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…
———–
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
—————-
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.
Sometimes I get a little surprised. Songs I expect to be covered by a veritable multitude of rock n rollers or ballad singers or blues artists just get left on the shelf, with no one interested.
So it is with “Can’t Wait”. A meander around the internet found only two such, although I am sure there are others hiding in the corners. After all, it is such a superb song.
But we do have two and that’s enough for me to write another little ramble. First, Bad Temper Joe
There is indeed a bad temperedness about the delivery, not just of the lead vocals but the sparce backing track. Great harmonica playing which unobtrusively slips in- and a simply superb change around 3 minutes 30 seconds, which shows how one simple modification can be all that is needed.
Kan´ke Vent is by Arve-Gunnar Heløy who I am told studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I am trying to find out more. And even though I speak not a word of Norwegian I can still enjoy the performance. I would love to find out more about the artist – if for no other reason than to say “thank you”.
Frankie Valli likes to act and does it quite well. Mostly mafioso types (Miami Vice, Witness To The Mob, The Sopranos), but his music career always comes first. “They made all the changes for me and rescheduled shooting because they knew I was on tour a lot,” he says in the interview with SongFacts (July 2014), “… and I knew I had to be killed off. Either that or I’d have to quit my touring business.” That role in The Sopranos (as Rusty Millio, “The Mayor of Munchkinville”) is memorable and provides yet another boost to Valli’s already impressive, nearly sixty-year career.
When the interviewer asks him about the secret behind the success of that endless string of hits (Valli has scored 39 Billboard Top 40 hits with and without the Four Seasons, seven of them No. 1 and eleven Top 10 hits), Valli has a simple and rather Dylanesque explanation: you got to change, you got to go to new places. And great songs. “You need to have great songs. It always boils down to the same thing.”
That is indeed a special talent of Valli and his comrades: recognising a great song. “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You”, “December, 1963”, “Beggin'”, “Working My Way Back To You”… great songs, evergreens by now, whose potential was first recognised by The Four Seasons. It doesn’t always work out, Valli tells us. Their recording of Boz Scaggs’ “We’re All Alone”, for example, was rejected by the record company and six months later Rita Coolidge scored her worldwide hit with it. And Valli himself was very fond of “The Night”, which was not promoted, did not become a hit, but – through mysterious ways – somehow reached the Top 10 in the UK three years later.
Part of the song’s success is undoubtedly due to its northern soul vibe, and to the trend of English DJs seeking to popularise forgotten and overlooked records. Sometimes with overwhelming success; “Tainted Love” is an obscure B-side to a totally flopped single from 1965 (“My Bad Boy’s Comin’ Home”, by Gloria Jones), and is after its success in the English clubs in ’76 recorded again by the enchanting Gloria (produced by her life partner Marc Bolan, by the way). Again fails to chart, but is noticed by the wardrobe boy, Marc Almond, the colourful bird of paradise who elevates the song to a world hit in 1981 with his Soft Cell. Almond too, at least twice, has that enviable talent for unleashing hidden hit potential. In Soft Cell’s repertoire, “Tainted Love” replaces Almond’s initial first choice, “The Night” (which Soft Cell still will record in 2003) – which, incidentally, would probably have been a hit as well, if it hadn’t been for “Tainted Love”.
