Aaron: For this episode, I thought we could take a look at some performances Bob made at a series of televised galas down the years.
First from the Gershwin Gala in 1987 is Bob’s performance of Soon.
Tony: This is a 1927 song from the Gershwins – music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira and it was used in the musical Strike up the Band. As this song takes us away from our normal territory I thought I might drop in a recording which is closer to showing how it was used in the musical.
I’m actually not sure Bob adds anything to the song – but then I was brought up in a family that knew all about (and played) Gershwin. This is how I suspect many people will think of Gershwin
Sorry Aaron, I’ve taken this piece away from where you intended. I’ll try and get us back on track…
Aaron:From 2012 comes this version of Blind Willie McTell in honor of Martin Scorsese- introduced by Olivia Harrison, you can have great fun playing “spot the A listers” in the audience!
Tony: Oh my goodness. I have never seen this before. This is incredible – from the rearrangement of the time (the extra bar at the end of each verse) to the hand movements, from the swing in the beat to the smile on Bob’s face, and on to the false ending. This is so not Bob it is utterly wonderful. And then beyond this the utter bemusement on the faces of the audience. I’ve just had to play it a second time, rather than continuing with the article.
Aaron: Last up for this time is a one-off performance Bob gave at the White House of The Times They Are A Changin’
Tony:OK this is the reverse, this time he takes out the bar at end of the verse. I remember the President saying that other performers make use of the occasion of the Presidential concerts by spending the day in the White House looking around, rehearsing etc, whereas Bob just turned up, performed and then left. And, as I recall, President Obama said “And that’s how you want Bob Dylan to be.” Or something like that.
Here Bob performs the song as a waltz – whoever would have thought it? Love it.
But really I just have to go back to Blind Willie – that is such a sensational performance and amazing arrangement. Aaron I’m very much indebted to you for this.
(I perhaps should add, if you have not read any Aaron / Tony pieces before, Aaron is in the USA and I’m in the UK. Aaron sends me the videos and his script and I try and write a commentary on hearing the music, straight off without sneaking onto the internet to look stuff up. If I’ve got the bit about the White House performance wrong, sorry about that. Please put me right.)
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
“Down along the cove” is not one of my favourite Dylan compositions, simply because there isn’t much there. The lyrics seem to me to be profoundly ordinary, the song doesn’t fit with the rest of the album, and it’s just a simple 12 bar blues without any variation. In short, it has all the hallmarks of being a filler to complete the album, written I suspect for when Dylan played at a location called “The Cove”.
So would any cover version make anything worthwhile of the song? Well, yes this one does.
David Kincicky is one of those instrumentalists – he’s a fiddler – who knows how to retain something from the original song, while transmuting it into something else. And more, for all the while he is showing that he understands the essence of the original. And he manages to deliver perfectly arranged gentle vocal harmonies, which is much harder than it sounds.
Now forgive me while I meander off piste for a second to offer David’s take on Dire Straits
But now, since I must, back to the Cove. Thea Gilmore has to cover this because she has done the whole JWH album as a cover. She takes it very gently although somewhat breathlessly, and once again I find it enjoyable and fun. Not that memorable, but still enjoyable.
So I’m not going to dig it out to play again, in the way that I would with a few pieces from that album (and her Drifters’ Escape is definitive in my world), but it’s fine. The song still doesn’t make any sense in relation to the rest of JWH, but at least the instrumental break relates to the way the rest of the track goes.
And that’s about it. There are others, but mostly they involve someone saying “Hey, let’s try it faster” or “Hey let’s try it slower.” And really, most of the time that ain’t enough.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Mozart, Van Gogh, Garrincha, Charley Patton, Nick Drake, Baudelaire… our history is rich with exceptionally gifted artists who, for various reasons, do not manage to cash in on their otherworldly talent and die penniless and forgotten. Especially painful in that shameful list are the artists who live long enough to see others make use of their work and become rich and famous with it. Arthur Crudup, of course, is a prime example. The man who wrote “That’s Alright, Ma” and “My Baby Left me”, the songs that catapulted Elvis into the stratosphere. Crudup was eventually fobbed off with $10,000, three years before his death in 1974, after years of lawyer’s sabre-rattling and embarrassing legal wrangling.
His genius seems to have touched Dylan, too. Apart from “It’s Alright, Ma”, which Dylan will continue to play over the years (including with Johnny Cash in the studio, 1969), a dusty Crudup single also seems to have been among the “reference records”, the records Dylan gives as homework to producer Daniel Lanois and studio staff before recording Time Out Of Mind and “Dirt Road Blues”. Like engineer Mark Howard, who tells Uncut:
“All these old blues recordings, Little Walter, guys like that. And he’d ask us, ‘Why do those records sound so great? Why can’t anybody have a record sound like that anymore? Can I have that?’ And so, I say, “Yeah, you can get those sounds still.”
Similar to how engineer Chris Shaw describes his experiences of searching for the right sound: “He might say, ‘Well, I’m kinda hearing this like this old Billie Holiday song.’ And so we’ll start with that, the band will actually start playing that song, try to get that sound, and then he’ll go, ‘Okay, and this is how my song goes.’ It’s a weird process.” And fitting with what Lanois reveals about his preparations for Time Out Of Mind:
“I did a lot of preparation with Pretty Tony in New York City. I listened to a lot of old records that Bob recommended I fish out. Some of them I knew already – some Charley Patton records, dusty old rock’n’roll records really, blues records. And Tony and I played along to those records.”
Charley Patton is, of course, a spirit that hovers over Time Out Of Mind anyway, and especially over its successor «Love And Theft» (2001). In lovingly stolen riffs (“Highlands”), complete songs (“High Water”), fragments of lyrics and, indeed, sound. Patton’s stamp on “Dirt Road Blues” seems rather obvious. After all, one of Patton’s best-known songs is the smashing “Down The Dirt Road Blues” from 1929, with the opening lines expressing the same, world-weary state of mind as Dylan’s protagonist:
I'm goin' away to a world unknown
I'm goin' away to world unknown
I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long
https://youtu.be/cuICVsaxJxc
… and, obviously, the same classic blues text structure – each verse a repeated opening line, followed by a rhyming closing line. And coincidentally, almost as many words even (170 vs. 179). Yet this doesn’t seem to be the “reference record” around which Dylan constructs his song – the sound doesn’t match. In this respect, Crudup’s adaptation, “Dirt Road Blues”, which he recorded in Chicago in October 1945, is closer. From which, by the way, Arthur will lift the second verse, turning it into the Big Bang of rock’n’roll:
Well now, that's all right now, mama, that's all right for you
That's all right, baby, any way you do
Now, I ain't goin' down, baby, by myself
You know, the one that I love, moving down with someone else
… the verse with the lyrics, the drive and the melody that will become “That’s All Right Mama”, rock’n’roll’s ground zero, which Crudup will record eleven months later as “That’s All Right”, a B-side to “Crudup’s After Hours”. That music-historical fact of Crudup’s “Dirt Road Blues” eclipses everything else, but in 1997 Dylan seems to be particularly touched by the sound;
…at least, Dylan takes the stomp, the rhythm, the guitar pattern and the rattling, shrill guitar sound with him. The atmosphere is different, though – Dylan’s song is spooky. Thanks to a fairly simple artifice: reverb on Dylan’s vocals and the ethereal, wispy, unearthly organ sound of Augie Meyers’ keys.
