On
55. Other people’s songs: “Can’t help falling in love”
56. Other people’s songs: Lily of the West
57. Other people’s songs: Alberta
58. Other people’s songs: Little Maggie
59. Other people’s songs: Sitting on top of the world
60. Dylan’s take on “Let it be me”
61. Other people’s songs: From “Take me as I am” all the way to “Baker Street”
62. Other people’s songs: A fool such as I
63. Other people’s songs: Sarah Jane and the rhythmic changes
64. Other people’s songs: Spanish is the loving tongue. Author drawn to tears
65. Other people’s songs: The ballad of Ira Hayes
66. Other people’s songs: The usual
67. Other people’s songs: Blackjack Davey
68. Other people’s songs: You’re gonna quit me
69. Other people’s songs: You belong to me
70. Other people’s songs: Stardust
71. Other people’s songs: Diamond Joe
72. Other people’s songs: The Cuckoo
73. Other people’s songs: Come Rain or Come Shine
74. Other people’s songs: Two soldiers and an amazing discovery
75. Other people’s songs: Pretty Boy Floyd
76. Other people’s songs: My Blue Eyed Jane
77. That Old Black Magic (and a lot of laughs)

Goodbye Jimmy Reed (2020) part 12 (final)

by Jochen Markhorst

XII        Once upon a time

G-d be with you, brother dear
If you don’t mind me asking, what brings you here?
Oh, nothing much, I’m just looking for the man
I came to see where he’s lying in this lost land
Goodbye Jimmy Reed and with everything within ya
Can’t you hear me calling from down in Virginia

 “All Along The Watchtower opens up in a slightly different way, in a stranger way, for here we have the cycle of events working in a rather reverse order,” Dylan says in the interview with John Cohen for Sing Out!, at home in Woodstock, in the summer of 1968. The self-analysis motivates a complete legion of Dylan interpreters to read the lyrics “the other way round”, from the last verse to the first verse, in order to find a logical storyline or a conclusive cause-and-effect narrative. Which is only moderately successful; neither reading direction offers anything like a unified exposition, development and catastrophe, anything like a traditional narrative composition. It does not detract from the magical power of the text, of course – “All Along The Watchtower” combines the brilliance of Kafka, the art of sketching a dreamlike reality with barren, simple and clear language, with the Dylanesque suggestion of epic – like, say, “Visions Of Johanna” or “Shelter From The Storm”, lyrics where word choice and stage directions suggest that we are in the middle of a story. “There must be some way out of here,” for example, suggests that there is a “here” known to the audience, just as “Two riders were approaching” wrongly assumes that the audience knows what they are approaching.

One peak behind the curtains regarding the creation process, however, seems to be given by Dylan: he wrote the last verse first. And such seems to have been the case half a century later as well, here in “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”.

This sixth verse is the only verse with a clearly recognisable dialogue. A dialogue that is unmistakably the beginning of a conversation, and thus the promise of a story. First a neat greeting plus the interested question about what the antagonist has come here to do, then – coherently and logically – the antagonist’s answer. The answer, moreover, is intriguing. The visitor comes to see “the man”, and the continuation insinuates that “the man” is dead, that the visitor wants to visit his grave: I came to see where he’s lying in this lost land – yep, this is the beginning of an Edgar Allan Poe-like story. Whereby the addition this lost land is even more intriguing than the fact that the visitor is looking for a grave.

In general, lost land is a motif for which Dylan seems to have a soft spot anyway. All three works that he lists in his Nobel Prize speech as admired pillars of literary history lean on this very motif; Moby Dick plays for the most part at sea, and apart from Ishmael, no one will see the land again; the atmospheric and plot-defining setting in Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) is the no man’s land between the two fronts; and in Homer’s Odyssey, “lost land” is quite literally plot-driving, for the 24 books describe the adventures of the wandering Odysseus as he tries to find his lost land again.

None of those three variations, however, Dylan seems to have had in his mind’s eye here. The trigger for the song is Jimmy Reed’s “Down In Virginia”, which is acknowledged rather explicitly in the last line, and it seems plausible that the words “goodbye Jimmy Reed” are the catalyst for the song, as Dylan would say. At least, it is quite likely that Dylan’s creation process went along the same lines as the creation of “I Contain Multitudes”;

“In that particular song, the last few verses came first. So that’s where the song was going all along. Obviously, the catalyst for the song is the title line. It’s one of those where you write it on instinct. Kind of in a trance state.”
(New York Times interview with Douglas Brinkley, 12 June 2020)

Still, all too factual lying in this lost land is not, in this scenario – Jimmy Reed is buried in a Chicago suburb, in Blue Island, Cook County, in the historic African American Lincoln Cemetery. A lost land it is certainly not; the cemetery is in the middle of the city, and Jimmy Reed is lying there accompanied by men like Big Bill Broonzy, boogie-woogie great Charles Avery, clarinet legend Johnny Dodds and his brother, drummer Warren “Baby” Dodds, and more illustrious names from Chicago’s rich blues and jazz scene. All in all, Lincoln Cemetery is a place to be for music lovers, on Judgement Day.

No, for the bleak qualification lost land, the area around Reed’s birthplace, the land surrounding Jimmy Reed’s Blues Trail memorial on Collier Road, just outside Dunleith, Mississippi, rather qualifies. The initiative and elaboration of the Blues Trail is praiseworthy and deserves respect, but it is also still a little sad at times: Jimmy Reed’s memorial stands lonely and lost in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by poorly maintained farmland and fallow fields as far as the eye can see.

It is conceivable. On 27 October 2016, Dylan plays in Jackson, Mississippi. The next morning, the tour bus leaves. They are in no hurry. They are not expected in Birmingham, Alabama, until the evening for the performance of a single song (“Once Upon A Time”), Dylan’s contribution to the NBC special “Tony Bennett Celebrates 90: The Best Is Yet to Come”. Only 378 miles if you go via Dunleith, where we have plenty of time to take a selfie at Jimmy Reed’s marker on Collier Road. “Among the hundreds of artists who recorded Reed’s songs,” reads Dylan on the blue sign, “are Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, Ike & Tina Turner, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Count Basie, Sonny James, Conway Twitty, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Aretha Franklin and Bill Cosby.”

“That last name maybe didn’t age too well,” Dylan mutters to himself. “Perhaps we should replace it with some other name.” “Time to move on, big boss man,” Tony Garnier calls from the doorway. Dylan walks back to the tour bus and looks around one more time, over this lost land. Soundlessly, his lips form the words “Goodbye, Jimmy Reed”.

———

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

by Tony Attwood

Back in 2020 Jochen provided an article “Let’s Go Get Stoned” – part three of his series on “Tombstone Blues” in which he mentioned “Crapshooter Blues”.   I didn’t want to interfere with Jochen’s copy by adding a recording of Crapshooter Blues – Jochen chooses the music he wants to illustrate his commentaries – and so thought I might come back to the song later – and then, as is the way of the world, I forgot!  But I’ve been reminded of that previous thought, so here we are again, and the song can have an article of its own.  It is a song Dylan will certainly know – as Jochen pointed out…

“Blues, country, R&B, folk… the tombstone is a popular piece of scenery in every genre and in every period. In 1965, the young Dylan undoubtedly can sing along with Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love”, Merle Haggard’s “Nine Pound Hammer”, Johnny Cash’s “The Ballad Of Boot Hill” and the Kingston Trio’s “Jug Of Punch” (“Tura lura lu, tura lura lu”). And with a hundred other songs, presumably. But closest under his skin is Blind Willie McTell’s “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues”. Dylan’s later masterpiece “Blind Willie McTell” not only sings this blues hero, but also uses the same template as McTell’s “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues”: the evergreen “St. James’ Infirmary”.”

And it is that point, I would like to explore, because although it is completely right to say that Crapshooter is based on St James, that is really only true for the start of the song.

St James Infirmary Blues is a standard strophic song: verse, verse, verse etc etc, using the chord sequence

• I, IV, I
• I, IV, V
• I, IV, I
• IV, V, I

The chord sequence in Crapshooter is I, V, I over and over until it totally unexpectedly changes for the middle 8 which contains a completely different sequence – you can follow the change at

He had a gang of crapshooters and gamblers at his bedside
Here are the words he had to say:
"Guess I ought to know
Exactly how I wants to go"
(How you wanna go, Jesse?)

(Lyrics as transcribed by genius.com)

From that point on the verse that we hear in the opening verses alternates with the “middle 8” – which is the format of pop music from the 1950s – not the blues.  He really was ahead of his time!

According to the Early Blues website, the first recording of Crapshooter was made in 1940 in Atlanta. However he was not the first, for as the same site adds, the song was recorded by Martha Copeland earlier that year.

And yes, rather wonderfully we have that recording…

Blind Willie is also quoted as stating that he finished the song in 1932.

As for the recording you may well have noted the fact that it speeds up as it goes along – I’m not sure if this is deliberate on the part of the performer, or it just happens because he is enjoying himself.  And it is this, as well as the use of the ternary rather than strophic form that makes it all so entertaining.   (If you want to explore this last point and have a few moments to spare, play the opening of the song again, and then skip to the ending – the speed change is quite significant, but the change to the structure of the song as we go along makes it less obvious.

Above all what we have here is a traditional blues singer-songwriter, breaking away from the class 12 bar format, and breaking out of the “keep the speed the same” approach and doing something utterly different.

Of course Bob Dylan would know this song – but interestingly it is not a song that he has ever been tempted to perform himself, nor to copy in terms of its format.   It would have been interesting to hear the result, had he done so.

Meanwhile… if you have not already done so you might like to join our 16,000 followers and try out our Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/groups/UntoldDylan/

There’s an index to our current series on the home page of this site.

By Tony Attwood

There seems to be not only a growing number of covers of Things Have Changed but a growing number of really interesting cover versions.   So although we’ve already done an article on the covers of this song once before, I’ve had no trouble with finding another set of songs, and from them, some further thoughts – which basically centre on the fact that there is something within the relaxed, almost resigned nature of the song that allow it to be interpreted in so many different ways.    Take this example from Curtis Stigers – all we have is two very simple instrumental parts, with the vocals meandering around above them.   It’s totally engaging for me, even though I’ve heard the song so many times before.

Perhaps it is the fact that “I used to care but things have changed” is such an evocative line – in just eight words an entire lifestyle is encapsulated.

There is also something in this song that just allows the performers to express a sort of sad recognition of how hopeless everything is, while still expressing their ability to perform and reflect.  Just listen to the guitar solo around 2 minutes 30 seconds, and then the surprise that follows (assuming you haven’t heard this version before).   Once more there are new insights to be had just through what happens there (which I am not revealing because I really don’t want to spoil it if you have not heard this version before.)

This next one from The Persuasions takes us once more into a new dimension for the song.  Now there is a problem, because the recording breaks down suddenly and we lose the music, but I’ve kept this here because even this incomplete recording this does show just how many different ways this song can travel.   Of course that is technically true of all songs, but generally songs that are stretched this way and that, lose their integrity.  But not “Things have changed”.

And if the above were not enough, just listen to String Swing – not only for its instrumentation but also the bounce and the rhythm.  Once more we have a total change and yet the re-arrangement retains the integrity of the lyrics and the music.

There are not too many Dylan songs that I would care even to contemplate writing a dance routine for, let alone actually rehearsing it with a team, but listening to Kokomo (a New Zealand band, I think)  I find an arrangement just emerging in my head.  And it isn’t just the rhythm or just the instrumentation, or the melody, but the lyrics themselves are so utterly suited to every possible interpretation.

Last one coming up.  This keeps the rhythm and the melody the same, but the vocalists’ approach, with the purity both of the solo voice and the harmonies being perfect for this interpretation.   In fact it is this version which is the one I have ended up playing over and again.  I rather suspect it is possible to approach this song in hundreds of different ways with each version being of interest.   It just lends itself to harmonies, to changed rhythms, and … well everything.

And maybe it is also the craziness of the images.   Falling in love with the first woman I meet, putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street…   It is just an utterly amazing couplet which ought to be laughable and yet feels so totally part of the complete essence of the song.

Truly this is one of the great, great, great Dylan songs, and one that can, in the hands of talented performers and arrangers, just go anywhere.