https://youtu.be/OJKe2j9Wjh4
The appeal of both “Tainted Love” and “The Night” to Almond can be felt. It is the same appeal that Dylan feels and, especially in the twenty-first century, displays in songs like “Scarlet Town”, “Make You Feel My Love” and “Soon After Midnight”: songs that only reveal a sinister, dark undercurrent on second listen. Which sometimes remains entirely under the surface, even. “Make You Feel My Love”, in particular, is generally understood to be a tender declaration of love, but on second listen really does seem more like a threatening letter from a persistent stalker. “The Night” is even more oppressive;
Beware of his promise
Believe what I say
Before the night is ending
Be sure of what you're saying
… words of a seemingly benevolent comrade, who warns a naïve lass about the imposter who has taken her in. Strangely enough, however, the first person narrator then lists a whole series of actions that are actually only sweet and nice;
Cause he paints a pretty picture
And he tells you that he needs you
And he covers you with roses
And he always keeps you dreaming
… and it goes on like this. Actions of an infatuated, well-meaning lover, in any case. What the lady should be wary of is completely unclear. Even more eyebrow-raising is the “warning” four lines later:
If he always keeps you dreaming
You won't have a lonely hour
If the day could last forever
You might like your ivory tower
“You might like your ivory tower”? That is the same, anomalous use of the term “ivory tower” as in Dylan’s revised “To Be Alone With You” from 2021:
To be alone with you, even for just an hour
In a castle high, in an ivory tower
Some people don’t get it, they just don’t have a clue
They wouldn’t know what it’s like to be alone with you
… an ivory tower as an image of an idyllic, romantic love nest. Without the usual negative connotations of “lack of concern”, “unaware of wordly affairs”, “isolated”. The connotations, in any case, as we know them from dozens of songs. From Porter Wagoner’s “Ivory Tower”, for instance (Don’t lock yourself in your ivory tower don’t keep our souls far apart), from Wanda Jackson’s “Fallin'” (I thought that love could never touch me / And then my ivory tower toppled) and from the most beautiful of all, Van Morrison’s “Ivory Tower” from 1986:
When you come down from your Ivory Tower
You will see how it really must be
When you come down from your Ivory Tower
You will see how it really must be
To be like me, to see like me
To feel like me
… a lyric with a strong “Positively 4th Street” vibe, as it were. But then again: Dylan rewrites his “To Be Alone With You” into a brooding, murderous thriller – a sinister protagonist who wants to lure his victim to a castle high with an ivory tower does contribute to the gothic, nineteenth-century shadowy kingdom-setting that Dylan is so fond of, in his late work.
To be continued. Next up: To Be Alone With You part 5
———
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.
A list of the past articles in this series is published at the end of the article.
This is a very odd situation and I hadn’t appreciated this until now – there was seemingly a cover version of the song before Dylan released his single. This seemingly came out in October 1965, two months before Dylan’s version was released.
And of course I have to include the Hendrix version, which sounds of course like no one else. But really doesn’t make any extra sense of what we have here in terms of the lyrics, or the extraordinarily odd chord sequence. I had hoped Hendrix could have made more of that because even now, all these decades later, it just sounds… odd.
Wilko Johnson (of Dr Feelgood) and Roger Daltry had a decent bash which I much prefer to Hendrix – and I think they make much more sense of the music than Dylan ever did.
That extra musical twist at the end and start of each verse really helps. So does the brass – if it is brass, and not an organ playing with a mouthorgan. Oh dear my ears are getting too old.
Les Frandkin’s version makes minimal changes but he really does get a different feel out of the music – which really is an art in itself. Who else would have thought of singing this singing this song in harmonies on every other line. That is a really clever idea, and unlike most clever ideas it really works. I just wish they had thought of an alternative to the cymbal hit between each verse.
In fact I haven’t really wanted to listen to this song in years, but this version changes my mind. It just shows what can be done with good musicians and a lot of imagination – I do hope you play that record to the end.
Just one more
I had hopes for this recording at the start but really it didn’t get developed, and became more akin to the original as it progressed. But the vocalist does a good job reinterpreting the lyrics.
So I didn’t find anyone taking the song somewhere completely different. But a nice little diversion from the tedious of reality. Although perhaps not as good as going for a six mile walk across some rather exciting countryside with a good friend.
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 has no say in what is chosen, Aaron has no say in what Tony writers.
This time it is the musical, “Girl From the North Country.”
Aaron: Did you ever get a chance to hear any of the cast recordings from the play? I thought these would be right up your street! I got goose bumps listening to some of these…I hope the links work for you! Here’s just some of the performances. I think I need to pick up the cast album. I think you might get a kick out of these.
