is Visions of Johanna seriously about having a hard on and wanting to wank in a room full of sleeping/fornicating people? damn
― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 18:59 (nine years ago) link
who knows?
― u2 removal machine (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 21:13 (nine years ago) link
Heylin
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 23 September 2014 21:15 (nine years ago) link
we were one JBR xpost away from the greatest first response ever
― Ѿ (imago), Tuesday, 23 September 2014 21:16 (nine years ago) link
This is amusing: https://www.spin.com/2018/10/bob-dylan-lyrics-drawings-review/
― a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze (morrisp), Wednesday, 24 October 2018 03:12 (five years ago) link
he he it is indeed
― niels, Wednesday, 24 October 2018 08:03 (five years ago) link
Great interview with Larry Campbell about what it was like to tour/play with Dylan. As mentioned in the interview, the Larry Campbell/Charlie Sexton band (first with Kemper on drums, then Receli) is often considered the best band Dylan had on the NET, and I would agree.
https://dylanlive.substack.com/p/larry-campbell-goes-deep-on-his-eight
― birdistheword, Thursday, 1 April 2021 19:11 (three years ago) link
Thanks for posting this. I've been listening to a lot of 'Love and Theft' tour bootlegs lately. Such a great band. The Warren Zevon covers were so good.
― BlackIronPrison, Friday, 2 April 2021 01:16 (three years ago) link
No idea where to put this:
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG by BOB DYLAN coming 11/8/2260+ essays150+ photos 350+ pagesthe man is simply unstoppable pic.twitter.com/0sheWWgsQd— Jokermen (@JokermenPodcast) March 8, 2022
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 19:55 (two years ago) link
I can't wait to read it. Loved "Chronicles Vol 1".
― o. nate, Tuesday, 8 March 2022 21:00 (two years ago) link
Wow!
― Not Dork Yet (alternate toke) (morrisp), Tuesday, 8 March 2022 21:08 (two years ago) link
The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from being seenBut that’s just because he doesn’t want to turn into some machine 😀
― calstars, Saturday, 7 May 2022 17:01 (one year ago) link
a most reasonable explanation
― corrs unplugged, Monday, 9 May 2022 06:39 (one year ago) link
Splendid song & track---also the Persuasions cover---and an appealing alibi, but not for Self-Portrait, which is like a cut-rate greeting card designed by a bot.
― dow, Monday, 9 May 2022 16:14 (one year ago) link
(Thinking of that since New Morning was his return to cred after S-P)
― dow, Monday, 9 May 2022 16:17 (one year ago) link
Audiobook has an interesting selection of readers.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 14:14 (one year ago) link
saw him live (for the umpteenth time) recently
setlist almost same every night, heavy on the rough & rowdy material (alas, no murder most foul)
key west was great
but really, who am I kidding, he is just the weirdest legacy live act I've ever seen, it's never really bad, but always just so weeeird... money rolling in, tour goes on forever, just the weirdness of it all, maybe this time emphasized by beeing in a big arena, and people were just applauding, happy... seem to recall people used to disappointed, which was practical, I could be enthusiastic and exegetical, now they just love it
anyway, roll on Bob
― corrs unplugged, Sunday, 9 October 2022 19:01 (one year ago) link
After visiting the Lou Reed exhibit at the NYPL, I checked out Light in the Attic's preview of the upcoming release of 1965 demos, and this one for "Men of Good Fortune" stuck out - it has NO relation to the song that later appeared on the 1973 album Berlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLNnlYYhz2M
It's basically a rewrite of Dylan's "Song to Woody," which itself is a rewrite of Guthrie's song "1913 Massacre." (The same demo tape has Reed covering "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.") It's a nice glimpse of a great artist finding his voice, absorbing one influence (in this case Dylan) and virtually mimicking that influence before finding a new path.
― birdistheword, Monday, 10 October 2022 04:49 (one year ago) link
xp my MO with Bob shows is to just steadily lower my expectations for the weeks leading up to the show, so I'm usually pleasantly surprised with what actually transpires musically. That said, I haven't seen him in a decade or more, so no idea if that would be different.
