The Law Can't Touch Her at All: Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home

I always thought Mr. Tambourine Man’s primary instrument was guitar and that Turkish tambourine was just an extra.

Have you ever played a tambourine...on acid?

I always thought Mr. Tambourine Man’s primary instrument was guitar

Based on... what exactly?

If his primary instrument is guitar, then we would call him Mr. Guitar Man. Or Mr. Guitar Man Who Also Happens to Have a Tambourine.

Hendrix, Dylan, and Lennon all occasionally played bass. But would you refer to any of them as "Mr. Bassist"?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/21/bruce-langhorne-obituary

Right. Langhorne was... a guitarist who sometimes played tambourine.

If his primary instrument is guitar, then we would call him Mr. Guitar Man. Or Mr. Guitar Man Who Also Happens to Have a Tambourine.

― fleetwood machiavellian (Ye Mad Puffin)

are Mr. Airplane Man's primary instrument airplane?

Also, if you don't feel transported by tambourine solos perhaps you will enjoy solos on the the maracas and cajón:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlhYAKfilYk

But yeah, the truth be told I once asked my self exactly the same questions as you, YMP, about what was the nature of his “song.”

If his primary instrument is guitar, then we would call him Mr. Guitar Man. Or Mr. Guitar Man Who Also Happens to Have a Tambourine.
There was a street musician in my town for a few summers, when I was a teenager, an American with a guitar playing rock classics, and I'd often run into him with friends when out partying late. He had these small film containers half-filled with rice that he would use as rhythm eggs, and at some point he gave me one of those, said it was a "wonder-shaker", and I accompanied him for a few songs. I took it home with me and I keep it to this day. We called him the wonder-shaker man, and I always think of him when I think of mr. Tambourine Man.

so many lines from SHB regularly pop into my mind, especially
Twenty years of schoolin’
and they put you on the day shift

Me and my brother went to the same high-school and my brother got real fed up with it at some point. I admitted to him that I had also been fed up with it and that for a long time while riding my bike to school I would sing from the top of my lungs (in Danish translation): "I AIN'T GONNA GO TO [name of school] NO MORE!". To my surprise, he told me that he'd been singing the exact same silly translation for weeks!

This album rules.

If I had to rate these songs, I think I'd put them in the following order (favorite to least).

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
"Maggie's Farm"
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit
"Subterranean Homesick Blues"
"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"
"Gates of Eden"
"She Belongs to Me"
"On the Road Again"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"
"Outlaw Blues"

There is no one in the history of ever who has "played a song" on the tambourine

as usual with Dylan im pretty sure it's half earnest half jerking your chain but mostly there for color.

for me it conjures up travelling minstrels, saying "guitar player" would be a bit too modern, it's as much of an oddly formed anachronism as Dylan's role as pop "folk" musician. on that tip tambourine is an accessible instrument to all whereas guitar has skill/technical barriers to entry, it's a bit of communal creation/breaking down barriers between artist and audience.

i want to say also it took me some time but eventually it clicked that Lou Reed is trying to be Dylan on so many VU tracks ("baby be gooood/ do what you shouuuld/ you know it'll be alriiight").

ah im regretting not voting for "It's All Over Now Baby Blue". the chord change where he dives into "the carpet too is moving under you" is so unexpected it feels like like an emotional sucker punch. the rest of the song is just standard I/IV/V and the sudden unsteadiness never fails to take me back. it's like the brief time when you are going down a set of stairs and miss a step. or when you are in a relationship and someone says something and you get this feeling in your stomach. so beautiful, that fall.

and on that line!

the Them version of "Baby Blue" is also classic, the vibraphone lick fits the trippiness of the words. its a good fit for the soul vocals of Van Morrison ("look out the saints are coming through"). Beck, another Dylan acolyte, interpolated Dylan & Them for his "Jackass".

legendary is the "Don't Look Back" take of Dylan playing it to Donovan. this is what it's like when rock stars drunkenly crash each others parties chasing memes/feuds in the 60s. Dylan starts playing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" at 2:49:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sqAhF6i9H4

that performance is so great. and for all the talk/myth/apocrypha about that night & its context, I always preferred the version of Love Minus Zero that Dylan plays in that hotel room over the version on the record. Again, it's the sublime & resigned chord changes paired with the devotional lyric. Negation and infinity.

i want to say also it took me some time but eventually it clicked that Lou Reed is trying to be Dylan on so many VU tracks ("baby be gooood/ do what you shouuuld/ you know it'll be alriiight").

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Donovan's "To Sing for You" is a really nice song. I've written lots about how Donovan is the god of pop-music soundtracks, even more than the Rolling Stones. I'm a big fan, and I was glad he went into the rock'n'roll HOF.

What makes that Pennebaker clip so great, though, is how overmatched he is by Dylan. He knows it (love his expression at 3:55), and Dylan knows it. Dylan really knows it, and he's basking in it (in a way that makes you smile, not hate him).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

my love

Can't argue with the results. There are at least 4 or 5 songs on here that I wouldn't argue with as a #1 though.

Voted for the favorite, but could just as easily have voted for “Outlaw Blues” as well as several others.

Huh! For whatever reason, LMZ/NL has never really done all that much for me. I like it fine, just surprised to discover it's a consensus favorite against so many heavy-hitters.

Clearly plenty of other people have seen something in the song, even beyond the "everybody covers every Dylan song" effect. A little searching turns up versions by Buck Owens, Leon Russell, the Walker Brothers, Joan Baez, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Judy Collins, Jackson Browne, the Turtles, Nana Mouskouri, and Ricky Nelson. I thought I'd heard the last one before, but realized belatedly I was thinking of his cover of "She Belongs To Me" - guy was into this album!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWPrtfE-TBI

Huh! For whatever reason, LMZ/NL has never really done all that much for me. I like it fine, just surprised to discover it's a consensus favorite against so many heavy-hitters.

yea same

it's one of my favorite Dylan melodies tbh

heh Love Minus Zero feels like coffee shop autopilot to me, one of the least impressive tracks on the album (shrug emoji)

Thirteenth Floor Elevators version of "It's All Over Now (Baby Blue)" is one of my all time favorite Dylan covers. That Joyce Carol Oates short story is really good too, that was a story that I got assigned in freshman lit in collage and really liked.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joyce-carol-oates-on-dylans-its-all-over-now-baby-blue-1432045329

heh Love Minus Zero feels like coffee shop autopilot to me, one of the least impressive tracks on the album (shrug emoji)

has there been a Dylan vs Rage Against the Machine “Maggie’s Farm” poll?

Surprised "Mr Tambourine Man" didn't get more votes. Though I voted for LMZ so I'm not complaining.

that's a great cover by Nelson, Dylan probably appreciated it (iirc he has only nice things to say abt Nelson in Chronicles)

I'd choose She Belongs to Me over LMZ, I think Dylan does the cynical love portrait better than the sincere, also I just love the melody

both rule though

well, maaaybe Dylan's fondness for wordplay amphetamine gets the best of him in the 3rd verse

https://www.brainyquote.com/photos_tr/en/b/bobdylan/154487/bobdylan1-2x.jpg

lol that's what i think of the last verse of mr. tambourine man. but both are great

DAMN:

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

quite faithful!

yeah I was surprised at that for 1976