Tony: A spot of introduction, just in case anyone missed it all. The advertisements proclaim it as “THE DOUBLE OLIVIER AWARD-WINNING WEST END AND BROADWAY SMASH-HIT RETURNS TO THE UK AS PART OF A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL TOUR.” (Theatre people like to write in capitals. I keep telling them it is not an effective way of grabbing attention, but they just won’t listen!)
“Celebrated playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, The Seafarer) boldly reimagines the legendary songs of Bob Dylan, like you’ve never heard them before, in GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY. A heart-breaking and universal story about family and love, hailed by the Observer as the ‘NO.1 THEATRE SHOW OF THE YEAR’.”
It is interesting that I come to listening to these while I am also running the daily “Dylan Cover of the Day” series, which takes in not just full bloodied studio recordings but also lesser known bands. What we have here are top rated classical musicians and musical performers working on arrangements of Dylan.
So of course what we also have is emotionally gripping, perfectly realised virtuoso performances and singing of the very highest order. And indeed listening to this reminds of us just how much one can do with a song of the highest quality. Nothing sounds overplayed, no matter how many flourishes the vocalist inserts. Also the simplest of arrangements for the orchestra can still have an utterly overwhelming effect.
Indeed listening to the work of the greatest arrangers is a perfect reminder of just what is possible – with every single detail of the overall sound considered, worked, rehearsed, reworked… What is so interesting here is the simplicity of the piano accompaniment – all the fascinating musical twists come from the vocalists and a tiny amount of percussion.
This is what you get from years and years and years of training and rehearsing, no moving on because it doesn’t work, no “it will all right on the night”, but a ceaseless drive for perfection.
With each performance I fear I am going to repeat myself in terms of just what you can get with the greatest musicians and director, and time to rehearse. Whoever, before hearing this version of Duquesne Whistle, could have imagined it could sound like this, and take on this new set of meanings?
Well, obviously some people could, but certainly not me, and not in a million years. And I do like the theatrical arrangements enormously.
I’m in serious danger of just repeating myself – I’m used to listening to so many covers, not just through “Cover of the Day” but also selecting the covers for the Dylanvinci code series, but really, thoroughly enjoyable as those recordings are, they are nowhere near the musical standard or standard of innovation of what we have here.
I was also wondering – if I had never heard “I want you” and then heard this performance in isolation would I have thought, “that must have been written by Dylan”. I think not. Maybe there is something in the lyrics and the music that is essentially Dylan, but no, I really don’t think I would have guessed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2bDdOoTOiMA
All I could try and say I suppose is that I am still, even at my advanced age, a better dancer than they are in the video above… but of course these professionals are actually sublime dancers, putting on a style of dancing to make themselves look like regular folk on a night out, just for the performance. That’s why I only lasted four years in the London theatre – I really wasn’t up to it. Although my dancing was ok.
Which is probably why I am in such awe of not just these actors, but also of the arrangers, director, and producer. I know how far below their standards I was – and I thought myself pretty good at the time.
These arrangements and performances are brilliant. How could anyone improve on this (although I know someone will).
——————-
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.
There’s a list of the covers so far dealt with in the series, at the end of this article.
The next song that turned up a cover in my alphabetical search is “Brownsville Girl” but I only know of one cover and I really don’t care for it, so I’m missing that out (you can of course go for a search yourself if you’ve nothing else to do) and instead next is “Buckets of Rain” of which there are multiple covers.
I’ve written before about the need to find something new to say in relation to the song, while keeping some sort of reference to the original. Sometimes the newness dominates sometimes the reference to the original is there with just a touch of variance. Like meeting an old friend who has a new haircut, but of course still the same friend beneath.
That’s what I find with Francesco Garolfi of whom I know nothing, except I do know enough art to know he’s not Francesco Gandolfi. If you know something of the artist who made this delightful recording, do write in. [Additional note added later: in fact Francesco Garolfi saw the piece and has subsequently dropped me a line personally. I am utterly knocked out by that.]
Large numbers of musicians – all far more accomplished than I – have had a go with this song, but it seems to be incredibly difficult to retain the essence of the song and yet add meaningful and successful variations.