Dylan is asked about it, in interviews after the release of Time Out Of Mind. By Newsweek‘s David Gates, for example. In the week of 21 September 1997, a week before the release of Time Out Of Mind, three journalists are invited, one after the other, to a Santa Monica hotel suite. They have already heard the recordings, and Gates did notice both the overall desolate theme and the extraordinary sound. “It is a spooky record,” Dylan agrees, “because I feel spooky. I don’t feel in tune with anything.”
Bleak, lugubrious words. Spoken by a man who is still recovering from an encounter with Death four months earlier – that viral infection in the sac around the heart. Who, the doctors explain, presumably contracted his infection by inhaling fungal spores down some dirt road in Indiana, Tennessee or Illinois. Who declares after his discharge from hospital: “I really thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon.” And Patton, Robert Johnson and Arthur Crudup, we might add. That heavenly choir would probably have had strike up “Dirt Road Blues” as welcome song. Although Crudup most likely would have called for his own “Death Valley Blues”:
Tell all the women
Please come dressed in red
They going down 61 Highway
That's where the poor boy he fell dead
“Man, you must be puttin’ me on,” Dylan probably would have said, before joining in.
To be continued. Next up: Dirt Road Blues 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:
OK this is where it gets a bit silly. There are so many many many covers of Don’t think twice that it is impossible to say this is the best, or anything remotely like that. Except that is what I am going to do at the end of this piece.
But in case you don’t like it I’ll offer three others first…
There are two covers we have mentioned before on this site which have been in my favourites list for quite a long while, having kindly had them pointed out by readers of Untold, and I want to remind you of them. The first is just beautifully simple…
and the second is one that just sounds perfectly right in every regard. Sheeran doesn’t try, he just knows it is a beautiful song and offers it with due respect and understanding and in a most understated way.
So, those are two versions we have discovered before from the hundreds available. Here are two more recorded in the last year or two. First DylanGrass – an album from the Grassmasters. I’m not a bluegrass fan, but this is laid back and gentle and I can enjoy this as the sun sets.
And now the one track that I really wanted to send your way: a version released this year, and my newfound friend in relation to this wonderful song. A recording by Sachal Vasandani and Romain Collin.
Sachal Vasandani is a jazz vocal improviser who just has that way of singing that makes his voice something very special. Here he works with French pianist, Romain Collin, who is well-known on the New York jazz scene for his innovative playing.
If that doesn’t make you want to play the song again, well, sorry, because that is what I am doing.
There are hundreds and hundreds of covers of this song – but this Sachal Vasandani and Romain Collin version is the one that does it for me.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Aaron: Let’s take another meander through some various artists compilation albums in search of more one-off Dylan performances!
First up from the Hank Williams tribute album Timeless (my pick for the all-time greatest tribute album!) it’s I Can’t Get You Off Of My Mind.
Tony: Just what I want to get me moving this morning after a late night out in London (and 90 miles back home up the motorway in the early hours) – a really bouncy instrumentation and Bob singing in a relaxed way over the top of it. I’m now awake.
And it reminds me that how we hear music is so much influenced by how our days are going. For me, yesterday evening was spent watching my football (soccer) team winning in style. Now this morning getting out my rarely worn respectable clothing to go to the Christmas Dinner of the walking group I’m a member of. Two very different hobbies, but both greatly loved. And this recording sets me up for the day.
Incidentally, is that Bob playing the lead guitar in the instrumental breaks? Sounds like it to me.
Aaron: Next from The Art Of McCartney (the most star-filled tribute album of all time…seriously, everyone who is anyone is on this!) is Bob’s cover of Things We Said Today.
Tony: Bob as his most growly! It is interesting because it is Bob, but … well I don’t know. There is something about that growl that doesn’t quite fit with a song about loving a young woman. Maybe it is just that we are all so aware these days of the activities of predators (there was a long piece about it on the BBC news this morning) that just makes me edgy. It just shows how times change.
Musically it is one of the few pop songs that goes from the minor key for the verses to a major key for the middle 8 (“me I’m just the lucky kind”). But that’s McCartney for you.
But no, Bob singing like this is weirdly weird. A bit too spooky for me.
Aaron: Interestingly the producer of the album matched each artist with a song, except in Dylan’s case, as he picked that track himself. “I was surprised he decided to take part,” says Sall. “That’s not the song I would have picked, but it sure fits him.” McCartney’s live band was also used as the musicians on the album.
Tony:Ah well if the producer thinks it fits, who am I to say?
Aaron:Lastly from Bob’s own tribute album “Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs Of Bob Dylan” comes this excellent duet with Mavis Staples of Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking.
Tony: So much better musically, but I never get the idea of having the rehearsed chit chat in the middle of a song. I want to hear the music – and the music is great. Love the harmonies.
The old 12 bar blues can become tedious sometimes, but not here, this is sensational, the band really get it even when around 2.43 the rhythm guitar (is that Bob?) plays the wrong chord – except he does it in the next verse as well, so maybe not. Not sure if it quite works but, well, it’s Bob. And besides Mike Johnson has a go about Bob’s upsinging in the Never Ending Tour series, so I guess I can criticise his guitar work on this track. (If it is Bob that is).
So there we are, great fun. Another good collection Aaron. Here are the series details…
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
The next song in the alphabetical list is the lesser known “Dirty Lie” which has one superb cover version by The Secret Sisters. But I’ve already raved about that here, so if you want to hear that cover, and the original from which the song was derived, that’s the place to go.
I’ve also replaced the source of the Dylan recording of the song in that article – the previous one linked to was no longer available. It’s a fun piece of music, and so is the cover version.
So moving on, “Don’t fall apart from me tonight” is next – one of the songs that Bob has never chosen to perform. But others have.
During the first lockdown in England I discovered what Chrissie Hynde was up to, recording Dylan songs for the fun of it, and “Don’t fall” was one of them…
She really has that ability to get inside the lyrics. I’m not at all sure about video, but I do love this recording. It really shows to me that these songs that many Dylan fans will have completely forgotten, have so much in them. They are worthy of being kept alive…
Just listen to what she does with the “These people walking toward you” section – that is stunningly brilliant.
And to prove how brilliant that recording above is I am going to include three other covers that fail to get there.
Overall Bettye Lavette’s contribution to the cause really is something to behold. But this isn’t my favourite reinterpretation of a Dylan song. However I feel it deserves to be noted simply because of how much she has done to bring the songs to more and more people’s awareness. Yet it shows that no matter how much talent and background understanding one has, success with a Dylan song is not guaranteed.
These next two covers also provide a further warning. Just playing and singing the song as another pop ballad, without any extra insight (as opposed to a load of emphasis to try and suggest that the singer is really really really feeling it) doesn’t quite make it worthwhile.
Aaron Neville (below) takes it more gently and seeks to use his voice as the prime input but the instrumentation for me trivialises what’s left. The insight has gone.
And so again I think it is worth hearing these three versions just to show the magnitude of what Chrissie Hynde achieved. Once you’ve had enough of this, go back to that opening recording on this page, if you have the time, and hear just what can be achieved with a person who really feels that this is a Dylan song, not just another song. Listening to these alternative versions I just feel that Chrissie has not only understood the lyrics and music, but understood Dylan. Not only Dylan in this song, but Dylan generally.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Last week Jochen Markhorst’s eleventh English Dylan book was published, and this week the German and Dutch versions: Bringing It All Back Home – Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang. Available, as usual, through Amazon.
The book contains an elegant foreword by David Marx, comprehensive analyses of the eleven album tracks and of four songs that we’ll refer to as “BIABH outtakes” for convenience: “Farewell Angelina”, “If You Gotta Go, Go Now”, “Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word” and “You Don’t Have To Do That”. Connecting those often wide-ranging song excursions are short key chapters like the one below.
