Untold Dylan

• The David Bromberg sessions: the missing Dylan album. Part 1: Kaatskill Serenade
• The Bloomberg sessions part 2: Polly Vaughan, Sloppy Drunk
• The lost Dylan Bromberg album part 3. The source material.

by Jochen Markhorst

We are continuing looking at songs that might have made it onto the Dylan / Bromberg album had it ever been completed and released.

11 “Northeast Texas Woman”

“Northeast Texas Woman” is probably best known in Jerry Jeff Walker’s version, for whom it is something of a signature song, but the original by cult legend Willis Alan Ramsey deserves the spotlight. Closing track of his 1972 self-titled debut album, the one with “Muskrat Candlelight”, and the one on which half of Dylan’s elite collaborators support Ramsey (Leon Russel, Carl Radle, Jim Keltner, Russ Kunkel). Bromberg also had the song on his repertoire in the seventies, and a wonderful live recording can be found on Bromberg’s Bandit In A Bathing Suit from 1978 (for obscure reasons renamed “Northeast Texas Women”).

12 “Sail On” 

There are many “Sail Ons”, but we can rule out most of them. It’s very unlikely, in any case, that Bromberg and Dylan would feel inclined to interpret the Commodores hit, for example. Beach Boys idem ditto. The best candidate, especially given the surrounding songs, is Lightnin’ Hopkins’-“Sail On, Little Girl, Sail On”, from one of his rare country blues records (Blues In My Bottle, 1961), when Samuel John “Lightnin'” Hopkins leaves his electric guitar in the case and takes up an acoustic.

13 “Can’t Lose What You Never Had” 

The Allman Brothers have made a successful coup attempt, but it is and remains a Muddy Waters song. Hard to beat. Not even, with all due respect, by Dylan & Bromberg.

14. World Of Fools 

Been on Bromberg’s set list for decades, and the studio recording on Only Slightly Mad (2013) is the crowning glory. Wonderful sixties vibe. Sounds like it should have been the B-side to Richard Harris’ “MacArthur Park”.

15. Everybody’s Crying Mercy 

The immortal Mose Allison is rarely seen in Dylan’s oeuvre, and seems to be a soulmate of Bromberg. Any Mose song will do, and this is certainly not a bad choice for a Dylan & Bromberg session – but “Rolling Stone” would have been nicer, of course.

16. Tennessee Blues 

From the same corner as Ramsey’s “Northeast Texas Woman”: Bobby Charles’ “Tennessee Blues”. DJ Dylan plays his “He’s Got All The Whiskey” on Theme Time Radio Hour (in the bonus broadcast “Whiskey” in 2020), a song that appears on the same self-titled 1972 debut album as the brilliant “Tennessee Blues”. Charles was part of the Woodstock entourage – hence the men from The Band playing along. “Another guy who likes simple was our good friend Bobby Charles. He never got fancy, but he always got his point across,” says the DJ appreciatively.

Dylan’s buddy Doug Sahm recorded the song too, by the way (released on Texas Tornado, 1973), during the sessions to which both Dylan and Bromberg contributed.

17 Summer Wages 

Another old Bromberg song, written by Ian Tyson. With a strong tears in my beer vibe, which Dylan does not feel is beneath him, as we know.

https://youtu.be/Rrkgk7yhgrw

18 Casey Jones 

The Grateful Dead song is a candidate, but given the surrounding songs, the primal version, the nineteenth-century folk song, is more likely. DJ Dylan plays both the Grateful Dead song and the 1940s Jubalaires’, but neither seems a candidate for a Dylan & Bromberg approach. Johnny Cash’s beauty from 1963 is already a better one, but Mississippi John Hurt’s version is the most likely.

19 Morning Blues 

A first association is of course the monument “Good Morning Blues” by Leadbelly. But after “Sail On, Little Girl, Sail On”, another Lightnin’ Hopkins song is more likely. Moreover, the title would then be completely correct.

—————–

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

By Allan Cheskes

Dylan only recorded two songs in 2005. “Tell Ol’ Bill” was one of them and Tony Attwood whose work I admire, puts this song, musically and lyrically, at the pinnacle of Dylan’s prolific song output. Out of esteem for Mr. Attwood, I included some coverage of Tel Ol’ Bill in my Dylan music appreciation course, but I must admit, my heart was not in it.

It was easier for me to get my arms around the second song Dylan recorded in 2005, Can’t Escape From You which Tony is puzzled by when comparing it to Tell Ol Bill. For him, Can’t Escape From You is musically, too simple and the lyrics lack punch and loses interest along the way.

I believe there is an intangible and subjective quality in evaluating music and even the lyrics. From my perspective, this song deserves more attention.

I agree with Margotin and Guesdon in Bob Dylan, All The Songs, that this “is a romantic song, but with a dark message (“All my dreams have gone away”). It is reminiscent of the rhythmic structure of My Prayer, by the Platters:

For me, Can’t Escape From You, is nostalgic.  Since Time Out of Mind, I think Dylan has given up on the old world, or at least has given up the fight to try and change it. He freely draws inspiration from the past. His songs during his classic phase focus less on the future and more on the past, where he can at least draw some comfort, although many times, this comes with painful reminders of love lost and regrettable mistakes.

Through the album, Time Out Mind, I thought Dylan was struggling with his faith in G-d, but at the end of the album, he reached a “eureka” moment with the realization that he can still cling to G-d, not by conventional religion, but simply through music. In his own way, I think that is where Dylan has comfortably settled in.

Let’s chew on the first verse:

“Oh, the evening train is rollin'
All along the homeward way
All my hopes are over the horizon
All my dreams have gone away”

The first utterance is “oh”, which is gratuitous except that it conveys, in my mind, an acceptance or resignation of what is to come

What is coming is “the evening train (which) is rollin’”. The train is just “rollin’”, so it is like A Slow Train Coming, except it is not coming, necessarily, for all of humankind, but coming for DYLAN, personally. (“DYLAN” is the made-up narrator, a character or actor in a role, Dylan adds to each song). “All along the homeward way”, in my mind, triggers, All Along the Watchtower, but again, this is not a message necessarily for all of humankind that G-d is coming for them, but that G-d is coming for DYLAN. With the line, “All my hopes are over the horizon”, one thinks of Beyond the Horizon, which soon follows this song in the upcoming Modern Times album. Just like in the Beyond the Horizon, “over the horizon” likely means beyond life on earth. If “all (his) hopes” are there, then DYLAN is hopeful of an afterlife.

In his current life on earth, there is no future, as “All (his) dreams have gone away”. Again, DYLAN’s focus is no longer on changing the future in this world.

The next verse also gives us something to chew on:

“The hillside darkly shaded
Stars fallin' from above
All the joys of earth have faded
The night's untouched, my love”

With “The hillside darkly shaded”, like the reference in Cold Irons Bound to a muddy hillside, Dylan steps away from the common use in literature of a hillside being a backdrop for blooming flowers and carefree summers in love. The hillside is “shaded” paints a gloomy image. (In Dirt Road Blues, DYLAN is also near the end of his life journey, also “looking at (his) shadow”. A star usually symbolizes, in many cultures, divinity and hope. For example, the Star of Bethlehem. However, a falling star, could metaphorically mean in some cultures, bad luck or that something is ending or even an ascent to heaven.

That is the meaning I derive in “Stars fallin’ from above/ All the joys of earth have faded”. The last line of the second verse, for the first time, references “my love,” and at least allows for some, perhaps little time, left on this earth, as “The night’s untouched”. (Is this the time needed to repair a lost relationship?) At this point, it would not be hard to guess that “my love” is DYLAN’s lost love. (Dylan has a proclivity for the “Lost love” theme during his classic phase of writing songs).

Rolling along, as Dylan would say, to the third verse:

“I'll be here 'til tomorrow
Beneath a shroud of gray
I pretend I'm free of sorrow
My heart is miles away”

“Beneath a shroud”, makes me think of the Jewish custom to bury all Jews in a simple white shroud. DYLAN is not quite buried though, because he is not beneath a white shroud. However, we get the sense that DYLAN is close to being buried. From this verse, we know DYLAN is in despair and he is removed from the world. His “heart is miles away” echoes Million Miles (away) in Time Out of Mind.

In the fourth verse, the train is near:

“The dead bells are ringing
My train is overdue
To your memory I'm clingin'
I can't escape from you”

In Ring Them Bells, the bells are a warning from G-d. “Dead bells” are more like the bells that ring at churches to announce the death of someone. DYLAN’s bells are ringing as his “train is overdue.” The last lines of the verse, suggests DYLAN is suffering from lovesickness, in the memory of a lost relationship.

In the fifth verse, we can understand where Dylan’s head space is at:

“Well, I hear the sound of thunder
Roaring loud and long
Sometimes you got to wonder
God knows I've done no wrong”

“Thunder”, “roaring” and “God” references, again makes me think of Thunder on The Mountain in Dylan’s upcoming album, Modern Times. However, this time, the stern and loud message from G-d is directed at DYLAN personally, even as he seemingly pleads his case that he has done nothing wrong.

In the song, especially beginning in the next verse, I get the feeling that Dylan’s writing might be personal. Is DYLAN, Dylan in this song? I try not to fall into this trap where many people interpret Dylan songs to be personal, about himself and others he intimately knows, much to Dylan’s chagrin. Sometimes though, Dylan has only himself to blame as the writings can be taken as indicative of his personal life. As he is addressing “you” in the song, is DYLAN talking to Dylan in the next and sixth verse:

“Have you wasted all your power
You threw out the Christmas pie
Now you're withering like a flower
You'll play the fool and die”

With all his gained fame and power that comes with it, is Dylan or DYLAN is asking himself if he has wasted it? Throwing “out the Christmas pie” might mean he is no longer celebrating Christmas as Christmas pie is associated with that Christian holiday. Like a flower that is fragile and temporary, now the time is coming to an end.

This last verse is very powerful for me because I connect it to Psalm 49, which traditionally, in Judaism, is recited in mourning, immediately after a loved one’s death. Let’s look at some lines from this Psalm which I gather from the Silverman edition:

“They who rely on their worldly power,/ And boast of their great wealth,/Verily, not one of them can save himself from death/ By offering God a ransom for his life.”

Also from Psalm 49:

“Can man expect to live forever/ And never go down to the grave-/ When he sees that even the wise die, / Just as the fool and the knave do perish;/ And all leave their wealth to others?”

Clearly and humorously, DYLAN doesn’t see himself as wise as “You’ll play the fool and die”. He also realizes that despite his power and fame, he will not take his wealth with him when he dies. When a community of Jews recite this prayer in memory of the dead, one is really reading this prayer for oneself and collectively, to remind us that we all shall die. Reciting the prayer also forms a spiritual bond with our lost personal relationships and our collective past. This latter concept ties directly with the song’s title, Can’t Escape From You.

• Peggy Day (1969) part 1: The head of the snake
• Peggy Day (1969) part 2 : A benevolent appearance

by Jochen Markhorst

III         This record tears out your backbone

Paris Jackson, Michael’s daughter, is very angry. “I’m so incredibly offended by it, as i’m sure plenty of people are as well, and it honestly makes me want to vomit,” she tweets on Wednesday 11 January 2017. The outburst doesn’t relieve her as yet; moments later, she twitters on: “it angers me to see how obviously intentional it was for them to be this insulting, not just towards my father, but my godmother liz as well.” And nephew Taj Jackson also chips in: “No words could express the blatant disrespect.” The anger has been triggered by, incredibly, the honourable Ralph Fiennes. Specifically, by the makers of the terrific Sky Arts series Urban Myths, who have announced the airing of the episode “Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon”, a light-hearted portrayal of an alleged road-trip taken by Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson. The in itself intriguing fact that the King of Pop is played by the white Ralph Fiennes proves unpalatable.

Sky Arts is discouraged by all the fuss, and cancels the episode, sadly. The controversy somewhat overshadows the success of the series. A week after the shitstorm on Twitter, on 19 January 2017, is the broadcast of the first episode, that will turn out to be one of the most successful: “Knockin’ On Dave’s Door”. Which is a “true-ish” staging of the apocryphal story of Dylan visiting Dave Stewart in London in 1987, but ringing the wrong doorbell. The lady who opens the door does not recognise him and says “Dave” has been called away. This Dave is, of course, another Dave altogether. Bob gets a cuppa tea and is allowed to wait for “Dave” in the front room.  The episode is packed with small, witty, well-documented references to Dylan’s biography, and here in the front room the next one follows: Billy Lee Riley, Dylan’s rockabilly hero.