The Orton and Ward recording shows an utterly sublime understanding of the song by the two vocalists but the balance of the recording of the guitar damages the result. But just to hear what can be done with the song by two singers who understand what it is about, it is worth hearing.
And curiously it is another live recording that I found approached some sort of understanding of what the song is all about.
How strange – how can something so difficult be so hard to take to perfection. I suppose the issue is, do you feel this as a jolly little piece or something far deeper. In many of the recordings that I have heard it seems as if the musicians haven’t actually read the lyrics
Buckets of rainBuckets of tears...I've seen pretty people disappear like smoke
I am not too sure about how the lyrics work in the Jimmy LaFave version, but at least I get the feeling that he has read the lyrics, and thought about them.
But Karen Almquist seems to understand, and has the talent to put that idea across. It seems a good place to stop – when I listen to this I believe her, I feel like she has been there and knows what it means to be in love and know the pain when that love is not requited.
Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and ya do it well
I'll do it for you
Honey baby, can't you tell?
It took me a while, but I knew someone had to get it right, and finally, I got there.
If you are particularly interested in covers, you’ll find an index of the covers used in the Dylavinci Code series thus far at the end of the latest article in that series. And again at the end of the last edition of the Beautiful Obscurity series. Not to mention 220 selected covers (gathered from suggestions from Untold Dylan readers). With that lot, and the selection below, you’ll be here all night. And tomorrow.
Untold Dylanwas created in 2008 and is published daily – currently twice a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. It contains over 2500 articles and over 10,000 comments from readers. 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.
We also have a Facebook site with over 13,000 members which you might find quite jolly.
Links to past episodes and to all the cover versions used within this series are both given at the end of the article.
by Larry Fyffe
Clear as a bell, the breaking of the Dylavinci Code reveals that Christ, while brushing the dusty ashes off His nose, is not at all fond of Maggie Magdalene’s father who’s had an affair with Mother Mary.
Cyrus Magdala puts his cigar out in the face of his “stepson” just for kicks.
In the song lyrics below, Bob Dylan, transfigured as Jesus, let’s it be known that He does not like His daddy-o “stepfather” very much.
Pieced together from fragments in the Holy Grail, the authentic goblet stored in the Untold Archives Department:
You mistreat me, baby
I can't see no reason why
You know that I'd kill for you
And that I'm not afraid to die
But you treat me like a stepchild
Oh no, am I your stepchild
(Bob Dylan: Stepchild)
Jesus gets His own back by running off with His “half-sister” Maggie Magdalene.
Note that Jesus says He’s “not afraid to die”, suggesting either that He can’t be killed or that He’s an escape artist.
Ominous sounding is the rather ambiguous, perhaps hyperbolic, line “You know I’d kill for you”.
More to the point, an elongated ‘murder ballad” may be blowing in the wind. Could be that Christ’s already had a Libyan die on the cross in His place.
The only thing we know sure about the narrator is that his name’s not Bob Dylan, and he’s now protecting his child, given birth to by Magdalene.
Jesus could even be the Devil, a man who says He comes in peace while wearing a long, but oddly colourful black coat, the dark angel responsible for humankind becoming mortal:
He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask
If he wanted to dance, he had a face like a mask
Somebody said from the Bible he'd quote
There was dust on the man in the long black coat
(Bob Dylan: Man In The Long Black Coat)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Utah, daughter Sophia Sarah tells her daddy that God is not a unit composed of three parts, but there exists three separate Gods – besides Jesus Christ, there’s the Hobogod, and she’s the Holy Ghost.
No wonder Dylan as Jesus gets a headache:
Well, early in the morning
To late at night
I got a poison headache
But I feel alright
I'm pledging my time to you
Hoping you'll come through too
(Bob Dylan: Pledging My Time)
The story goes on and on, round and round in circles – just like the mysterious-travelling Hobogod.
Fragments pasted back together tell us that originally the song quoted below is entitled “Stuck Inside Of Utah With The Memphis Egyptian Blues Again”:
And the ragman draws circles
Up and down the block
I'd ask him what the matter is
But I know he don't talk
(Bob Dylan: Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again)
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 the previous articles in this series is given below.