That drumming is driving me mad
by Jochen Markhorst
Mr. Tambourine Man”, 2. “Gates Of Eden”, 3. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” and 4. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”… there are quite a few fans for whom Side B of Bringing It All Back Home is the best album side in Dylan’s bulging catalogue, and, consequently for them the best album side of all time.
Thanks to Michael Krosgaard’s exhaustive The Recording Sessions and the fascinating time document The Cutting Edge, we can reconstruct its creation fairly accurately.
All four songs were recorded on the same afternoon, that fruitful Friday 15 January 1965 at Studio A of the Columbia Recording Studio in New York. The studio logs indicate that the studio was at Dylan’s disposal from 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm. Three hours, in other words. The first half of that time is spent on “Maggie’s Farm” (which is a wrap in four minutes, in one take) and on “On The Road Again” (twelve takes). Then come the four songs that will become side B of Bringing It All Back Home.
To begin with, the two songs Dylan will record solo, without any further accompaniment. First “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”. A first take is cut short by producer Tom Wilson after twenty-four seconds, “Bob can you back up just a little bit,” – apparently Dylan is standing too close to the microphone. The fun is almost washed away by then. We hear him say “I really don’t feel like doing the song” and “It’s such a long song”, but fortunately he is able to restart his motivation: the next take of “It’s Alright, Ma” is taped in one go and is the definitive, staggering, cosmic 7’32” album version.
The Cutting Edge continues with the only take of “Gates Of Eden”, 5’44”, which is also in the can in one, perfect, take. We hear no studio talk or other background noise between the two recordings, but we can assume that Dylan allowed himself a short smoke break or something in between. And probably went for a cup of tea after the tour de force “Gates Of Eden”.
Meanwhile, Bruce Langhorne (electric guitar) and drummer Bobby Gregg are invited back into the studio. “Mr. Tambourine Man” is on the roll. Not for the first time, by the way; six months ago, during the recording sessions for Another Side Of Bob Dylan on 9 June 1964, Dylan already recorded two takes, accompanied by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, who provided some back-up vocals.
Those recordings did not pass the selection. In general, Dylan is not really too critical of recordings, which to him are nothing more than snapshots of how a song is played on that particular day, but “Mr. Tambourine Man” is different. He is proud of the song, has been playing it since May ’64, has shown it to friends, has performed it in England and in Newport and at the Halloween concert at the Philharmonic Hall, New York October 31, has actually played it at almost every small and large gig in 1964. And apparently, he feels that the June recording with Elliott doesn’t do the song justice – he moves it on to a next album, saving it for perhaps a Best Album Side Of All-Time.
So, Dylan has “Mr. Tambourine Man” under his belt by the time the song is recorded for Bringing It All Back Home. But for the band, it’s still a bit of a search. Drummer Bobby Gregg, in particular, seems to be inspired by the title to come up with sort of playing like a drum major, choosing a very Greenwich Village Fanfare-like boom-boom accompaniment. Halfway through take 3, Dylan can’t take it anymore. He has kept it up for three torturous minutes, but then abruptly breaks off: “Aww hey, I can’t uh… hey, that drumming is driving me mad. I’m going outa my brain.”
Take 4 and 5 are two short, aborted runs of a few seconds, and take 6 then is perfect. Bobby Gregg is no longer allowed to participate.
In the end, it’s the only song on Side B that takes more than eight minutes to complete, this Friday afternoon. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” is recorded in the 4’14” that the song lasts. Gregg is still not allowed to return, guitarist Bruce Langhorne stays put and does basically the same thing as on “Mr. Tambourine Man”, only an octave lower – swirling single notes on almost every beat.
And with that, the recording of the Best Album Side of All Time is done. Without a single second of Bobby Gregg.
———-
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:
Untold Dylanwas created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
This, I suspect, is going to be one of the articles in this series that is skipped by quite a few readers who so kindly generally follow me on this daily meander through Dylan’s catalogue in alphabetical order via the covers. Cover version of “Dirge”? Let that one go.
Dylan himself has never performed “Dirge” in concert and perhaps for that reason the number of covers is tiny and do take a little bit of finding.
But I certainly don’t want to repeat my whole argument about the importance of “Dirge” and “Wedding Song” – my thoughts are still online as part of All Directions. But if I may quote myself briefly, I said, “those final songs took us to a new high point from which Dylan was completely ready and free to launch himself forward with not only works of genius, but works of genius the fans and the self-appointed critics would like.”
Thus these are the two compositions that preceded “Blood on the Tracks” and my suggestion has been that next time you play that album you might care to precede it with these two extraordinary songs and hear them as “Blood on the Tracks: the Prelude”.
Anyway, because of their low ranking among the self-anointed experts, we don’t hear too much of them in the world of covers, but there are two that I really enjoy and a third which is, well…. interesting.
And indeed when we published a list of covers suggested by readers Dirge came up twice – and those two suggested covers make up the two main entries today.
Michael Moravek
This artist (of whom I know nothing) gives me a feeling that he has contemplated every word he is singing and worked with the musicians around him to produce this beautiful arrangement of such a difficult song. Even the repeated bars at the end are carefully crafted – and one can’t always say that.
Please do stay with this version rather than moving on after a few seconds… it really is worth it. Sophie Hunger is another artist I am not familiar with – very much my loss – and Wiki tells me she is a Swiss singer-songwriter, film composer, multi-instrumentalist (guitar, blues harp, piano) and bandleader, currently living in Berlin.
And a remarkable interpreter of Dylan it seems. I really do think this is a fantastic interpretation of a totally remarkable and ludicrously ignored Dylan masterwork.
Erik Truffaz.
And finally…
Diva de Lai
This is not a recording I’m going to play over and over again – it is the previous two covers that have been and will be heard in the Attwood household. But this version does show just how much there is in this often ignored song.
Dirge really is an amazing composition. It does deserve more recognition. Just because Bob doesn’t want to perform it, don’t mean it ain’t great.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Details of all the cover versions of Dylan songs, and links to all the previous episodes, are included at the end of the article.
by Larry Fyffe
According to the Dylavinci Code, Jesus Christ meets up with Mary Magdalene in “the land of oaks”.
In the song lyrics below, He thinks of mama, who is also the mother of Magdalene, which biologically makes Maggie and JC “half-siblings”.
Clear away the mixing in of modern technology like the railway train, and it’s obvious that pregnant Magdalene (‘my woman’), and time-traveller Dylan, transfigured into the form of Christ, rendezvous in France:
I can hear a sweet voice gently calling
Must be the mother of our Lord
Listen to the Duquesne whistle blowing
Blowing like my woman's on board
(Bob Dylan: Duquesne Whistle ~ Dylan/Hunter)
So far we realize that Lazarus is restored back to life, and Martha feeds the Saviour well; Jesus is present to be with Magdalene at His daughter’s birth.
Then He leaves to distract Church authorities away from the location (this is speculation as no other hidden clues are left behind in any song lyrics to assure the code-busters that their reconstruction of the timeline is right on).
Religious authorities have accused the couple of having a “Roderick/Madeline Usher relationship”.
In the following song lyrics that accompany a movie produced in Durango, Mexio, Jesus (aka ‘Billy’) is depicted as an outlaw of the Old West in America – on the run with Mary Magdalene (aka “Maria”) before they escape to France:
Playing around with some sweet senorita
Into her dark hallway, she will lead you
To the shadows of the mesa, she will greet you
Billy, you're so far away from home
(Bob Dylan: Billy)
There are so-called ‘Dylanologists’ who hold to a different decipher of the Divinity Code. They claim that Jesus brings His wife back with Him to New England along with the child.