“Dylan” (great role by Eddie Marsan) rummages through the record collection, finds a Billy Lee Riley LP and soon “Red Hot” is blaring through the small working-class house at 145 Crouch Hill. Ange, the lady of the house, enters to check on things.

“This record tears out your backbone and kinda makes you feel grateful that it did all at the same time!” shouts “Dylan” above the music, a beautiful paraphrase of Dylan’s actual words in the MusiCares Speech, 2015:

“So Billy became what is known in the industry – a condescending term, by the way – as a one-hit wonder. But sometimes, just sometimes, once in a while, a one-hit wonder can make a more powerful impact than a recording star who’s got 20 or 30 hits behind him. And Billy’s hit song was called “Red Hot,” and it was red hot. It could blast you out of your skull and make you feel happy about it. Change your life. He did it with power and style and grace.”

Ange can also appreciate Billy Lee. Still: “It’s a great album, yes, but I prefer No Name Girl.” Bob looks at Ange for a moment, then turns off “Red Hot”, closes his eyes and sings “The girl I got ain’t got no name.” Amused, Ange sings along, which takes us to the bridge of “Peggy Day”:

The girl I love ain't got no name
But I love her just the same
She's a little peculiar but it ain't no sin
She never know where she going but know were she's been

… and Dylan sighs in conclusion: “Oh man, he was a real deal.”

The bridge of “Peggy Day” offers, at least in terms of content, the only peculiar verse of the song;

Well, you know that even before I learned her name
You know I loved her just the same
An’ I tell ’em all, wherever I may go
Just so they’ll know, that she’s my little lady
And I love her so

… insinuating that the name Peggy Day is so overwhelming that you inevitably fall in love with its bearer – but as it so happens, Peggy is lovely to such an inconceivable extent that I fell in love with her even before I learned her name. Peculiar. Nameless ladies are often enough sung about, and usually it is considered a factor that contributes to the attractiveness of the lady. Adding to her mysteriousness, something like that. The best known is probably “The French Girl” by Ian & Sylvia, a song for which Dylan has an abiding fascination. He played it in ’67 in the Basement, rehearsed it in 1987 with the Grateful Dead (but eventually cut it from the setlist), the French girl appears in “Stuck Inside Of Mobile”, and twenty years later again in “Dark Eyes”. And she never gets a name, in line with Ian Tyson’s primal French Girl;

So you may find above the border
A girl with silver rings, I never knew her name
You're bound to lose, she's too much for you
She'll leave you lost one rainy morn, you won't be the same

A beautiful, melancholic song, by the way, which somehow Dylan just can’t get hold of. The unforgettable Gene Clark does a better job – especially on the stereo remix of 1991, from which the hideous backing vocals from the mono original of 1967 have fortunately been radically cut out.

Anyway, there are many ladies who, like their male counterpart tall dark stranger, apparently become all the more exciting when we don’t know her name. “East Virginia Blues”, the song Dylan will play with Earl Scruggs in May 1970 (There I met the fairest maiden and her name I did not know), The Stones’ “Silver Train”, Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy Song”… but the superlative is, obviously, Steve Winwood’s indestructible masterpiece for Traffic, “No Face, No Name, No Number” (1967);

 Dylan himself has also been toying around with that sought-after mystery of anonymity before, in “Outlaw Blues” (1965);

I got a woman in Jackson,
I ain't gonna say her name
She's a brown-skin woman,
But I love her just the same

… where it is of course striking that Dylan uses an identical line in “Peggy Day” to arrive at the rhyme; “I loved her just the same” versus “I love her just the same”. It reinforces the impression that the illogic of the bridge is due to uninspired rhyming, cutting and pasting by an improvising Dylan. Indeed, in both takes, the official one from Nashville Skyline and the first take found on CD1 of Travelin’ Thru: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 1967-1969 (2019), we hear Dylan stumble and hesitate a bit, and both versions deviate from the published lyrics in the same place;

Well you know ever even before I learned her name

… Dylan sings on Nashville Skyline. And in that first take on Travelin’ Thru:

Well you know ever since before I learned her name

Clumsy. And just as clumsy, in fact, as rhyming with Billy Lee Riley’s “I loved her just the same” – a phrase used only to express “but still”. Like in Deep Purple’s “Hush” (She broke my heart but I love her just the same), in Conway Twitty’s “Hey Miss Ruby” (She don’t love me but I love her just the same), in The Everly Brothers’ heck of a melodrama “Rockin’ Alone” (The ones who forgot her she loves just the same), and in Dylan’s own “Outlaw Blues”, not least – just to name a few. Always songs, anyway, where the “I love her just the same” phrasing communicates a perfectly logical “yet”-message. More coherent than this weird variation in “Peggy Day”, the variation that seems to want to express in a failed way that it was love at first sight, that Peggy had already stolen my heart before I got to know her.

Yeah well, Dylan seems to think, while stumbling over his words.  It’s just an album filler. I’ll never play it again anyhow. But just to be sure, he steers back to safe, uncomplicated country clichés to complete the bridge.  “My little lady” from Jimmie Rodgers’ “My Rough And Rowdy Ways”, “I love her so” from thousands of songs, a snippet of Stanley Brothers (wherever I may go from “Riding That Midnight Train”)… no, this one won’t earn him a Nobel Prize. But what the heck.

To be continued. Next up: Peggy Day part 4

—————–

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

by Larry Fyffe

Along with classics of literature, singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan draws from the deep well of country music:

For I never knew the art of making love
Though my heart aches with love for you
Afraid and shy, I let my chance go by
The chance that you might have loved me too
(Cindy Walker: You Don't Know Me)

In his rendition beneath, the lyrics are manned-up a bit:

For I never knew the art of making love
For my heart it burns for you
Alone and shy, I let my chance go by
The chance that you would love me too
(Bob Dylan: You Don't Know Me ~ C. Walker)

https://youtu.be/GXxNPe04aCY

Later on, the song gets souped up; flipped over in modern times:

I've been sitting down studying in the art of love
I think it will fit me like a glove
I want some real good woman to do just what I say
Everybody got to wonder what's the matter with this
cruel world today

(Bob Dylan: Thunder On The Mountain

The romantic feeling of old turns cold:

Don’t talk to me about men

Just fill up my glass again
I want to forget every man that I met
And the trouble that they've got me in
Don't mention love to me
I know the game from A to Zee
I'll carry the torch until there's just a scorch
In the place where my heart ought to be
(Cindy Walker: Don't Talk To Me About Men)

Echoed in the cynical lyrics below:

When a man he serves the Lord
It makes his life worthwhile
It don't matter 'bout his position
Don't matter 'bout his lifestyle
Talk about perfection
I ain't never seen none
And there ain't no man that's righteous
No not one
(Bob Dylan: Ain't No Man Righteous, No Not One)

That’s just the way reality is; not the way it’s transcendentally depicted to be:

Across the way they call me
And I'm lonesome, and so blue
For the blue Canadian Rockies
And the one I love so true
(Cindy Walker: The Blue Canadian Rockies)

Time marches on; it’s time to get real.

Sentimentalism be damned.

So says the narrator in the following song lyrics

And the sun is coming up over the Rockies
Now I know she ain't you, but she's here
And she's got that dark rhythm in her soul
But I'm too far over the edge
And I ain't in the mood anymore
To remember the times when I was your only man
(Bob Dylan: Brownsville Girl ~ Dylan/Shepard)

———————–

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published once or twice a day.  Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

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• An index to the Never Ending Tour series of articles can be found here.

So far in 2003….

• 2003 part 1 
• 2003 part 2
• 2003, part 3
• 2003, part 4

By Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet)

The more we dig into 2003, the fifteenth year of the NET, the more treasures we unearth. You might think that, given the last four posts have covered some fifty-two performances from that year, we would have run out of material, but that’s not so. I have enough interesting material for another two posts, and I’m nowhere near the bottom of the barrel. It’s a hard year to leave behind, but I hope that by now you can understand why this is one of my favourite years of the NET. (Other favourite years are 1989, 1995 and 2000.)

I’ve no particular logic or theme for this post, so I’m just going to kick off with a couple of performances that caught my attention and follow my nose from there.

That ever-reliable rocker ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ is guaranteed to pump up the energy. Dylan’s on the piano but you don’t hear much of it, it is very much about arse-kicking guitar work, and you get plenty of it here (23^rd August Niagara Falls). This song has never lost its wild, anarchic edge; the lyrics come hurling at you out of a fast-paced whirl of sound. I’m glad Dylan’s never tried to tame this song, in which we find all the sinister madness of the modern world.

Rovin' gambler, he was very bored
Tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
"I never did engage in this kind of thing before
But yeah, I think it can be very easily done"

Dylan mounts a scathing attack on the mindless materialism of the age with vicious satirical humour:

Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
"I got forty red, white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things?"

Highway 61 Revisited (A)

However you might prefer this version from Berlin (20^th Oct). Even though the Niagara Falls recording is sharper, Dylan’s Berlin vocal might have the edge, and the piano is a little more evident. Anyway, it’s fun trying to figure out which is the best.

Highway 61 Revisited (B)

If we want to keep up the pace, we can’t do better than drop into Hammersmith (24^th November) for a catchy performance of ‘Tough Mama’ which is a wonderful tribute to a woman. It’s worth keeping in mind that while Dylan wrote his share of ‘attack’ songs, in which a woman comes under fire (‘Rolling Stone,’ ‘Just Like a Woman,’ ‘Positively 4^th Street’) he has also written some tender tribute songs in praise of a woman (‘Shelter from the Storm,’ ‘Sara,’ and ‘Girl from the North Country’).

‘Tough Mamma’ has its own tough tenderness. A song full of admiration and praise.

Ashes in the furnace, dust on the rise,
You came through it all the way
flyin' through the skies.
Dark beauty
With that long night's journey in your eyes.

Tough Mama

While in Hammersmith, let’s stay for ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,’ a song straight out of Dylan’s early protest period when he was still writing topical protest songs, a song that earns huge praise from Christopher Ricks in his Dylan’s Visions of Sin. Ricks’ argument is that Dylan’s performance of the song on the album (Times They Are A-Changing) reaches a perfection that could never be matched in later performances.

‘Every song, by definition, is realized only in performance. True. A more elusive matter is whether every song is suited to re-performance…What (for me) is gained in a particular re-performing of this particular song, has always fallen short of what had to be sacrificed. Any performance, like any translation, necessitates sacrifice…Does it not make sense then to believe, or to argue, that Dylan’s realizing of Hattie Carroll was perfect, a perfect song perfectly rendered once and for all.’ (Ricks, p 15)

Ricks sees performances of the song as ‘translations’ from the perfect original found on the album. It is therefore unlikely that Ricks would enjoy this 2003 performance of the song, which has been completely rearranged for the piano. In the spirit of Ricks we have to ask if the piano riff, a little on the dumpty-dum side, that sets the tempo, offers the best structure for the lyrics. Dylan’s half-spoken, hushed performance maybe a little too emphatic, a little rushed perhaps? Something less than perfection?

(On the other hand, of course, we could say that the album version is just another performance in a string of nearly 300 performances to date, and that perfection is an illusion, like my constant discovery of ‘best ever’ performances of certain songs…)

Hattie Carroll

It seems natural to move from ‘Hattie Carroll’ to ‘Hard Rain.’ Both are protest songs, but ‘Hard Rain’ has a much wider range. Some of the imagery is very direct, ‘I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,’ and some images are elusive, ‘I saw a white ladder all covered in water,’ but all together they make up the most powerfully prophetic song ever written.

This recording comes from the London concert (25^th Nov). Again, those dark bluesy chords on the piano swing the song along. Dylan uses the same singing style as he does for ‘Hattie Carroll’, starting off half talking, a little breathless, hushed and intimate, slowly building up as the song progresses. When we get to the last verse, note how Dylan uses upsinging and downsinging, in contrast, to raise the dramatic tension. A wonderful vocal climax.