By Tony Attwood
The most famous cover of “Born in Time” is Eric Clapton’s, and for me the quality of that recording is overshadowed by what I, in my normal pompous manner, consider to be the ludicrous commentary on Wikipedia about this song. I’ve just checked and it is still there.
I remember on reading it some time back that it seems to miss the entire essence of the song, and instead reduces it to points of detail about who did what. But then maybe Wiki would argue that facts are what they are about, not musical appreciation.
Now I’m sure many people, who by chance have stumbled on my ramblings, will consider that I do much the same, although at the moment I am immune to their comments being buoyed up by a comment from Michael Lowe who (having discovered a piece of mine from around nine years ago) simply wrote “What a brilliant review”. Nothing else, just that. That’s enough to keep me running the site for another six months at least.
Bob Dylan generally doesn’t seem at all troubled by criticism, no matter how ill-informed, and no matter how lacking in musical knowledge the critic is. Indeed the essence of my criticisms of Heylin in my reviews of Dylan’s songs is that he doesn’t seem to have a clue about the music, and yet sets himself up as the great analyst and reviewer.
Anyway such are my thoughts for the day as I plod my merry way through the cover versions of Dylan, in alphabetical order (excluding of course those for which there are no covers which are available on the internet. I could have put up blank pages for those, but that seemed a little too arty for this site).
And I guess I’d better start with Mr Clapton…
It is, I think, the use of the snare drum throughout that gives this version its unique feel, although the way Clapton handles the second section (“Just when I thought…”) as a set of short phrases with a chorus added, that again singles out this version. Personally, I find the percussion gets a little waring, and that is always the problem with a song where an idea is set up at the start and the producer says, “hey that sounds good” so it is left there, no matter what. But maybe it is just me, and no one else really minds.
“Too gooey” I think more or less sums it up for me, but I know billions of people (or at least a few who I know) rave over it.
It is interesting (for me if no one else) that when one artist has covered a song and inserted an element in the instrumentation, and which is continued all the way through, other cover artists feel the need to do the same. Not with the same idea, but with something that runs all the way through. Indigenous does it with reverb – do it once, do it again, do it again, and, well, you get the idea.
In fact it seems to me that everyone feels the need to over-orchestrate this song, and yet it is so beautiful and delicate in reality this is the last thing it needs, for it already has everything you could ever need. Whoever might have thought (in the version below) that suddenly we needed an accordion and a moment from a backing chorus? Oh dear, I have become a grumpy old man. Beware dear reader, that is what happens… (And as for that backing chorus repeating three words every now and then…. argh!!!!)
So thank goodness for Meg Hutchinson – and indeed I’ve featured this recording before in an article. This is how it should sound – utter elegant simplicity. And it needs that because that is what the lyrics are all about. OK the producer loses her/his nerve halfway through with some twiddly bits of backing which are both meaningless musically, and utterly unnecessary, but at least toward the end, we return to something closer to the opening which is so utterly gorgeous – until those horrible twiddles come in after the singing has stopped.
What makes it so difficult to let an artist with a voice as beautiful and commanding as Meg Hutchinson just deliver a song which is also beautiful and commanding? Not being a record producer I don’t know. So if anyone is in touch with Ms Hutchinson, drop her a note asking for a release of this song minus twiddly bits. I’d buy it, even if no one else would.
“His playing would rip your head off,” says John Fogerty in his autobiography, very Dylanesque, about bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs. Fogerty, like Dylan in Chronicles, has in his own memoir Fortunate Son (2015) a sympathetic tendency to swoon in often poetic, though sometimes alienating superlatives over musicians he admires. With great overlap, by the way. Hank Williams (“Your Cheatin’ Heart just slayed me”), Link Wray, Charley Patton, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard… well, Fogerty, of course, has also exhaustively demonstrated his deep-rooted love of country and bluegrass (most notably on his solo debut, the 1973 country tribute record The Blue Ridge Rangers).