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, 10 October 2022 14:01 (one year ago) link
I'm surprised how great his most recent shows have been. I almost gave up on going to anymore after the Americanarama tour. Probably a combination of three things: 1) phrasing improved after the per-rock standards project, 2) stopped changing the setlist, which meant the band was very familiar with the material and were sharper and more precise as a result (downside - if you went to multiple shows, you got the same songs over and over again), 3) on the current tour, he had the lyrics laid out for him (at least for the first leg), so instead of trying to remember, he could read them, and honest to God, he hasn't enunciated this well since the '70s. It's pretty amazing.
― birdistheword, Monday, 10 October 2022 14:44 (one year ago) link
*pre-rock standards
― birdistheword, Monday, 10 October 2022 14:45 (one year ago) link
yeah good points
and that men of good fortune take is hilarious!
― corrs unplugged, Monday, 10 October 2022 19:07 (one year ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/books/bob-dylan-book-excerpt.html
The title of Bob Dylan’s latest book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song,” is, in a sense, misleading. A collection of brief essays on 65 songs (and one poem), it is less a rigorous study of craft than a series of rhapsodic observations on what gives great songs their power to fascinate us.
Dylan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, worked on these for more than a decade, though they flow more like extemporaneous sermons. The chapter on Johnnie Taylor’s “Cheaper to Keep Her,” for example, is mainly an indictment of the lawyers whose profiteering of heartbreak drives the divorce “industry.”
Elsewhere, Dylan writes in oracular riddles. His one-paragraph piece on “Long Tall Sally,” by Little Richard, likens Sally to the Nephilim giants of the Old Testament, and postulates Richard as “a giant of a different kind” who took a diminutive stage name “so as not to scare anybody.”
About half the essays in the book — his first collection of new writing since “Chronicles: Volume One,” in 2004 — are accompanied by what Dylan’s publisher calls “riffs”: even shorter, even looser pieces, in which Dylan attempts to embody the spirit — the philosophy? — of the song itself. On “Poor Little Fool,” by Ricky Nelson: “She sized you up, she was captivating and shrewd and lousy with lies. Oh yeah, you were an absolute blockhead beyond a doubt.”
― curmudgeon, Friday, 14 October 2022 12:01 (one year ago) link
Dylan on "My Generation" by The Who via that NY Times article
This is a song that does no favors for anyone, and casts doubt on everything.
In this song, people are trying to slap you around, slap you in the face, vilify you. They’re rude and they slam you down, take cheap shots. They don’t like you because you pull out all the stops and go for broke. You put your heart and soul into everything and shoot the works, because you got energy and strength and purpose. Because you’re so inspired they put the whammy on, they’re allergic to you, and they have hard feelings. Just your very presence repels them. They give you frosty looks and they’ve had enough of you, and there’s a million others just like you, multiplying every day.
You’re in an exclusive club, and you’re advertising yourself. You’re blabbing about your age group, of which you’re a high-ranking member. You can’t conceal your conceit, and you’re snobbish and snooty about it. You’re not trying to drop any big bombshell or cause a scandal, you’re just waving a flag, and you don’t want anyone to comprehend what you’re saying or embrace it, or even try to take it all in. You’re looking down your nose at society and you have no use for it. You’re hoping to croak before senility sets in. You don’t want to be ancient and decrepit, no thank you. I’ll kick the bucket before that happens. You’re looking at the world mortified by the hopelessness of it all.
In reality, you’re an eighty-year-old man, being wheeled around in a home for the elderly, and the nurses are getting on your nerves. You say why don’t you all just fade away. You’re in your second childhood, can’t get a word out without stumbling and dribbling. You haven’t any aspirations to live in a fool’s paradise, you’re not looking forward to that, and you’ve got your fingers crossed that you don’t. Knock on wood. You’ll give up the ghost first.
You’re talking about your generation, sermonizing, giving a discourse.
Straight talk, eyeball to eyeball.
― curmudgeon, Friday, 14 October 2022 12:05 (one year ago) link
enjoyed that will probably read the book
― corrs unplugged, Friday, 14 October 2022 15:45 (one year ago) link
Is that actually Dylan's excerpt? I was confused at first, but it looks like that is actually Ben Sisario channeling Dylan's style. The actual excerpt from the book comes later, in italics, and is read by Oscar Isaac.
― o. nate, Friday, 14 October 2022 20:51 (one year ago) link
They’re both by Dylan. The part in italics is a “riff” on the song; the article points out that many of the essays are accompanied by these additional “riffs.”