Hard Rain

Let’s stay in the sixties for the next one, ‘Tombstone Blues’, another song which, like ‘Highway 61 Revisited’, has a wild, anarchic edge and is best played fast, the  surreal images flashing by almost before you can catch them. When, in Shadow Kingdom (2021),Dylan sang the song in a slow, solemn, measured, sepulchral voice, as if it were a classical composition, the effect was quite dissonant. I might ask Professor Ricks, is this the way the song should sound? Surely it should sound more like this, driven by fast vamping on the piano, back of the throat vocals, letting it rip.

Tombstone Blues

Here he uses it to kick off the Niagara Falls concert.

‘Don’t Think Twice’ is a song Dylan has played both fast and slow, with some peppy performances back in 1964, and more mournful performances in the 90’s.

As I’ve suggested before, the instruction to ‘don’t think twice’ is really an invitation to do so, and the song works the edge of this paradox. Interestingly here (sorry, date unknown) Dylan leaves the piano and returns to the guitar for this fine mid-tempo performance. Again we face the issue of Dylan’s upsinging, which many of his fans find infuriating. I can hear, in these raised notes, origins of Dylan’s later crooning, the octave jumping style he’ll need to handle Frank Sinatra songs. I also note as before that judiciously used upsinging can contrast with downsinging, balance the vocal and the emotion of the song. I think it works okay here, he’s in such good voice, but it is noticeable.

Don’t Think Twice

The issue rises again in this Red Bluff performance of ‘One Too Many Mornings,’ a song I often like to pair with ‘Don’t Think Twice’ as they both seem to come from the same place, from the same basket.  If you think twice you might end up feeling the way Dylan does in this song. Again, he keeps off the piano and, in doing so, makes these performances of his acoustic material sound more like the Dylan of old, the Dylan his audience is nostalgic for, one kid and his guitar against the world… but the upsinging…?

One too many mornings

When you boil it down, even though it’s steeped in regret, ‘One Too Many Mornings’ is a love song. Although he is accused of it, Dylan never lost the power to write love songs. ‘I’ve Made Up My Mind,’ from Rough and Rowdy Ways is an exquisite love song, as is ‘To Make You Feel My Love’ from Time Out of Mind (1997).

Adele’s perfect performance of this song has thrown Dylan’s own performances into the shadow, but, if I may say so, perhaps Adele’s performance is a little too perfect, a little too smooth. This performance from Niagara Falls (23^rd August) is certainly not smooth, but Dylan’s gentle vamping on the piano suits the song and the era it evokes better than guitars do. A rare and unexpected harp break at the end sounds sad and frail. And that much-reviled upsinging… it’s as if he were trying to pull the emotion of the song up out of the mire of that very same sadness.

To make you feel my love

‘Every Grain of Sand’ could be read as a love song, to that invisible presence that animates it.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, at times it’s only me

This song sounds best slow and stately, with a melancholy undertone. It well suits the big, rich piano chords Dylan puts behind it. I’ve got two offerings of this song. The first is from Berlin and, although the sound is a little muted, it’s a fine performance, with a rare harp break to introduce it.

 Every Grain of Sand (A)

The second one, from Paris (13^th Nov), is more clearly recorded. Another powerful performance, with the harp break at the end. This hushed, intimate, half-talking  epitomizes the best of Dylan’s 2003 vocal style. A great place to end this post.

Every Grain of Sand (B)

Until next time.

Kia Ora

———————–

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published once or twice a day.  Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with over 14,000 members.

By Tony Attwood with data provided by Jochen Markhorst and Aaron Galbraith

Note, due to the publisher’s incompetence the recording of “Rock me Baby” was omitted originally. It has now been added.  Sorry about that.

By Aaron Galbraith (in the USA) and Tony Attwood (in the UK).

Aaron: Bob once described himself as a song and dance man. I thought I’d take that literally this time!

So, first up the Songs!

Only A Pawn in their Game – Bob performed the song at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom before Martin Luther Kings famous “I have a dream speech”.

“I looked up from the podium and I thought to myself, ‘I’ve never seen such a large crowd.’ I was up close when King was giving that speech. To this day, it still affects me in a profound way.”

Tony: I love the way Bob, at this young age, can just get on up on this extraordinary occasion and go straight into the song, without any preparation, no comment, no sign of nerves, straight in.   This is really a most extraordinary film from every angle – the occasion, the importance of the event, the fact that it is the start of Dylan’s career.

Dylan in fact always has had the ability to appear without any nerves and deliver.  It is amazing from every angle, whichever way you look and listen.  I find it utterly moving.

Aaron:  Mr Tambourine Man – Bob performed the song in 1964 at the Newport Folk Festival. Luckily it was captured on film and included as part of the documentary The Other Side Of The Mirror.

Tony: A nice bit of fun with “Where is Bob” and the microphone man who didn’t realise Bob is only 5 feet 6 inches tall, so the mics have to be lowered a bit.

But more seriously, the comment above (and you’ll know if you’ve been following the series, Aaron delivers the clips and I just write up my odd notes as I listen and watch – I knew that training as a touch typist would come in useful one day) about Bob having no nerves in terms of performance is so apparent.

Indeed I suppose it is utterly obvious: no one who suffered from nerves would create the Never Ending Tour.  Performing is, I guess, what motivates and energises Bob Dylan – rather an obvious thing to say but it only just occurred to me.

I do enjoy these early performances with a respectful audience.  If you listen to the performances that Michael covers in the “Never Ending Tour” series you’ll realise how noisy the crowd can be at a Dylan show.  As others have commented before me many times, “Why do people go to a Dylan concert and talk all the way through it?” and apart from making very personal comments about their psychological problems, I have no idea.

So truly good to see an audience that knows how to listen.

Aaron: And now for the Dance!

I found this recently and thought it might be right up Tony’s street! I’m really looking forward to reading his thoughts on this!!

In 1978 Dylan had a sizable UK hit single on his hands with Baby Stop Crying (#13). This meant an appearance on “Top Of The Pops” was on offer. Unfortunately, Bob was not available to appear. Those of us about at this time know what that meant…that’s right…Legs & Co.!!

Over to you Tony!

Tony:  Before digitisation came along TV stations were licenced by the government in the UK.  Initially with the government funded BBC as the monopoly supplier and then with the one licensed commercial channel ITV.   Which meant that we got a very limited amount of pop and rock music on TV (and indeed radio) in the country – the one main pop TV programme being Top of the Pops where performers mimed their current hit to the record.

However not every artist was available, and so each week on song was danced to by the resident dance company.

Now I am going to go on a bit of a meander talking about dance, which I hope you’ll stay with (but I thought I would warn you about, since this doesn’t have anything to do with Dylan, but does explain why Aaron picked up on this(.

I should explain, (in case you haven’t caught up on the issue), that besides running this blog I work professionally as a writer, which means sitting at my desk through the day writing away at the computer.  And since this has been my life for many years, I long ago realised that if I was going to avoid complete atrophy of all muscles and a significant increase in my waist size, I would need to keep up with what had been my hobby in my youth: dancing  Not of the type we see here, but what is known in England (and maybe elsewhere) modern jive.   Which means that it has many more variations than 1950s jive, and a much more inventive part for the lead (usually but not always, the man) and is much more practical a dance for older people.  (And I mean older).

Fortunately, in England, we have a very large number of jive clubs and I tend to dance for two or three hours maybe four or five evenings a week.  I was in south Birmingham last night, and will in be the small East Midlands town of Melton Mowbray tonight, dancing at a modern jive club.  And where there is a modern dance show (which is of course quite different from modern jive) on somewhere, I do go and watch.  So that’s the explanation.

Anyway, one of my thoughts on what we have here, is that it is an arrangement that is written more to show off what the dancers can do, rather than anything that fits with the concept of the music.  And I don’t mean that the dancers should describe in movement what the lyrics are saying (although that does happen here when Dylan sings “go down to the river babe” and the ladies in blue come on doing swimming motions and I really find that a bit naff).

But since I am here writing, and it is just possible that you are still there reading, I would take an opportunity to say something about dance, because it has been an absolute lifesaver for me (literally), always knowing that if things were not working out in my personal affairs, or at work or whatever, I could always go out that evening and lose myself in dance.  And lose myself is what I mean: from the moment of the first dance I am taken into another world.  (And it is lot better for one’s health than going to a bar for a drink).

I should also add that in modern jive clubs in the UK the tradition is that people change partners throughout the evening – last night I guess I danced with about 20 different ladies; although tonight it will only be one, but that’s a different issue, which delicacy forbids me to cover here.

Of course, most of my friends are not dancers, and many of them know that I was a musician and then became a writer, and that now I dance for enjoyment.  So occasionally the situation has arisen in which with friends at a party we’ve chatted about such things.  If I talk about being a musician the common answer is “I always wish my mother had made me keep on practising the piano when I was young”.   With writing it is “I always thought I could write a book”.   But with dance it is “I can’t do that: two left feet”.

Yet dance is so much much easier to learn and enjoy in the company of others than other art forms.  I’ve made so many friends through dance, it keeps one fit, and which gives everyone who does it a real buzz. Better still modern jive dance is not that hard to learn; certainly, you can have more fun more quickly with dance than you can with being a writer (very solitary) or a musician (hours and hours and hours of practising, and if with a band, arguing.)

So just from my own perspective, if you ever feel a bit lonely, or in need of a way of keeping fit that is actually enjoyable and not tedious, you could try modern jive.

All of which has nothing to do with Dylan, and I’ll hope you’ll excuse that, but it’s not very often I meander quite so much off-topic.   Thanks for the opportunity Aaron.

Dylan released and unreleased: the series

• Part 1: Dylan Released and Unreleased
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: 2 – The usual, Pretty Boy, People get ready.
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: 3 – Hard to Handle the full one hour video
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 4: from the nursery to looking back
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: Girl From the North Country
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: Quest
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 7: Down along the cove
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 8: The Compilation Albums
• Dylan released and unreleased 9: the Galas
• Dylan released and unreleased 10: Soundstage, The World of John Hammond
• Bob Dylan Released and Unreleased 11. 1963: Westinghouse.
• Dylan Released and Unreleased part 12: the one-offs
• Dylan released and unreleased: the lost TV appearances
• Dylan: the released and unreleased duets
• Bob Dylan released and unreleased: the late night TV shows
• Dylan- Released/Unreleased- Clearwater 1976
• Dylan released and unreleased: the tribute concerts
• Bob Dylan Released and unreleased: Leyendas de la Guitarra (and Richard Thompson)

By Tony Attwood

A list of past episodes from this series is given at the end.

I must admit to being ready to skip over this particular song in this series of articles because I simply couldn’t imagine what one could do to the work by way of variation, without destroying the integrity of the lyrics.  And if you going to read this little piece all the way through may I ask you to recall that opening comment when you get to the end.

Certainly, listening to a multiplicity of covers today, I think most of the artists who have taken the project and whose recordings are noted below, have thought about that a lot too.

And with this collection I am stunned by what some of them have done.  After all the melody is very distinctive, the lyrics demand the slow plodding tune (to do anything else turns the whole song into nonsense) but even so hearing what a few artists have done with really valiant attempts to deliver the song in a different way is worthwhile.  And that’s before considering a band that has deliberately turned it all upside down.

In fact, to my surprise, there is a surprisingly large number of such covers which do actually try and rework the piece in a new way, either while or without retaining the message of the lyrics.  In fact doing anything meaningful with this song turns out to be a very difficult task, yet some do, and deliver a result far beyond anything I could imagine.

Interesting that the video above looks like one that might be set up by the amateur performers who get themselves on google page one by creating endless videos of themselves playing Dylan tracks.

But no, give the man time. It’s the video that is misleading – unless you know this band of highly talented multi-instrumentalists.   And it is the accompaniment that really makes this recording – not that the double-tracked vocalist doesn’t do an excellent job, it is just the inventiveness behind him that really makes this version happen.

They take the plodding nature of the song to its ultimate and contrast that with the choral effects.  One of those recordings I am not sure I will ever play again, but will remember for a long old time.