Based on the song lyrics below in which Christ (aka Jack Astor) saves pregnant wife Madelene after the Titanic hits the iceberg.
Jesus, because He cannot die, or else because He disguises Himself as a woman and is allowed into a lifeboat, makes it to shore; contrary to the finding of Astor’s drowned body:
The rich man Mr. Astor
Kissed his darling wife
He had no way of knowing
Be the last day of his life
Perhaps misled by their reading of the following quote:
The companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene
And He often kissed her on the lips
(Gospel Of Philip)
Such an interpretation does not hold water because Jack’s wife Madelene gives birth to a male child once safely back home. The true interpretation, as demonstrated, be that Jesus travels alone to Utah with baby Sophia Sarah wrapped up warmly in swaddling clothes.
Just goes to show that many of Bob Dylan’s songs are subjected to misinterpretation.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
The thing about Dignity is the rhythm of the bass – I defy anyone who listens to the music of Dylan (as opposed to just focussing on the lyrics) not to recognise the song from that bouncing bass line before any chord changes or vocalisation has been introduced.
It doesn’t really matter what the language is, if you hear the bounce you know it. And this version by Francesco De Gregori – “Il Principe dei cantautori” (the prince of the singer-songwriters) keeps that bass so we know what song we are listening to, even if we don’t speak a word of Italian.
I’m slightly puzzled why I like this cover version so much but I think it is the rolling sound of the Italian, and the fact that the singer does keep the whole piece so much under control, which is what I feel it needs.
But then take that away and you’ve not got Dignity at all – and so I really don’t get this next version at all. OK I don’t speak Swedish, but now the song just sounds like nothing particular. And the rhythm they have chosen just doesn’t seem to do justice to the feeling of the song, even though I can’t understand the lyrics.
There is something engaging about the jolly bounce of it all I guess, and I’ve tried imagining this music with the lyrics in English, but no, it doesn’t work.
I’m not normally including versions I don’t really take to, but I feel the need here to make my point. Take out the absolute essence of the piece and you might as well write your own new song.
OK, so that’s two versions that are not in English. What else can we find? Well of course, there is the instrumental version… And why not Denny Freeman who worked with Bob from 2005 to 2009 and played on Modern Times – the band of which Bob said, “This is the best band I’ve ever been in, I’ve ever had, man for man.”
Denny sadly is no longer with us – he passed away from cancer earlier this year. Remembering you Denny.
But moving on, as one must do, I am as ever looking for a version of the song which really does re-interpret the composition while providing interesting music. And yes I get that with the Low Anthem.
Aaron found this band as part of the Beautiful Obscurity series and I loved it the first time I heard it. Apologies for bringing out the same song twice, but it is so gorgeous.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Max Fleischer left quite a lot to be grateful for, and in the Top 3 of Fleischer’s gratifying creations is Betty Boop.
Certainly, the twentieth century would have been a duller one without the frenzied 1930s masterpieces featuring the archetypal Jazz Age flapper Betty Boop. Like Minnie The Moocher (1932) and especially Snow-White (1933), the brilliant, swinging fantasies fluttering around Cab Calloway’s “Minnie The Moocher” and Cab’s irresistible rendition of “St. James Infirmary Blues” (Dylan’s template for “Blind Willie McTell”). Featuring Koko The Clown as vocalist, in flawless Calloway choreography.
Fleischer, like Frankie Valli, has a nose for great songs and sees their added value for his cartoons. At least as irresistible as the use of Cab Calloway’s songs and stage presence are guest roles for stars such as Rudy Vallée (Kitty from Kansas City), Maurice Chevalier (Stopping the Show) and Louis Armstrong (I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You). And the songs Betty sings herself, of course.
Three weeks before Fleischer surprises with Snow-White in March 1933, he produces the beautiful 6-minute interlude Betty Boop’s Penthouse, for which he mines the then relatively unknown “Penthouse Serenade (When We’re Alone)”. Fleischer has probably heard the version by Roy Fox & his Band, or the primal version by Tom Gerun and his Orchestra, but thanks to Betty Boop, the song makes its way to the general public, and later, via Nat King Cole, Anita O’Day and Tony Bennett, to the American Songbook – from which a Marianne Faithfull, for instance, digs it up again (Strange Weather, 1987).
It has a nice, classic melody, and the beautiful lyrics with nice, Cole Porter-like rhymes are thematically in themselves a fairly common Depression-era aspiration from a penniless, love-struck protagonist who dreams of the glamour of an uptown Manhattan flat;
Just picture a penthouse way up in the sky
With hinges on chimneys for stars to go by
A sweet slice of Heaven for just you and I
When we're alone.
From all of society we'll stay aloof
And live in propriety there on the roof.
Two heavenly hermits we will be in truth
When we're alone.
We'll see life's mad patterns
As we view old Manhattan
Then we can thank our lucky stars
That we're living as we are.
A protagonist who wants to take the woman of his dreams to a castle high, to his ivory tower, where they will be alone… to be alone with you, in short. Not necessarily very original, but the use of the atypical mad patterns (wildly rhyming with Manhattan) in the bridge suggests where Dylan at least got the inspiration for his text revision of “To Be Alone With You”.
On Nashville Skyline, in 1969, “To Be Alone With You” isn’t very long: 2’06”. Shorter, actually; the first twelve seconds the band fiddle around, Dylan asks producer Johnston “Is it rolling Bob?”, and he doesn’t start singing until second 12. Fifty years later, in the Shadow Kingdom, the song clocks in at 2’58”. Dylan starts singing at second 1, the tempo is slightly faster, and Dylan sings his last notes, a repeat of the last line, at 2’41”. The last seventeen seconds are a short instrumental coda. All in all, more than 50% longer than the original. Which can be explained quite simply: the rewritten version has a bridge and a verse more. In 1969 Dylan sings 157 words, in 2021 it’s 208.
The extra verse is introduced with that new bridge:
I’m collecting my thoughts in a pattern, moving from place to place
Stepping out into the dark night, stepping out into space
… in which Dylan’s words, of course, take on a completely different connotation than those in “Penthouse Serenade”. “Thoughts in a pattern”, “stepping out”, “into the dark”, “into space”… all metaphors that could signal a mental disorder, suggesting that a protagonist here is expressing his descent into madness. Which is confirmed in the following closing couplet:
What happened to me, darling? What was it you saw?
Did I kill somebody? Did I escape the law?
Got my heart and my mouth, my eyes are still blue
My mortal bliss is to be alone with you
Lurid words. The series of questions insinuates that the first-person narrator lost his self-control and in a frenzy, or at least in a different state of consciousness, committed bloody mischief. What is even more disturbing is the apparently reassuring meant observation “my eyes are still blue”. The narrator can only reassure himself with this fact by standing in front of a mirror – which would imply that he has posed the previous questions to himself, to his own reflection. Which in turn suggests a Dr Jeckyll/Mr Hyde type of schizophrenia, or rather, given the choice of words, a Gollum/Sméagol-like psychopathological discord;
Gollum: What’s it saying, my precious, my love? Is Sméagol losing his nerve?
Sméagol: No! Not! Never! Sméagol hates nasty hobbitses! Sméagol wants to see them… dead!
Gollum: Patience! Patience, my love. First we must lead them to her.