The Dylan Cover a Day series

1. The song with numbers in the title.
2. Ain’t Talkin
3. All I really want to do
4.  Angelina
5.  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
6. As I went out one morning
7.  Ballad for a Friend
8. Ballad in Plain D
9. Ballad of a thin man
10.  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
11. The ballad of Hollis Brown
12. Beyond here lies nothing
13. Blind Willie McTell
14.  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
15. An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
16. Blowin in the wind as never before
17. Bob Dylan’s Dream
18. BoB Dylan’s 115th Dream revisited
19. Boots of Spanish leather
20. Born in Time
21. Buckets of Rain
22. Can you please crawl out your window
23. Can’t wait
24. Changing of the Guard
25. Chimes of Freedom
26. Country Pie
27.  Crash on the Levee
28. Dark Eyes
29. Dear Landlord
30. Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
31. Dignity.
32. Dirge
33. Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
34. Don’t think twice
35.  Down along the cove
36. Drifter’s Escape
37. Duquesne Whistle
38. Farewell Angelina
39. Foot of Pride and Forever Young
40. Fourth Time Around
41. From a Buick 6
42. Gates of Eden
43. Gotta Serve Somebody
44. Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
45. Heart of Mine
46. High Water
47. Highway 61
48. Hurricane
49. I am a lonesome hobo
50. I believe in you
51. I contain multitudes
52. I don’t believe you.
53. I love you too much
54. I pity the poor immigrant. 
55. I shall be released
56. I threw it all away
57. I want you
58. I was young when I left home
59. I’ll remember you
60. Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
61. If not for you, and a rant against prosody
62. If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
63. If you see her say hello
64. Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight
65. I’m not there.
66. In the Summertime, Is your love and an amazing Isis
67. It ain’t me babe
68. It takes a lot to laugh
69. It’s all over now Baby Blue
70. It’s all right ma
71. Just Like a Woman
72. Knocking on Heaven’s Door
73. Lay down your weary tune
74. Lay Lady Lay
75. Lenny Bruce
76. That brand new leopard skin pill box hat
77. Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
78. License to kill
79. Like a Rolling Stone
80. Love is just a four letter word
81. Love Sick
82. Maggies Farm!
83. Make you feel my love; a performance that made me cry.
84. Mama you’ve been on my mind
85. Man in a long black coat.
86. Masters of War
87. Meet me in the morning
88. Million Miles. Listen, and marvel.
89. Mississippi. Listen, and marvel (again)
90. Most likely you go your way
91. Most of the time and a rhythmic thing
92. Motorpsycho Nitemare
93. Mozambique
94. Mr Tambourine Man
95. My back pages, with a real treat at the end
96. New Morning
97. New Pony. Listen where and when appropriate
98. Nobody Cept You
99. North Country Blues
100. No time to think
101. Obviously Five Believers
102. Oh Sister
103. On the road again
104. One more cup of coffee
105. (Sooner or later) one of us must know
106. One too many mornings
107. Only a hobo
108. Only a pawn in their game
109. Outlaw Blues – prepare to be amazed
110. Oxford Town
111. Peggy Day and Pledging my time
112. Please Mrs Henry
113. Political world
114. Positively 4th Street
115. Precious Angel
116. Property of Jesus
117. Queen Jane Approximately
118. Quinn the Eskimo as it should be performed.
119. Quit your lowdown ways
120. Rainy Day Women as never before
121. Restless Farewell. Exquisite arrangements, unbelievable power
122. Ring them bells in many different ways
123. Romance in Durango, covered and re-written
124. Sad Eyed Lady of Lowlands, like you won’t believe
125. Sara
126. Senor
127. A series of Dreams; no one gets it (except Dylan)
128. Seven Days
129. She Belongs to Me
130. Shelter from the Storm
131. Sign on the window
132. Silvio
133. Simple twist of fate
134. Slow Train
135. Someday Baby
136. Spanish Harlem Incident
137. Standing in the Doorway
138. Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
139. Subterranean Homesick Blues
140. Sweetheart Like You
141. Tangled up in Blue
142. Tears of Rage
143.  Temporary Like Achilles. Left in the cold, but there’s still something…
144. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar
145. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
146. The Man in Me
147. Times they are a-changin’
148. The Wicked Messenger

This episode of the Never Ending Tour series continues from NET 2018 part 1 which is available here.   An index to the series can be found here.

By Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet)

‘When Bob’s playing the harmonica, I know the meaning of life, and Love.’

@brittbeck9158

If you have been following this NET series, or my Bob Dylan master harpist series, you will already be aware that I share the sentiment expressed in the quote above. I am one of those you can hear on concert recordings cheering deliriously when Dylan produces his little Hohner Marine Band harmonica. It enables him to bypass his trickster words and cut straight to the emotion driving the song, intensifying that emotion, giving it a searing edge or whimsical elaboration. Dylan doesn’t cry on stage but his harmonica can.

It was therefore with considerable regret that I tracked the decline of the harp from 2012 until its disappearance in 2017. There is no room for it in the American Standards, which are mostly rooted in the big band sound of the 1930s and 40s, the Sinatra sound that came to heavily influence Dylan’s arrangements of his own songs in the post 2012 period. Also, we have to note Dylan’s increasing use of his baby grand piano at the cost of centre stage performances suited to harmonica breaks. In this late period Dylan never plays both the harmonica and the keyboard at the same time, or switches rapidly between them, as he did from 2003 – 2011.

I was happy, then, to see a revival of the instrument in 2018, even if tightly restricted to four or five songs scattered across the setlist. They are all ballads rather than rock songs. We don’t get a return of the mid to fast tempo, blistering blues solos we’ve been treated to over the years (For a good example of that see ‘Till I Fell in Love with You’ NET 2007 part 1 – The light is never dying). What we do get are exquisite meditations on the theme of love.

In a typical 2018 concert, the harp would make its first appearance at number 4 on the setlist in ‘A Simple Twist of Fate.’ The subtlety of this song, with its rueful acknowledgment of the poignantly fleeting nature of love, is perfect for the harp.

Let’s pick it up at Waterbury, and you Dylan harp fans can luxuriate in some beautifully sad, whimsical and clever playing. The Master Harpist at his lingering best. Changes to the lyrics show another kind of mastery, sounding spontaneous yet too perfectly fitting, perhaps, to be ad-libbed. I can’t pick up the description of the hotel but the words go something like this:

They stopped into a … hotel
With the neon burning bright
She said put your hand in mine
There’s no need to hesitate
It was all about that simple twist of fate

Simple Twist of Fate (A)

It can’t get any better than that, can it? Maybe it can. Try this Thackerville performance (Oct 13^th). There’s a touch of the ecstatic in vocal and harp playing here. It’s louder and a bit harder-edged than Waterbury, and perhaps a stronger performance. They’re both too good to resist.

Simple Twist of Fate (B)

We could say that ‘Don’t Think Twice’ anticipates the themes of ‘Simple Twist of Fate.’ Love’s brevity, and how the possibilities of what might have been come back to haunt us. With ‘Don’t Think Twice,’ however, I suspect a hidden agenda, that he’s turning the knife in the wound.

I’m not saying you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind

He keeps repeating ‘don’t think twice’ while at the same time reminding her of all those things that will set her mind brooding. A cunning backstab.

But it is, despite that, still a love song. Regret rules. Here it is at Waterbury, song 14 on the setlist. (Nov 20^th)

Don’t Think Twice (A)

Dylan often played the song with brisk tempo, making it upbeat, but here he plays it dead slow, and what a treat it is with that heart-rending harp. Fans of Dylan’s piano playing are treated to a virtuoso ending, some of the best piano playing I’ve heard Dylan do, subtle and quietly jazzy. And the vocal! The once annoying upsinging used to stunning effect. I can imagine Sinatra doing it that way.

Once again I wonder if the Thackerville performance upstages the Waterbury one, if that’s possible. The difference is, I think, that you can feel the frisson between audience and performer at Thackerville, and you sense Dylan singing right into those receptive and appreciative ears.

Don’t Think Twice (B)

This slow version, with harp, evolved early in the year. The song started out with a fairly brisk tempo and no harp. Once again, we catch Dylan innovating, working with his songs, trying out different approaches. Here’s how it sounded at Lisbon, March 22nd

Don’t Think Twice (C)

I’ve always felt that ‘When I Paint My Masterpiece’ is not (quite) the masterpiece he wanted to paint. Performances have been quite uneven and sometimes a bit clunky. These 2018 performances are, however, the best I’ve heard. The song feels revitalized and transformed. Maybe it’s the super-slow opening verses sung in rich tones. Or maybe it’s the changes to the lyric. He’s got rid of ‘the pretty little girl from Greece’ and replaced it with lines of greater power and cogency. I can’t pick them all up, but here are some of them:

Going to hurry back to my hotel room
Gonna wash my clothes
Step out on the green (?)
But I’ll lock the doors
Turn my back on the world for a while
…. ?
While I paint my masterpiece

And there are further changes later in the song. Any sharp-eared reader who can pick up these lyrics, please put them in the comments section. Now we sense the masterpiece he’s trying to paint.

The best and clearest of these performances may be this one from Macon (Oct 27^th), number 6 on the setlist. In this harp break you can hear touches of the ‘high wild mercury sound’ that Dylan spoke of in the 1960’s. The harp shimmers on those high notes. Stabs of melancholy:

When I Paint My Masterpiece (A)

Or the best might be this one from Tulsa (Oct 12^th), another perfect performance:

When I Paint My Masterpiece (B)

Adding the harp to ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ is a recent development, but fits the song like a glove, and, in its rawness, further distinguishes it from Adele’s famous smoother, orchestral version, which I note has 187 million hits on You Tube. The harp is the instrument of the cowboy, the hobo, the blues journeyman, the folk singer. It doesn’t belong in an orchestra – Sinatra never used it. What it brings to this song is a sharper-edged loneliness, and with it, I would suggest, a greater emotional range than Adele’s tearful venison. That’s just me. I’m one of the old ‘nobody sings Dylan like Dylan’ brigade.

Let’s start with this powerful performance at Waterbury, which immediately jumps onto my ‘best ever’ list. Hear the crowd responding as Dylan makes that harp shriek and shimmer. Master performer Bob has got them eating out of his hand, and no wonder. It’s a heart-piercing performance. As are his vocals, the way he drops his voice confidentially into talking mode before lifting again into song.

To Make You Feel My Love (A)

Then I found this performance at Macon, a serious rival in terms of ‘best ever’ to Waterbury.

To Make You Feel My Love (B)

We should really leave it there, but then we’d be missing out on this one from Thackerville with its unsurpassed vocal and final, triumphant harp solo.

To Make You Feel My Love (C)

That was certainly a triple treat.

Often the final song of the night will be ‘Blowin in the Wind.’ A sole leftover from the acoustic, ‘protest’ Bob, the first stage of his career and the one that made his name, and if there is one song that did that, it would be ‘Blowin.’

While it became famous as a protest anthem, it’s a rather sad song, even fatalistic. The answers, my friend, to all the important questions of the world are blowin in this fearsome wind, shaking them like a leaf on a tree. The white dove will never get to sleep in the sand, cannon balls will forever fly and there will be endless deaths before we know that too many people have died. In a war-driven world, this 1963 song has a special poignancy – too many people are dying right now.

Yet, for Dylan fans, it is a nostalgic song, harking back to those early protest days. The slow rocking beat and violin add to that nostalgic appeal. And of course a few final frail blasts on the harp. Yes, that’s Bob Dylan. It has to be.

Let’s go to Waterbury again. An outstanding concert.

Blowin in the Wind (A)

‘Blowin’ was not always the final song of the night. That privilege often went to ‘Ballad of a Thin Man.’ Seems like an odd choice, until we realize that it evokes that mid-sixties period, perhaps Dylan’s most famous, otherwise represented only by ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ or, sometimes, ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’ Spooky as the song is, it’s another nostalgia piece. As with ‘Blowin,’ Dylan didn’t always play the harp on ‘Thin Man.’ In some of the concert notes, Dylan is credited with the harp on this last song but doesn’t actually play it. Eventually I found this clip from the Fuji Rock Festival (Yuzawa July 29^th). It’s a good video, although the sound quality is not quite up to my usual standards.

That’s it for Dylan on the harp in 2018 – I only wish he’d played more. Still, I think you’d agree that these are a precious set of recordings showing Dylan at his best in that quieter, ballad mode. Soon I’ll be back with more sounds from 2018.

Until then

Kia Ora.

By Tony Attwood, with recordings presented by Mike Johnson in the Never Ending Tour Series.

In this series we look at the way Bob has transformed certain songs over time in his live performances, in particular looking for the progression in his feelings about, and his understanding of what the song offers, what the song says, where it can be taken next, and even on occasion how he can reinterpret the past.

So far we’ve looked at

• Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• Visions of Johanna
• The Hard Rain of 1988, 2003 and 2015
• Tangled up in Blue 1988 to 1993
• Blowing in the Wind. 1991-2001
• Blind Willie McTell. 1997-2006
• It Ain’t me Babe from 1994-1998.
• Things have changed 2000-2007
• Love sick from the very start to 2000
• The Drifters’ Escape. 1996-2005.
• Like a Rolling Stone 1988 to 2002

After some of the articles in this series I have received emails asking where exactly each recording came from.  In writing these pieces, and listening to the same song each time, I’m sorry to say my focus is on Bob’s reinterpretation, rather than the details of where that particular event was.

But to try and help out I have put a link back to the original edition of the NET article on this site in which the recording first appeared, and if Mike noted the details of exactly where and when the recordings were made, you will find them in that original article. I am hoping that helps.

——-

Masters of War 1978

The NET series on this site begins in 1987, but in the Untold Dylan files there is this 1978 recording which was found and featured by Mike Johnson (who really ought to have the word “archivist” written after his name every time it is used), featured it in his article Masters of War & Extinction Rebellion: Bob Dylan’s ongoing contemporary relevance.

“Gusto” is the word that comes to mind, and the comment by Bob at the end about his lead guitarist shows how very much he appreciated how the song written in 1963 was still utterly relevant and could be played in that simple arrangement used in his acoustic days, or with this total drive and force, with the electric band, and it still worked.

1988 (1988 Part 2: The 60s revisited)

Ten years later it’s in a different key and the rhythm guitar is playing a slightly different approach, but the essence is the same with the extra chord change at the end of each line.  Above all it is still power-power-power all the way.

But Bob then decided to take things back down as with this 1996 recording (from 1996 part 1 in the NET review).  The volume of these recordings obviously varies as they come from different sources, but I think you should still be able to appreciate just how much Bob is changing his approach.

1996  (Never Ending Tour, 1996, part 1).

But now ten years on again we have an acoustic opening which takes us into a version which is much more reserved and ultimately sad.

That fact is that constant repetition of the guitar adds to the feeling both of the horror of the way in which the issue of war is the constant recurring theme of humanity.  It is just there, always, neverending like the tour, but unlike the tour, never changing.

1998  (NET 1998 part 2: Friends and other strangers)

But now ten years on again we have an acoustic opening which takes us into a version which is much more reserved and ultimately sad.

That fact is that constant repetition of the guitar adds to the feeling both of the horror of the way in which the issue of war is the constant recurring theme of humanity.  It is just there, always, never ending, never changing.

2000

In one sense this Masters which comes from 2000 Part 4  sounds at first as if Bob is going to carry on exactly as before but no, there is an extra sadness.   Just listen to the instrumental break and his voice thereafter.  There is now a desperation and a pleading tone that dominates with the instrumental breaks going round and round the same theme which emphasises the futility of it all.    As for what happens with “And I hope that you die” – for me there is a gentleness in the vocals which utterly contrasts with the message in the  lyrics.

I am going to stop with this version: it is so chilling, I can’t imagine it can go any further.

But if you want a little more at this time, having played this 2000 version go back to the 1978 edition above.   Bob’s re-thinking of what he has is extraordinary.  The words are the same, but the meaning is quite, quite different.

An index to the various series we are running on the site at the moment, and other recent series, can be found on the home page.

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

Aaron: That Old Black Magic was written in 1942 and has become an often-recorded standard.  Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics with Judy Garland in mind; Harold Arlen wrote the music.  Garland recorded the song for Decca Records in 1942; five other recordings were released as singles within the next two weeks.