Valdemar featuring Ulf Dageby & Totta put this recording on their wonderfully named album “Not Dark Yet In Gothenburg”, and I think it is worth mentioning them just for that name.   The slowness is beguiling at first, but ultimately I’m left thinking, “OK I’ve got what you are doing… but can you do something else now?  They are on the way to that point, but somehow didn’t quite turn the final page.

If you have found yourself reading a variety of my ramblings on this site, you’ll know that Thea Gilmore’s reworking of the entire Dylan album contains (in my view) one of the greatest reworking of a Dylan song ever (Drifter’s Escape).  And the opening chord here is exactly the same as on that extraordinary cover.  She must have known that Escape was the absolute highlight of the album.

The plodding nature of the song is kept, but is made fully acceptable and indeed entertaining by what the band does, and of course by the beauty of the singer’s voice and expression.   Somehow without me noticing how she removes then removes that plodding nature of the song – and that despite the percussion giving us a reminder of the beat throughout.  I think it is once again that extraordinary lead guitar performance.  I would urge you to listen all the way through – if for nothing else than to catch the instrumental verse, and what Thea does after it.  To say it is “very moving” is to underplay it far too much, but I’m not sure what else to say.

It’s four and three-quarter minutes long – do listen all the way through if you can.

OK after that I had to find something completely different.  What troubles me here is the lead guitar in between each vocal line.  I really wonder if the performer quite knew what he was doing.   I guess so, in which case I wonder what the other instrumentalists thought of it all.

For me it is a perfect example of a producer’s idea (“can’t we have a bit of guitar in the background to keep it going?”) which should have been rejected but never was.  (These producers can be wretched fellows if left to  their own devices!)

Last one for today and it is included because of the way the musicians extend every bar and every line.  For the first couple of bars it feels like it isn’t going to work at all, and then the percussion comes in and yes, and for a moment I wonder, but then quite remarkably it does work – and how!  It turns into a song with extended vocal lines but a really fund bouncy instrumentation.

Of course it only works if you don’t listen to the lyrics, if you do you’ll probably think, “what does this music have to do with

That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with every breath
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise, fears his death

But then, if you can, just think of those lyrics when listening to the instrumental break.  It is an absolute scream, and if I were in a band now I think I’d be saying, “hey let’s do this song in this way”.   Except that I am not too sure the audience would quite get it.  But still, I think it would be a hell of a laugh for the musicians.

Oh and just listen to the way it ends.  What a hoot (when one remembers the lyrics).  All the fun of the fair indeed.  Who cares about the lyrics!

———————–

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published twice a day –  sometimes more, sometimes less.  Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with over 14,000 members.

• Dylan cover of the day: Number 1. The song with numbers in the title.
• Dylan cover of the day. No 2: Ain’t Talkin
• Bob Dylan cover of the day No3: All I really want to do
• Dylan cover of the day No4: Angelina
• Dylan covers of the day No 5. Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
• Cover version of the day No 6: As I went out one morning
• Dylan cover of the day No 7: Ballad for a Friend
• Dylan Cover of the Day No 8: Ballad in Plain D
• Dylan Cover of the Day No 9: Ballad of a thin man
• Dylan cover No. 10: The stunning reworking of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• Dylan cover of the day No 11: The ballad of Hollis Brown
• A Dylan cover a day No 12: Beyond here lies nothing
• Dylan cover of the day No 13: Blind Willie McTell
• Dylan Cover of the Day 14: Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
• Dylan Cover of the Day 15: An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
• Dylan Cover of the Day 16: Blowin in the wind as never before
• Dylan Cover of the Day 17: Bob Dylan’s Dream
• Dylan Cover of the Day 18: You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
• Dylan cover of the day 19: Boots of Spanish leather
• Dylan cover of the day 20: Born in Time
• Dylan cover of the day 21: Buckets of Rain
• Dylan cover of the day: 22 Can you please crawl out your window
• Dylan cover of the day 23: Can’t wait
• Dylan Cover of the Day 24: Changing of the Guard
• Dylan Cover of the Day 25: Chimes of Freedom
• Dylan cover a day 34: Country Pie
• Dylan Cover of the Day 33: Crash on the Levee
• Dylan cover a day 35: Dark Eyes
• Dylan Cover of the Day 26: Dear Landlord
• Dylan cover of the Day 27: Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
• Dylan cover of the Day 28: Dignity.
• Dylan Cover of the Day 29: Dirge
• Dylan Cover of the Day 30: Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
• Dylan cover a Day 31: Don’t think twice
• Dylan cover a day 32: Down along the cove
• Dylan cover – recovered 33: Drifter’s Escape
• Dylan cover a day 34: Duquesne Whistle
• Dylan cover a day 35: Farewell Angelina
• Dylan cover a day 36: Foot of Pride and Forever Young
• Dylan cover a day 37: Fourth Time Around
• Dylan cover a Day 38: From a Buick 6
• Dylan cover a Day: 39 “Gates of Eden” as never before
• Dylan cover a Day: 40 “Gotta Serve Somebody”
• Dylan Cover a Day: 41 Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
• Dylan cover a day: 42 Heart of Mine
• A Dylan Cover a Day 43: High Water
• Dylan cover a day 44: Highway 61.5
• Dylan Cover a Day 45: Hurricane
• Dylan Cover a Day 46: I am a lonesome hobo
• Dylan Cover a Day 47: I believe in you
• Dylan Cover a Day 48: I contain multitudes
• Dylan Cover a Day 49: I don’t believe you.
• A Dylan Cover a Day: I love you too much

• Peggy Day (1969) part 1: The head of the snake

by Jochen Markhorst

II          A benevolent appearance

The Father of a Murderer is the last book the successful German author Alfred Andersch (1914-1980) completed, just before his death. It is a short, autobiographical story (96 pages) that masterfully recounts the last lesson of Andersch’s alter ego Franz Kien at the Wittelsbacher Gymnasium in Munich.

In May 1928, the start of a Greek class is startled by the entry of “the Rex”, rector Himmler, who comes to “inspect” the class. Himmler, indeed the father of Heinrich Himmler, is a massive, terrifying presence who soon takes over the class. His secret agenda becomes clear halfway through the lesson; not so much class inspection, as clean-up. And one of the victims is the poorly performing Franz. Andersch knows how compellingly to evoke the oppression that descends on the pupils – they know that Himmler will soon call someone to the blackboard to be gutted in front of the entire class. And Himmler knows that they know – and plays with the rising fear like a cat with its mouse.

When Franz is finally called up, Himmler tells him to write down the sentence “It is deserving to praise Franz Kien” in Greek on the blackboard. Franz, a lazy and uninterested pupil comes, of course, to nothing. Himmler must help him with every letter.

“You,” judges the Rex after ten torturous minutes, “you will not qualify for the Upper Secondary.”

Franz shrugs his shoulders.

“The good thing about that is that he will then stop examining me and call someone else to the blackboard. If I’m going to fail anyway, he doesn’t need to examine me anymore.

“It is not deserving to praise Franz Kien,” said the Rex.

Cheap, thought Franz, this had to come. Only because he can invert the sentence and throw back at me he picked it out in the first place.”

It did in fact more or less play out like this with Alfred Andersch. Andersch really was a pupil at that Wittelsbacher Gymnasium as a fourteen-year-old boy and was actually expelled from school by Himmler’s father, Joseph Gebhard Himmler. But Alfred/Franz is lazy, not stupid. He is a keen observer, sees through character flaws in both his teacher and Himmler, and thinks quickly. Like he does here: “Cheap. Only because he can invert the sentence and throwback at me he picked it out in the first place.”

Franz Kien would undoubtedly think exactly the same if he heard the second verse of “Peggy Day”:

Peggy night makes my future look so bright
Man, that girl is out of sight
Love to spend the day with Peggy night

… the reversal from love to spend the night with Peggy Day to love to spend the day with Peggy night is, after all, as corny as you can get. Well, cheap even. “Only because he can invert the name he picked it out in the first place.”

Although it could also be a by-catch; in choosing the name for his protagonist, Dylan seems to be driven by the ambition to be as kitschy as possible. And then he comes up with a rather unimaginative combination of Doris Day and Peggy Lee, something like that. Not unfathomable; Peggy Lee is a 40s/50s icon anyway, having just returned to the spotlight with a Grammy for “Is That All There Is?” (1969), and the star of Doris Day, that other 40s/50s icon, is suddenly shining again thanks to the successful television series The Doris Day Show.

As in the opening couplet, however, the easy-going lyricist still adds some irony. Just as Dylan inserted the anachronistic “by golly” before this, he now chooses the equally alienating “out of sight”. In 1969, this is a rather fresh, hip metaphor to express something like “awesome”, ill-suited to the conservative Peggy Lee/Doris Day cut of the surrounding lines. After all, up to and including the 1950s, “out of sight” literally meant “too far to be seen, not visible”. But presumably only since 1963, since James Brown’s “Out Of Sight” (You’re more than alright / You know you’re out of sight) has it been used to describe the physical attractiveness of a lady or awesomeness in general.

Stevie Wonder then takes it outside soul circles in 1965 with the mega hit “Uptight” (Baby, everything is all right, uptight, out of sight). Admittedly, at first hearing a little awkward and unintentionally ironic when sung by the blind Stevie Wonder (who also sings “I’m the apple of my girl’s eye” a little further on), but he did not write this part of the lyrics himself. Stevie had the riff, the music and the opening words “everything is all right, uptight”, Sylvia Moy completed the lyrics.

And the Easybeats eventually spread the new, hip metaphor all over the planet with their 1967 world hit, “Friday On My Mind”;

Gonna have fun in the city
Be with my girl, she's so pretty
She looks fine tonight
She is out of sight to me

Alienating in a very conservative country-shuffle like “Peggy Day” pretends to be, but on the other hand: Dylan also seems to be aiming for a cringe-factor, for the awkwardness that the adolescent experiences when his mother uses the wrong abbreviations in her apps and his father starts replying with memes. And Dylan succeeds, too; first the stale “by golly”, and now the hip, youthful “Man, that girl is out of sight”… a harmless dork, you’d think. But then again, so does the old Himmler appear;

“There was something sparkling, lively and now benevolent, apparently warmly affectionate in the brightly reddened face under smooth white hair, but Franz immediately had the impression that the Rex, although he could give himself a benevolent appearance, was not harmless; his friendliness was certainly not to be trusted, not even now, when he looked, jovially and portly, at the pupils sitting in three double rows in front of him.”

Franz has a keen eye. And we also know by now, since Shadow Kingdom in 2021, what horrors Dylan hid under “To Be Alone With You”, under another seemingly harmless ditty on Nashville Skyline. Who knows what will happen when Dylan reanimates “Peggy Day”.

“His tone was no longer affable. The father of the school, looking benignly after one of his classes – that was now definitely over; up there, behind the desk as if on a perch, now sat a hunter.”

——————-

To be continued. Next up: Peggy Day part 3

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

by Larry Fyffe

As punishment for the devil’s arrogance, God casts Satan from Paradise. Satan, needless to say, is upset at the all-powerful Creator:

So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear
Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost
Evil be thou my good
(John Milton: Paradise Lost)

Likewise, as punishment for their arrogance, God arranges  Adam and Eve’s expulsive from Eden; their earthly paradise gets closed to them.

And Dr. Frankenstein’s creation is certainly upset by the way his Creator treats him:

I, the miserable, and the abandoned ... Kicked and trampled on
Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice
Evil thenceforth became my good
(Mary Shelley: Frankenstein)

An obverse biblical motif that’s not lost in the lyrics of a number of songs written by Bob Dylan.