Anyway, Earl Scruggs. Dylan’s awe is visible, in the documentary shot in 1970, Earl Scruggs – His Family and Friends. The soundtrack of the same name (released 2005) features five Dylan songs. Three that Earl performs with Joan Baez (“Love Is Just A Four Letter Word”, “It Ain’t Me, Babe” with Baez’s witty Dylan imitation, and “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine”), one with The Byrds (“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”, of course) and one with Dylan himself: “Nashville Skyline Rag”. In the documentary, we see another song played by the two legends together (the age-old classic “East Virginia Blues”), but not the two songs played by Scruggs, his sons Randy and Gary, and Dylan: “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance” and… “To Be Alone With You”. The mono recordings of these are finally heard on disc 3 of The Bootleg Series 15 – Travelin’ Thru, 1967-1969 (2019).
https://youtu.be/crG4ZDRLVYE
The session takes place on 17 May 1970, half a year after the Rolling Stone interview in which Dylan dreams about Jerry Lee Lewis adding the song to his repertoire. Apparently, Dylan has given up hope, and now suspects that he can do Earl Scruggs a favour with it. But he is not an inspired salesman. We hear Dylan’s hesitant beginning, he seems to be looking for the melody, then he starts in the middle of the song, on the second line of the second verse (“At the close of day”), sings that second verse twice, and the rest of the song is not very steady either – he changes lines, forgets words and makes up other, hardly impressive words on the spot. It is, all in all, justifiable that documentary maker David Hoffman left this fragment on the cutting floor.
For the time being, it is the last time Dylan will concern himself with “To Be Alone With You”. The song disappears into a drawer and is only retrieved twenty years later: its live debut is 15 October 1989 in Pennsylvania. As an opener even. Dylan seems to be in a conservative country mood these days. “Man In The Long Black Coat” is also performed for the first time this week, the setlist includes songs like the Civil War ballad “Two Soldiers”, “Precious Memories”, “Lakes Of Pontchartrain” and “Barbara Allen”… but “To Be Alone With You” has become a solid, energetic Jerry Lee Lewis-like rocker. And he seems pleased with it. The song remains on the set list, always as the opener, and is also taken to Europe the following year; Dylan opens his concerts in Paris and London with “To Be Alone With You” as well. The song becomes a mainstay of the Never Ending Tour; apart from 1997 it is on the setlist every year, and, until its temporary retirement in 2005, is eventually performed 123 times.
This time the song seems to have been discarded for good. In the fourteen years from 2006 until the covid emergency stop in 2019, Dylan performs more than 1200 times, and “To Be Alone With You” remains in the drawer. But then it’s 2021, Dylan rejoices fans with the online “concert” Shadow Kingdom and surprises them with wonderful interpretations, beautiful performances and, above all, the resurrection of a fully restored “To Be Alone With You”.
The rock ‘n’ roll is gone. Actually, so is the country. The accordion gives the song a Tex-Mex flavour, Dylan’s recitation tends towards vaudeville, the band towards pop, but above all: almost every line of the lyrics has been changed.
Text changes in themselves are not too remarkable with Dylan, but such a radical and complete text revision is – we only know it from a handful of songs from the bard’s immense oeuvre. “Down Along The Cove”, “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking”, a few songs of which he later (largely) returns to the original lyrics (“Tangled Up In Blue”, “Simple Twist Of Fate”)… there are not many more.
Dylan is a few times asked about these frequent and sometimes radical changes of lyrics. In the fascinating interview for SongTalk (with Paul Zollo, April ’91) he kind of shrugs his shoulders:
“They’re songs. They’re not written in stone. They’re on plastic. Somebody told me that Tennyson often wanted to rewrite his poems once he saw them in print.”
… and similar vagueness (“The original lyrics weren’t fair to me because they just didn’t feel right at the time,” regarding “Tangled Up In Blue”). Fascinating it is nevertheless – if only because it offers a glimpse into the creative mind of a Nobel Prize-winning poet.
The original first verse, like the rest of the lyrics, is not too titanic – written on plastic, indeed:
To be alone with you
Just you and me
Now won’t you tell me true
Ain’t that the way it oughta be?