Tony: I can’t let Harold Arlen’s mention pass by: he was one of the great, great songwriters of the era, including “Let’s Fall in Love” and “Stormy Weather”.  And he wrote, wait for it, “Over the Rainbow” often called “Somewhere over the rainbow”.   But my absolute favourite, is none of those, and I’m sure you know all those songs anyway, so I don’t have to repeat them here.  So, if I may, let me instead direct your attention to…

And in you want to, in watching that you can learn how to act with your eyes.

Oh yes and just contemplate the line, “On a clear day you can see Alcatraz”.    OK Bob took songwriting to another world totally, but let us never forget Harold Arlen.   (If you leave the video running there are some more classics, but in case you feel that I have now finally lost my marbles once and for all, I shall return us to the plot…)

Aaron:  As part of his album “My Name is Allan”, Allan Sherman sang a parody of this song called “That Old Back Scratcher”

Tony: This is an amazing example of how to start a song on completely the wrong note, and get away with it and make it funny.  Actually, it is much harder than you might imagine – unless you are totally tone-deaf or unable to sing for any other reason.  Sherman does it but then recovers and I am not sure most of the audience notice!

And I can’t let this mention of Allan Sherman pass without reference to some more of his amazing song titles.  I think lots of people know “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” which was (I think) a hit, but can you imagine writing a song called “Let’s Hear It For Fuzzy Demarcation” or come to that “This Way I Look More Like Judy Garland.”

Of course being English I have to nominate another of his classics, “To Those Interested In British Foreign Policy During the Latter Half of the 19th Century” – ah they don’t write songs like that anymore, nor indeed “Disraeli Won’t You Please Come Home”.  

Mind you if you are not fully engaged with the history of British and American popular songs you might not get what, “How Deep Is a Birdbath” is actually very funny, nor perhaps “Seventy-Six Sol Cohens”.

I know he’s not everyone’s taste, but he was part of my upbringing, and I still love him for the laughs he gave me.

Aaron: Ray Davies version comes from 1998s The Storyteller album, I saw this live in Edinburgh and it was amazing.

Tony: Ah another hero – and nice to hear his voice again.   Ray (if I may be on first name terms, although we never met) come from the same part of London, and I lived very close to where he was brought up.  Although now I think of it we actually ought to call him Sir Ray since he was knighted six or seven years ago.

Aaron: Dr John

Tony: Hmmm… after all the fun above the bar is set very high, and this doesn’t add much for me.  I mean I know Doctor John was a really good singer – and of course he is still with us, but it’s not really making a connection – at least not after all the fun and memories I’ve had with the above

Aaron:  Dylan recorded a version of the song for his second album of standards, Fallen Angels. This is probably my favorite of all the standards Dylan recorded. I played this song to death when the album came out in 2016.

Tony:  I am sure if I heard this out of the blue without any information I wouldn’t think it was Bob until we get to the “stay away” line.  I’d love to know how the arrangements were worked out – I mean was Bob involved in creating the arrangement, or did it get written and then he learned his part?

I am sure that information is out there – maybe everyone knows it except me (not for the first time).  If you do know, please write in.

I can’t rave about it as you have Aaron, but I can enjoy it.   And now we’ve gone through the whole collection I can have some more fun with Allan Sherman.

Meanwhile here are the previous editions…

1. Other people’s songs. How Dylan covers the work of other composers
2. Other People’s songs: Bob and others perform “Froggie went a courtin”
3. Other people’s songs: They killed him
4. Other people’s songs: Frankie & Albert
5. Other people’s songs: Tomorrow Night where the music is always everything
6. Other people’s songs: from Stack a Lee to Stagger Lee and Hugh Laurie
7. Other people’s songs: Love Henry
8. Other people’s songs: Rank Stranger To Me
9. Other people’s songs: Man of Constant Sorrow
10. Other people’s songs: Satisfied Mind
11. Other people’s songs: See that my grave is kept clean
12. Other people’s songs: Precious moments and some extras
13. Other people’s songs: You go to my head
14. Other people’s songs: What’ll I do?
15. Other people’s songs: Copper Kettle
16. Other people’s songs: Belle Isle
17. Other people’s songs: Fixing to Die
18. Other people’s songs: When did you leave heaven?
19. Other people’s songs: Sally Sue Brown
20. Other people’s songs: Ninety miles an hour down a dead end street
21. Other people’s songs: Step it up and Go
22. Other people’s songs: Canadee-I-O
23. Other people’s songs: Arthur McBride
24. Other people’s songs: Little Sadie
25. Other people’s songs: Blue Moon, and North London Forever
26. Other people’s songs: Hard times come again no more
27. Other people’s songs: You’re no good
28. Other people’s songs: Lone Pilgrim (and more Crooked Still)
29. Other people’s songs: Blood in my eyes
30. Other people’s songs: I forgot more than you’ll ever know
31.  Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
32. Other people’s songs: Highway 51
33. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
34. Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
35. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
36. Other people’s songs: Highway 51 Blues
37. Other people’s songs: Freight Train Blues
38. Other People’s Songs: The Little Drummer Boy
39. Other People’s Songs: Must be Santa
40. Other People’s songs: The Christmas Song
41. Other People’s songs: Corina Corina
42. Other People’s Songs: Mr Bojangles
43. Other People’s Songs: It hurts me too
44. Other people’s songs: Take a message to Mary
45. Other people’s songs: House of the Rising Sun
46. Other people’s songs: “Days of 49”
47. Other people’s songs: In my time of dying
48. Other people’s songs: Pretty Peggy O
49. Other people’s songs: Baby Let me Follow You Down
50. Other people’s songs: Gospel Plow
51. Other People’s Songs: Melancholy Mood
52. Other people’s songs: The Boxer and Big Yellow Taxi
53. Other people’s songs: Early morning rain
54. Other people’s Songs: Gotta Travel On
55. Other people’s songs: “Can’t help falling in love”
56. Other people’s songs: Lily of the West
57. Other people’s songs: Alberta
58. Other people’s songs: Little Maggie
59. Other people’s songs: Sitting on top of the world
60. Dylan’s take on “Let it be me”
61. Other people’s songs: From “Take me as I am” all the way to “Baker Street”
62. Other people’s songs: A fool such as I
63. Other people’s songs: Sarah Jane and the rhythmic changes
64. Other people’s songs: Spanish is the loving tongue. Author drawn to tears
65. Other people’s songs: The ballad of Ira Hayes
66. Other people’s songs: The usual
67. Other people’s songs: Blackjack Davey
68. Other people’s songs: You’re gonna quit me
69. Other people’s songs: You belong to me
70. Other people’s songs: Stardust
71. Other people’s songs: Diamond Joe
72. Other people’s songs: The Cuckoo
73. Other people’s songs: Come Rain or Come Shine
74. Other people’s songs: Two soldiers and an amazing discovery
75. Other people’s songs: Pretty Boy Floyd
76. Other people’s songs: My Blue Eyed Jane

Take a look at our list of the best, most iconic, gambling-themed songs in history and you can put together your own Spotify playlist for the next card game.

Image source: depositphotos.com

Music is the way to the soul, so how do you reach the soul of a gambler? The soul of someone who calls the Vegas Strip their home? The soul of someone who knows when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em and when to walk away? Well, a few of the artists on this list could tell you a thing or two about reaching the gambler’s heart, and it’s not about donating your last chip to them surprisingly. Take a look at our list of the best, most iconic, gambling-themed songs in history and you can put together your own Spotify playlist for the next card game.

“Rambling, Gambling Willie” by Bob Dylan

The man we’re all here for actually had a few songs that at least referenced gambling or otherwise alluded to it, such as Song to Woody, which was a tribute to Woody Guthrie and mentions “walking a road other men have gone down”, which has been interpreted to be about gambling. There is also Brownsville Girl, which mentions references to gambling like “Let’s keep playing cards and toss them on the floor”.

But the most blatant is Dylan’s story of Willie, which is told in Rambling, Gambling Willie. The lyrics follow Willie’s exploits and mention gambling imagery like cards, dice, and chips, until his tragic end at the hands of a furious, losing, poker player.

“The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first. The greatest, most iconic song about gambling, in concept and imagery, is clearly Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler. Its iconic status is cemented by the fact that it has been covered by many artists over the years including Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash, and fun.

Even better, it spurred on a series of TV movies based on the character. This started in the 80’s with Kenny Rogers as The Gambler for five subsequent movies.

Pretty impressive for a song that was written in reportedly 15 minutes, according to writer Don Schlitz.

“Viva Las Vegas” by Elvis Presley

Viva Las Vegas is a celebration of the City of Sin, of the city that made Elvis a tenant for the latter half of his life, and the city of gambling. Written for Elvis’ 1964 film of the same name by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, it references the glamour of the city as well as the feverish gambling of the time. All of this is epitomised in the opening of the movie that’s performed with dozens of dancers in a set designed to look like the Vegas strip.

Did you know Elvis never actually performed it live in concert? The track itself has surpassed both the movie and the artist, going on to become a reference whenever anyone mentions Vegas. The Friends Vegas special plays it, countless slot machines reference the title and the providers powering the games know how to depict Vegas in all its glamour, and it has been covered by The Killers, Bruce Springsteen and ZZ Top to name but a few.

“Luck Be a Lady” from Guys and Dolls, sung by Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra was a man of simple but exquisite taste. Jack Daniels, suits and fedoras, women and gambling. So it only makes sense that one of his most famous songs would combine two of those famous loves: luck and ladies.

Luck Be a Lady tonight is a prayer to the unnamed, unregistered goddess of luck that she’ll be on your side when you roll the dice. The lyrics, written by Frank Loesser for the 1955 musical movie, Guys and Dolls, cleverly mix personifying luck and even taking her out on a date, trying to woo her to be on your side for the next game. It was so clever, in fact, that it was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Original Song.

“Poker Face” by Lady Gaga

Similarly, Lady Gaga wants to take a girl on a date in this “mega-hit” about bisexuality. The massive song spent 10 weeks at number one as an expression from Lady Gaga about her own experiences with bisexuality. Her “poker face” was used to hide her intentions with her various partners, as well as hiding her male lovers from her female, and there is a lot of gambling imagery that refers to her sexuality, such as “A little gambling is fun when you’re with me”.

She’s not an LGBT icon for nothing.

Honourable mentions:

• “Roll the Bones” by Rush
• “Aces High” by Iron Maiden
• “The Angel and the Gambler” by Iron Maiden
• “Blackjack” by Ray Charles
• “Deck of Cards” by Wink Martindale
• “Tumbling Dice” by The Rolling Stones
• “The House of the Rising Sun” cover by The Animals
• “Queen of Hearts” by Juice Newton
• “Play the Game” by Queen

Conclusion

Hopefully, now you’ve got a robust playlist to stick on Spotify for your next card game. It’s full of different tastes, genres, and decades, so it will undoubtedly have something for everyone but has the gambling throughline to make sure that everyone focuses on their po-po-poker face.

by Jochen Markhorst.

XI         You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain

G-d be with you, brother dear
If you don’t mind me asking, what brings you here?
Oh, nothing much, I’m just looking for the man
I came to see where he’s lying in this lost land
Goodbye Jimmy Reed and with everything within ya
Can’t you hear me calling from down in Virginia.

 When the official lyrics are published on bobdylan.com, most fans first go searching for the third line of “I Contain Multitudes”, to find confirmation, or to put a stop to the amusing debate that has been raging across the Dylan-following part of the Western world since 17 April 2020, since the day the song was released by the company: is the multitudes containing protagonist going to the insignificant Irish town of Ballinalee, County Longford, or to the other side of the world, the tautological Balian Bali, or to Ireland after all, but to County Galway, to the better-known Ballylee? The official publication will eventually give the answer.

So the winner is that nondescript Ballinalee, written by bobdylan.com as Bally-Na-Lee – presumably because that’s how it’s written in an inspirational source, in an anthology of ancient Irish lyricism, in which industrious sleuths find a work by the early-nineteenth-century Irish-language poet Antoine Ó Raifteirí’s (Anthony Raftery), “The Lass from Bally-na-Lee”. Lowercase n admittedly, but with dashes – so that must be it. Honourable, you might say, but the Longford Leader devotes only a small front-page article to it, and otherwise it seems to leave the 347 residents pretty indifferent; neither the Wikipedia page nor the official municipal site (www.longford.ie/en/live/towns-villages/ballinalee) mentions that a famous American Nobel laureate name-checks Balinalee in a song.

Emma Swift – I Contain Multitudes:

https://youtu.be/oZhzHma-BfM

By the way, Dylan himself does not seem to attach any importance to it either; after the studio recording, he never sings the line – in live performances, Follow me close – I’m going to Bally-Na-Lee has been replaced from day one by Follow me close – just as close as can be.

Underexposed in all this lighthearted topographical squabbling goes down a typographical oddity that, at the very least for serious biographers, should surely have much more relevance: the spelling of “G-d” in the final couplet of “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”. Noteworthy on several fronts, and a first noteworthiness concerns editing: this seems a convincing indication that Dylan personally interfered with the publication. He does not have the reputation; the officially published lyrics, both on the site and in book form, teem with errors, peculiar transcriptions and bizarre fictional variants of what Dylan actually sings. Some variants (such as the geodesic dome in “Santa Fe” or the many corrections in “You Angel You”) justify the suspicion that Dylan himself intervened, but most deviations are so clumsy that they must have been done by an underpaid hard-of-hearing intern with dyslexia. Ol’ black Bascom, don’t break no mirrors / Cold black water dog, make no tears as the opening of “Tell Me Momma” is one of the most notorious, and by no means the only one.

Cat Power – Tell Me, Momma:

https://youtu.be/wlb-L1wRhNs

This spelling of “G-d” leaves little doubt; this is far too loaded, this is not the work of a zealous, anonymous editor – this must have been done by Dylan himself. And the second salience, then, is that he wrote it down like this. The site alone – which is notoriously incomplete – has sixty lyrics in which “God” is simply written in full. From 1960’s “House Of The Risin’ Sun” (And it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl and me, oh God, I’m one) to 2012’s “Scarlet Town” (You’ll wish to God that you stayed right here) and in almost every year in between, there’s a full, o-containing God to be found. Well alright, fifty-nine; the spelling error in the lyrics of “Little Sadie” (I made a god run but I ran too slow) is also counted – but that is more than counterbalanced by the many lyrics that have not been published (yet), and among which a God will also be found often enough.