From the get-go:

I'm as weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feeling
Ain't no tongue can tell ...
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war
(Bob Dylan: With God On Our Side)

But no. War, the orginal sin that ultimately rests at the foot of the Almighty’s throne; a sin for which brave humans pay the price; ie, even dying in a ditch afterwards because of the depressive mental effects left by fighting in one:

They started up Iwo Jima Hill, 250 men
But only 27 lived to walk back down that hill again
And when the fight was over, and Old Glory raised
One of the men who held it high was the Indian Ira Hayes
(Bob Dylan: The Ballad Of Ira Hayes ~ La Farge)

God’s original sin, He passes on to Satan, and the devil passes it on down to Adam; it sure ain’t the Almighty’s fault:

Temptation's not an easy thing
Adam given the devil reign
Because he sinned, I got no choice
It run in my vein
(Bob Dylan: Pressing On)

A sorrowful fate for human beings; expressed in the following song verse:

Ten thousand men standing on a hill
Ten thousand men on a hill
Some of'em going down
Some of'em gonna get killed
(Bob Dylan: Ten Thousand Men)

https://youtu.be/s3GJ2W3ZZ8Q

Alluding to the satirical nursery rhyme below:

Oh the grand old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again
(The Grand Old Duke Of York)

Conflicts, big or small, a ‘gift’ given to His human ‘ingrates’ by a vengeful God:

One of these days, you'll be in the ditch
Flies buzzing around your eyes
Blood on your saddle
(Bob Dylan: Idiot Wind)

There’s little doubt  –  it’s better to be the Almighty Creator:

I've been visiting morgues and monasteries
Looking for the necessary body parts
Limbs and livers, and brains and hearts
I'll bring somebody back to life, it's what I wanna do
I wanna create my own version of you
(Bob Dylan: My Own Version Of You)

And a nonvengeful Creator at that (at least one who has a keen sense of humour):

I'm here to create the New Imperial Order
I'm going to do whatever circumstances require
I care so much for you, didn't think I could
I can't tell my heart that you're no good
(Bob Dylan: Honest With Me)

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published twice a day –  sometimes more, sometimes less.  Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with over 14,000 members.

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

Aaron: Leyendas de la Guitarra was a concert held over five nights, from October 15 to October 19, 1991 in Seville. It was held to draw attention to Expo 92 held the following year. To read more about the event head over here for all the details:

https://medium.com/listennft/what-happened-when-the-worlds-greatest-guitarists-reigned-in-spain-seville-1991-8db15ca8ad52

I pulled some interesting information from the article

• 5 ninety-minute shows were held, together with a documentary that lasted an hour.
• 45 countries around the world televised the event.
• 80 artists performed at the event.
• 26 of the worlds best guitarists were the main attraction.
• 6,000 people attended the concerts each night.
• 105 countries broadcast the shows on the radio.

Dylan performed a five-song set including a guest guitarist (the identity of whom I will leave a secret from Tony for now!) and a duet with Keith Richards.

Here are a couple of my favorite moments for Tony to look at followed by the whole set.

Across The Borderline

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B1KGTI85I-M

Tony:  I wondered what you were setting up for me Aaron, but ah well, it is Richard Thompson of course.  Yet I don’t know, but somehow the two great superstars don’t quite seem to mix here for me.  The Thompson solos are sublime, as they always are, and yet it is almost as if he is trying too hard to do too much in the presence of the almighty Bob.   Maybe I misjudge it, but I somehow think that in this recording less would be more.

But since Aaron gets to choose the tracks and writes his intro first, that means I come in behind, and get the say on what the piece finally looks like.  So I’m going to slip in something else, which has absolutely no connection with the rest of the article.  Of course it would be unfair on Aaron to disjoint his work here, so I’ll leave it to the end.  It is, if you know your musical terminology, a coda.

Answer Me, My Love

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aB-_4NiDr9M

This is actually a German song that was translated and became a hit in the 1950s.  I know we had a copy of the song in my parents’ house as a 78rpm track by David Whitfield. 

I simply don’t understand what it is that Bob is doing here, it just seems over-embellished in a way that doesn’t work musically, at least not for me.  I can imagine it working with a piano accompaniment, but with the two guitarists, seemingly unrehearsed, vying with each other… it’s not quite right.

It’s a fine 1950s ballad, but I am not sure it is much more than that.

Aaron: Dylan’s five song set included:

1. All Along The Watchtower 2. Boots Of Spanish Leather 3. Across The Borderline (Ry Cooder/John Hiatt/Jim Dickinson) 4. Answer Me, My Love (Gerhard Winkler/Fred Rauch/Carl Sigman) – LIVE DEBUT 5. DUET w/ Keith Richards: Shake, Rattle And Roll (C. Calhoun)

Tony: I get the impression, that during Shake Rattle and Roll Bob is seriously wondering what he is actually doing with these guys on this stage at this time.    But then maybe I expect too much, and maybe also it’s because  I can remember versions from days of yore.   And just in case anyone is interested, here’s the Bill Hayley recording which was a big hit in Britain.

Tony: I did actually get to see Bill Hayley in concert near the end of his life.  It wasn’t a spectacular evening, but at least I have been able to say evermore that I did see him perform live.

Anyway, back to the Richard Thompson issue, here’s the coda selected by me without Aaron’s knowledge.  And I add it, because I would hate anyone to think what they have heard on the recordings above is what Richard Thompson is all about.

Time magazine called this “a glorious example of what one guy can accomplish with just a guitar, a voice, an imagination and a set of astonishingly nimble fingers.”   This version has an instrumental break that was written for this tour – hence the appreciation of the audience.

It really is one of the most extraordinary pieces of music from popular culture ever.  Just look at Richard’s smile at the end.  He knows not only has he just given a superb performance, but it is a superb performance of one of the very greatest popular music creations of all time.  A song that stands up there with “Visions of Johanna” and “Desolation Row”.

Sorry for not appreciating your selection Aaron, but thank you for giving me a route back in for another presentation of Richard Thompson.

Dylan released and unreleased: the series

• Part 1: Dylan Released and Unreleased
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: 2 – The usual, Pretty Boy, People get ready.
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: 3 – Hard to Handle the full one hour video
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 4: from the nursery to looking back
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: Girl From the North Country
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: Quest
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 7: Down along the cove
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 8: The Compilation Albums
• Dylan released and unreleased 9: the Galas
• Dylan released and unreleased 10: Soundstage, The World of John Hammond
• Bob Dylan Released and Unreleased 11. 1963: Westinghouse.
• Dylan Released and Unreleased part 12: the one-offs
• Dylan released and unreleased: the lost TV appearances
• Dylan: the released and unreleased duets
• Bob Dylan released and unreleased: the late night TV shows
• Dylan- Released/Unreleased- Clearwater 1976
• Dylan released and unreleased: the tribute concerts

By Tony Attwood

OK a bit of a retreat into my old rock n roll days with this one, not to mention my teenage years.

“I love you too much” (sometimes written as “I (must) love you too much” for reasons that will not become clear at this point), it’s not the best known of Bob’s songs (or I should say co-compositions – this being written by Helena Springs), but even if nothing else, this track is worth it for the wonderful guitar solo, and the memories of a fabulous musician.

Of course in situations like this there are all sorts of other factors that come in – although as I start to explain, I would add that I’ve selected this recording because I really do enjoy the recording, and think it is a superb interpretation of the song, not for the reasons below.

So, to explain.  Greg Lake and I were born in the same year (I’m still here however, sadly Greg is not) and he was brought up in Oakdale, a suburb of Poole in Dorset (on the English south coast).  Of far less interest to anyone except me is the fact that from the age of 11, my family lived just up the road from Greg, in Broadstone, and I used to travel through Oakdale every day on the bus on the way to and from school.

According to Wiki, “At the age of 12, he first learned to play the guitar and wrote his first song, “Lucky Man“.   I started on the piano before moving to Dorset with my family, and took up the guitar a little later (I was 13).

I know we didn’t go to the same school – he was at Henry Harbin, and I was down the road at Poole Grammar, but the bus I took to and from school each day went via Oakdale and then past Henry Harbin school, so it is possible – just possible – that he and I were on the same bus.   Such is my connection with fame!

He became a professional musician aged 17; I was still at school in the daytime doing my A levels with the hope of going to university, and (to my parent’s dismay), playing a mix of Dylan songs and my own compositions in a folk club in Bournemouth in the evening, when not exploring the world of dancing.   I just got side-tracked I guess.

Anyway, enough of my ancient days.  This is the only cover of “I love you too much” that I can find, and it is a really great rock version.  I love it for the music that it is, but I must admit I also love the notion that maybe Greg Lake and I were on the same bus together day after day going to and from school.

Greg Lake died on 7 December 2016, after suffering from cancer for a long while.  His music however is still very much with us, and I’m rather grateful I’m still here to write about it.  And to listen to Greg Lake’s music.

The details of “Cover a day” follow after this little note about Untold Dylan….

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published twice a day –  sometimes more, sometimes less.  Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with over 14,000 members.

• Dylan cover of the day: Number 1. The song with numbers in the title.
• Dylan cover of the day. No 2: Ain’t Talkin
• Bob Dylan cover of the day No3: All I really want to do
• Dylan cover of the day No4: Angelina
• Dylan covers of the day No 5. Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
• Cover version of the day No 6: As I went out one morning
• Dylan cover of the day No 7: Ballad for a Friend
• Dylan Cover of the Day No 8: Ballad in Plain D
• Dylan Cover of the Day No 9: Ballad of a thin man
• Dylan cover No. 10: The stunning reworking of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• Dylan cover of the day No 11: The ballad of Hollis Brown
• A Dylan cover a day No 12: Beyond here lies nothing
• Dylan cover of the day No 13: Blind Willie McTell
• Dylan Cover of the Day 14: Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
• Dylan Cover of the Day 15: An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
• Dylan Cover of the Day 16: Blowin in the wind as never before
• Dylan Cover of the Day 17: Bob Dylan’s Dream
• Dylan Cover of the Day 18: You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
• Dylan cover of the day 19: Boots of Spanish leather
• Dylan cover of the day 20: Born in Time
• Dylan cover of the day 21: Buckets of Rain
• Dylan cover of the day: 22 Can you please crawl out your window
• Dylan cover of the day 23: Can’t wait
• Dylan Cover of the Day 24: Changing of the Guard
• Dylan Cover of the Day 25: Chimes of Freedom
• Dylan cover a day 34: Country Pie
• Dylan Cover of the Day 33: Crash on the Levee
• Dylan cover a day 35: Dark Eyes
• Dylan Cover of the Day 26: Dear Landlord
• Dylan cover of the Day 27: Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
• Dylan cover of the Day 28: Dignity.
• Dylan Cover of the Day 29: Dirge
• Dylan Cover of the Day 30: Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
• Dylan cover a Day 31: Don’t think twice
• Dylan cover a day 32: Down along the cove
• Dylan cover – recovered 33: Drifter’s Escape
• Dylan cover a day 34: Duquesne Whistle
• Dylan cover a day 35: Farewell Angelina
• Dylan cover a day 36: Foot of Pride and Forever Young
• Dylan cover a day 37: Fourth Time Around
• Dylan cover a Day 38: From a Buick 6
• Dylan cover a Day: 39 “Gates of Eden” as never before
• Dylan cover a Day: 40 “Gotta Serve Somebody”
• Dylan Cover a Day: 41 Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
• Dylan cover a day: 42 Heart of Mine
• A Dylan Cover a Day 43: High Water
• Dylan cover a day 44: Highway 61.5
• Dylan Cover a Day 45: Hurricane
• Dylan Cover a Day 46: I am a lonesome hobo
• Dylan Cover a Day 47: I believe in you
• Dylan Cover a Day 48: I contain multitudes
• Dylan Cover a Day 49: I don’t believe you.

by Jochen Markhorst

I           The head of the snake

 In the autumn of 1967, the Big Pink in Woodstock has exotic visitors: The Bauls of Bengal. Manager Albert Grossman had met the troubadour family in Calcutta and invited the men to America. We see two of them, the brothers Purnan and Luxman Das (or: Purna and Lakhsman), flanking Dylan in the cover photo of John Wesley Harding. Dylan reportedly enjoyed hanging out with them, calling himself, according to Purnan in an interview with The Telegraph India in 1995, “an American Baul”.

The funniest anecdote comes from Levon Helm, who in his autobiography This Wheel’s On Fire (1993) reports on a pleasant evening sharing a good joint with Luxman. “Good weed,” Levon says appreciatively to Luxman.

“Very good, but nothing like my father used to smoke—little hashish, little tobacco, little head of snake.”
I said, “Wait a minute. Did you say ‘snake head’?”
And Luxman laughed. “Yes, by golly! Chop off head of snake, chop into tiny pieces, put in chillum with little hash, little tobacco. Oh, boy! Very good—first-class high!”
“Snake?” I pressed him. “Are you sure you mean snake?”
Now they’re all laughing. “Yes! Very good! Head of snake!”