The blue-eyed protagonist standing in front of the mirror gets no answer, and it is to be feared that he asks his questions over the still warm corpse of his guest, of the lady lured to his castle high, his ivory tower, his penthouse way up in the sky. Which doesn’t seem to bother him too much: “My mortal bliss is to be alone with you.”
Antique-sounding words, which Dylan has used once before, in a similar sultry, oppressive context:
My wretched heart's pounding
I felt an angel's kiss
My memories are drowning
In mortal bliss
… in “Beyond The Horizon” (2006). Where those words are introduced with “Beyond the horizon someone prayed for your soul” and concluded with “Every step that you take, I’m walking the same”; with similar creepy, sinister words.
The antique-like colour of the final words is explainable, by the way. On Modern Times, the 2006 album on which “Beyond The Horizon” can be found, Dylan embellishes more lyrics with lovingly stolen Ovid fragments. The text of “Beyond The Horizon” as it appears in the official publications, in Lyrics 1961-2012 and on the official site, is for unknown reasons completely different from the text Dylan sings on the album, and the above bridge is not found there – but Dylan does sing it. Including the words lovingly stolen from Ovid: “my wretched heart” (found in both Tristia and Metamorphoses) and the “mortal bliss”, from “Minos” in Metamorphoses Book 7, where it is usually translated as:
But mortal Bliss will never come sincere,
Pleasure may lead, but Grief brings up the Rear
… yep, with yet again subcutaneous menace. An inescapable darkness with which even Betty Boop’s version of “Penthouse Serenade” closes:
In my little penthouse I'll always contrive
To keep love and romance forever alive
In view of the Hudson just over the drive,
For I’m alone.
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:
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Are my choices of cover versions related to how I feel when writing these little pieces? Most certainly yes. It is not that I have great mood swings generally, although I am a fairly emotional fellow – but it is that I tend to move around in my way of seeing the world, often changing because of what happened yesterday.
Which leads to the notion of Dylan’s music not being judged by all-time visions of greatness or otherwise, but on the basis of how I feel when I woke up this morning. And indeed maybe that is how we should see all commentaries. Heylin sees Dylan as he does because Heylin is a grumpy fellow who believes he is always right. That seems to fit.
And certainly today I woke up [or should I say, “I woke up this morning”] knowing that I had done something yesterday that I had not done before – a six and a half mile walk in the Nottinghamshire countryside in the afternoon followed by three hours solid jiving in a small town in Northamptonshire. Such events tend to give one a new vision on life the following morning when trying to get the body moving again. Especially at my time of life.
So, knowing what was next on the “cover a day” menu I thought the choice would be obvious. One version of Desolation Row that suits my body’s need to recover before setting out for London to watch my club play football.
A version of Desolation Row that has everything. It is unexpected, it is beautifully performed, it is brilliantly arranged, and by and large it comes from a set of brains whose working I can only sit back and admire. The one tragedy is it is only three minutes long and I wanted it to go on and on and on. But still I can play it again.
And again.
But then I relented and thought, hell, although contemplation and intellectual endeavour are a part of life, surely so is contrast. So is seeing the world from different angles, getting new visions and new perspectives. Or at least getting moving because there is another dance to night in another county (Leicestershire this time).
I thus felt I should put in something by way of contrast… just in case you needed something different. And of course just as you don’t have to read, you don’t have to listen either.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
This series involves Aaron looking back to recordings of Dylan songs from unusual formats or situations, and then, having dug them out, handing over to Tony to write a commentary. Tony in the UK has no say in what is chosen, Aaron in the USA has no say in what Tony writes.
Aaron: I thought for this one we could look at three tracks taken from various festival performances which were officially released on the souvenir CDs for each of the festivals.
Dylan played a 12 song set at Woodstock ‘94 but the only track chosen for the official album was this version of Highway 61 Revisited.
Tony:Two things strike me straight away – this version is not just slower than the original album version, and it is sung a third lower, but put those two factors together and you almost get a completely different song. What then rounds this off is the extended instrumental sections, which are so vibrant and full-on they contrast with the slower beat of the song itself.
This then in turn gives the opportunity for more than one instrumental break – it turns the original song with the siren or whistle and its somewhat lighthearted feel into something quite different.
In fact the whole approach of instrumental breaks and slower beat turns this into a six minute well-rehearsed epic, rather than either a repeat of the track from the album, or an improvisation.
Aaron:Next in 1995 came The Concert For The Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame. Dylan’s contribution to the official album was this All Along The Watchtower
Tony:Playing this video on my computer the volume is quite low – even when I turn my volume slider up to 100%. But even if you are struggling a little to hear this it is worth persevering with the recording.
However I am also endlessly intrigued by Bob’s costume changes – and his minimal guitar playing here during the vocals. Bob has said that Hendrix work on this song showed that the original is not always the best, and it is interesting how having had Hendrix’ approach Bob decided to take it on and then further.
And there is an interesting stance taken by Bob during the guitar break too. But he does have a surprise (at least for me) around the three and a half minute section as the song keeps going on, and then comes down to a much lower level for a moment before rebuilding.
But for me there is a problem: the song is so well known, and in essence so simple (just three verses and that famous chord sequence over and over and over), it perhaps needs even more. Maybe it didn’t at the time of the performance, but it feels like it does now.
However do leave the recording running because we then get a contrasting version of Highway 61. Has any artist ever done so many cover versions of his own songs? Has a singer-songwriter guitarist ever played such minimal guitar before?
And do stay to the end, just to watch Bob’s conclusion of the piece and the way he saunters back to the mic, as if to say, “no one else can do it like that.”
Aaron:The next one comes from Bonnaroo 2004. The official album included the live Down Along The Cove. This version ended up being used as the b-side to several later singles.
Tony: Turn your volume back down a bit, as Bob puts a few variations into what is (for me) a rather ordinary 12 bar blues written (in my estimation) just for a festival and included as an album filler.
Does this version tell us anything or help us get a firmer grip on the original recording? Well, for me, no. Yes the lead guitar is having a bit of fun in the instrumental breaks, and this is perhaps the best re-writing of this song ever, but really, in my estimation there is so little there at the start that even with the re-write, it is just an enjoyable bop. Which is fine, but I think I normally expect more of Bob.
——————-
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Code broken in song lyrics, clues hidden among moderisms, reveal that singer/songer/musician Bob Dylan takes on personas that often speak as or of Jesus Christ.
The song beneath tells of the return of Jesus to the shores of New England with His baby girl; she born in France.
When she’s old enough to understand, her father tells Sophia that her mother Maggie once met playwright William Shakespeare in an alleyway.
A bit of a mouthy braggart, the “Son of God” would announce Himself as “The King of France”, because He was mocked as “The King of the Jews” before He escaped a public execution by Roman authorities:
Let me tell you about the King Of France
When he come to the USA
There was hungry people, and when by him
They could hear he had something to say
Well he opened his mouth
And he looked down
And the hungry people did shout
(Bob Dylan: The King Of France)
Further to completing a character sketch of Christ, Dylan as Jesus boasts to his daughter that He convinces King Richard of England to become lion-hearted, and command a Third Crusade to the Holy Land:
Little Richard in a two-story house
Hey little Richard, poor little Richard
Little Richard's gonna climb on out
Hey little Richard, poor little Richard
Little Richard's gonna climb with me
Little Richard is fine with me
(Bob Dylan: Hey Little Richard)
Jesus plays a dangerous game by giving His presence away in America. But what the heck, Christ’s a-gonna deke down South; then head up North to join a group of Mormons heading out West in a wagon train.