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 14 October 2022 21:28 (one year ago) link
Also, Dylan OTM. I’d be interested to hear Townshend’s reaction/response.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 14 October 2022 21:31 (one year ago) link
Because Dylan is really known for his riffs
― calstars, Friday, 14 October 2022 21:39 (one year ago) link
Has Bob really been irritated by this song for nearly 60 years?
― Chris L, Friday, 14 October 2022 21:48 (one year ago) link
Ah now it makes sense, thanks! xxp
― o. nate, Friday, 14 October 2022 21:49 (one year ago) link
Didn't realize this:
https://www.nme.com/features/music-interviews/the-psychedelic-furs-tim-butler-david-bowie-pretty-in-pink-2808731
NME's Q: Which Bob Dylan song did you reject when he sent it to you for inclusion on the Psychedelic Furs 1984 album ‘Mirror Moves’?Tim Butler's answer: “Clean Cut Kid.”
CORRECT.
“It had about 15 verses – it was a long song! (Laughs) He sent it to us because his son Jakob was a fan back then and said: ‘Hey, Dad, these guys are cool’. Richard still has the cassette of it, and it was a huge deal because our father was a big Bob Dylan fan and would buy his records on the day they came out and we’d all sit round and listen to them. He was a massive influence on Richard and I, so to have a song that was written by him sent to us was a great pat on the back.”
― birdistheword, Sunday, 16 October 2022 18:08 (one year ago) link
From a new interview with John Mellencamp by the NY Times:
Mellencamp: I’m going to quote Bob Dylan to you. Bob and I were painting together one day, and I asked him how he wrote so many great songs. In all seriousness, he said, “John, I’ve written the same four (expletive) songs a million times.” I’m going to get in line with Bob on that. It’s always the same song, just more mature or with a different angle.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 6 June 2023 18:09 (ten months ago) link
Haha, that's perfect
― corrs unplugged, Wednesday, 7 June 2023 05:37 (ten months ago) link
Surprise set at Farm Aid, backed by Tom Petty's Heartbreakers! And he's switched back to guitar for the first time in many years!
https://vimeo.com/867585062
― birdistheword, Sunday, 24 September 2023 06:16 (seven months ago) link
so awesome. i’d been watching the Farm Aid livestream for a while & the way i YELLED when he appeared and with the goddamn Heartbreakers! best surprise
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 24 September 2023 06:29 (seven months ago) link
I love that his most stunning move to play a set of songs everyone knows with a band everyone loves. This is great!
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 24 September 2023 06:31 (seven months ago) link
I love this. I have tickets to the Chicago show. But i really think this might leg of the Never Ending tour
― bbq, Sunday, 24 September 2023 07:40 (seven months ago) link
*might be the last leg of the Never Ending Tour
I hope I'm wrong obviously.
― bbq, Sunday, 24 September 2023 07:46 (seven months ago) link
Funny that one of the first things I see on here after having the first disc of Blonde on Blonde on for the first time in ages is a thread started in reference to one of its songs.
I'm not getting the image of the guy who builds a fire on main street and fills it full of holes. Unless it is a call for better gun control or something.
& I thought for a moment I was just about to read that Bob had died.
The book was quite fun and a quick read though I to still need to listen to a lot of it. Though think I was already somewhat familiar with a load of those tracks
― Stevo, Sunday, 24 September 2023 09:14 (seven months ago) link
“Absolutely Sweet Marie” came on in the car yesterday and I cranked it up, the way it just careens along, it’s like the band are riding flat out alongside each other and grinning.
― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 24 September 2023 10:55 (seven months ago) link
Not strictly necessary o course, but v. fun:Jason and the Scorchers, "Absolutely Sweet Marie" (original studio version, haven't checked the live ones yet)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKqQJuJqN6Q
― dow, Sunday, 24 September 2023 17:29 (seven months ago) link
Dylan is playing new songs every night (usually two) and they are covers with some relation to the city he's in. He opened the tour in Kansas City and played Wilbert Harrison's standard "Kansas City." In St. Louis, he bookended his show with two Chuck Berry covers ("Johnny B. Goode" and "Nadine"). And last night in Chicago, it was "Born in Chicago" (probably in tribute to the Paul Butterfield Blues Band as it was the opening track of their debut and Dylan famously recorded and performed at Newport with its members) as well as "Forty Days and Forty Night" by Muddy Waters.