It is a wonderful anecdote with a high Monty Python quality. Michael Palin as Luxman, and the role of Levon Helm should, of course, be played by John Cleese. In terms of content, it is already strong because of the absurdity of the plot, and stylistically because of Luxman’s naturalness and perfect timing (first hash, then tobacco, and finally “little head of snake”), and especially because of his use of language – the combination of broken sentences with brutal imperatives (“chop off head”) and corny idioms like “oh, boy” and particularly “by golly” is irresistible.

Dylan, the language-sensitive word artist, will have saved it somewhere, only to put it in the right place about a year later, when he has “Peggy Day” up his sleeve:

Peggy Day stole my poor heart away
By golly, what more can I say
Love to spend the night with Peggy Day

Initially, the album and the song are received with some goodwill. It sells well, “Lay Lady Lay” becomes a big hit and reviews are friendly. Like in Newsweek (“Peggy Day” is almost a pastiche of the Thirties – its rhythms recall “swing” and Dylan sings with the kind of light-hearted showmanship that used to come from college bandstands).

And in New Musical Express, 19 April 1969:

“In the final track on side one, Dylan makes it abundantly clear he’d like to spend the night with ‘Peggy Day’. Eminently hummable, and probably the ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’ of ‘Nashville Skyline’. The guitars chatter away, a pedal guitar break, and a rousing blues climax.”

Time, or rather professional Dylanologists, are not too kind to the charming little ditty “Peggy Day”. Clinton Heylin calls the song “embarrassing”, Howard Sounes finds it “vacuous”, Mike Marqusee catalogues it as “an exercise in deliberate banality”, and Ian Bell feels little affection for it either: “Possibly the poorest song Dylan had sanctioned for release since his earliest apprentice days.” Shelton is still the kindest: “Dylan has some fun with the clichés of country and country-music whimsy on Peggy Day.”

In fan circles, the song, like the entire Nashville Skyline album, is in the yo-yo category. Burned down and slammed, until an undercurrent of fans hoist “Peggy Day” up on a shield and then, without too much justification, appreciate the “irony” or alleged double meanings or – quite on the contrary – the purity. And when the undercurrent becomes an overcurrent, the opposing forces mobilise again, and the process starts all over again. More or less the same dynamic as in the appreciation of, for example, Street-Legal, “Make You Feel My Love” and Saved.

On the other side of the divide are fans like Elvis Costello (“the songs sounded like great Tin Pan Alley tunes to me, especially my favourite cut, Peggy Day”) and Nick Cave, for whom Nashville Skyline is the all-time favourite album.

The negative comments are – obviously – from the disappointed ones, from the fans who use reference points like “Visions Of Johanna” and “Tangled Up In Blue”. Still, the song itself is not that bad; “Peggy Day” is an unambitious piece of craftsmanship by a Song and Dance Man – no more, but certainly no less.

The first bars make that clear right away; a fairly generic chord progression, F – D7 – Gm – C7, a progression we know from dozens of songs, from “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You”, from “Stars Fell On Alabama” to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”, and from “Georgia On My Mind” to The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Daydream” – just to name a few. And just as generic are the opening lyrics;

Peggy Day stole my poor heart away

… a protagonist who self-pitifully laments “my poor heart” is known not from dozens, but from hundreds of songs. And a considerable number of those can be found in Dylan’s personal jukebox. Big Bill Broonzy’s “Southbound Train”, for example, and “Trouble In Mind”, “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)”, “Don’t Blame Me”, “You Are My Sunshine”, “Wildwood Flower”, and “The Sky Is Crying”… the chances of hitting a my poor heart while pressing any button on the jukebox with your eyes closed are pretty good.

Dylan himself probably prefers, especially here and now in Nashville, to sing along with his hero George Jones, who sings “Time Changes Everything” (When you left me my poor heart was broken) on the tribute album to another of Dylan’s heroes, George Jones Sings Bob Wills from 1962. Or with Hank Williams’ “We Live in Two Different Worlds” (Oh how my poor heart will pine). Or in the song that will form a blueprint for Dylan’s late masterpiece “Red River Shore”, Gene Autry’s version of “Red River Valley” from 1946, or in the song that Dylan also has in his repertoire in the early 60s, in “Handsome Molly” (My poor heart is aching / You are at your ease).

Bob Wills, George Jones, Hank Williams, Gene Autry… none of Dylan’s greatest country heroes are ashamed of the tearful, melodramatic my poor heart. So Dylan will certainly not feel too big for it either. But the disappointed ones may indeed regret that the song and dance man doesn’t wrap that poor heart in a frenzied rhyming verse with vicious outbursts. Like that other Greatest Songwriter of the Twentieth Century, Cole Porter, does:

My poor heart is achin'
To bring home some bacon
And if I find myself alone and forsaken
It's simply because I'm the laziest gal in town

“The Laziest Gal in Town”, one of those boisterous rhyming brilliants by grandmaster Cole Porter. Often recorded and often performed, but rarely as breath-taking as by Marlene Dietrich in her white negligee in Hitchcock’s Stage Fright from 1950.

La Dietrich is still defeated though, by the way. Fourteen years later, by the lady who stands on a marble pedestal with Dylan as well, by Nina Simone.

Yes, by golly.

To be continued. Next up: Peggy Day part 2

—————

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

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published once or twice a day.   Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with over 14,000 members.

Proper research by Jochen Markhorst and Aaron Galbraith.  General commentary, pulling together of information, personal opinion and probably the addition of errors, by Tony Attwood.

Kaatskill Serenade

A while back I was asked my opinion of the David Bromberg sessions of 1992 or there abouts, where it is suggested Dylan worked on an album that never was.

The suggestion is that it was an album that Dylan was working on but abandoned, and obviously as such since this site aims to cover all of Dylan’s work it is something we ought to be looking at and listening to.

My interest was peaked by the fact that there are quite a few songs listed as being on the album that I either don’t know or have forgotten, and I always find it interesting to hear them – but more than that, it is interesting to know what Dylan was listening to is itself always interesting as a source of inspiration.

On the website that has dug right into this they list …

• Hey Joe
• Mobile Line
• Just Because / Just Because You Didn’t Answer, written by Thom Bishop
• Field Of Stone (Would You Lay With Me)
• Annie’s Song / Annie’s Going to Sing Her Song
• Jugband Song
• Rock Me Baby
• Send Me To The ‘lectric Chair
• Gotta Do My Time
• Su Su’s Got A Mohawk / Susu Got a Mohawk
• Northeast Texas Woman
• Sail On
• Can’t Lose What You Never Had
• World Of Fools
• Everybody’s Crying Mercy
• Tennessee Blues
• Summer Wages
• Casey Jones
• Morning Blues
• Young Westley
• The Lady Came From Baltimore
• New Lee Highway Blues
• Rise Again
• Duncan & Brady
• The Main Street Moan
•  Nobody’s Fault But Mine
• Miss The Mississippi & You
• Sloppy Drunk

 Jochen immediately pointed out that in the list on the website “Lady Came From Baltimore” was noted as traditional, but it was composed by Tim Hardin.  But that one slip suggests that this is not a list picked up directly from the source – Bob Dylan would know that, so this makes me think it is an engineer’s collection and notation or something akin to that.

Aaron pointed out that two of the tracks, “Miss the Mississippi and me” and “Duncan and Brady” appeared on the Tell Tale Signs boxset.

The first of the three recordings that Jochen found was Kaatskill Serenade which is not actually on the list above (and so I’m already confused) but it certainly is Dylan and mr tambourine also notes it as being from these sessions.   Here is David Bromberg’s version

By Larry Fyffe

Friedrich Nietzsche would likely be embarrassed by the following statement:

“Christianity was an epidemic rather than a religion. It appealed to fear, hysteria, and ignorance.”

(Colin Wilson: The Occult)

Nietzsche did not claim that Christianity be a psychological  ‘sickness’ akin to Sigmund Freud’s displacement of repressed sexual desires, but rather “the morality of slaves” – the religion serves to keep most of the powerless ‘good’ (that is, passive) in their masters’ vineyards; they’re assured their reward awaits in the ‘afterlife’ where any ‘evil’ overlords are destined to receive their just desserts.

Singer/songwriter, musician Bob Dylan could be said to bring  Colin Wilson back to life along with John Calvin and William Blake albeit in Post Modern format:

Calvin, Blake, and Wilson
Gambled in the dark
Not one of them would ever live 
To tell the tale of the disembark
(Bob Dylan: Tempest)

William Blake puts the ‘idealistic’ thinking of the likes of Saint Augustine, John Calvin, and Emanuel Swedenborg out to death. Colin Wilson turns William Blake on his head, and tries to bring neo-Platonism to life by refitting religion and merging it with modern science-oriented “western” society.

Wilson replaces Friedrich Nietzsche’s adventurist “Overman” with the “Outsider”, the latter able to get in touch with ‘spiritual’  worlds, both good and evil, that are far beyond the physical senses, senses that can only give a ‘narrow’ peak into what exists outside; the creative imagination inside the human mind opens up all kinds of future visions, of possible worlds, spaces that are closed off to most human beings by the rigid structures imposed by regimented society.

Novelist Colin Wilson apparently agrees with Nietzsche that the Universe is disinterested in the fate of Mankind which causes humans to be alienated therefrom;  therefore, constructed is supposed-to-be-reality based in part on how the outside world has been perceived in the past.

The Outsider seeks to flee such constraints and go where no man, except those like Emanuel Swedenborg, have gone before.

Nietzsche asserts Man has a Will to Power that causes him to have a belief in an ‘afterlife’; that is, if he has little social and economic control over his present life; the masters, on the hand, has no time for this “slave morality”, a morality of the weak that is essentially pessimistic with regard to human existence on Earth.

Colin Wilson puts a positive spin on Nietzsche’s dark view, and formulates a  New Existentialism – there must be other worlds including an ‘afterlife’ somewhere beyond the self because lots of writings contend there are.

Wilson presents a ‘gnostic’ vision where there are sparks emanated from afar within us that may blaze afire, if not now, then after we die – so intuited by ‘gifted’ artists like himself anyway –  Karl Jung, for instance, who asserts there is an ‘essence’ that precedes existence.

A view not completely dismissed by the narrator in the following song lyrics:

Well, I'm a stranger here in a strange land
And I know this is where I belong
I'll ramble, and gamble for the one I love
And the hills will give me a song
(Bob Dylan: Red River Shore)

Colin Wilson elevates himself to a higher ‘spiritual plain’ though. Emanuel Swedenborg’s ‘gnostic’ optimism tells him that there are special people who are able to grasp more than just glimpses of this eternal ‘aferlife’; it’s more than wishful thinking. There’s a problem though – that which is considered reality these days gets in the way.

That Old Existentialist “reality” expressed in the song lyrics beneath:

Lonliness, tenderness, high society, notoriety
You fight for the throne, and you travel alone
Unknown as you slowly sink
And there's no time to think
(Bob Dylan: No Time To Think)

The narrators in the song lyrics of Bob Dylan, more often than not, take a middle path. Like William Blake – that is to say, mythologies are created by the human imagination entangled with the perceptions from sensing the external world, like observing reflections from a broken glass.

To these artists, modern times be too materialistic in orientation, but there is a spiritual world; not ‘out there’ somewhere beyond the Platonic ‘horizon line’, but instead, beneath our feet, and above our heads – on the horizon line, not beyond it.

With a little bit of luck that ‘tightrope’ can be straddled – the narrator below might be said to put his boot heels to Colin Wilson’s New Existentialism.

Tells the tale of the disembark:

Now, we heard the Sermon on the Mount
And I knew it was too complex
I didn't amount to anything more
Than what the broken glass reflects
When you bite off more than you can chew
You got to pay the penalty
Someone's got to tell the tale
I guess it's up to me
(Bob Dylan: Up To Me)

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published once or twice a day.   Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with over 14,000 members.

By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood

Aaron: Dylan has performed at several tribute concerts over the years. Let’s take a look at three which might have passed you by!

First, the Martin Luther King tribute concert, Washington DC 1986. Here he performs a completely rewritten version of “I Shall be Released”, followed by “Blowing in the wind” with Stevie Wonder and Peter Paul and Mary.