The following song lyrics describe how Jesus with baby Sophia journey all the way to Salt Lake City – with thoughts of His Holy Mama on His mind, and St. Peter’s posse on His trail:
So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel
Rock me, mama, any way you feel
Hey, mama, rock me
Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain
(Darius Rucker: Wagon Wheel ~ Dylan/Secor)
It ain’t easy having the burden to save all mankind from themselves thrust upon one’s shoulders.
Jesus would rather live a peace-filled life in Utah.
Father Jesus explains to his daughter that He brings her mother’s “half-brother” back to life after he’s shot down by the High Sheriff’s posse (Eucharis and Cyrus, being the parents of Lazarus; meanie Cyrus has an affair with Mother Mary that results in the birth of Mary Magdalene):
And Lazarus, his poor mother
Come walking down the road
Crying, "My only son, my only son"
(Bob Dylan: Poor Lazarus ~ Dylan/traditional)
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
Maybe there is something wrong with me today for I have been plodding through cover after cover trying to find something I want to share with you. I mean, why can’t I find a brilliant cover version of “Dark Eyes” on the internet? Maybe I am just not looking properly.
So I have moved on to Dear Landlord and found a couple of versions that I enjoy. Of course, this first one doesn’t require any searching because I’ve called upon this album so often…
I guess the Fairport version is one that lots of us know.
But this last one was found by Jochen in his review in 2019. It was worth special attention then, and it certainly still is. The accompaniment is not like anything I have ever heard before. Unique, original, enterprising, challenging – whoever wrote the arrangement needs a medal. Wow.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
As with the text changes of the first verse, the rewritten bridge also seems unspectacular at first glance. In 1969, Dylan wrote and sang:
They say that nighttime is the right time
To be with the one you love
Too many thoughts get in the way in the day
But you’re always what I’m thinkin’ of
… so clichéd and clumsy as to be almost comical. “Nighttime is the right time to be with the one you love” is a lazy copy/paste from the song the whole world has been singing along for years now with Nappy Brown (1957) or with Ray Charles (1958), or with Rufus and Carla (1964). A song that is actually much older, by the way; already in 1937 Roosevelt Sykes recorded “Night Time Is the Right Time”… with exactly these very same words.
Not to mention the dull “in the way in the day” and the weak closing line. Which, to make it even more awkward is a semantically incorrect continuation of the previous one – if I always think of you, there won’t be, obviously, “too many thoughts in the way”. Not during the day either.
Irrelevant, of course – the Nobel Prize winner is not aiming here for a gripping epic about a scorching love, nor for a heartbreaking lyrical declaration of love, but is quite content with an accumulation of empty clichés. “Words don’t interfere,” as he would later explain (Playboy interview with Ron Rosenbaum, 1978). Anyway, fifty years later, the poet revises the bridge;
They say the nighttime is the right time to hold each other tight
All worldly cares will disappear and everything will come outright
… starting off again with a puzzling intervention; one cliché is exchanged for another (“to hold each other tight”), which seems rather pointless. Well, perhaps Dylan changed it because he finds the uncritical copying of the second part (“to be with the one you love”) a bit too easy-going or corny by now.
The second line, then, is a real enrichment. The disappearing worldly cares in the bridge also builds a substantive bridge to the preceding ivory tower and high castle, the crime scene to which the narrator wants to take his victim. An ivory tower, after all, is a synonym for detachment, an absence of worldly concerns. And, remarkably enough, worldly cares is a relatively uncommon word combination in the art of song. The old Rodgers/Hart jazz standard “Blue Room” comes to mind, there are not many more examples. In which, by the way, the blue room is also something like an ivory tower, a place where the protagonist and his beloved can isolate themselves from everyday worries. Really isolate themselves – – even Robinson Crusoe is still closer to bleak reality;
You sew your trousseau,
and Robinson Crusoe,
Is not so far from worldly cares,
As our blue room, far away upstairs
Dylan presumably knows Bing Crosby’s rendition (1956), or Perry Como’s hit (1948), and the cinephile Dylan will have noticed the song on the soundtrack of The Big Sleep as well; from that film, Dylan also records “You Go To My Head” and “I’ll Guess I’ll Have To Change My Plans” (both on Triplicate, 2017), and “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” is played by the DJ in his Theme Time Radio Hour (episode 39, “Tears”)… every song from The Big Sleep comes along with Dylan sooner or later. Apart from that, he undoubtedly considered “Blue Room” in his American Songbook years 2015-2017.
Still, it is probably only an unconscious echo, this worldly cares, or perhaps just a coincidence – but in any case it flows smoothly and pleasantly into the continuation, into the half Gandhi quote (“Therefore, replace greed by love and everything will come outright”); on both a substantive and an instinctive level, a successful match with disappearing worldly cares. Gandhi is anything but a high castle dweller in an ivory tower, but he is, of course, detachment incarnate.
And a more macabre interpretation of this seemingly lovely bridge is offered in hindsight, when we hear whereto the bridge is being laid:
I wish the night was here, make me scream and shout
I’ll fall into your arms, I’ll let it all hang out
I’ll hound you to death, that’s just what I’ll do
I won’t sleep a wink ‘till I’m alone with you
… the verse that marks a definitive break with the tenor of the original text. The first six words remain unchanged, but after that, the tide turns quite drastically;
I wish the night were here
Bringin’ me all of your charms
When only you are near
To hold me in your arms
I’ll always thank the Lord
When my working day’s through
I get my sweet reward
To be alone with you
… the closing couplet of the original version. Not-a-care-in-the-world words as they have echoed against the walls of Nashville studios for decades, words we have all heard dozens of times in songs by Hank Snow and Roy Orbison, by Hank Williams and Glen Campbell. But there is little left of these innocent words. The safe and obedient “I’ll always thank the Lord” is rewritten as “I’ll hound you to death”, the sweet and cute “all of your charms” is now “scream and shout”… the hard-working, God-fearing sweetheart from 1969 is transformed into a bloodthirsty sexual predator who will not rest until he has that girl in his claws, until he is alone with her. Upon which he shall put her to a Big Sleep, we may fear.
To be continued. Next up: To Be Alone With You part 6
———
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:
Untold Dylanwas created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
A list of past articles appears at the end of the article along with other details of what this site is all about – just in case you have stumbled upon us for the first time.
Now, when I started this little series of Dylan Covers this is what I was thinking of. This song, and the first track below and thinking there must be more utter gems like this floating around. Indeed I imagined discovering cover after cover as amazing and illuminating as this.
Of course, it hasn’t quite worked out like that, but even so, it has been worth the journey just to get here.
Just listen and enjoy
The rhythms are so intriguing, and there is the movement of the language for the title, always sung in harmony. And the accordion that comes in between the verses. Plus so many other elements of the music floating in and floating out. This is a masterpiece; don’t you dare turn it off until it finishes.
Actually, I played a few other non-English language versions just to see if there was something in the song that made it sound exquisite in a foreign tongue, but no, that’s no the point (nor was it ever likely to be).
But try this
Now that is what I call musical imagination. OK this jazz style may not be your thing, but the invention, exploration and desire to express the song differently shine through for me.
And finally, an example of what a couple of chord changes and a chorus of voices can do – combined with a real feeling that these people really, really do want to perform this song. I love this version and keep coming back to it.
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Oh how I love this song and have always loved it from the day I first heard it and how I have hung onto those last two lines through the days that were somewhat darker than I wanted them to be.
And three superb cover versions to give me another reason to play the song over and over again. Not that I haven’t been doing that since it was first released. I really do hope you have time to listen.
Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
This series involves Aaron looking back to recordings of Dylan songs from unusual formats or situations, and then, having dug them out, handing over to Tony to write a commentary. Tony in the UK has no say in what is chosen, Aaron in the USA has no say in what Tony writes.
Aaron:Some background… Quest was a Canadian TV series which ran for 4 series between 1961 and 1964. It was an anthology series showcasing documentaries, dramas and musical performances. The very last episode starred Dylan, who at the time was promoting the Times They Are A-Changin’ album.
The show normally had a host but for Bob’s episode, they presented Bob on his own. He performed six tracks, however, the fourth (Girl From The North Country) is not available on YouTube; it is however included on the No Direction Home DVD.
I’ll present the remaining five performances in the order from the show.
The times they are a changin’
Tony: Two things always take me by surprise with early recordings of this song: how simple the guitar part is, and how fast Dylan takes the song. I haven’t gone back and checked that these are real effects – it is just how it appears to me suddenly hearing recordings like this for the first time.
I wonder if the director said, “Right we can give you two minutes 20 seconds Bob, no more for that song,” (I haven’t timed it) – but whatever the cause some of these live recordings of this song do feel far too fast. Of course, part of this could be me just getting old and wanting things to proceed more slowly – I can remember my grandparents always telling me to slow down in my speech because they couldn’t understand me. (Whereas now of course people don’t tell me to slow down, but the reverse).
I also wonder how much Bob had already written since “Times” and how he wanted to perform these new songs, not get stuck in the past. Bob wrote 31 songs in 1963, with Times coming near the end of the sequence, and another 20 in 1964, so it really is possible that he wanted to get the past out of the way.
And maybe he was also fed up with the way people didn’t listen to the lyrics, and took them to be a call to the young to get up and change the world. Whereas (and forgive me for repeating the thought yet again) the song says that times change, whatever we do and whatever we try.
Talkin’ World War III Blues
The writing of these songs must have been very fast – and what we have here is a collection of songs from the end of 1963, with just one song written the year before.
The film is really strange – one or two guys look interested and find it amusing, but not all. Bob seems to be enjoying it – and of course his memory of the lyrics is faultless. But really it is so strange this set up. I just can’t get over what a weird concept it all is.
The lonesome death of Hattie Carrol
So in terms of compositions we are still in 1963, and this setting is striking me as more and more surreal…
I imagine these songs were all recorded in one take – and for the first time there are slight variations in the lyrics and the rhythm of delivery – Dylan is slightly taking the rhythm of the guitar away from the lyrics, and extending certain lines. I get the feeling that he has settled down now (assuming that the songs were recorded in the order that they are presented here – which certainly would be the normal case for such recordings at the time).
There are very slightly changes of time throughout this song, which we don’t hear at all in the recordings of Times from this era. In fact this is a much more relaxed performance all round; talent surpassing awareness of the setting.
Indeed of the recordings so far, this is first one I would like to go back to and hear again – the changes are subtle but certainly worth considering. They don’t change the meaning but are just interesting in seeing how Bob was becoming an accomplished performer for whom each performance could be nuanced in a different way.
A Hard Rains A Gonna Fall
This is the one song in the sequence that is slightly out of time, in terms of composition. It comes from the middle of the sequence of 36 songs written in 1962. And again if my feeling that the songs here are presented in the order in which they were recorded, Bob is now fully settled down, with a perfect performance. By which I don’t mean to say there is anything imperfect in the recollection of the music or lyrics before, but there is something more certain about this delivery.
Actually, I find this recording utterly compelling. Of course, like you, I know the song inside out and upside down, but I still need to listen for there is something slightly different here from other recordings. Goodness, what an incredible historic document this is – and (showing my ignorance here) I didn’t know about it. Deeply indebted to you Aaron for introducing it to me.
Some of the close ups of Dylan’s face are revealing too – he is the music, the music is inside him, he is thinking every line as he performs it. Extraordinary.
Restless Farewell
I really want to try and stress the fact that these are not a “greatest hits” selection from across a number of years but a performance of a set of songs written that had been written in quick succession. Before “Talking World War III Blues”, in 1963 alone Bob had already written 19 songs (as well as another 36 the year before, including Hard Rain).
And the songs presented here, other than Hard Rain, come from a sequence of 13 compositions written toward the end of the year. Here is the list in the order of presentation – the links take you to the original Untold reviews, just in case you are interested.
That is an utterly amazing era of compositional activity.
So what we have, apart from Hard Rain, are four amazing works written in a short space of time and which of course are still remembered, and not just by Dylan fans. And just think – staying in this short period Bob could also have picked Only a pawn, When the Ship, One too many… And North Country (which was performed in the film, as Aaron noted above) also comes from this same period. I don’t think even Iriving Berlin was this prolific in such a short space of time.
If I have to be critical of any part of this amazing recording, it would be with this performance of Restless Farewell – but really this is being very churlish. And I suppose the problem is that for me, personally, one of the absolute top five highlights of Dylan’s performing career involves this extraordinary song. So I’ll add the version I love, with the connection that what we have been listening to above is Early Bob, and here is Bob paying tribute to the end of the career of one of his heroes… What a journey he has taken…
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Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
I was quite looking forward to this afternoon’s break from the day job, knowing that the next song on the agenda for “cover of the day” was “Caribbean Wind” and although I found two covers, neither really added anything to Dylan’s recordings of the song. They’re perfectly fine, but simply don’t take us somewhere new in our understanding of the song. A shame, but then we do have multiple versions from Bob himself.
But if you know a cover of the song that really does give a new perspective, and which is on the internet, please do write to me: Tony@schools.co.uk
So I move on and having moved I thought for a moment I was going to run into the same problems with the next title: “Changing of the Guards”. For here again I found just a few covers that really are just reiterating the original.
However, then I stumbled across this
At first I wasn’t at all convinced, but I am really glad I stayed with it, as it became more interesting, more enjoyable and basically more entertaining as it developed.
Elsewhere, I was not sure Patti Smith’s cover was her strongest contribution but of course, I left it playing and certainly it does develop gently and grows and certainly needs a listen. The accompaniment changes, harmonies are added, and all the time that constant rhythm guitar keeps us so aware that no matter how the guard changes, underneath it is all the same.
So, somewhat later than usual I feel I’ve found a couple of new insights. I hope you enjoy them.
Untold Dylanwas created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
As we have seen in the last three posts (above), 2002 was a year of energy and innovation for Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour. In the latter part of the year he began playing piano onstage, he sang a number of new non-Dylan songs, played acoustic versions of some of his electric songs like ‘Senor’ and ‘Maggie’s Farm’ and also sang a number of songs never or rarely performed during the NET. In the last post we heard, ‘In the Summer Time,’ not performed since 1981.
‘Subterranean Homesick Blues,’ Dylan’s great rap song from the 1960s had not been performed since 1989, but pops up again in 2002. Hard to say why the neglect, as this bouncy number is one of Dylan’s best-performing songs in terms of commercial success. This may not be the best version you’ll ever hear, but it does remind us of this great song.
Subterranean Homesick Blues
‘Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)’ was only ever played live six times, and by 2002 had not been played since the Isle of Wight concert in 1968. It was played four times in 2002, in suitably swinging raucous performances. This is from Baltimore, 18th August. It’s a great nonsense rhyme, full of verve and humour, and is an exercise in sheer fun, but I can’t help but get a sneaky feeling that Quinn is the dealer, bringing the good stuff to those who are hanging out.