The analysts and interpreters so eager to lay Dylan’s biography over his lyrics cannot escape the conclusion that the elderly Dylan, on the eve of his 80th birthday, is apparently seeking to reconnect with the religion of his youth: after all, “G-d” is an eminently Jewish spelling. Perhaps less good news for the considerable faction of Christian fans and commentators, but it is what it is. At least, Catholics and Proddies and all Christian denominations in between have little problem writing “God” in full. And neither do most Jews actually – it’s more of a thing for the Torah-thumping delegation, for the stricter Jews. Which goes back to the Third Commandment in the Five Books of Moses, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (Ex. 20:7 in the Bible), and to a text written down by Moses a bit before that, a text that arguably had impressed Dylan before:

“And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Ex. 3:14)

… the Bible and Thora verse that inspired Dylan in the 1980s to the wondrous, beautiful “I And I” (Infidels, 1983), the Old Testament God of the Orthodox, the no-man-sees-my-face-and-lives-God.

I and I (Infidels alternate take):

https://youtu.be/AT4l9LhmeWI

Whether the poet thinks of all that when he has the webmaster of bobdylan.com put a dash between the G and the d is unlikely, but striking it still is. However, it is unlikely to be a signal that Dylan is moving into more orthodox territory either. Most Jewish theologians do agree that “God’ is not a name, but a generic term, and that, moreover, it is not at all a problem if this generic term or name is used in a language other than Hebrew.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, it is preferably avoided in written texts – virtually all the international online communities that offer the Torah and Torah exegeses choose to write such concealing variants as “G’tt”, “D.ieu”, “G’d”, “L-rd”, “Yah”, “YHWH”, “D- o”, and many more laborious and less laborious fiddles with punctuation, abbreviations and omissions for safety’s sake. Nowhere is it a commandment, but surely one does not want to risk God’s wrath, or that of orthodox communities, either.

And for some reason bobdylan.com is also switching to that practice in 2020 – although the 59 other song lyrics in which “God” passes escape the amputation. Perhaps that’s why Bally-Na-Lee gets its dashes then. To compensate, or something.

To be continued. Next up Goodbye Jimmy Reed part 12: Once upon a time

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

I am most sorry that there have been no posts for a few days – we had an “event” as we call it now, and it took a fair amount of IT work to resolve it.

We seem to be back now, so I’ll get a new post up as soon as possible.]

Thanks for looking out for us.

Tony

By Tony Attwood

Having spent a rather beumisng hour or so meandering around cover versions of Wicked Messenger, I found more than anything that I wanted to remind myself of what Dylan offered us in the original recording.   I’ll put a recording of that original at the end – not because I am suggesting you might not remember it, but just in case you find that listening to these reworkings of the song makes you wonder, as they did me, what these fine artists were doing taking “Wicked Messenger” down the routes that they chose.

So in no particular order, other than the fact that this is the order I listened to these covers in… and the fact that I have left the best til the last of the covers, off we go.

Steven Keene

We can pick out the musical phrase that is the centre of Dylan’s original, and hear that much of the melody is the same, but there’s a bounce in here which keeps us jogging along, so that when we get to that key line of “If you can’t bring good news then don’t bring any,” I am reminded of where Dylan took us.

I like this version except for the long instrumental extemporisation that eventually fades out.  Up to the fade, I liked it, but the fade feels all wrong to me.   Dylan gave us a short simple song because that makes the point of the lyrics – the messenger just turns up with a note which pretty much declares its all over.   That’s it.  If this piece had finished at around 2 minutes 30 seconds, that would have worked far better, I think.

Patti Smith

Patti Smith gives us a feeling of the wind blowing across the plains (or maybe the desert) and the feeling of impending doom is now to the fore.  But I really don’t think the half-spoken half-said end of every other line quite works.  And as the song goes on it feels as if everyone is trying too hard to make the point… and I still don’t quite know what the point is.

That not-quite-knowing effect doesn’t matter to me with the Dylan version as it is all so simple and actually we don’t quite know… the messenger comes and is dismissed with a simple line that sends him off.   But with this type of production that irony is utterly lost.   “If you can’t bring good news then don’t bring any” is not a profound insight into human nature – it is dismissal with the wave of the hand.

The Black Keys

Yes I get the fact that we are talking about something that looks very much like the end of the world (“And the seas began to part…”) but does a pounding beat really put that across?  Dylan it seems to me gets it right, by sticking with the simplicity, as in “Sorry guys, but it’s all over.”

Legion of Mary

Legion of Mary get the opening right, following my thesis by making this whole approach mysterious, but I get the feeling that the guitar and organ are fighting each other to see who can convey the weirdness of it all the best.  In the end neither of them can because they are too busy fighting each other.  (Although maybe that’s the point about the end of the world).

But no, the point to me is the utter contrast between the end of the world message delivered as utterly simple, and what the message actually means to everyone.   And no one seems to get that in these covers so far.  Perhaps the most profound statement in the video above is that we get about a minute of silence at the end of the video.  Maybe the guys knew there was more to this than bashing out that 13 note theme over and over again.

Alex Harvey

Now this is at last a relief – and I hope you have managed to survive this far.  The point is that Alex Harvey recognises that there is mischievousness in the way the Messenger behaves.   He turns up to announce the end of the world, but doesn’t shout it out to everyone: he delivers a note.    That to me is the point, that’s the joke.   Does God play dice with the universe?    Well, if he does, this is one way He might do it.

In this context I love the way the clarinet solo creates such fun and mischief at the end.  Please, if you are still here, let that track above play to the end.  It is only 2 minutes 15 seconds, and for once the end of the world is exactly portrayed in the context of what the wicked messenger is all about.

And back to Bob

I don’t know if I have managed to make my thoughts on this song clear, but if you have stayed with me through this journey thanks.   My final thought is that re-working Dylan does not necessarily mean adding lots of noise – sometimes the joke in the lyrics is more important than any wild improvisation.

The Dylan Cover a Day series

1. The song with numbers in the title.
2. Ain’t Talkin
3. All I really want to do
4.  Angelina
5.  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
6. As I went out one morning
7.  Ballad for a Friend
8. Ballad in Plain D
9. Ballad of a thin man
10.  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
11. The ballad of Hollis Brown
12. Beyond here lies nothing
13. Blind Willie McTell
14.  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
15. An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
16. Blowin in the wind as never before
17. Bob Dylan’s Dream
18. BoB Dylan’s 115th Dream revisited
19. Boots of Spanish leather
20. Born in Time
21. Buckets of Rain
22. Can you please crawl out your window
23. Can’t wait
24. Changing of the Guard
25. Chimes of Freedom
26. Country Pie
27.  Crash on the Levee
28. Dark Eyes
29. Dear Landlord
30. Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
31. Dignity.
32. Dirge
33. Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
34. Don’t think twice
35.  Down along the cove
36. Drifter’s Escape
37. Duquesne Whistle
38. Farewell Angelina
39. Foot of Pride and Forever Young
40. Fourth Time Around
41. From a Buick 6
42. Gates of Eden
43. Gotta Serve Somebody
44. Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
45. Heart of Mine
46. High Water
47. Highway 61
48. Hurricane
49. I am a lonesome hobo
50. I believe in you
51. I contain multitudes
52. I don’t believe you.
53. I love you too much
54. I pity the poor immigrant. 
55. I shall be released
56. I threw it all away
57. I want you
58. I was young when I left home
59. I’ll remember you
60. Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
61. If not for you, and a rant against prosody
62. If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
63. If you see her say hello
64. Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight
65. I’m not there.
66. In the Summertime, Is your love and an amazing Isis
67. It ain’t me babe
68. It takes a lot to laugh
69. It’s all over now Baby Blue
70. It’s all right ma
71. Just Like a Woman
72. Knocking on Heaven’s Door
73. Lay down your weary tune
74. Lay Lady Lay
75. Lenny Bruce
76. That brand new leopard skin pill box hat
77. Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
78. License to kill
79. Like a Rolling Stone
80. Love is just a four letter word
81. Love Sick
82. Maggies Farm!
83. Make you feel my love; a performance that made me cry.
84. Mama you’ve been on my mind
85. Man in a long black coat.
86. Masters of War
87. Meet me in the morning
88. Million Miles. Listen, and marvel.
89. Mississippi. Listen, and marvel (again)
90. Most likely you go your way
91. Most of the time and a rhythmic thing
92. Motorpsycho Nitemare
93. Mozambique
94. Mr Tambourine Man
95. My back pages, with a real treat at the end
96. New Morning
97. New Pony. Listen where and when appropriate
98. Nobody Cept You
99. North Country Blues
100. No time to think
101. Obviously Five Believers
102. Oh Sister
103. On the road again
104. One more cup of coffee
105. (Sooner or later) one of us must know
106. One too many mornings
107. Only a hobo
108. Only a pawn in their game
109. Outlaw Blues – prepare to be amazed
110. Oxford Town
111. Peggy Day and Pledging my time
112. Please Mrs Henry
113. Political world
114. Positively 4th Street
115. Precious Angel
116. Property of Jesus
117. Queen Jane Approximately
118. Quinn the Eskimo as it should be performed.
119. Quit your lowdown ways
120. Rainy Day Women as never before
121. Restless Farewell. Exquisite arrangements, unbelievable power
122. Ring them bells in many different ways
123. Romance in Durango, covered and re-written
124. Sad Eyed Lady of Lowlands, like you won’t believe
125. Sara
126. Senor
127. A series of Dreams; no one gets it (except Dylan)
128. Seven Days
129. She Belongs to Me
130. Shelter from the Storm
131. Sign on the window
132. Silvio
133. Simple twist of fate
134. Slow Train
135. Someday Baby
136. Spanish Harlem Incident
137. Standing in the Doorway
138. Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
139. Subterranean Homesick Blues
140. Sweetheart Like You
141. Tangled up in Blue
142. Tears of Rage
143.  Temporary Like Achilles. Left in the cold, but there’s still something…
144. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar
145. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
146. The Man in Me
147. Times they are a-changin’

“So much beauty, so little time,” my grandmother used to sigh, standing in front of her record cabinet. And mind you, she only had one single Dylan record (Greatest Hits) – Rough And Rowdy Ways she did not live to hear.

“Key West”, “My Own Version of You”, “Murder Most Foul”… the songs of Rough And Rowdy Ways are bulging treasure troves. A book on the album would become an even thicker paving stone than Mixing Up The Medicine, so I chose to just chop it up into manageable chunks. Following I Contain Multitudes and Crossing The Rubicon  is now published: Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B. About the three songs on Side B; “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You”, “Black Rider” and “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”.

It’s an album that just keeps on giving.

Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B (The Songs Of Bob Dylan): Markhorst, Jochen: 9798865809890: Amazon.com: Books

 Goodbye Jimmy Reed (2020) part 10

by Jochen Markhorst

X          Anything that sounds promising

Transparent woman in a transparent dress
It suits you well - I must confess
I’ll break open your grapes I’ll suck out the juice
I need you like my head needs a noose
Goodbye Jimmy Reed, goodbye and so long
I thought I could resist her but I was so wrong

 The prelude to the desperate bouncer I thought I could resist her but I was so wrong is an alienating, spiteful and cynical put-down: I need you like my head needs a noose. Confusing is the juggling of the personal pronouns “you” and “her”; it suggests a mini-drama around a love triangle. A male protagonist who, in the first four lines, seeks solace and oblivion from “you”, a fair, sensual lady in a see-through dress who has little to offer apart from sex – the man is left longing for “her”, for the woman he so desperately seeks to resist.

It is thus a melodramatic interlude in the song, which remarkably seems to be an echo, or rather a super-condensed distillate, of one of Dylan’s own untouchable masterpieces, of 1966’s “Visions Of Johanna”. At least we recognise the soul stirrings of the man who, despite the attentions of the present, sensual Louise, is plagued by his longing for the absent Johanna, whom he apparently can neither forget nor resist;

Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here

(Chris Smither)

… just as here too, more than half a century later, the present, thrillingly dressed transparent woman cannot neutralise the attraction of an absent fatal woman.

The word choice for that striking, slightly lurid comparison I need you like my head needs a noose seems a Dylan original. There are, of course, millions of songs in which an adored one is wooed with an I need you like…-message, but those are – of course – all sweet, cute comparisons. Even Kurt Cobain sings I need you like a desert needs rain, in the Nirvana cover of Shocking Blue’s “Love Buzz”. Like the river needs the shore, varies Bruce Cockburn, like the flowers need the dew croak the Stanley Brothers, and like the bees need the flowers says the lovestruck Etta James. Actually, only Sting seems to deviate from the beaten path when, seemingly somewhat like Dylan, he records I need you like this hole in my head, but alas: the I-person here is a dolphin. Sting wrote it for the short documentary Dolphins (2000) – and a dolphin does indeed really need a hole in his head; the blowhole, his nose, on top of his head. Cynical variants, in which the comparison expresses precisely how much the narrator does not need the you, are rare, and at best found in more aggressive metal songs and rap songs (incidentally, one of the wittier ones comes from rapper Nick Grant’s “Nick Bomaye”, 2018: We don’t need you like S in island)

It seems a one-off burst from this corner of the creative part of Dylan’s brain, this Dylan original. For the next, concluding lines of this fifth stanza of “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”, the song poet again resorts to the grab bag of half-familiar quotes and paraphrased one-liners.

Goodbye and so long, chosen for the varying part of the recurring refrain line, is a tried and tested variation on the formula. In Dylan’s jukebox, we find so long and farewell, goodnight and so long, auf wiedersehen and goodbye, and no doubt many more. This variant perhaps echoes in Dylan’s mind thanks to Nancy Sinatra’s “So Long Babe” (I know you’re leavin’ babe / Goodbye, so long), and otherwise maybe thanks to Mac Wiseman’s version of the 1953 bluegrass classic “It’s Goodbye And So Long To You” (infectiously re-recorded in 2017 by Alison Krauss) – all songs in any case with a strong “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” vibe, songs in which the narrator says goodbye or tries to say goodbye to a fatal, irresistible love. Although, of course, the phrase is so well established that attributing a source to it is lame. It is, after all, hardly anything more than some facile, unremarkable filler lyrics, needed to build a bridge to the final line.