To hold each other tight
The whole night through
Ev’rything is always right
When I’m alone with you
Okay, the rhyme scheme (abab-caca) is quite unusual, but the content is a saltless accumulation of clichés. Maybe that’s what triggers Dylan to change it fifty years later to:
To be alone with you, just you and I
Under the moon, ’neath the star-spangled sky
I know you’re alive, and I am too
My one desire is to be alone with you
Which is a bit puzzling. At first glance, the changes are hardly spectacular. In Lyrics and other official publications, the stanzas are indeed formatted as eight-line stanzas, but during the rewriting session Dylan apparently structured it the way he sings it: four lines, quatrains, and the simplest rhyme scheme (aabb). Perhaps the poet has indeed searched for a Verlaine-like mosaic of rhyme and assonance; you in line 1 assonant with moon in line 2; sky in line 2 with I in line 3; alive in line 3 with desire in line 4… too consistent to be coincidental, in any case. However, this melodious artifice is abandoned right from verse two – the poet has either already grown tired of it, or this steady pattern of assonances indeed was accidental.
In terms of content, again at first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much going on either; at most, one wonders why Dylan took the trouble to replace one cliché with another. Under the moon, my one desire, the star spangled sky… all as clichéd as the whole night through and hold each other tight. But then there is that one line, that one splinter that makes the listener look up: “I know you’re alive, and I am too”. A line that would rip your head off.
To be continued. Next up: To Be Alone With You part 4: Beware of his promise
——————
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.
I am, rather obviously, working through Dylan songs in alphabetical order, looking for unusual and intriguing cover versions which give me enjoyment in themselves and/or insight into the original. And, rather than this being a presentation of cover versions that I already know and like, I am also trying to find something new – or at least something new for me. Occasionally an old favourite slips in, but not too often.
The first reworking I came across was completely unexpected. Spanish boots of Spanish leather begins at 4’20” in the recording below, and if you by chance or decision play this video from the start, and then think “absolutely not for me” I would still urge you to jump to 4’20” – I’ve just played it four times, and really love it. Utterly haunting.
Speaking of foreign tongues, (which we weren’t) we have considered Dylan in Frisian before – De kweade boadskipper (The wicked messenger), and one that at the time wasn’t freely available but is now – The Drifters Escape. You might care to venture therein.
Anyway, back to Spanish Leather. Or rather Learen Spaanske skuon by Reina Rodina
The point is of course that since we all know the lyrics by heart, it doesn’t matter if the song is sung in another language – and venturing into these non-English versions tends (I feel) to give me ever greater insights into the potential of each song. Now that may sound like a pretentious load of old cobblers to you, and maybe it is, but I do often find these non-English versions leave me feeling the song in a new way, as well as being very pleasing.
In fact there is something about hearing a song one knows so well, without the lyrics in English, because it forces an extra focus on the music – in this case the beautiful singing voice of Ernst Jansz with his exquisite guitar work.
But of course, there are millions (well, quite a few) versions in English. Far too many beautiful ones to list here, so the recordings chosen may well miss out a range of jewels – and surely that tells us a lot about the magnitude of the achievement of some of these songs.
This version is by Tow’rs
The lines
Oh, the same thing I would want today
I would want again tomorrow
are among the most beautiful and poignant love lyrics I have ever heard.
So, it turns out there is a vast number of covers of this song, and many of them are beautifully presented and exquisitely executed.
Here are two more which travel in completely different directions
This final version is from the unlikely named The Airborne Toxic Event and this wins my prize for the biggest surprise that I got in working through some of the many versions I’ve listened to this afternoon.
The harmonies between the male and female voices are utterly unexpected as is the changing accompaniment and the glorious instrumental break. The simplicity with which the two voices deliver the last sung verse, followed by the instrumental coda is perfection for my ears.
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 – but please do note, all writers are volunteers; we don’t have the funds to pay. But 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 – which is rather nice.
Aaron:I’m enjoying putting this series together. It’s fun presenting rare and one off tracks officially released on various albums for fans to enjoy.
This time let’s look at three more performances from some various artists’ releases and soundtracks.