Here are the new lyrics for I shall be released – I believe this was the only performance of this set of lyrics:

They say every man needs protection
They say that every man must fall
I swear I see my own reflection
Somewhere so high above this wall

I see my light come shinin'
I don't need no doctor or no priest
Any day now
I shall be released

It don't take much to be a criminal
One wrong move and they'll turn you into one
At first decay is just subliminal
To protect yourself and your forever on the run

I see my light come shinin'
I don't need no doctor or no priest
Any day now, 
I shall be released

He will find you where your stayin'
Even in the arms of somebody else's wife
Your laughin' now, you should be prayin'
To be in the midnight hour of your life 

I see my light come shinin'
I don't need no doctor or no priest
Any day now, 
I shall be released

Tony: Now there is a first.  Whoever else would rhyme “criminal” with “subliminal”?   I am not too sure of what to make of the new lyrics, but I do love the musical change with “Any day now” being delayed.

“Blowing in the Wind” was performed by the trio at the Civil Rights march at which Martin Luther King Junior delivered his “I have a dream” speech.   And if that was all they had done that would have been enough for immortality but of course, there was a lot more; the inevitable highs and lows of members of a successful band both in terms of recordings and personal life.

But what fascinates me most is “I don’t need no doctor nor no priest”.  Dylan’s 18 months or so of writing only songs with a religious theme was 1979/80, so he had had plenty of time to move on, and the suggestion that he will find “release” without the intercession of the church is a fundamentally anti-Christian church view.  As I understand it, the Christian churches preach that the formal church is the only way to heaven.  Salvation through one’s own efforts by having a good life and without any formal religiosity or belief is a major challenge to organised religion, and I’ve not noticed Bob proclaim that elsewhere.  But maybe I’ve not been paying attention properly.

Aaron: Then in 2004 at Apollo at 70: A Hot Night In Harlem, 19 June 2004 Bob performed A Change Is Gonna Come

Tony: It is interesting to see different personalities introduce Dylan in different ways – this is with the emphasis on “a change is going to come”.   It was written by Sam Cooke – and as it played I began to wonder what song Dylan has written that predicts change for the good will come.  I’m probably forgetting obvious examples, as I sit here writing this without looking things up (part of the rules of the game) but leaving aside the 18 months of religious writing, does Bob ever suggest this?

I’ve oft pointed out that “Times they are a changin” does not talk about change that comes about because of mankind’s efforts.  Just that stuff happens and things change.   And this song says the same – it is in fact a litany of what is wrong with the world

Then I go to my brother
And I say, brother, help me please
But he winds up, knockin' me
Back down on my knees

So in this regard it is very much like “Times” in that it proclaims things will change, but doesn’t once suggest that it will be because of any overt action by people.  It just happens.

And this song has an interesting past.  It was released as the B-side of “Shake” and was in fact issued soon after Sam Cooke had died in 1964. It was a hit, but not a huge hit.

Aaron: Last up this time from the Tony Bennett 90th birthday concert comes Once Upon A Time.

Tony:  Actually that is one of the best introductions of Bob that I’ve heard.  Nice and short and accurate.  And this shows Bob’s voice at its best.   Indeed if I heard this without any knowledge of who it was I am not sure I would have guessed it was Dylan.  There’s a touch of vibrato in the voice, and no stretching for the high notes.

But there’s also something here that suggests the singer is not totally happy with the range of the song – these classics tending to have a much wider vocal range than Bob’s own compositions.

Fascinating to see him perform by holding the mic stand.  I wonder what brought that on!

Dylan released and unreleased: the series

• Part 1: Dylan Released and Unreleased
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: 2 – The usual, Pretty Boy, People get ready.
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: 3 – Hard to Handle the full one hour video
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 4: from the nursery to looking back
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: Girl From the North Country
• Dylan Released and Unreleased: Quest
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 7: Down along the cove
• Dylan Released and Unreleased 8: The Compilation Albums
• Dylan released and unreleased 9: the Galas
• Dylan released and unreleased 10: Soundstage, The World of John Hammond
• Bob Dylan Released and Unreleased 11. 1963: Westinghouse.
• Dylan Released and Unreleased part 12: the one-offs
• Dylan released and unreleased: the lost TV appearances
• Dylan: the released and unreleased duets
• Bob Dylan released and unreleased: the late night TV shows
• Dylan- Released/Unreleased- Clearwater 1976

By Tony Attwood

I do recognise that as, at the moment I am not writing a new episode of A Dylan Cover a Day the title has become somewhat inappropriate – but then changing the title to A Dylan Cover Every Week or So would seem a bit naff, so I am sticking with the original in the vague hope that the level of work I’m trying to do at the moment will reduce and I can return, if not to a cover a day, then maybe a cover every other day.

And of course there is the excuse that there are now quite a few episodes of this little series and you may not have appreciated every recording within it so there is a back catalogue, as it were.  A list is at the end.

“I don’t believe you” is not a highly covered song, and it is one of those pieces that is so individual in terms of its opening phrases with its extraordinary rhythm around “I can’t understand she let go of my hand” that makes it hard to think of any major variation from the original.

In case you have any interest in terms of what Dylan does musically it goes something like this: “I can’t understand she let go of my hand” has 16 fast beats which are basically in two groups of eight, with each group of eight divided into a rhythm of 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2.   The “1” in each group having an accent.

But it is sung at speed we hear it as a complete flowing line, and I gues for most people it is not until you come to play it with an accompaniment that it becomes clear how the only alternatives are to play it as per Dylan, or to re-write it so completely that it doesn’t sound like the same song in any way, and actually sounds far less than Dylan’s version.

This certainly didn’t stop Bob performing it – around 350 times – but it makes life hard for anyone seeking a variation.

Waylong Jennings turns it into a country song and forgets the rhythm of the original and goes into a straight 4/4 times.  It is typical of the solutions, and it makes the song a fair bit less bland than the original.

And that version is typical of most.  It is a hard search to find artists willing to accept the essence of the song is within the rhythm.  Ian and Sylvia do take the song as it is and full credit to them and their band for taking it on.   I find the opening of each verse a little too twinkly for my taste, but knowing the complexity of the piece, I give them full credit.  The bassist in particular has worked a way of making this happen so that the ensemble has something to hold onto.

There are a number of non-English language versions, but again they either wipe out the rhythm, which is the essence of the song, or simply do it like Dylan, which I guess is ok since they have translated the song for their local audience.  Such recordings are not intended for English speakers, so one can’t criticise.

But Larholm Wik and Rydstrom do break through this boundary in my view.

If you are interested in this band, of which I can discover little beyond the fact that the album containing this track is on Spotify (at least if you have an account, not sure if it is available on the free version) and the whole album is really interesting even though I don’t speak Swedish.  But it does seem the guys came together to make this album as a one off and that was it.   If that is the case, all I can say is I am rather pleased they did.

The details of “Cover a day” follow after this little note about Untold Dylan….

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published twice a day –  sometimes more, sometimes less.  Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with over 14,000 members.

• Dylan cover of the day: Number 1. The song with numbers in the title.
• Dylan cover of the day. No 2: Ain’t Talkin
• Bob Dylan cover of the day No3: All I really want to do
• Dylan cover of the day No4: Angelina
• Dylan covers of the day No 5. Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
• Cover version of the day No 6: As I went out one morning
• Dylan cover of the day No 7: Ballad for a Friend
• Dylan Cover of the Day No 8: Ballad in Plain D
• Dylan Cover of the Day No 9: Ballad of a thin man
• Dylan cover No. 10: The stunning reworking of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
• Dylan cover of the day No 11: The ballad of Hollis Brown
• A Dylan cover a day No 12: Beyond here lies nothing
• Dylan cover of the day No 13: Blind Willie McTell
• Dylan Cover of the Day 14: Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
• Dylan Cover of the Day 15: An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
• Dylan Cover of the Day 16: Blowin in the wind as never before
• Dylan Cover of the Day 17: Bob Dylan’s Dream
• Dylan Cover of the Day 18: You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
• Dylan cover of the day 19: Boots of Spanish leather
• Dylan cover of the day 20: Born in Time
• Dylan cover of the day 21: Buckets of Rain
• Dylan cover of the day: 22 Can you please crawl out your window
• Dylan cover of the day 23: Can’t wait
• Dylan Cover of the Day 24: Changing of the Guard
• Dylan Cover of the Day 25: Chimes of Freedom
• Dylan cover a day 34: Country Pie
• Dylan Cover of the Day 33: Crash on the Levee
• Dylan cover a day 35: Dark Eyes
• Dylan Cover of the Day 26: Dear Landlord
• Dylan cover of the Day 27: Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
• Dylan cover of the Day 28: Dignity.
• Dylan Cover of the Day 29: Dirge
• Dylan Cover of the Day 30: Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
• Dylan cover a Day 31: Don’t think twice
• Dylan cover a day 32: Down along the cove
• Dylan cover – recovered 33: Drifter’s Escape
• Dylan cover a day 34: Duquesne Whistle
• Dylan cover a day 35: Farewell Angelina
• Dylan cover a day 36: Foot of Pride and Forever Young
• Dylan cover a day 37: Fourth Time Around
• Dylan cover a Day 38: From a Buick 6
• Dylan cover a Day: 39 “Gates of Eden” as never before
• Dylan cover a Day: 40 “Gotta Serve Somebody”
• Dylan Cover a Day: 41 Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
• Dylan cover a day: 42 Heart of Mine
• A Dylan Cover a Day 43: High Water
• Dylan cover a day 44: Highway 61.5
• Dylan Cover a Day 45: Hurricane
• Dylan Cover a Day 46: I am a lonesome hobo
• Dylan Cover a Day 47: I believe in you
• Dylan Cover a Day 48: I contain multitudes

• An index to the Never Ending Tour series of articles can be found here.

So far in 2003….

• 2003 part 1 
• 2003 part 2
• 2003, part 3

By Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet)

2003 is one of Dylan’s most energetic and innovative years as he adapts his songs, old and new, to his shift from playing guitar to playing keyboard. The big difference between Dylan’s guitar and his piano playing is that with the guitar he mostly picks single notes whereas with the piano he mostly vamps, playing chords, and rarely attempts to take the lead.

This gives the songs a different rhythmical foundation. In some cases his piano playing has a baroque feel, an echo of the age of madrigals. We heard that clearly with ‘Love Minus Zero’ and ‘Girl from the North Country’ (see NET, 2003, part 2). We hear it again on this sensitive rendition of ‘Boots of Spanish Leather,’ that most poignant of farewell songs from 1963. One of the few Dylan songs we could describe as a tear-jerker, as a lover bids farewell to his love who is travelling abroad, and she asks him what she can send him ‘from across that lonesome ocean.’

It’s one of Dylan’s best conversation songs as it moves back and forth between the soon to be separated lovers. This one’s from Birmingham, 21^st Nov.

Boots of Spanish Leather

The upsinging is noticeable, but I find that, judiciously used, upsinging can lift the mood or spirit of the song. In this case, it suggests the lover struggling to stay cheerful or hopeful in the face of his sorrow.

We could make a similar observation about this performance of ‘I Shall Be Released.’ I found this on the Red Bluff setlist (7^th Oct) while the official Bob Dylan website does not show the song being performed in 2003. Again the upsinging seems to suggest hope, hope for the fulfilment of the yearning for release the song expresses – or at least a struggle for that hope. While we might find the upsinging an annoying mannerism, I feel that it may, at least at times, have a function in terms of the emotional valency of the song in question.

It’s an oblique little song that somehow manages to be about innocence, guilt, vulnerability and redemption in three short verses.

There’s a bit too much audience noise on this one for my liking (people who pay good money to blab their way through concerts are a mystery to me) but Dylan’s performance is too good to miss.

 I shall be released.

The piano plays a subtle and supportive role in this Red Bluff performance of ‘You’re A Big Girl Now’ from Blood On The Tracks, this time leaning more towards quiet, Diana Krall style jazz than the baroque. Dylan’s style remains emphatic and ‘primitive,’ like the old time 1930s players, but it nicely underpins this sensitive rendition of the song and is one of Dylan’s best piano performances. Potentially, it’s also a tear-jerker, but there is a robustness to the performance that carries us through the pain of knowing that someone we have loved is out there, ‘in somebody’s room.’