That melodramatic closing line, apart from the substantive choice of an erotic interlude around a fatal woman, also seems to have been prompted by stylistic reasons: with it, the song poet adds yet another colour to the multicoloured palette of this strange fifth verse. After the elegance of the opening lines, the vulgarity of the fruit metaphors and the macabre noose continuation, we close with this tearful lament I thought I could resist her but I was so wrong. Sounding, admittedly, as an echo from a song on the successful debut album The Secret Life of… (2005) by Australian twins The Veronicas (“Speechless”; I thought I could resist you, I thought that I was strong), but that surely is a coincidence. A creative Dylan in The Zone has been making “new words out of old words” (“11 Outlined Epitaphs”, 1963) for sixty years, and no doubt constructs such a mushy bouncer effortlessly from fragments of three, four songs in his inner jukebox. From the tear-in-my-beer ballads in the country section, presumably. Patsy Cline’s hit with the Carl Perkins song “So Wrong” for instance (I’ve been so wrong, for so long, 1962) mounted on “Nancy With The Laughing Face” (I swear to goodness you can’t resist her).

A much more attractive option still is that Wanda Jackson’s 1967 country album You’ll Always Have My Love is still spinning around in Dylan’s mind; on it, apart from the erotic grapes Dylan serves up in the lines above, we hear another echo in track 3, in “Memory Maker”:

I never could resist your charms
You're just a memory maker,
An old heart breaker,
But memories can't fill my arms

Not too likely, but then again: “That’s exactly what I do,” Dylan says in the Wall Street Journal interview with Jeff Slate, December 2022. “I listen for fragments, riffs, chords, even lyrics. Anything that sounds promising.”

To be continued. Next up Goodbye Jimmy Reed part 11: You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain

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

By Tony Attwood, with recordings presented by Mike Johnson in the Never Ending Tour Series.

In this series we look at the way Bob has transformed certain songs over time in his live performances, in particular looking for the progression in his feelings about, and his understanding of, what the song offers, what the song says, where it can be taken next, and even on occasion how he can reinterpret the past.

So far we’ve looked at

• Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• Visions of Johanna
• The Hard Rain of 1988, 2003 and 2015
• Tangled up in Blue 1988 to 1993
• Blowing in the Wind. 1991-2001
• Blind Willie McTell. 1997-2006
• It Ain’t me Babe from 1994-1998.
• Things have changed 2000-2007
• Love sick from the very start to 2000
• The Drifters’ Escape. 1996-2005.

After some of the articles in this series I have received emails asking where exactly each recording came from.  In writing these pieces, and listening to the same song each time, I’m sorry to say my focus is on Bob’s reinterpretation, rather than the details of where that particular event was.

But to try and help out I have put a link back to the original edition of the NET article on this site in which the recording first appeared, and if Mike noted the details of exactly where and when the recordings were made, you will find them in that original article. I hope you can understand my focus as I write, and that link back helps trace the location and exact date of the recording.

——-

Now onto “Like a Rolling Stone”.  This song started to appear on Bob’s set list in 1965 and it stayed as a regular feature in his concerts for about nine months before taking a final (for the moment) bow in that stage of its developments the following year at the Royal Albert Hall.

It returned three years later for the Isle of Wight concert, but then had another four and a half years rest, until it was involved in every concert in 1974…. and so it goes on.  It’s a song that can appear in every show night after night, and then vanish, although since about 1988 it’s been there much of the time, which is how it has as I write this in November 2023, racked up 2075 performances, according to the official site.

It is of course part of the Highway 61 collection, and indeed, half of the six most performed songs on the Never Ending Tour are from that one album.

We can pick it up in 1988, a recording of which Mike Johnson, in introducing it said, “These 1988 performances create an ambivalent effect. On one hand Dylan’s voice is as powerful and expressive as ever, on the other hand he seems to want to tear the heart out of the songs. His voice is a shock, too, for those used to his clear high mercurial tones; he grunts and snarls and vocalises in a hoarse, breathless, broken style like a man at the end of his tether. His frustration is palpable. You wanna hear this old song again? Well here it is, watch me rip it pieces.”

Well, yes, I agree with Mike, but only up to a point (and that’s really a key thing about Untold Dylan – we all write independently, there is no “Untold Dylan viewpoint”.  And certainly for me, hearing it today out of the blue, and without the context of the whole show yes, this is a  shock.

But let’s not forget, the lyrics are nasty, and I think we often tend to forget just how nasty they are.  I mean, we know the lines

Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal

so well, that it is easy to ignore how horrible that is.   This is saying, ok you are in the gutter, but instead of giving you a hand up I’m going to kick you – because that is what you did to me and all my friends in the past when we were struggling and you were not.

But stay with this recording, because suddenly about halfway through we have the most amazing musical interlude which has nothing to do with the song itself, except to emphasise the fact that the singer is not just kicking her down he is dancing on her (I always feel it is “her”) in the gutter.

This is in fact a very nasty song, but (in my estimation) it is so nasty that it is hard to take, at least in this format.   After all rock music is primarily love, lost love and dance.  It is not normally about anger, revenge, disgust, and utter dislike and distaste.

But here’s another reason to stay to the very end – listen to that instrumental coda.  It really is about dancing on the body in the gutter and laughing.  So I must admit I may not like the images it brings forth, but no one ever said rock music had to be about what we like.

By 2000 we had a new lyrical version, a gentler vision, in which the singer is now sad about the fall.  He does of course still ask “How does it feel?” but now he is asking because he genuinely wants to know.  He’s puzzled at how it could all have come to this.   He’s not going to do anything to help, but he really wants to know what the whole experience was like.

And this raises the question: how should we behave to absolute bastards who have never done anything for anyone else, but have now got their comeuppance?   So when Bob sings How DOES it feel, he really is asking.   It’s become a different song, and that slow down at the end shows the exhaustion of both sides.   He’s saying over and over “How DOES it feel” and she’s not answering…  How often can you ask?

In 2001 we have moved on again.  He’s told us the story before, she’s heard it all before, he’s getting tired of saying it over and over, but even so, yes he does want to tell us again, and tell her again, just one more time, that is how it was, that is what happened, this is why it happened, and say “yes I can feel a bit sorry for you that he has taken everything he could steal, but still, I am not going to let up with that ceaseless taunt.  How DOES it feel?” Yes he wants to say it, but really, the person to whom the song is aimed, really now is that complete unknown, and in the context of the song, such people are simply not so important.

And do listen to the instrumental coda that slows the whole pace down at the end…  there now is a tiredness here.   He’s saying, “oh come on, we’ve been through this before… that’s enough.”

Finally 2002  This last version for this article comes from Accidentally friends and other strangers

In listening to this final recording today we have now reached a totally different place.  Quieter, calmer… the old timer is looking back, secure now in his place in the world, and recognising that the person who did nothing for him in the past is now down and out.   But actually, he (Bob) doesn’t really care anymore.  He’s explained himself so many times, he’s put every possible point of view, he’s just weary of the whole thing.    “Look” he is saying, “it is over and done.  It was a long time ago.  You lost, I won.  I can’t change the past.  And I’m not here to pick you up or say sorry, because I have nothing to say sorry for.   OK, I’m going to tone it down a bit, but really you still ought to take what you have got left to the pawn brokers.  Because there really is nothing else.

And this is part of what is, for me, the genius of Bob Dylan.  It is not just the 600+ songs that he has written, but his ability to reinterpret them and through the reinterpretations give us new insights and new meanings.

I think in the past I have had an awareness of this, but it is only through Mike’s work in presenting the NET series that I find I can now finally appreciate just what Bob Dylan is doing with these reinterpretations.   For me this is allowing me to gain totally new insights into the songs, and into what Bob is doing and has done on the Tour.  I do hope a little of what I am discovering for myself, is coming across in these articles.

By Tony Attwood

I suppose when I started this series of reviews of covers, two years ago tomorrow (15 November 2021 to put it in exact context) I guess I realised that one day I would get to Times they are a changin’ (unless I got bored en route, or the site collapsed, or someone paid me to stop writing, or something like that).   And if it did, then what?

It’s a valid question because from a quick glance there are at least 15 cover versions of the song in which the lyrics are translated into another language, and that’s before we get to consider around 30 commercially available cover versions in the 1960s alone.

It took a dip in the 1970s with just half a dozen or so covers that made a bit of a mark, five in the 1980s, ten in the 1990s, 36 in the 2000s, 36 in the 2010s, and around 15 in this decade, which of course has only just begun (as it were).   Meaning that the 2020s could be the most productive decade yet in terms of “Times”.

And all that’s before the 30+ instrumental versions of the song… I mean this is getting totally out of hand.

Of course, facing the almighty challenge of how to consider “Times they are a-changin'” for my series of Dylan covers I do, as I so often do, take a look on the site to see what Jochen has said, (his article is here and I recommend it heartily – it is as worthy of a read now as it was when we first published it).  And Jochen, with his seemingly infinite knowledge of every song ever written in every language notes…

“Das Lied von der Moldau (music by Hanns Eisler, lyrics Bertolt Brecht) is originally from one of Brecht’s later pieces, Schweyk im Zweiten Weltkrieg, and is also translated and edited by Tabori for Brecht On Brecht. It is a short song (three verses of four lines, the third verse being a repetition of the first) and especially the second verse rings a bell…”

Times are a-changing. The mightiest scene
Will not save the mighty. The bubble will burst.
Like bloody old peacocks they're strutting and screaming,
But, times are a-changing. The last shall be the first.
The last shall be the first.

And he then adds, with a wonderful throw-away comment, “About three months after hearing this, Dylan writes “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.”

Plus there is the fact that “Times” itself can be seen as something of a cover in its own right… which gives me a problem of course, but which I can deal with by starting with the a version of the original original (if you see what I mean) from which it is suggested (by some) that Dylan’s version is a sort of semi-cover…

“The 51st (Highland) Division’s Farewell to Sicily”

Now in fact I don’t care a jot whether “Times” is a cover of, or a copy of, or a derivation from “Farewell to Sicily.”   For “Farewell to Sicily” has been heard fairly regularly in my house ever since that article by Jochen appeared on this site five years ago (almost to the day – November 16th in fact).  And indeed if you are an occasional reader of my erratic ramblings on this site you will know that I have oft confessed to being a ludicrously and hopelessly emotional person, and this song is just one of many triggers that causes me to pause, and simply stare out of the window at the on-so-tall trees in my garden beyond, which stretch up to the sky… or so it seems.

Jochen picked out two stunning covers: Keb ‘Mo and the Chieftians, and wonder of wonders, the links still both work.  They are amazing covers, and I would urge you to pop back to that review both to read the commentary and listen to those covers.  The fact that Jochen quotes me in passing is of course neither here nor there.

So the question now arises, can I add more?

I did get a little tingle from a most unexpected recent version Emily Linge – who I realised is the same age as my eldest grandchild.  And I write that as a person who bought the original upon its release, at around the same age.

Maybe there is nothing in particular in the music that appeals and moves in the way that Jochen’s choices noted above do, except that hearing a 15 year old sing the song all these decades later is moving in itself.

Perhaps one of the many features of the old song is that it does allow itself to be transformed in so many ways.  I’m not arguing that these contemporary versions are of the same artistic merit as Jochen’s selections in his article noted above, but they are interesting nonetheless.

Take for example the instrumental break in this version by Stories, featuring Lily Kershaw.

And there is a benefit that comes from all these vast numbers of covers, which is that no one in their right mind is going to do a cover that simply takes the original and then does it much the same way as Bob.   I don’t always like what people do with the song, as with this version by Frazey Ford, but perhaps more than most other Dylan songs, it feels important that no one forgets the song, and what it meant to us at the time, and what it meant to President Obama too.

So perhaps I have got to the point, which is that we never forget the song, and keep singing it because its message is as important today as it was when Bob wrote it.

And maybe there is another artistic message here too.   No matter how many versions there have been before, for the inventive and talented arrangers it is always possible to find something new in a song as historically important as this.   Which is good, because it means that with a bit of luck my grandchildren will hear the song, and realise that the fight for reform, improvement, justice, equality and everything like that, can, and indeed should, exist alongside the desire to create and re-create music that is more than just passing entertainment.

And if you have time, do play this final offering through to the end.  And then maybe go back to “Farewell to Sicily“.  It can make, I promise you, an interesting journey.  If you have the time.