First up is This Old Man from 1991’s Walt Disney Records For Our Children charity album
Tony: I’m not sure if I have heard this before; certainly I can’t recall hearing. And I have to admit I was rather fearful of what was going to emerge. But Bob does it perfectly, exactly as the children like it – with the certainty of what is coming next. And the pictures that rotate with the song really are interesting – whoever put that collection together was having great fun. Especially at the moment where we get the pope and two later the president. Really enjoyable all round.
Aaron: From 1994’s Natural Born Killers soundtrack come “You Belong To Me”. For the actual CD someone made the boneheaded decision to add snippets of dialogue from the movie over the end of Bob’s song. I found a version online without the dialogue (I’m so used to hearing the CD version that it was a bit of a shock to hear without it!)
Tony:What a mellow feeling – and what a weird coincidence – which I am going to divert into (if you find this boring, just flip on – there is another song below).
See the market place in old Algiers
Send me photographs and souvenirs
Just remember when a dream appears
You belong to me
Not Dylan’s most memorable lines, but ones that have a certain resonance with me, because I lived in Algiers for a year in earlier times – much earlier times in fact. And although it was a remarkable experience, it is not a time that I particularly think about or discuss with anyone – and I’m not sure it had a really deep impact on the way I developed. Although being a member of a minority group (a European mistaken by one and all as a French guy in a country only recently having thrown off the yolk of “l’algérie c’est la France”) was at the time a really strange experience.
So suddenly I was jerked back to those much earlier days, and that was really strange. And that’s the thing about Bob – he can take me to most unexpected places.
Aaron: Next, from the Feeling Minnesota soundtrack is Bob’s version of Ring Of Fire.
Tony: Oh this is strange – I’m still sitting in a cafe in Algiers and suddenly we’re with Ring of Fire. And strange because I had forgotten how much slower Bob performed this than on the famous Johnny Cash recording.
Indeed I’m finding it hard to adjust and think whether this really works, and whether I just like it because it is so different from the Cash version. There is something very clever about playing it this slowly; it makes the falling into the ring of fire completely different – as I see it in my mind the fall into the ring of fire is slow, inevitable, but not frightening… something he is doing willingly; moving on to the new world
Whereas with the Cash version no images are created in my mind at all. It just is a song with a set of words with no hint of a literal meaning.
My apologies to fans of Mr Cash, but having heard Bob’s version, this famous version just sounds crass. There’s no power in the lyrics at all.
Ah…. Bob at his most brilliant. Thanks for this Aaron. Yet again I owe you for another revelation.
——————-
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 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 – but please do note, all writers are volunteers; we don’t have the funds to pay. But 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 which by and large works a lot more smoothly than this site, mostly because it is not edited by Tony.
When I started this little series I had no idea where it would go – just that I had a feeling that some artists had really done a few interesting things with Dylan songs.
But Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream – a cover version? Really? Well, yes, and not just one, but actually three. Or at least three that appealed to me as I was meandering through the archives and websites.
Asobi Seksu are first: they existed for about ten years in the early part of this century. At first in sketching this note I wrote, “It’s not something I am going to come back to that much in the future, but it really took me by surprise and I enjoyed the listen.” But that’s wrong. Haven’t finished the article and listened to the two pieces that follow, I do want to come back to this – and indeed listening to it for a second time, I find more in it than I thought…
Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band do something closer to the original, but with a few nice variations.
https://youtu.be/Ke8uZIvPa7w
And then Tito Schipa Jr.
In 1970 he created the Italian rock opera Orfeo 9, which then became a movie, and an album. And ten years later, a rock adaptation of Donizetti’s opera Don Pasquale.
The Dylan connection came in 1988 with the release of Dylaniato, with the songs performed in Italian and the Romanesco dialect. Tito Schipa has since translated Dylan’s complete works as well as working as an actor, writer for broadcast media and theatre director.
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 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 – but please do note, all writers are volunteers; we don’t have the funds to pay. But 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 which by and large works a lot more smoothly than this site, mostly because it is not edited by Tony.