― birdistheword, Sunday, 8 October 2023 01:02 (six months ago) link
Saw him tonight. No surprise covers unfortunately. But I loved the new version of Key West that he did. He closed with Every Grain of Sand and it was one of the best live versions I’ve ever heard.
― bbq, Monday, 9 October 2023 06:00 (six months ago) link
i will be seeing Dylan in Springfield, Mass in a couple weeks and I will be satisfied with nothing less than a medley of musical numbers from The Simpsons
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, 20 October 2023 05:06 (six months ago) link
He covered Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me To the End of Love" in Cohen's hometown of Montreal the other night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAVmw94Zds
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Tuesday, 31 October 2023 15:48 (five months ago) link
Picked up the new book from the archive yesterday, Bob Dylan: Mixing up the Medicine, and based on a quick flip through it looks like a great trove of stuff I haven't seen before. Enjoyed the Lucy Sante piece from it that Dow linked in another thread.
― bulb after bulb, Tuesday, 31 October 2023 15:58 (five months ago) link
Glad you liked it: https://lithub.com/how-bob-dylan-blurred-the-boundaries-between-literature-and-popular-music/ ("Not my title!" LS sez)
― dow, Saturday, 4 November 2023 21:10 (five months ago) link
Last night's show at the Beacon Theater opened with a verse from Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." Then towards the end of the show, after introducing his band, Dylan said, “Jann Wenner is here tonight. He was kicked out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We don’t like that. We’re trying to get him back in.” Yeeesh.
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 November 2023 07:33 (five months ago) link
Next month is 50th anniversary of the 1974 tour. I’m completely unfamiliar with this era—is Before the Flood the best document of the tour, or is there an individual show/bootleg compliation that’s better?
― blatherskite, Thursday, 7 December 2023 17:15 (four months ago) link
My short answer would be that it’s the best available and best sounding representation we have.
Long answer:
The tour was more interesting at the start because the setlist wasn’t set in stone and had a number of surprises. The first show above all had the most (and welcome) surprises, opening with “Hero Blues,” unveiling a few more songs from Planet Waves (nearly everything from that album was eventually dropped from the tour after a few weeks), the great lost outtake “Nobody ‘Cept You” (one of my favorites) and for the only time of the tour, Dylan plays on a Band number, playing harmonica on their great cover of “Share Your Love with Me.” If I could have one show in pristine sound, it would be that tour opening show - I hope a soundboard recording was made but I have my doubts one exists anywhere. That’s the problem with the early shows - they may be more interesting, but they mostly exist as audience recordings and can be rough listening. A soundboard or PA feed was recorded on January 14 but by then the setlist was becoming much more standardized with much fewer surprises. However Dylan’s singing wasn’t quite as mannered as it would be in the final two weeks when he was shouting more and more with less nuance in his phrasing. Unfortunately those later shows are the only ones that were professionally recorded. The upshot is that the Band played better as the tour went on and come off great on the final two shows performed on Valentine’s Day - selections from those shows dominate the official live album. Frustratingly, the final show had the tour’s only performance of “Mr. Tambourine Man” which was dedicated to Sara (her favorite song) but it was not included on the official live album.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 7 December 2023 17:51 (four months ago) link
“Professionally recorded” meaning multi-track recordings
― birdistheword, Thursday, 7 December 2023 17:54 (four months ago) link
Thanks! I’ll check out Before the Flood and the opening show—I’ve heard enough Dead AUD tapes that maybe I won’t mind so much.
― blatherskite, Thursday, 7 December 2023 19:00 (four months ago) link
i'm blanking on where I read this, but i want to say there are more multitracks of the 1974 shows in the dylan archives ... maybe i dreamt it. some of the soundboards are decent (oakland, NYC). will be interesting if they do anything to commemorate the 50th anniversary — with Robertson's recent passing, seems like a good time?
― tylerw, Thursday, 7 December 2023 19:02 (four months ago) link
it's really too bad there isn't a concert doc of this tour, though — I feel like the energy would suit itself to that format ...