You’re a big girl now.

‘Moonlight’ (Love and Theft) takes us deeper into the 1930s and the ambience of the music from that era. It could be a song from that era but for a Dylanesque twist to the lyrics:

Well I’m preaching peace and harmony
The blessings of tranquility
But I know when the time is right to strike

The suspicion grows that, since he has to ask her so many times to meet him that the game is already lost. I’m sticking with the Red Bluff concert because of the quality of the performances and the recording. Exquisite.

Moonlight

We hop across to Hammersmith (24^th Nov) to catch another ace performance from Love and Theft, ‘Cry A While,’ a song with a complex musical structure as it switches from fast to slow tempo, from jazz to blues and back again. Dylan certainly nails the vocal on this one. I found I had to refer back to the lyrics to follow him, a rewarding exercise as it turned out. It’s lyrically complex too. While the territory of heartbreak is familiar, in typical Dylan fashion the lyrics refer to events and situations not fully explained. Despite the heartbreak and accusations, we find that same strain of humour than runs through the whole album.

Well, there’s preachers in the pulpits and babies in the cribs
I'm longing for that sweet fat that sticks to your ribs
I'm gonna buy me a barrel of whiskey
I'll die before I turn senile

The underlying feeling of the song, however, is of disillusionment and anger. The kind of anger you feel when you’ve done enough crying:

I’m on the fringes of the night, 
       fighting back tears that I can’t control
Some people they ain’t human, they got no heart or soul
Well, I’m crying to the Lord, I’m tryin’ to be meek and mild
Yes, I cried for you, now it’s your turn, you can cry a while

I can’t find high enough praise for this performance. Ricci’s drumming and Garnier’s bass playing are awe-inspiring. The way the tempo switches are managed, the mastery of jazz and blues forms demonstrated, and Dylan’s wonderful piano and vocal, make this a standout performance.

Cry A While (A)

Lovers of the song, however, might also enjoy this performance (3^rd Nov, Zürich). While it’s not as crisply recorded as the Hammersmith performance, Dylan does another outstanding vocal

Cry A While (B)

Let’s stay with Love and Theft  for ‘Summer Days,’ that fast-paced celebration of a bygone era. The lyrics are a wonderful mix of nonsense and half-sense – with a bit of protest thrown in:

Politician got on his jogging shoes
He must be running for office, got no time to lose
He been suckin' the blood out of the genius of generosity
You been rolling your eyes, you been teasing me

The song is full of exuberance with a kind of throw-away feel to it. This kind of jump jazz was made for dancing. Another Hammersmith performance – wish I’d been there.

Summer Days (A)

That Hammersmith performance is equally matched by this one from Red Bluff. I’ve been jumping from one to the other trying to decide which is best, but there is no ‘best’ here, just excellence all around.

Summer Days (B)

‘Honest With Me,’ also from Love and Theft, is another fast-paced dancing song, but the lyric is much darker despite the vein of humour. Sometimes the humour from Love and Theft  reminds me of The Basement Tapes from 1967:

My woman got a face like a teddy bear
She's tossin' a baseball bat in the air
The meat is so tough, you can't cut it with a sword
I'm crashin' my car trunk first into the board

They say that my eyes are pretty and my smile is nice
Well, I'd sell it to ya at a reduced price

Sarcasm and flippancy mix smoothly in with the deadly serious:

Well, I came ashore in the dead of the night
Lot of things can get in the way 
     when you're tryin' to do what's right

Honest with Me

Note the minimal piano, very much in the background.

The first track on Love and Theft  is ‘Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,’ a song I’ve not been able to form a close connection with. Perhaps it’s the lack of variation in the melodic/vocal line, perhaps it’s the obscurity of the song, but something doesn’t click. I can’t complain, however, about the performance, this one from London (23^rd Nov). I do feel he’s struggling to keep it interesting, but maybe that’s just me struggling to stay interested. Again, a very minimal piano.

Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum

Before getting any older, we have to listen to two magnificent performances of ‘Things Have Changed.’ It took me a while to get into this song. It wasn’t until I heard a 2012 version that I ‘got it’ and was able to go back and listen to the earlier performances. Dylan’s been singing it for a couple of years now, and by 2003 the song was coming into its own. It creates a paradoxical effect, to sing so passionately about not caring. He cares enough to give the song a most loving treatment.

This first one’s from Berlin, 20^th October. The recording is a little muted, but Dylan’s vocal performance is outstanding. My favourite line: ‘If the bible’s right, the world’s about to explode…’

 Things have changed (A)

This one’s from New York (8^th Dec). The recording’s a bit sharper and Dylan is right on form.

Things have changed (B)

2003 was the last year for ‘Jokerman.’ This 1984 song has been an intermittent visitor to Dylan’s setlists, and has always been, to my mind, a difficult song to pull off. It’s lyrically complex and melodically demanding for the singer. It has moments of lyricism and digs deep into philosophy and theology, even mentioning the Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, a book full of measurements, rules and regulations. It’s all about freedom and keeping ‘one step ahead of the persecutor within.’ This wide-ranging lyric reminds me of Street Legal and ‘Changing of the Guards.’ It’s furiously eclectic. It’s well worth pulling up the lyrics to read while you listen.

Jokerman

Let’s finish with three upbeat songs from the London concert. Dylan’s London performance of ‘The Mighty Quinn’ turns out to be another last ever. He only performed it once in 2003 compared to four performances in 2002. It’s a pity in a way, as it might feel like a throw-away song but it has plenty of verve and bounce, makes for a lighter moment. It’s rough and raw and rather raucous, and all good fun.

The Mighty Quinn

‘Down Along the Cove’ aims for a comfortable groove within 12 bar blues structure. It’s a joyous song about meeting your love, your ‘bundle of joy.’ This performance has the feel of Chicago blues about it. It has a fresh feel, and Dylan’s quite happy to make up some new lyrics for it.

Down along the cove

Also raw and rowdy is this performance of ‘You Go Your Way, I’ll Go Mine’ from Blonde on Blonde. Dylan’s voice sounds pretty played out on this one, but it’s nice to hear a bit of harp work. Hardly as smooth as the album version. The title sounds like a popular saying, but other than a cowboy song called ‘You go your way darling, I’ll go mine’ by Eddie Arnold, I can find little reference to it outside of the Bob Dylan song.

You go your way

So we go our separate ways, but I’ll be back shortly with more sounds from 2003.

Kia Ora

Previously in this series…

• Dirt Road Blues part 1: They going down 61 Highway
• Dirt Road Blues part 2: The troublingest woman I ever seen
• Dirt Road Blues part 3: But your brains are staying south
• Dirt Road Blues part 4: Gross as beetles
• Dirt Road Blues part 5: The purple piper plays his tune
• Dirt Road Blues part 6: Passion on the other hand, is something no one wants.
• Dirt Road Blues part 7: The pale and the leader
• Dirt Road Blues part 8: You Ain’t Going Nowhere
• Dirt Road Blues part 9 : And there will be nothing new in it
• Dirt Road Blues part 10: Sit Down Winnie

By Jochen Markhorst

XI         I got to get back to the stage

 After the recording of “Dirt Road Blues”, the song is left behind. Left alone and lonely, even; all the other songs from Time Out Of Mind find their way to the stage, but “Dirt Road Blues” immediately disappears under the dust of the dirt road. And stays there. At least until 2003, when the song is dug up and dusted off, for just one single time. Not completely dusted, though. Just a little.

Malcom Burn, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer on 1989’s Oh Mercy, the “real” predecessor to Time Out Of Mind, tells a peculiar anecdote that plays out in the run-up to the recording sessions. In the days leading up to Dylan’s arrival, when Lanois and he are busy preparing the recordings, they receive a music cassette in the mail. From Dylan.

“And so Dan and I and Mark Howard, the other engineer, we sat down to listen to this cassette, and we put it in the machine – and this Al Jolson music started playing. And we were like, “What the Fuck? Al Jolson?” So, we fast-forwarded it, and it was just a whole tape of Al Jolson.”

It also includes a note from Dylan. “Listen to this. You can learn a lot.” Much later, halfway through the recording, Malcolm remembers this strange instruction, and now he understands at least something of it. During a break, Dylan tells us how important phrasing is. “You can have really great lyrics, but if you don’t deliver them properly, they’re not gonna mean a thing.” And somewhere in that conversation Dylan says, “My two favourite singers are Frank Sinatra and Al Jolson.”

Al Jolson was, of course, a great singer, and the “world’s greatest entertainer”, as DJ Dylan appreciatively agrees (Theme Time Radio Hour, Ep. 23, “California”), but survives – perhaps unfairly – as the most famous blackface singer ever. On Google’s “images” page, for example, 8 of the first 10 hits are Jolson in blackface. And that’s how he appears, as an apparition, as a blackfaced ghost, in one of the most memorable scenes from that remarkable Dylan film Masked & Anonymous (2003).

Towards the end of the film, Jack Fate stands in his trailer in front of the mirror shaving, while the irritating and pushy journalist Tom Friend tries to provoke him with suggestive questions. Fate remains silent and responds with an insipid look at best, until Friend touches him. Fate brusquely pushes the startled Friend away, who reproachfully says, “Hey man, I’m on your side.” With that, Friend gets a first word out of Fate:

Fate: That depends on your point of view.
Friend: Hey, I don’t want to be here any more than you do.
Fate: I doubt it.

Fate steps out of the door as the single line “Tangled up in blue” sounds vaguely in the background, and walks onto the carnival-like set. Now, at 1:25:25, the soundtrack sets in “Dirt Road Blues”. Not the Time Out Of Mind recording. This version doesn’t have the Winston Watson vibe, but a distinct J.J. Cale vibe. “Mama Don’t”, “Anywhere The Wind Blows”, “Okie”, that vibe, more or less.

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

As we hear the first verse of “Dirt Road Blues”, we follow Fate across the carnival. He climbs a scaffold and looks out over the set. Behind him, a blackface artist with a banjo descends the stairs and sits down on the steps. It does seem to be the ghost of Al Jolson, but he introduces himself as “Oscar Vogel” (Ed Harris). On the soundtrack, the music is mixed into the background, instead we now hear, softly and menacingly, the ghostly howl of the wind in the distance. The ghost’s words are given a chilling reverberation, just as ghostly. But behind it still sounds, very vaguely now, a textless version of “Dirt Road Blues”. Oscar tells us he is dead because he dared to criticise Fate’s father, the dictator, from the stage.

Oscar Vogel: They said it was an accident. [strums banjo] Some even said it was a suicide. Some people choose to die in all kinds of ways. Some people jump out of buildings And slit their wrists on the way down. Some fall on their own swords. I opened my mouth. Do you remember? My name is Oscar Vogel.
Jack Fate: Oscar Vogel. Well, I got to get back to the stage.
Oscar Vogel: The stage – ah, yes – the stage. The whole world’s a stage.

And then, as Jack descends the stairs, “Dirt Road Blues” swells again, still instrumental. Jack looks back one more time, up. The ghost of Oscar Vogel/Al Jolson is gone.

The song’s connection to the film images is puzzling. “Something with Al Jolson” is the only thing that connects the Oscar Vogel scene with the somewhat circumstantial background story of the genesis of “Dirt Road Blues”. Dylan doesn’t seem to have any special feelings about it either; after this one-off reanimation, the dust settles over the song, and now for good.

The one-off resuscitation, this partly dusted off version of “Dirt Road Blues”, was recorded with Dylan’s touring band in July 2002, at the now demolished Ray-Art Studios film studio in Canoga Park, Los Angeles. On Variel Avenue, half an hour’s drive from Dylan’s home in Malibu. Just follow the dirt road and take Highway 101.

https://youtu.be/tVir6zzyD4Q

———-

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is currently published twice a day –  sometimes more, sometimes less.  Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone).  Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

Articles are written by a variety of volunteers and you can read more about them here    If you would like to write for Untold Dylan, do email with your idea or article to Tony@schools.co.uk.  Our readership is rather large (many thanks to Rolling Stone for help in that regard). Details of some of our past articles are also included on the home page.

We also have a Facebook site with some 14,000 members.

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