Nobody can get no sleep, there's someone on everyone's toes
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybody's gonna wanna doze
Or, as my ear picks it, ‘Everybody’s gonna want a dose.’ There are times when Dylan plays on the ambiguity of sounds. (‘He plays a futile/feudal horn’ – Shelter from The Storm.) It seems to me also that he adds a new verse, but I can’t make out the words, which is more the pity.
The Mighty Quinn
While we’re in a Basement Tapes mood, let’s take in ‘You Ain’t Going Nowhere,’ another song full of light-hearted nonsense. It’s hard to know to what extent the lyrics are driven by appealing rhymes. Maybe sound is more important than sense in such songs. (29th Oct)
Now Genghis Khan, he could not keep
All his kings supplied with sleep
We'll climb that hill, no matter how steep
When we get up to it
You Ain’t going nowhere
‘Sugar Baby’ from “Love and Theft” is far from light-hearted nonsense. It is one of the darker songs from that album, with a slow, funereal movement, taking us back in spirit to Time out of Mind. The song speaks of the futility of trying to take action. In ‘Things Have Changed’ Dylan sings, ‘you can hurt someone and not even know it.’ In ‘Sugar Baby’ the situation is worse:
Try to make things better for someone
sometimes you just end up making it a thousand times worse
In the previous post we noticed the fine quality of both recording and performance of the Manchester, 9th May concert. It is not the only excellent soundboard recording from earlier in the year. We have another beauty, Atlanta 9th February. The Spring Tour of 2002 has a bad reputation because of Dylan’s incessant upsinging, but the Atlanta concert is largely an exception. There is some upsinging, but in general there is a better balance than what was to come in the next couple of months.
At Bobsboots there is quite a rave about this concert: ‘The soundboard for this show is simply flawless. Not only is the sound exquisite, but Bob and the band are brilliant. Dylan bends and drags his words as only he can do. The band is tight and keeps up beautifully with Bob’s driving vocals. This recording proves just what a force that Dylan and his band are.’ I cannot however agree with their opinion that anything else from 2002 would ‘pale horribly’ in comparison to this concert. They can’t have noticed the Manchester concert, or the piano weighted concerts from 4th Oct.
The Atalanta performance is my favourite version of Sugar Baby. Dylan’s voice has the power and range to get the song across. A moving performance.
Sugar Baby
I’ve written myself into a corner with ‘Drifter’s Escape,’ blathering on about best ever performances for the 2000 and 2001 versions, and find I’ve got no epithets left for what could well be the real best ever performance from Atlanta. It has a hard-edged, scrubby sound that gives the story being told a desperate, urgent feel. The song’s comic, Kafkaesque tale suits this kind of rough and rowdy treatment. Chaos is breaking loose. Maybe the drifter really has finally escaped.
Drifters Escape (A)
But wait! Maybe he hasn’t escaped after all. Here’s another performance, equally compelling. You can hear the difference between a soundboard recording (Atlanta) and the second (date unknown), an audience recording. Both performances feature some wonderfully wacky guitar playing by Mr Guitar Man himself, in very fine form, and a scintillating harmonica from the master harpist.
Drifters Escape (B)
Well… things have changed – but have they? He’s still up there singin’ just for you, isn’t he? Still sounding as passionate as ever about not caring…?
Odd thing about this performance of ‘Thing Have Changed’ is that suddenly Dylan’s voice is no longer cracked and crackling like bacon in a pan. His powerful ‘tenor’ voice is back in action (I think he’s a baritone, but let’s just let the point slide), clear and largely free of throatiness. I say largely because he can turn it on when he wants to; hear him sing ‘All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie’ and you can hear him slip into it. How does he do that? Are there good nights and bad nights, or can he turn that crackling on and off. Maybe there are some songs, or some lines in songs, that make him want to sound old and crusty, or suit that sound.
I’m never going to use the term ‘best ever’ again (I promise) but I find this performance from 15th Nov, Philadelphia, compelling. I don’t hear Dylan on guitar on this one, but then I can hardly hear the piano either (it’s there, isn’t it?). It’s possible he’s playing the piano softly, as to himself, but focusing on the vocal. One of the criticisms of Dylan’s early keyboard work is that often it can’t be heard, and maybe that too is deliberate.
Things have changed (A)
However, if we wind back the clock to the February Atlanta concert, with that scrubby, gutsier sound, driven by Mr Guitar Man, it sounds as if he’s tearing the song from his throat, with only moments of clear singing. Different night, different audience, different sound…
Things have changed (B)
We can do pretty the same comparison between two performances of ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe.’ This first one is from 7th October, Red Bluff. It is quite soft and restrained, without too much of a crackle in Dylan’s voice. A fine performance, although I think the harmonica should be mandatory for this song; there’s been some wonderful harp solos over the years.
It Ain’t Me Babe (A)
Back to Atlanta and we find a rougher performance, although still acoustic – and we get a harp break at the beginning of the song which sets us up nicely for this heartfelt performance. I think this one has a vibrancy that the Red Bluff performance doesn’t quite achieve. Too much upsinging, maybe?
It Ain’t Me Babe (B)
It Ain’t Me Babe is one a group of core songs that Dylan never loses sight of. They are songs that have defined him in the public mind since the 1960s and although in 2002 he didn’t sing them as often to make way for new material, they were still around to remind us of the old, caring Bob. ‘Blowing in the Wind’ is such a song, almost too familiar to bother listening to.
Funny thing about this song, the more I hear it, the less simple it gets. It used to be obvious to me what it was about, almost too obvious, but the idea that it’s a straightforward song has been fading. Readers might have heard the term ‘koan’ which refer to impossible questions asked by a Zen master to still the mind of the scatterbrained disciple. What’s the sound of one hand clapping? is probably the best-known koan. But ‘Blowing in the Wind’ is full of such impossible questions.
How many time can a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
That question has very koan like quality to it. What is the answer? Forty-two?
‘The koan serves as a surgical tool used to cut into and then break through the mind of the practitioner… Koans aren’t just puzzles that your mind figures out suddenly and proclaims, “Aha! the answer is three!” They wait for you to open enough to allow the space necessary for them to enter into your depths—the inner regions beyond knowing.’ (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zen-buddhism-koan_n_563251dce4b0631799115f3c)
At its best his song has that effect. It opens up those inner spaces to understanding by intuition or spirit.
How many years can a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
I don’t know, and the more I think about it the more I don’t know.
This Atlanta performance, complete with opening harp solo, doesn’t play to the sweet, gentle aspect of the song, but the ‘surgical tool’ aspect. You can’t just ride through these lines, they cut back at you. A wonderfully insistent performance.
Blowing in the Wind
Masters of War is another of these core songs, but there’s nothing too mysterious about it. The arrangement hasn’t changed much since the masterful Brixton performance in 1995. The song doesn’t march, as it did in the 1960s, but rather surges forward and back, a minimal but ominous sound. I miss the surging harmonica from the 1995 performance in this Altanta performance, but I’ve no complaint about Dylan’s vocal. It’s not spooky threatening, as in 1995, but rough and forceful threatening. A voice at the end of its tether. You’d think that those masters of war would have to heed such a voice, but they’re just making too much money to care, even though all that money won’t ‘buy back their souls.’
Let’s just take a moment to recognize the religious undertone that drives the song’s moral outrage, with mention of Jesus, of Judas, and those already sold ‘souls.’
Masters of War.
That’s it for this time around. I’ll be back soon with more of Dylan’s 2002 performances. In the meantime, as my great-great grandfather would say, ‘keep your powder dry…’
Kia Ora
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Untold Dylanwas created in 2008 and is published daily – currently 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 13,000 members.