The Dylan Cover a Day series

1. The song with numbers in the title.
2. Ain’t Talkin
3. All I really want to do
4.  Angelina
5.  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
6. As I went out one morning
7.  Ballad for a Friend
8. Ballad in Plain D
9. Ballad of a thin man
10.  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
11. The ballad of Hollis Brown
12. Beyond here lies nothing
13. Blind Willie McTell
14.  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
15. An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
16. Blowin in the wind as never before
17. Bob Dylan’s Dream
18. BoB Dylan’s 115th Dream revisited
19. Boots of Spanish leather
20. Born in Time
21. Buckets of Rain
22. Can you please crawl out your window
23. Can’t wait
24. Changing of the Guard
25. Chimes of Freedom
26. Country Pie
27.  Crash on the Levee
28. Dark Eyes
29. Dear Landlord
30. Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
31. Dignity.
32. Dirge
33. Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
34. Don’t think twice
35.  Down along the cove
36. Drifter’s Escape
37. Duquesne Whistle
38. Farewell Angelina
39. Foot of Pride and Forever Young
40. Fourth Time Around
41. From a Buick 6
42. Gates of Eden
43. Gotta Serve Somebody
44. Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
45. Heart of Mine
46. High Water
47. Highway 61
48. Hurricane
49. I am a lonesome hobo
50. I believe in you
51. I contain multitudes
52. I don’t believe you.
53. I love you too much
54. I pity the poor immigrant. 
55. I shall be released
56. I threw it all away
57. I want you
58. I was young when I left home
59. I’ll remember you
60. Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
61. If not for you, and a rant against prosody
62. If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
63. If you see her say hello
64. Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight
65. I’m not there.
66. In the Summertime, Is your love and an amazing Isis
67. It ain’t me babe
68. It takes a lot to laugh
69. It’s all over now Baby Blue
70. It’s all right ma
71. Just Like a Woman
72. Knocking on Heaven’s Door
73. Lay down your weary tune
74. Lay Lady Lay
75. Lenny Bruce
76. That brand new leopard skin pill box hat
77. Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
78. License to kill
79. Like a Rolling Stone
80. Love is just a four letter word
81. Love Sick
82. Maggies Farm!
83. Make you feel my love; a performance that made me cry.
84. Mama you’ve been on my mind
85. Man in a long black coat.
86. Masters of War
87. Meet me in the morning
88. Million Miles. Listen, and marvel.
89. Mississippi. Listen, and marvel (again)
90. Most likely you go your way
91. Most of the time and a rhythmic thing
92. Motorpsycho Nitemare
93. Mozambique
94. Mr Tambourine Man
95. My back pages, with a real treat at the end
96. New Morning
97. New Pony. Listen where and when appropriate
98. Nobody Cept You
99. North Country Blues
100. No time to think
101. Obviously Five Believers
102. Oh Sister
103. On the road again
104. One more cup of coffee
105. (Sooner or later) one of us must know
106. One too many mornings
107. Only a hobo
108. Only a pawn in their game
109. Outlaw Blues – prepare to be amazed
110. Oxford Town
111. Peggy Day and Pledging my time
112. Please Mrs Henry
113. Political world
114. Positively 4th Street
115. Precious Angel
116. Property of Jesus
117. Queen Jane Approximately
118. Quinn the Eskimo as it should be performed.
119. Quit your lowdown ways
120. Rainy Day Women as never before
121. Restless Farewell. Exquisite arrangements, unbelievable power
122. Ring them bells in many different ways
123. Romance in Durango, covered and re-written
124. Sad Eyed Lady of Lowlands, like you won’t believe
125. Sara
126. Senor
127. A series of Dreams; no one gets it (except Dylan)
128. Seven Days
129. She Belongs to Me
130. Shelter from the Storm
131. Sign on the window
132. Silvio
133. Simple twist of fate
134. Slow Train
135. Someday Baby
136. Spanish Harlem Incident
137. Standing in the Doorway
138. Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
139. Subterranean Homesick Blues
140. Sweetheart Like You
141. Tangled up in Blue
142. Tears of Rage
143.  Temporary Like Achilles. Left in the cold, but there’s still something…
144. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar
145. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
146. The Man in Me

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

Aaron: A lesser-known Jimmie Rodgers song, My Blue-Eyed Jane is more of a swing tune than anything else. Jimmie’s recording of My Blue Eyed Jane is as atypical of a country song as one could get.

According to Daniel Mullins writing for Bluegrass Today:

“The song is very addictive. It requires more than one listen. The Dixieland-style trumpet, clarinet, and piano may be off-putting to bluegrass and country purists, but those who allow that to deter their listening are missing out. The vaudeville-ish style hearkens to days long gone. Lovers of music will be able to appreciate the purity of the music being presented.

“Jimmie’s vocal delivery is some of his finest. He seems so relaxed. The ease with which he sings each line gives the song a backporch feel which draws in the listener. He gathers steam as the song moves along, and he lets it all loose on the final chorus alongside the pounding barroom piano. From this recording, it’s easy to see why Jimmie is pointed to as one of the first recorded singers to present songs with heart, soul, and authenticity.

“The song itself is wonderfully simple. It’s a classic tale of boy meets girl, boy can’t be without girl, then boy must leave girl. Although, on the surface, the song’s ending is somewhat sad, the lover’s promise to come back again makes My Blue-Eyed Jane surprisingly optimistic. The vigor with which the song is delivered seems to have a “love conquers all approach,” and there seems to be little doubt that the lovers will be reunited.”

Tony: Wow, what a review.  I felt the need to go and look up Daniel Mullins as I’d not come across this work before, which perhaps is not surprising as I am not at all well-versed in bluegrass.  So I had to start reading more about the form as well.

What I did know (and am pleased to have confirmed as true) is that bluegrass takes elements out of a whole range of musical genres and pulls them together, so we have something from the music of the American south with the traditional music from various parts of the British Isles.  Generally, you get a banjo, guitar, fiddle (violin), mandolin, and bass – and of course, the bands that created this music were acoustic, not electric.

As for Daniel Mullins, yes he’s an important man in the field of commenting on bluegrass, winning awards, running radio programmes, and so forth.  So I bow to his expertise, and if you know all about bluegrass my apologies for not knowing in the first place.

And what do I make of this recording?  Well, it is so far out of my normal listening, it’s hard to know where to begin and how not to make a total fool of myself by exposing my ignorance.  If I suggest it is “pleasant” that sounds like a put-down, but in essence, I played the music and watched the wind blowing the trees in my garden on a fine blustery autumn morning and it was all very pleasant.  “Pleasant”.  That does seem the right word.

Aaron: Hank Snow’s version comes from 1953

Tony: There are subtle differences here in the rhythm and melody which I didn’t hear in the original version: I guess they were added because most listeners would have known the original and catching people out with the odd amendment is something arrangers of later versions love to do.  Indeed, otherwise, why bother – why not just listen to the first version?

Aaron: Bob’s version comes from the 1997 album The Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers – A Tribute

Tony: I have to admit, this recording passed me by, so I’m hearing this version either for the first time, or having heard it before, I’ve forgotten it.  Bob sounds very Bob, which is good, he’s not trying to put on another voice – and there are moments of that half-sung half-spoken style that he can do.  It gives an impression of the vocalist being separate from the band: they do their thing dead straight, and Bob plays around (a little but not too much) with the melody.

Although sometimes he does seem to get into a bit of a tangle – as with the final “and the shadows are creeping all over town” which appears a bit rushed just at the moment when one feels everything ought to be fitting into place with a complete regularity and resolution.   That’s because, I guess, the original lyrics are written (completely illogically as there can’t just be one shadow spreading across  the town) as

And when the sun goes down
And the shadow's creeping over town

Bob actually sings, grammatically correctly

And when the sun goes down
And the shadows are creeping all over town

We don’t normally associate Bob with a concern for grammar, and I rather like the fact Bob did that.

Aaron: Here is an alternative version with Emmylou Harris on backing vocals

Tony: A softer, gentler, more melodic Bob.  I really do like this; it’s a lovely arrangement and the harmonies work perfectly both in terms of the song itself and in terms of the two voices.   Bob does that thing where the last word of a lot of the lines is half-sung, half-spoken and that contrasts beautifully with the chorus sung by both vocalists.

Here are the previous editions…

1. Other people’s songs. How Dylan covers the work of other composers
2. Other People’s songs: Bob and others perform “Froggie went a courtin”
3. Other people’s songs: They killed him
4. Other people’s songs: Frankie & Albert
5. Other people’s songs: Tomorrow Night where the music is always everything
6. Other people’s songs: from Stack a Lee to Stagger Lee and Hugh Laurie
7. Other people’s songs: Love Henry
8. Other people’s songs: Rank Stranger To Me
9. Other people’s songs: Man of Constant Sorrow
10. Other people’s songs: Satisfied Mind
11. Other people’s songs: See that my grave is kept clean
12. Other people’s songs: Precious moments and some extras
13. Other people’s songs: You go to my head
14. Other people’s songs: What’ll I do?
15. Other people’s songs: Copper Kettle
16. Other people’s songs: Belle Isle
17. Other people’s songs: Fixing to Die
18. Other people’s songs: When did you leave heaven?
19. Other people’s songs: Sally Sue Brown
20. Other people’s songs: Ninety miles an hour down a dead end street
21. Other people’s songs: Step it up and Go
22. Other people’s songs: Canadee-I-O
23. Other people’s songs: Arthur McBride
24. Other people’s songs: Little Sadie
25. Other people’s songs: Blue Moon, and North London Forever
26. Other people’s songs: Hard times come again no more
27. Other people’s songs: You’re no good
28. Other people’s songs: Lone Pilgrim (and more Crooked Still)
29. Other people’s songs: Blood in my eyes
30. Other people’s songs: I forgot more than you’ll ever know
31.  Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
32. Other people’s songs: Highway 51
33. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
34. Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
35. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
36. Other people’s songs: Highway 51 Blues
37. Other people’s songs: Freight Train Blues
38. Other People’s Songs: The Little Drummer Boy
39. Other People’s Songs: Must be Santa
40. Other People’s songs: The Christmas Song
41. Other People’s songs: Corina Corina
42. Other People’s Songs: Mr Bojangles
43. Other People’s Songs: It hurts me too
44. Other people’s songs: Take a message to Mary
45. Other people’s songs: House of the Rising Sun
46. Other people’s songs: “Days of 49”
47. Other people’s songs: In my time of dying
48. Other people’s songs: Pretty Peggy O
49. Other people’s songs: Baby Let me Follow You Down
50. Other people’s songs: Gospel Plow
51. Other People’s Songs: Melancholy Mood
52. Other people’s songs: The Boxer and Big Yellow Taxi
53. Other people’s songs: Early morning rain
54. Other people’s Songs: Gotta Travel On
55. Other people’s songs: “Can’t help falling in love”
56. Other people’s songs: Lily of the West
57. Other people’s songs: Alberta
58. Other people’s songs: Little Maggie
59. Other people’s songs: Sitting on top of the world
60. Dylan’s take on “Let it be me”
61. Other people’s songs: From “Take me as I am” all the way to “Baker Street”
62. Other people’s songs: A fool such as I
63. Other people’s songs: Sarah Jane and the rhythmic changes
64. Other people’s songs: Spanish is the loving tongue. Author drawn to tears
65. Other people’s songs: The ballad of Ira Hayes
66. Other people’s songs: The usual
67. Other people’s songs: Blackjack Davey
68. Other people’s songs: You’re gonna quit me
69. Other people’s songs: You belong to me
70. Other people’s songs: Stardust
71. Other people’s songs: Diamond Joe
72. Other people’s songs: The Cuckoo
73. Other people’s songs: Come Rain or Come Shine
74. Other people’s songs: Two soldiers and an amazing discovery
75. Other people’s songs: Pretty Boy Floyd

“So much beauty, so little time,” my grandmother used to sigh, standing in front of her record cabinet. And mind you, she only had one single Dylan record (Greatest Hits) – Rough And Rowdy Ways she did not live to hear.

“Key West”, “My Own Version of You”, “Murder Most Foul”… the songs of Rough And Rowdy Ways are bulging treasure troves. A book on the album would become an even thicker paving stone than Mixing Up The Medicine, so I chose to just chop it up into manageable chunks. Following I Contain Multitudes and Crossing The Rubicon we now have: Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B. About the three songs on Side B; “I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You”, “Black Rider” and “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”.

It’s an album that just keeps on giving.

Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B (The Songs Of Bob Dylan): Markhorst, Jochen: 9798865809890: Amazon.com: Books

 ——————–

Goodbye Jimmy Reed (2020) part 9

by Jochen Markhorst

IX         She’s going to play you for a fool

Transparent woman in a transparent dress
It suits you well - I must confess
I’ll break open your grapes I’ll suck out the juice
I need you like my head needs a noose
Goodbye Jimmy Reed, goodbye and so long
I thought I could resist her but I was so wrong

 “Desire fades but traffic goes on forever,” Dylan writes, concluding his reverie on Ray Charles’ “I Got A Woman” (The Philosophy Of Modern Song, Chapter 26). It is a somewhat fatalistic aphorism, illustrating the truth of the time-honoured, proverbial “the chase is better than the catch”; life is so much more exciting when desire is still flaming – “In the beginning he drove recklessly, desire rolling him through stop signs, ” as the first-person from this short story remembers wistfully. He should, we may conclude, not have longed for a woman he could catch. But for an unapproachable, fatal woman. One like the lady from “She Belongs To Me” or “Temporary Like Achilles”, a maneater, a killer queen, a dirty Diana. Or like the archetype pur sang:

You're written in her book
You're number thirty-seven, have a look
She's going to smile to make you frown, what a clown
Little boy, she's from the street
Before you start, you're already beat
She's going to play you for a fool, yes it's true

… Velvet Undergrounds “Femme Fatale”, Lou Reed’s not very subtle ballad about Edie Sedgwick, allegedly.

The fifth verse of “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” is an interlude in which the narrator sketchily articulates an obsession with a fatal woman, vaguely spiced up with a hint of a love triangle. At least, the poet does suggest a tension by contrasting a present, attainable and transparent lady (“you”) with an absent, irresistible woman (“her”). Why Dylan’s stream of consciousness ripples here is – of course – impossible to trace, but Jimmy Reed’s discography seems an obvious igniter. “Shame, Shame, Shame”, “Baby What You Want Me To Do”, “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby?”, “My Bitter Seed”, “Honest I Do”… the femme fatale is a regular in Jimmy’s repertoire, indeed. As in the template for Dylan’s song as well, in “Down In Virginia”:

I went down in Virginia, honey, where the green grass grows
I tried to tell myself, you didn't want me no more
I told my baby, "Honey, stop doin' me wrong!
Why don't you pack your clothes, and bring your fine self home?"
Shut up, girl, you know you doing me wrong

Thematically, Dylan may adopt the archetype for this fifth verse, but the elaboration is a bit more elegant than the average elaboration with Jimmy Reed, Robert Johnson (“From Four Till Late”, “Little Queen Of Spades”, “Love In Vain”, “Milkcow’s Calf Blues)” or Tampa Red (“Dangerous Woman Blues”, “It’s Low Down Shame”, “Georgia Hound Blues”), songs in which the narrator’s complaint goes hardly any deeper than being hopelessly smitten with an evil woman, articulated in varying degrees of helpless aggression, imagery and despair.