― tylerw, Thursday, 7 December 2023 19:14 (four months ago) link
However Dylan’s singing wasn’t quite as mannered as it would be in the final two weeks when he was shouting more and more with less nuance in his phrasing.
yeah, as loved as Before the Flood is - I can't really stand Dylan in that mode, such a waste
even Levon gets a bit shouty on some of the Band things, but that said I've always loved Dixie here
― corrs unplugged, Friday, 8 December 2023 08:14 (four months ago) link
The shoutiness totally works for me, Dylan's and Levon's. I prefer several versions here to the originals, even: for inst, the original "Don't Think Twice" sounds fussy faux-hillbily compared to the reggae-oid "someone to give his ha!-ha!" heartiness on the electric set, while the solo acoustic has him flashing back (or experiencing a Blood On The Tracks-related?) mixed-up confusion, like, what just happened? What did she do? Should he even be leaving, and anyway where is he going? But he's going alright, and "Don't think twice it's alrieeet---" Also the jittery raspy proto-rap of "It's Alright Ma." which Lester Bangs compared to Paul Newman in Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill Among The Indians, Or, Sitting Bull's History Lesson: the return of the battered Americana hero "in full scraggle." One of the great arena rock albums of the 70s, esp. by older guys, in there with Rock N Roll Animal(although I've played BTF a lot more than that) and Van Morrison's It's Too Late To Stop Now (almost too sensitive at times to qualify for "arena," but the overall effect of the 2-LP is v. powerful.) I know we all hear what we hear, but gotta say that.
― dow, Friday, 8 December 2023 20:07 (four months ago) link
Sure, would love to hear a 50th Anniversary expansion, with or without audience tapes, esp. of songs not on Before..: whatever, bring it on.
― dow, Friday, 8 December 2023 20:11 (four months ago) link
your enthusiasm makes me want to revisit this, and I'm down for an official release of more tapes
― corrs unplugged, Saturday, 9 December 2023 03:03 (four months ago) link
I've had a good bootleg recording of October 17, 1987 for years - Dylan's backed by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and IIRC the 1987 tour is held in higher regard than their 1986 tour together.
This show is supposed to be the highlight, and amazingly TWO different amateur videos exist of the concert, both from very different angles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXbDllRrT5k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pja9JSWE0Fk
― birdistheword, Thursday, 4 January 2024 05:29 (three months ago) link
Should mention, Roger McGuinn makes a guest appearance for "Chimes of Freedom" during the encore, then later George Harrison pops in for a guest appearance.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 4 January 2024 05:32 (three months ago) link
(Should also mention the sound on the camera close to the stage is abysmal.)
Awhile back there was a discussion on Dylan's heavy drinking during the '80s and I think I was trying to remember where it was well documented. I just stumbled on this paragraph from Clinton Heylin's bio:
By 1987, his drinking had again begun to get the better of him and when Kurt Loder arrived in Jerusalem on September 7 to interview him for a special twentieth-anniversary issue of Rolling Stone, he proceeded to sit through the interview drinking Kamikazes like they were Kool-Aid. Two days after he predicted tomorrow might be his dying day, an almost totally incoherent Dylan fell out of his chair after a hotel piano jam had found him hamming it up on ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ and ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco.’ He was consuming up to four Kamikazes or, later on the tour, Kahlúa, cream, and cognac, before each show. That he could even stand some nights qualified as some kind of achievement. Journalists at the shows couldn’t resist commenting on his shuffling demeanor, referring to his new image as the death-mask look.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 4 January 2024 06:10 (three months ago) link
Hey, Kamikazes! Those used to be my pleasure, er, downfall
― Godzilla Minus Zero/No Limit (morrisp), Thursday, 4 January 2024 17:41 (three months ago) link
Reminds me of a scene in a Tony Tyler book where an intoxicated Dylan, backstage in '66, pours so much cream or sugar into his coffee that it overflows onto the floor.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 4 January 2024 17:42 (three months ago) link
Random Internet story: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4JiGvzOY6P/
― Hippie Ernie (morrisp), Tuesday, 5 March 2024 23:33 (one month ago) link
Incredible arrangement! What a fey trickster, he's clearly having a ball with it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZB7QJjqmL0
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 6 March 2024 01:09 (one month ago) link
I love Bob.
― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Wednesday, 6 March 2024 03:13 (one month ago) link