In the other genres – country, rock ‘n’ roll – in which the archetype is presented, the portrayal is usually not much more refined either, but Dylan has, as we all know, slightly more poetic skills and talents. Transparent woman in a transparent dress / It suits you well – I must confess is at any rate a much more elegantly worded variant of the way the present lady’s wardrobe is usually described. Descriptions like in Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle And Roll”;

Way you wear those dresses, the sun comes shinin' through
Way you wear those dresses, the sun comes shinin' through
I can't believe my eyes, all that mess belongs to you

… or more so, given the identical double charge, as in Charlie Rich’s “Easy Look”

She sits there at the bar
Her feelings standing bare
Open as a see-through dress
She always wears

… with the same mirroring of the clothing’s transparency with the transparency of the lady herself. Dylan’s choice of words, however, evokes a rather more distinguished, more civilised lady. Not some tramp at a bar or a cheap hussy on the dance floor, but rather someone like a Marlene Dietrich in her famous “illusion dress”, the dresses designed for her in the 1950s by Jean Louis, for the “Blue Angels” concert years in Las Vegas. Fantastic, embroidered dresses of soufflé chiffon encrusted with clear crystals over a flesh-coloured bodysuit of nylon, which gave the illusion that Marlene was naked. Unapproachable, however, Marlene remained – a transparent woman, like Marilyn or Cher in similar dresses, La Dietrich never was. But “it suits you well”… on that we can all agree.

Just as we will all agree on the total mismatch of Dylan’s elegant opening with the impossible, abrasive sequel: the banal, utterly inappropriate I’ll break open your grapes I’ll suck out the juice. No, no one will ever say this to La Dietrich or any other goddess in a transparent dress designed by Jean Louis. This is the lingo of Albert King, of Robert Johnson’s “Travelling Riverside Blues” (You can squeeze my lemon ’til the juice runs down my leg, the template for Led Zeppelin’s “The Lemon Song”), of Charlie Pickett and especially of the godfather of all ambiguous fruit metaphors, Bo Carter and his “Banana In Your Fruit Basket” (1931). Although Dylan seems to borrow this particular metaphor, the juicy grapes, from a distant descendant of the founding fathers, the Jamaican Mr Boombastic himself, from his 1995 Grammy-winning album, Boombastic. On that breakthrough album we hear, apart from the world hits “Boombastic” and “Why You Treat Me So Bad”, at number 12:

More expensive than a bottle of chardonnay wine
Aged to perfection and so refine
Every man want a taste 'cause your grapes are fine
Well me love your sexy rhythm and the way it rhyme

… “Jenny”, a kind of answer song to his own hit “Oh Carolina”, and after Brecht/Weill’s “Pirate Jenny” the second Jenny that seems to have made it into a Dylan song (after 1964’s “When The Ship Comes In”, that is).

Appropriate in context, anyway; all those sung ladies with fruity body features are quite cooperative, attainable and present; fatal they are not, anyway. Still, the combination grapes/fatal woman, can be found, though in another corner of Dylan’s jukebox: in Wanda Jackson’s country repertoire;

If you had me in a mansion filled with gold
If I lay at your feet my heart and my soul
You'd still crave the grapes on your next door neighbor's vine
'Cause you just gotta walk on both sides of the line

… “Both Sides Of The Line”, a fairly successful hit for Wanda from March 1967 (reaching 21 in the Country Charts), from one of those mid-sixties records, in this case, You’ll Always Have My Love, with which Wanda tries to reconnect with her first love and her oldest fans, country & western, after her ferocious rock and rockabilly records. Succeeding, by the way. Still, Wanda remains of course a hard-headed woman, a thorn in the side of man.

And impossible to resist.

To be continued. Next up Goodbye Jimmy Reed part 10: Anything that sounds promising

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

By Tony Attwood, with recordings presented by Mike Johnson in the Never Ending Tour Series.

In this series we look at the way Bob has transformed certain songs over time in his live performances, in particular looking for the progression in his feelings about, and his understanding of, what the song offers, what the song says, and where it can be taken next.

So far we’ve looked at

• Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• Visions of Johanna
• The Hard Rain of 1988, 2003 and 2015
• Tangled up in Blue 1988 to 1993
• Blowing in the Wind. 1991-2001
• Blind Willie McTell. 1997-2006
• It Ain’t me Babe from 1994-1998.
• Things have changed 2000-2007
• Love sick from the very start to 2000

Drifters Escape 

This song was written in 1967 but the first live performance was not until April 1992.  It then continued to be performed from time to to time until 2005 by which time it had been given an outing 256 times.

The earliest recording we have from the tour comes from 1996, when it was the opening song, sounding very, very different from the recorded version.  It’s got a bounce, but also a pleading, almost whining edge, and of course a vibrant harmonica part too.

1996

The next recording I’m highlighting is from 2000, and I think it is particularly interesting if we compare it with some of the later versions below.   We have the band doing their things, but of the chaos that was to come later we have no hint.  However the song is taken a faster speed and there is a much stronger performance from Bob with the vocals, and given the lack of chord changes within the song that really does help.

2000

The next recording is utterly different in that any sense of the quietness and dignity of the drifter which we had in the original recording has now got lost completely.  Before the speed and beat represented (to me at least) the desire of the court simply to process the down and out drifter as fast as possible and move on to more interesting things.  Now we get the emphasis instead on a sense of court room chaos.

But musically there is also a slight sense that there is not much that can be done with this song except belt it out, again because there are no chord changes.  Indeed from the off I just get a sense of all the instrumentalists falling over each other, none quite sure where to go, or even (at the start) quite where to come in.

2003

In the last example here the speed is still there but at last there is a feeling that more (in sense of every instrument going at the song at full blast) is simply ending up in noise.

This version shows us that there can be a lot of going back and thinking once again about each song.   Although even with all that Bob himself has not been able to change the single line of vocals which is what the song has all the way through.

The chaos of the courtroom is still there however, and of course the whole point of the song is the eternity of the chaos, and this 2005 version does explore that more fully.

But above all the prolonged instrumental solo in the latter part of the performance is, in my mind, a massive improvement on what has gone before.  The repeated musical phrases do make the point that there is no escape, and they make this in a much better way (for me at least) than the chaos of every musician belting out his part, which is what we had before.  By taking out the competition of the instruments while Bob is singing and replacing it with a single repeated phrase, we get a much greater sense of the space of the courtroom, and perhaps the pointlessness of the whole affair.

2005

But since we are here perhaps I may be permitted also note just how far this incredibly simple one-chord song with one line of melody repeated over and over has traveled.

And since I have added the Thea Guilmore version, which is one of my favourite cover versions of any Dylan song, we might as well round this up by going all the way back to Bob’s original….

By Mike Johnson

An index to the series can be found here.

In 2018 Dylan continued to radically re-configure his songs, altering lyrics and experimenting with different tempos and moods. The result was a series of stunning performances that must rank among his greatest.

The year was marked by a rapid phasing out of American Standards. He sang a few in early concerts in the first, European leg of the tour but soon dropped them altogether. As we have seen, these songs had had an enormous impact on the way he approached his own songs but by 2018 he was ready to leave them behind; they had made their mark. We also see a revival of the harmonica, up to four or five songs per concert, after dropping the instrument almost completely in 2017. We’ll look at those in the next post. We also find the sudden reappearance of some old favourites we thought had long gone, completely renovated, as we did in 2017.

Take, for example, ‘It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry’, a song that disappeared after being played once in 2004 and once in 2005. We thought it had faded out for good. Then in 2018 and 2019 it comes surging back, and it has never sounded better. Here’s a truly majestic performance, an absolute treat for any lover of the blues, transforming the gentlest song on Highway 61 Revisited into this grandest of slow blues. (Phoenix, Oct 4^th) This is a classic blues epic, my friends.

It takes a lot to laugh

Now that’s perfection, full of grandeur and stateliness.  Dylan’s voice is full of power and authority, timing perfect, the band impeccable. The perfect performance of a perfect song, Christopher Ricks might have said.

And, while we’re on the subject of grandeur, we find ‘Cry a While’ has been transformed from the jazzy versions of old into this crashing wall of sound:

Cry a While (A)

What once sounded as sharply humourous now sounds anguished and threatening. Readers might recall that on the album (Love and Theft) and in early performances, the tempo switched between fast, with a running bass, and slow & bluesy. Now it works as a heavy and obsessive slow march. It sounds like a totally different song as it digs into the emotion driving the song.

For those who like to see Dylan in action, here’s a You Tube video of that performance.

That’s from NYC, Nov 29^th, but it’s by no means a one-off or a fluke. The song crops up frequently on the Setlist in 2018, every time a blast. Here it is from Roanoke (US) with an interesting slow, ‘scattered’ entry into the song.

Cry a While (B)

And…because you can’t get too much of a good thing, here it is from Macon, France, Oct 22^nd, once again full of solemn power. There’s a note of triumph in this voice, and a touch of cruelty too. Incredible performances.

Cry a While (C)

For a while it looked as if we were losing ‘Gotta Serve Somebody. That and ‘Every Grain of Sand’ are the only survivors from Dylan’s gospel period (1979 – 81). ‘Serve Somebody’, after being played four times in 2009 and then only once in 2011, looked like it was fading, then comes roaring back in 2018 – 19. It is still, in 2023, a staple on the Setlist.

Unsurprisingly, it has a completely new set of lyrics. I’m not the only one to suspect that the song becomes a vehicle for improvised, on the spot changes. It seems that just about every time he plays the song, the lyrics change; the song is well suited for it – it really doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, you can’t help but serve somebody. Some of these changes, however would last through to 2019.

You may be in Las Vegas
Having lots of fun
Hidin’ in the bushes
Holding a smokin’ gun

Here it is from Waterbury, the last song of the night before two encores. It’s driven by a quick-fire shuffle beat and Dylan’s voice soars when he comes up to the punchline – ‘it may be the devil or it may be the lord.’

Serve Somebody (A)

In Melbourne (Aug 23th) Dylan finds a different rhythm from that shuffle beat. The bass line that runs this version is maddeningly familiar to me, and pulls the song into rock ‘n roll, but I just can’t place it. It takes us back to the late fifties or early sixties. If any reader can place it, please drop a note in the comments! Another spot-on vocal.

Serve Somebody (B)

There is one old favourite, however, which has been fading away and is played for the last time in 2018. ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ having been played over 2000 times and was once invariably played as a final song, ending concerts with an apocalyptic blast, seems like an unlikely song to lose. Once it was de-throned as a final song by Blowin’ in the wind’ or ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man,’ it had no place in the Setlist to go. It was played a handful of times in 2015, dropped from sight in 2016 and 2017, reappearing for some final performances in 2018.

During the organ grinder years (2006 – 2011) Dylan quietened the song considerably, with minimal backing during the verses. Here, in its final performance in NYC (Nov 29^th), it appears at number 5 on the Setlist, and Dylan half talks the song over a rasta beat. The effect is quite strange when we’re used to it being given the rock, Hendrix style, treatment, and it’s over to you to decide how well this shuffle beat works. Intriging. I’m sorry to see it go.

Watchtower

‘Thunder On The Mountain’ is another song I thought we might be losing, as it was played a few times in 2014, disappeared for two years until it was revived in 2017, and played consistently over 2018 -19. It’s a fast, chuggy song packed with verses. Again the bass line is familiar, and fifties sounding, but again I can’t place it. It’s given a jazzy twist, which makes it interestingly dissonant. Dylan doesn’t belt it out, as he has done, but skips lightly through the verses, aided by that bouncy bass line. Once more we’re close to a shuffle beat. (Waterbury, Nov 20^th)

Thunder on the mountain (A)

This recording, from Macon, with the same arrangement, is a little sharper and clearer than the Waterbury recording, with Dylan’s voice more to the forefront.

Thunder on the mountain (B)

You’d think that ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ is, because of its iconic status, another song Dylan would never drop, but, prior to 2018 it was fading. After having had over 2000 performances, this old warhorse was played only once in 2013, drops out until it gets another one-off performance in 2016, only to skip 2017 and jump back into the Setlist in 2018, remaining strong through 2019. I was not surprised when it faded out, as I sensed Dylan was having trouble infusing it with life. Maybe, like ‘Watchtower,’ he thought of it as a song he had to sing.

However, with some nifty chord work on the piano, a dramatic slowing down half way through each verse, a replacing of the La Bamba backing with yet another one of those familiar sounding rock ‘n roll riffs, and a fully expressive vocal, I haven’t enjoyed a performance as I did with this one, again from Waterbury, for a long time. I found my feet starting to shuffle.

Rolling Stone

We have to bid farewell to ‘Visions of Johanna.’ Arguably Dylan’s greatest song, it was last played extensively in 2013, once in 2014, a few times in 2015, then reappears in 2018 for a final, one-off performance in Sydney (August 19^th). Regular readers of this series will know that I have never felt that the post 1966 versions, especially the NET versions, have ever been able to capture the epic grandeur of those early performances, with their swirling, murky energy and late-late night druggy mood.

Frustratingly enough, there are signs in this last Sydney performance that Dylan, if he’d persisted, might have been able to deliver the song with all its dark magic as he’d once done. Getting rid of the light, bouncy little beat he’d been using would be a good start – and that almost happens here, but in the end it gives way to the dumpty-dum. There are some nifty piano riffs here, and a passionate vocal. The crowd are pleased with it, that’s for sure.

The moody, scene-setting first verse is often put forward as an example of the more literary Dylan, Dylan the poet, worthy of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

 Visions of Johanna

In 2017, we saw ‘Tryin To Get To Heaven’ make a comeback after having been dropped in 2012 (See NET 2017 part 1), and it 2018 -19 it continues its run, clocking up multiple performances. The arrangement, with the light, edgy beat is the same as 2017, as is the vocal mastery. Dylan voice floats lightly through the song, man, he makes it sound so easy, as he trips us through a series of disturbing notions.

When I was in Missouri
They would not let me be
I had to leave there in a hurry
I only saw what they let me see
You broke a heart that loved you
Now you can seal up the book and not write anymore
I’ve been walking that lonesome valley
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

Here’s how it sounded at the very first concert of the year, Lisbon, March 22^nd:

 Tryin’ to get to heaven (A)

And here’s how it sounded in Macon in Oct. The recording here is little crisper. Wonderful performances, both of them

Tryin’ to get to heaven (B)

I’m going to finish with one of the few American Standards he did play in 2018. ‘Moon River’ is not entirely new to the NET, Dylan played it once before in 1990. It got its second and final playing on Nov 6^th, in the Johnny Mercer theatre in Savanna, Johnny Mercer’s home town. Mercer wrote the lyrics and the music was written by the famous Henry Mancine (1961). Playing well-known songs by singers in their hometowns is a pattern Dylan sustains in the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour – he recently did Cohen’s ‘Dance Me To The End of Love’ in Cohen’s hometown, Montreal. This famous song has been covered hundreds of times. Sinatra sang it in 1964.

It’s a pity the recording isn’t better. I find it pretty harsh and scratchy, but we’re glad we’ve got it. It’s obviously a fine performance.

Moon River

I’ll be back soon to look at the return of the Master Harpist.

Until then

Kia Ora

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

Aaron: Pretty Boy Floyd tells the story of the famous outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd, an American bank robber who was pursued and killed by a group led by FBI Agent, Melvin Purvis.

Tony: Just out of interest, not knowing much American history, I looked up Melvin Purvis, and there is an interesting Wiki account of his life and work here.   You don’t need to know it to enjoy the song, but if you want  the background, it does add a bit more.

Aaron: This song was written in March 1939, five years after Floyd’s death. Guthrie shows Floyd as a misunderstood Robin Hood who was adored by the people. “But a many a starvin’ farmer the same old story told How the outlaw paid their mortgage and saved their little homes.”

It was recorded during the “Dust Bowl Ballads” session in April 1940, but it wasn’t included on the original release of those sessions.

Tony:  Many of these traditional American folks songs (or at least if not “traditional” in the true sense then at least written before I was born) are unknown to me before we get to discuss them here, but this is one that even I, in England, have come across – although I certainly couldn’t have recounted the whole story before today.

The musical format is incredibly simple: just two lines of music, repeated enough times to tell the whole story.    The idea of holding onto one word across three beats in the first bar of most verses now seems rather artificial in the version above, but I guess when many songs of the era had the same format or style, it separated this one out from the rest.

And of course it has that old concept that these guys might be outlaws but they were good at heart.  It goes back, I suppose, to the Robin Hood legend (which dates from the 14th century) of stealing from the rich to give to the poor.    (And just in case you are interested, I now live about 50 miles from Sherwood Forest, and do pop along occasionally to get a revision course in English legends, so I have a certain feeling for the history of my country in the middle ages).

But back to the plot…

Aaron: Joan Baez from 1962’s Joan Baez in Concert

Tony: Sorry I can’t get that this performance (and indeed several others in today’s piece) to show up in a normal youtube link, but clicking on the individual link above should work.

The problem with the song for contemporary audiences is that it is so repetitive musically it is harder for a listener who is used to change within the song, to keep a focus.  Joan gets around this by taking it at quite a speed, having the occasional guitar break and varying the guitar part occasionally as she goes, with even a bar or two of strumming rather than finger picking.   She also varies her voice somewhat and, put together, these very slight changes generate a superb excitement in the song, despite the repetitive nature of the music.   As indeed you can hear from the applause.

Aaron: The Byrds from the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo released in 1968

https://youtu.be/7MwplKjk_O0

Tony: For me this is ok, and something I can listen to quite happily, but it doesn’t have the power and drive that Joan Baez generates.  And yet it ought to, because they have a variety of instruments to bring to the fray.   Maybe it is double bass that puts me off – it plods along making up its own little counter melodies in a way that seems so ordinary.

So not for me that one, but as I was typing the song ended and the next track came on – “My back pages” and it struck me that what the Byrds did was take Dylan songs and traditional songs and play them with a full array of jingling and jangling but somehow at the same time they sucked the life out of the song.  It is as if it is a performance and just that – there’s no depth, no emotion, in fact no life, in the way that there is for example in the Joan Baez version.

I find it hard to explain that view more coherently, but I think we used to call performances of this nature “plastic” meaning there was no heart or soul in the music.  And listening to this for the first time in many, many years, that really comes across to me now.

Aaron: Bob’s version comes from the essential 1988 album Folkways: A Vision Shared – A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyBfdKV9OfY

Tony: So Bob has taken the notion of holding onto the note in the first complete bar but instead of giving the note the three beats, he cuts this down to two, and then adds a second, longer, held note in the penultimate line.    Except being Bob, it is not consistent.  “Oaklahoma” is held for much longer than any other word.

And of course he can do this easily because it is just Bob playing in accompaniment to himself.   It works, because it takes us by surprise, and adds an extra variation to a song that many of us will know from other versions.   I wouldn’t call it one of the great moments of Bob’s career, but it is a pleasing version to listen to, and it gives a sense of a real understanding of the roots from which the song arose, which the Byrds version most certainly doesn’t do for me.

Here are the previous editions…

1. Other people’s songs. How Dylan covers the work of other composers
2. Other People’s songs: Bob and others perform “Froggie went a courtin”
3. Other people’s songs: They killed him
4. Other people’s songs: Frankie & Albert
5. Other people’s songs: Tomorrow Night where the music is always everything
6. Other people’s songs: from Stack a Lee to Stagger Lee and Hugh Laurie
7. Other people’s songs: Love Henry
8. Other people’s songs: Rank Stranger To Me
9. Other people’s songs: Man of Constant Sorrow
10. Other people’s songs: Satisfied Mind
11. Other people’s songs: See that my grave is kept clean
12. Other people’s songs: Precious moments and some extras
13. Other people’s songs: You go to my head
14. Other people’s songs: What’ll I do?
15. Other people’s songs: Copper Kettle
16. Other people’s songs: Belle Isle
17. Other people’s songs: Fixing to Die
18. Other people’s songs: When did you leave heaven?
19. Other people’s songs: Sally Sue Brown
20. Other people’s songs: Ninety miles an hour down a dead end street
21. Other people’s songs: Step it up and Go
22. Other people’s songs: Canadee-I-O
23. Other people’s songs: Arthur McBride
24. Other people’s songs: Little Sadie
25. Other people’s songs: Blue Moon, and North London Forever
26. Other people’s songs: Hard times come again no more
27. Other people’s songs: You’re no good
28. Other people’s songs: Lone Pilgrim (and more Crooked Still)
29. Other people’s songs: Blood in my eyes
30. Other people’s songs: I forgot more than you’ll ever know
31.  Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
32. Other people’s songs: Highway 51
33. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
34. Other people’s songs: Let’s stick (or maybe work) together.
35. Other people’s songs: Jim Jones
36. Other people’s songs: Highway 51 Blues
37. Other people’s songs: Freight Train Blues
38. Other People’s Songs: The Little Drummer Boy
39. Other People’s Songs: Must be Santa
40. Other People’s songs: The Christmas Song
41. Other People’s songs: Corina Corina
42. Other People’s Songs: Mr Bojangles
43. Other People’s Songs: It hurts me too
44. Other people’s songs: Take a message to Mary
45. Other people’s songs: House of the Rising Sun
46. Other people’s songs: “Days of 49”
47. Other people’s songs: In my time of dying
48. Other people’s songs: Pretty Peggy O
49. Other people’s songs: Baby Let me Follow You Down
50. Other people’s songs: Gospel Plow
51. Other People’s Songs: Melancholy Mood
52. Other people’s songs: The Boxer and Big Yellow Taxi
53. Other people’s songs: Early morning rain
54. Other people’s Songs: Gotta Travel On
55. Other people’s songs: “Can’t help falling in love”
56. Other people’s songs: Lily of the West
57. Other people’s songs: Alberta
58. Other people’s songs: Little Maggie
59. Other people’s songs: Sitting on top of the world
60. Dylan’s take on “Let it be me”
61. Other people’s songs: From “Take me as I am” all the way to “Baker Street”
62. Other people’s songs: A fool such as I
63. Other people’s songs: Sarah Jane and the rhythmic changes
64. Other people’s songs: Spanish is the loving tongue. Author drawn to tears
65. Other people’s songs: The ballad of Ira Hayes
66. Other people’s songs: The usual
67. Other people’s songs: Blackjack Davey
68. Other people’s songs: You’re gonna quit me
69. Other people’s songs: You belong to me
70. Other people’s songs: Stardust
71. Other people’s songs: Diamond Joe
72. Other people’s songs: The Cuckoo
73. Other people’s songs: Come Rain or Come Shine
74. Other people’s songs: Two soldiers and an amazing discovery

By Tony Attwood

“The Man in Me” seems to be one of those songs where there is Bob’s original version, and  there are many reggae versions – and most people who have recorded the song go with following one of those two routes.   And that gives me a bit of a problem – I don’t find that much that is wonderful in the original Bob version, and I’ve never made the cultural leap that many of my friends have, in order really to appreciate reggae as an art form.

So I’ve struggled to find anything new that I really want to offer, so forgive me if you know all of these versions and have been here before.  I’ll try and do better next time.

Here’s the one that does stand out for me – but we’ve covered it before…  Emma Swift doesn’t do that much to the song, but her voice is so pure and without an artifice that it just feels right for this song.

On the other hand Vandaveer highlight what seems to me to be wrong with quite a few of the cover versions: that feeling that whatever Bob did, the cover has to do – thus the introduction.  But they do have some variations, such as the way they play the end of every fourth line by changing the rhythm.   It’s interesting… but then that’s the main thing.  They don’t overplay it, which is good but having shortened the phrase “The Man in Me” musically, is there much else?

The instrumental break has an unusual organ or syth sound, followed by the start of the next verse part unaccompanied, but it feels to me as if they are searching for differences to put in, rather than feeling them.

At least Michael Henry Martin does play a little with the accompaniment in a way that seems to fit exactly.  But… once more I find myself thinking, “is there anything else?”   Worse I have a nasty feeling that the producer felt this as well, and so re-mixed the piece with extra organ.

At least with the Pesuasions, we get them doing what they do, a beautiful a cappella version, although even here I am not sure I want to play it again.  I found my mind wandering as I pondered what it is like to be the bass singer in an a cappella ensemble just going bom bom bom bom all the time.   It takes real talent and focus, but I wonder if it doesn’t come a bit boring as a lifestyle.

And now for something completely different – although not as different as I expected.  It’s another reggae version which I’ve decided to keep in the list just because it is the Clash.  It’s not that it is not very good – not that at all.  But it is different from the rest, but perhaps I was hoping for a bit more difference.

Maybe it is just one of those songs that it is not possible to do much more with…

The Dylan Cover a Day series

1. The song with numbers in the title.
2. Ain’t Talkin
3. All I really want to do
4.  Angelina
5.  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
6. As I went out one morning
7.  Ballad for a Friend
8. Ballad in Plain D
9. Ballad of a thin man
10.  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
11. The ballad of Hollis Brown
12. Beyond here lies nothing
13. Blind Willie McTell
14.  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
15. An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
16. Blowin in the wind as never before
17. Bob Dylan’s Dream
18. BoB Dylan’s 115th Dream revisited
19. Boots of Spanish leather
20. Born in Time
21. Buckets of Rain
22. Can you please crawl out your window
23. Can’t wait
24. Changing of the Guard
25. Chimes of Freedom
26. Country Pie
27.  Crash on the Levee
28. Dark Eyes
29. Dear Landlord
30. Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
31. Dignity.
32. Dirge
33. Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
34. Don’t think twice
35.  Down along the cove
36. Drifter’s Escape
37. Duquesne Whistle
38. Farewell Angelina
39. Foot of Pride and Forever Young
40. Fourth Time Around
41. From a Buick 6
42. Gates of Eden
43. Gotta Serve Somebody
44. Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
45. Heart of Mine
46. High Water
47. Highway 61
48. Hurricane
49. I am a lonesome hobo
50. I believe in you
51. I contain multitudes
52. I don’t believe you.
53. I love you too much
54. I pity the poor immigrant. 
55. I shall be released
56. I threw it all away
57. I want you
58. I was young when I left home
59. I’ll remember you
60. Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
61. If not for you, and a rant against prosody
62. If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
63. If you see her say hello
64. Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight
65. I’m not there.
66. In the Summertime, Is your love and an amazing Isis
67. It ain’t me babe
68. It takes a lot to laugh
69. It’s all over now Baby Blue
70. It’s all right ma
71. Just Like a Woman
72. Knocking on Heaven’s Door
73. Lay down your weary tune
74. Lay Lady Lay
75. Lenny Bruce
76. That brand new leopard skin pill box hat
77. Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
78. License to kill
79. Like a Rolling Stone
80. Love is just a four letter word
81. Love Sick
82. Maggies Farm!
83. Make you feel my love; a performance that made me cry.
84. Mama you’ve been on my mind
85. Man in a long black coat.
86. Masters of War
87. Meet me in the morning
88. Million Miles. Listen, and marvel.
89. Mississippi. Listen, and marvel (again)
90. Most likely you go your way
91. Most of the time and a rhythmic thing
92. Motorpsycho Nitemare
93. Mozambique
94. Mr Tambourine Man
95. My back pages, with a real treat at the end
96. New Morning
97. New Pony. Listen where and when appropriate
98. Nobody Cept You
99. North Country Blues
100. No time to think
101. Obviously Five Believers
102. Oh Sister
103. On the road again
104. One more cup of coffee
105. (Sooner or later) one of us must know
106. One too many mornings
107. Only a hobo
108. Only a pawn in their game
109. Outlaw Blues – prepare to be amazed
110. Oxford Town
111. Peggy Day and Pledging my time
112. Please Mrs Henry
113. Political world
114. Positively 4th Street
115. Precious Angel
116. Property of Jesus
117. Queen Jane Approximately
118. Quinn the Eskimo as it should be performed.
119. Quit your lowdown ways
120. Rainy Day Women as never before
121. Restless Farewell. Exquisite arrangements, unbelievable power
122. Ring them bells in many different ways
123. Romance in Durango, covered and re-written
124. Sad Eyed Lady of Lowlands, like you won’t believe
125. Sara
126. Senor
127. A series of Dreams; no one gets it (except Dylan)
128. Seven Days
129. She Belongs to Me
130. Shelter from the Storm
131. Sign on the window
132. Silvio
133. Simple twist of fate
134. Slow Train
135. Someday Baby
136. Spanish Harlem Incident
137. Standing in the Doorway
138. Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
139. Subterranean Homesick Blues
140. Sweetheart Like You
141. Tangled up in Blue
142. Tears of Rage
143.  Temporary Like Achilles. Left in the cold, but there’s still something…
144. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar
145. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll