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Bob Dylan
American singer-songwriter (born 1941)
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 69-year career.
Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". His lyrics incorporated political, social, and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.
real name: Robert Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman)
labels: Columbia Records, Asylum Records
genres: rock music, blues, country music, American folk music, folk-pop, country rock, folk rock, Christian rock
influenced by: Woody Guthrie, Allen Ginsberg, Bertolt Brecht, Suze Rotolo, Robert Johnson
awards: National Medal of Arts, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Knight of the Legion of Honour, Academy Award for Best Original Song, Nobel Prize in Literature
member of: Academy of Arts, Berlin, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Traveling Wilburys
Facts from Wikidata and Discogs, free to use.
folk rockfolkrockblues rocksinger-songwritercontemporary folk
The Night Owl EditionExtra
Early life and education
Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman (his Hebrew name being Shabtai Zisl ben Avraham; שבתאי-זיסל בן אברהם) on May 24, 1941, at St. Mary's Hospital, in Duluth, Minnesota. Dylan's paternal grandparents, Anna Kirghiz and Zigman Zimmerman, emigrated from Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) to the United States after the 1905 pogroms against Jews. His maternal grandparents, Florence and Ben Stone, were Lithuanian Jews who had arrived in the US in 1902. Dylan wrote that his paternal grandmother's family was originally from the Kağızman District of Kars Province, northeastern Turkey.
Dylan's second Christian album, Saved (1980), received mixed reviews, described by Michael Gray as "the nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made, Slow Train Coming II and inferior". His third Christian album was Shot of Love (1981). The album featured his first secular compositions in more than two years, mixed with Christian songs. The lyrics of "Every Grain of Sand" recall William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence". Elvis Costello wrote that "Shot of Love may not be your favorite Bob Dylan record, but it might contain his best song: 'Every Grain of Sand'."
Dylan has been described as one of the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century. He was included in the Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, where he was called "master poet, caustic social critic and intrepid, guiding spirit of the counterculture generation". Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong melody. He so enlarged himself through the folk background that he incorporated it for a while. He defined the genre for a while."
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his eighth studio album, John Wesley Harding (1967). The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston.
The song's lyrics, which in its original version contain twelve lines, feature a conversation between a joker and a thief. The song has been subject to various interpretations; some reviewers have noted that it echoes lines in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5–9.
Background and recording
Following a motorcycle accident in July 1966, Dylan spent the next 18 months recuperating at his home in Woodstock and writing songs. According to Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin, all the songs for John Wesley Harding, Dylan's eighth studio album, were written and recorded during a six-week period at the end of 1967. With one child born in early 1966 and another in mid-1967, Dylan had settled into family life. Dylan has claimed that he thought of the song during a thunderstorm. He recorded "All Along the Watchtower" on November 6, 1967, at Columbia Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee, the same studio where he had completed Blonde on Blonde the previous year. Accompanying Dylan, who played acoustic guitar and harmonica, were two Nashville...
Lyrics
The original lyrics are in twelve lines, which the Financial Times writer Dan Einac commented, make it "akin to a truncated sonnet". The lyrics feature a conversation between a joker and a thief, whilst they ride towards a watchtower. Scholar Timothy Hampton comments that the pair are "overwhelmed by circumstances". Reviewers have pointed out that the lyrics in "All Along the Watchtower" echo lines in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5–9:
Release and reception
John Wesley Harding was released on December 27, 1967, less than two months after the recording sessions. Peter Johnson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the track "brings out Dylan's talent for imagery", but felt the recording seems "fragmented and unfinished". It was regarded as the best track on the album by the reviewer for the Bucks Examiner. This sentiment was shared by Troy Irvine of The Arizona Republic, who felt that John Wesley Harding was better than any of Dylan's earlier albums.
Recording
According to Hendrix's regular engineer Eddie Kramer, the guitarist cut a large number of takes on the first day of recording in January in London, shouting chord changes at Dave Mason who featured at the session and played an additional 12-string guitar. Halfway through the session, bass player Noel Redding became dissatisfied with the proceedings and left. He later noted that he disliked the song and preferred Dylan's version. Mason then took over on bass. According to Kramer, the final bass part was played by Hendrix himself. Hendrix's friend and Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones contributed the dry rattles featured in the intro, played on a vibraslap. This sparse version without any overdubs eventually appeared on the...
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962. It was released as a single and included on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963.
It has been described as a protest song and poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom. The refrain "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" has been described as "impenetrably ambiguous: either the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as intangible as the wind".
Legacy
In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, Jenny sings this song for a show in a strip club and is introduced as "Bobbi Dylan". The film's soundtrack album features Joan Baez's 1975 live recording of the song, from her 1976 album From Every Stage.
"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962 and released the following year on his second studio album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and as the B-side of the single "Blowin' in the Wind". The song has been covered by many other artists, most notably by Peter, Paul and Mary who released it as a single reaching the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Writing
In the liner notes to the original release, Nat Hentoff quotes Dylan as saying the song is "a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better ... as if you were talking to yourself". It was written around the time that Suze Rotolo, Dylan's girlfriend at the time, indefinitely prolonged her stay in Italy. The beginning of the melody is based on the public domain traditional song "Who's Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I'm Gone", which was taught to Dylan by folksinger Paul Clayton, who had used it in his song "Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I'm Gone?"
Lyrics
The lyrics of the song are written in four stanzas of eight verses each. Each of the stanzas ends with a one verse repetition of the title sung as a closing verse to each stanza. As well as the beginning of the melody, a couple of lines of lyrics were taken from Clayton's "Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I'm Gone?", which was recorded in 1960, two years before Dylan wrote "Don't Think Twice". Lines taken word-for-word or slightly altered from the Clayton song are, "T'ain't no use to sit and wonder why, darlin'" and "So I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road." On the first release of the song, instead of "So I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road babe, where I'm bound, I can't tell" Dylan sings "So long, honey babe, where I'm bound,...
Releases
In addition to its original release, the song has appeared on several of Dylan's greatest hits compilations, including Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II (1971), The Best of Bob Dylan (1997), and The Essential Bob Dylan (2000). Another version of the song, recorded as a demo for Dylan's music publisher M. Witmark & Sons in 1963, was included on two releases in Columbia's Bootleg Series: Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (2005) and Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 (2010). In addition, live versions have been released on Before the Flood (1974; recorded February 14, 1974), as a reggae rock version on Bob Dylan at Budokan (1978; recorded February 28, 1978), The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic...
Cover versions
In 1963, the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary recorded the song. Dylan's manager Albert Grossman also managed Peter, Paul and Mary and started offering Dylan's songs to other artists to record. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" was one of three Dylan songs Peter, Paul and Mary picked up that way for their third album In the Wind, "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Quit Your Lowdown Ways" being the others. Released as a single, it reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on its Easy Listening charts. It was this version that popularized the song. Cash Box described it as "an infectious medium-paced country-styled folk item with a haunting, extremely pretty melody" that seemed destined to replicate the success the trio had...
"Everything is Broken" is an uptempo rock song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and released as the first single from his 1989 album Oh Mercy, where it appears as the third track. It was later anthologized on the compilation albums The Essential Bob Dylan in 2000 and Dylan in 2007.
The song spent eight weeks on Billboard's "Mainstream Rock Songs" chart, peaking at number eight on October 27, 1989. Daniel Lanois produced it.
Composition
"Everything is Broken" is a "list song" in which the narrator describes a world where everything seems to be broken. Originally recorded as "Broken Days" in March 1989, Dylan had rewritten the song entirely by April, giving it its current name. In an interview with Nigel Williamson (the author of The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan), Oh Mercy's producer, Daniel Lanois, described how Dylan would rework his songs over and over again:
Critical reception
In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon characterize "Everything is Broken" as a "Louisiana, or swamp blues, song" in the vein of Slim Harpo. They describe the recording as "both nonchalant and rhythmic, punctuated by guitars with very pronounced vibrato" and praise Dylan's harmonica solo as "exquisite".
"Forever Young" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded in California in November 1973. The song first appeared, in two different versions, as both slow-pace and fast-pace, on Dylan's fourteenth studio album Planet Waves.
Cover versions
In 1974, Joan Baez covered "Forever Young" as a single. It reached No. 13 on the US Adult Contemporary chart.
"Gotta Serve Somebody" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as the opening track on his 1979 studio album Slow Train Coming. It won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Male in 1980.
It was later anthologized on the compilation albums Biograph (1985), Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994), The Essential Bob Dylan (2000), The Best of Bob Dylan and Dylan (2007).
Reception
As Dylan's first release during his "gospel" period, "Gotta Serve Somebody" was met with divided reviews; John Lennon criticized the song and wrote a parody titled "Serve Yourself" in response. Nevertheless, the single won the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Male in 1980. The effort is still Dylan's latest top 40 hit on the Hot 100, peaking at No. 24 and remaining on the chart for 12 weeks. The song did best in Canada, where it spent two weeks at No. 23.
Music video
Director John Wilson created an animated video for Gotta Serve Somebody in 1983.
"Hurricane" is a protest song by Bob Dylan co-written with Jacques Levy and released as a single in November 1975. It was also included on Dylan's 1976 album Desire as its opening track.
The song is about the imprisonment of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (1937–2014). It describes acts of racism and profiling against Carter, which led to a flawed trial and a murder conviction that was eventually overturned.
Background
Carter and John Artis had been charged with a triple murder at the Lafayette Grill in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1966. The following year Carter and Artis were found guilty of the murders, which were widely reported as racially motivated. In the years that followed, a substantial amount of controversy emerged over the case, ranging from allegations of faulty evidence and questionable eyewitness testimony to an unfair trial.
Controversy and re-recording
Dylan first recorded the song in late July 1975; it featured Scarlet Rivera on violin and Vinnie Bell on Danelectro Bellzouki 12-string guitar. Dylan was forced to re-record the song, with altered lyrics, in October 1975 after concerns were raised by Columbia's lawyers that references to Alfred Bello and Arthur Dexter Bradley (the two star witnesses of the case) as having "robbed the bodies" could result in a lawsuit. Bello and Bradley had never been accused of such acts. Because there was too much leakage on the multitracks to make a vocal "punch in", Dylan decided to re-record the entire song. At this time, he was already rehearsing for his upcoming tour, and the musicians from the Rolling Thunder Revue were still at his disposal. Dylan...
Cover versions
The song has been covered by Ani DiFranco, Furthur, Middle Class Rut, the Milltown Brothers, and Iain Lee when he sang it on his Late Night Alternative phone-in show on Talkradio in January 2018.
"I Shall Be Released" is a 1967 song written by Bob Dylan.
Reception
Rolling Stone magazine ranked "I Shall Be Released" 6th on a list of the "100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs". An article accompanying the list calls it a "simple, evocative tale of a prisoner yearning for freedom" and a "rock hymn [that] was part of a conscious effort by Dylan to move away from the sprawling imagery of his mid-Sixties masterpieces". It also describes the original Basement Tapes version thusly: "The rough church of the organ and guitar frame Dylan's urgent nasal prayer, until Richard Manuel's keening harmony illuminates the chorus, like sunlight pouring through a stained-glass window".
Notable covers
After the release of the Boz Burrell and the Band versions, "I Shall Be Released" has been recorded by Joni Mitchell, the Youngbloods, the Earl Scruggs Revue, Jeff Buckley, the Marmalade, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, Sun Araw, Joe Cocker, Tremeloes, Bette Midler, the Box Tops, the Byrds, Ricky Nelson, Aaron Neville, Melissa Etheridge, Coheed and Cambria, Tom Robinson Band, Nina Simone, The Slackers, Paul Weller, Jerry Garcia Band, Sting, the Heptones, the Hollies, Trinitones, Pearls Before Swine, OK Go, Beth Rowley, Big Mama Thornton, Chatham County Line, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Jack Johnson, Gov't Mule, Martin Harley, Kiosk, James Blundell, Miriam Makeba, Mahotella Queens, Jacob Miller, Bobby McFerrin, Black Oak Arkansas, Marion...
"I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" is a 1967 song by Bob Dylan first released on John Wesley Harding. It features Pete Drake on pedal steel guitar, and two other Nashville musicians, Charlie McCoy on bass guitar and Kenneth Buttrey on drums, both of whom had appeared on Dylan's previous album, Blonde on Blonde.
Critical reception
David Giles of Music Week described the Robert Palmer and UB40 cover version as having "a dainty reggae beat", but deemed this "uninspiring pop... never really goes anywhere" and that success would depend on the music video.
"If Not for You" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his October 1970 album New Morning. It was issued as the A-side of a single in Europe in early 1971.
The song is a love song to Dylan's first wife, Sara Dylan. He recorded it several times in 1970; the session for the released version took place in New York in August.
Composition
Bob Dylan wrote "If Not for You" as a love song to his wife Sara. It was one of several songs he wrote in 1970 that conveyed his contentment with family life and celebrated the simple pleasures of nature. Music journalist Thomas Ward describes it as "a song of rustic charms, heavily indebted to the simplest of country music". He says that the lyrics favor "concise, economical descriptions" over "elegant poetry", a quality he finds most evident in the bridge lines "If not for you, my sky would fall / Rain would gather too / If not for you, I'd be nowhere at all / I'd be lost, if not for you."
Recording
Dylan first recorded "If Not for You" in March 1970, late in the sessions for his Self Portrait double LP, although it was never intended for that album. He then recorded a new version on May 1 with George Harrison at Columbia Records' Studio B in New York. Charlie Daniels, who played bass at the session, with Russ Kunkel on drums, described it as "a day I'll never forget", adding: "It wasn't Bob Dylan and George Harrison. It was four guys in the studio making music ... It was such a nice thing, such a great day, hour after hour." News of the collaboration between Dylan and Harrison caused considerable excitement in the music press, even though Columbia made a point of announcing that neither artist deemed the results worthy of release.
Release
The August 1970 version of "If Not for You" was sequenced as the opening track of New Morning. Columbia released the album on October 21. It was viewed as a return to form by many music critics after the poorly received Self Portrait. Reviewing for Rolling Stone, Ed Ward described "If Not for You" as "a kind of invocation to the muse, if you will", and said that in contrast to Dylan's 1966 love song "I Want You", "He's celebrating the fact that not only has he found her, but they know each other well, and get strength from each other, depend on each other." Geoffrey Cannon of The Guardian likened the song to "Let It Be Me" from Self Portrait, adding: "except that it's not lush. It's clipped and sceptical ... his voice is harsher than it...
Other cover versions
Numerous other artists have covered "If Not for You". These include Rod Stewart, Bryan Ferry, Richie Havens, Sarah Vaughan, Glen Campbell, Barb Jungr, Katie Buckhaven, Susan McKeown, Phil Keaggy, Ed Kuepper, and the Flatmates.
"It Ain't Me Babe" is a song by Bob Dylan that originally appeared on his fourth album Another Side of Bob Dylan, which was released in 1964 by Columbia Records. According to music critic Oliver Trager, this song, along with others on the album, marked a departure for Dylan as he began to explore the possibilities of language and deeper levels of the human experience.
Within a year of its release, the song was picked up as a single by folk rock act the Turtles and country artist Johnny Cash. Jan & Dean also covered the track on their Folk 'n Roll LP in 1965.
Covers
Dylan and Johnny Cash were admirers of each other's work. Cash recorded the song with June Carter. The song was released on Cash's 1965 album, Orange Blossom Special, and became a hit. This song was also featured in the 2005 film about Cash's life, Walk the Line, and was performed by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon on the film's soundtrack.
Background and recording
By summer 1965, the members of Los Angeles-based surf rock band the Crossfires had graduated high school and were on the brink of breaking up in the face of their future careers. In that period, the band had switched their sound towards a folk-inspired one, partly because it was more commercially viable for the times and partly because the members revered "Dylan like a God". During the early summer of 1965, Ted Feigin and Lee Lasseff formed independent record label White Whale Records, who aimed "to release as few records as possible" and only recordings in artists "they believed in". Disc jockey Red Foster saw the Crossfires perform at the Revelaire Club in Los Angeles, and promptly contacted Feigin and Lasseff, who signed to the label....
Release and reception
White Whale released "It Ain't Me Babe" as both the Turtles' and the record label's debut single in the US during July 1965. This followed shortly by the release of the single in Canada by Mercury Records in August 1965, and in the UK on Pye Records in September 1965. According to Kaylan, this made them label-mates with the Kinks and that it was "thrilling to have their songs released globablly". The B-side of the single was the Kaylan-penned "Almost There", which band member Mark Volman stated was almost a "parody of the Kinks".
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on March 22, 1965, by Columbia Records. The song was recorded on January 15, 1965, with Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E.
Lee's bass guitar the only instrumentation. The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular "Baby Blue".
Composition and recording
Bob Dylan most likely wrote "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in January 1965. The master take of the song was recorded on January 15, 1965, during the sessions for the Bringing It All Back Home album and was produced by Tom Wilson. The track was recorded on the same day Dylan recorded the other three songs on side 2 of the album: "Mr. Tambourine Man", "Gates of Eden" and "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". Dylan had been playing those other songs live for some time, allowing them to evolve before recording of the album commenced. For "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", however, Dylan wanted to record the song before he became too familiar with it. There were at least two studio recordings prior to the one that was released on the album....
Legacy
In addition to appearing on the Bringing It All Back Home album, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was also included on the compilation albums Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II (1971), The Essential Bob Dylan (2000), Dylan (2007), and the UK version of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (1967). Dylan played the song for Donovan in his hotel room during his May 1965 tour of England in a scene shown in the 1967 D. A. Pennebaker documentary Dont Look Back. The first studio take of the song, recorded on January 13, 1965, was released in 2005 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home, the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home, and again in 2015 on the 6-disc and 18-disc versions of The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge...
Other covers
Many other artists have covered the song. Joan Baez covered it on her 1965 album Farewell, Angelina. It is one of four Dylan covers on that album, the others being the title track, "Mama, You Been on My Mind" (recorded as "Daddy, You Been on My Mind"), and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". Baez sings "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in a falsetto voice. Baez continued to perform the song at live concerts as of 2005.
"Jokerman" is a song by Bob Dylan that appeared as the opening track of his 1983 album Infidels. Recorded on April 14, 1983, it was released as a single on June 1, 1984, featuring a live version of "Isis" from the film Renaldo and Clara as its B-side.
Background
The song has been noted for its biblical imagery and has also been analyzed as a political metaphor. In a 1984 interview with Kurt Loder for Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan discussed his inspiration behind the song: "Me and another guy have a boat down there [in the Caribbean]. 'Jokerman' kinda came to me in the islands. It's very mystical. The shapes there, and shadows, seem to be so ancient. The song was sorta inspired by these spirits they call jumbis".
Reception and legacy
As a single, "Jokerman" failed to chart but was critically well-received and continues to have a positive legacy. In its contemporary review of the single, Cash Box said that the reggae rhythm section provides "an infectious, bubbling bottom while [the guitarists] trade rough and sweet licks across the moving Dylan lyric" and that "at his stirring, thought provoking best on this one, Dylan summons the passion and fervor synonymous with his earlier work and delivers an inspiring vocal performance".
Notable cover versions
Brazilian Tropicalia singer Caetano Veloso covers the song in luxurious arrangement in the tour for his 1991 album Circuladô, which is documented in the following year's album Circuladô ao Vivo
"Just Like a Woman" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his seventh studio album, Blonde on Blonde (1966). The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston.
Dylan allegedly wrote it on Thanksgiving Day in 1965, though some biographers doubt this, concluding that he most likely improvised the lyrics in the studio. Dylan recorded the song at Columbia Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee in March 1966.
Background and recording
Bob Dylan released his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home in March 1965, followed by Highway 61 Revisited in August of that year. In October, he began recording sessions for this next album Blonde on Blonde. After several sessions in New York, the recording was relocated to Nashville following a suggestion by Dylan's producer Bob Johnston. Two musicians from the New York sessions were retained; Dylan was accompanied by Al Kooper on his journey to Nashville and Robbie Robertson joined them there.
Composition and lyrical interpretation
In the album notes of his 1985 compilation Biograph, Dylan related that he wrote the lyrics of "Just Like a Woman" in Kansas City on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1965, while on tour. However, after listening to the recording session tapes of Dylan at work on the song in the Nashville studio, historian Sean Wilentz has written that he improvised the lyrics in the studio by singing "disconnected lines and semi-gibberish". Dylan was initially unsure what the person described in the song does that is just like a woman, rejecting "shakes", "wakes", and "makes mistakes". The improvisational spirit extends to the band attempting, in their fourth take, a "weird, double-time version", somewhere between Jamaican ska and Bo Diddley.
Critical reception
David F. Wagner, in The Post-Crescent, found "Just Like a Woman" to be a "tender, melodic ballad with punch", that he felt would be the most-covered track from the album. The critic for the Runcorn Weekly News preferred Dylan's original to the cover by Manfred Mann, and wrote that "it has more meaning when Dylan sings it". The Asbury Park Press columnist Don Lass described the song as "an evocative, lyrical, almost painful love song". A Billboard reviewer considered Dylan in "top-form with this much recorded bluesy ballad". A staff writer for Cash Box described the song as "a slow-shufflin' laconic ode which underscores just how much men need woman [sic]". The staff writer for Record World believed that Dylan went after a more relaxed...
Live versions and later releases
According to his official website, Dylan played the song live in concert 871 times from 1966 to 2010. In his 1966 tour performances, Dylan chose to play the song solo rather than with the band that accompanied him on the tour. Starr commented that although the original album version is "notable for its understated accompaniment to Dylan's subtle and expressive vocals", in his performance at Manchester on May 17, 1966, Dylan "seem[ed] intent, if anything, to exceed the sense of intimacy he had achieved in the studio".
"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, written for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Released as a single two months after the film's premiere, it became a worldwide hit, reaching the Top 10 in several countries.
The song became one of Dylan's most popular and most performed post-1960s songs, spawning recordings by Eric Clapton, Guns N' Roses, Randy Crawford, and others.
"Lay Lady Lay", sometimes rendered "Lay, Lady, Lay", is a song written by Bob Dylan and originally released in 1969 on his Nashville Skyline album. Like many of the tracks on the album, Dylan sings the song in a low croon, rather than in the high nasal singing style associated with his earlier recordings.
The song has become a standard and has been covered by numerous bands and artists over the years. The song, Dylan's final top 10 hit, peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Music and lyrics
Written in the key of A major, or A Mixolydian, the song's chord progression features a descending chromatic line and Dylan's voice occupies a range from F#2 to D4. The bass is most often based on the chromatic descent or otherwise emphasizing the modal center of A. The chief hook in "Lay Lady Lay", a song with far more hooks than is typical for Dylan, is a recurring four-note pedal steel guitar riff. The final verse is separated from the rest of the song by the bridge and an ascending organ riff also recurs in this verse. The song's distinctive drum part is performed by Kenny Buttrey, who regarded his contribution to the song as one of his best performances on a record. Lyrically the song speaks of romantic and sexual anticipation as the...
Live performances and other releases
Dylan played the song live for the first time at the Isle of Wight on August 31, 1969; a recording is included on Isle of Wight Live, part of the 4-CD deluxe edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971). Performances of the song from 1974 and 1976 are included on the Before the Flood and Hard Rain live albums. The song has been performed frequently by Dylan since the late 1980s during his Never Ending Tour.
Reception
Billboard described "Lay Lady Lay" as an "Infectious and appealing folk number with a country flavor." Record World said it was a "lovely and winning number." Cash Box called it a "strong sales prospect to break onto best seller charts."
Other recordings
The song has become a standard and has been covered by numerous bands and artists over the years, including the Byrds, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Guy and Anthony Hamilton, Melanie, the Isley Brothers, Bob Andy, Duran Duran, The Flaming Lips, Magnet, Hoyt Axton, Angélique Kidjo, Ministry, Malaria!, Lorrie Morgan, Minimal Compact, Deana Carter, U.S. Maple, and Pete Yorn. A version by Ferrante & Teicher reached number 71 in Canada.
"Maggie's Farm" is a song written by Bob Dylan, recorded on January 15, 1965, and released on the album Bringing It All Back Home on March 22 of that year. Like many other Dylan songs of the 1965–66 period, "Maggie's Farm" is based on electric blues.
It was released as a single in the United Kingdom on June 4, 1965, and peaked at No. 22 on the chart. Dylan only needed one take to record the song, as may be heard on the exhaustive 18-disc Collector's Edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966, which includes every alternate take recorded during Dylan's 1965–1966 sessions but only the one version of "Maggie's Farm".
Lyrics
The lyrics of the song follow a straightforward blues structure, with the opening line of each verse ("I ain't gonna work...") sung twice, then repeated at the end of the verse. The third to fifth lines of each verse elaborate on and explain the sentiment expressed in the verse's opening/closing lines.
Cover version
An early cover version was by Solomon Burke, "one of the first black singers to record a Bob Dylan song", who released it in 1965 just prior to Dylan's own single release, as the flip side of his "Tonight's the Night" (Atlantic 2288). Burke's version peaked at No. 2 on the R&B charts, and No. 28 on the Pop Charts.
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released as the first track of the acoustic side of his March 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home.
The song's popularity led to Dylan recording it live many times, and it has been included in multiple compilation albums. It has been translated into other languages and has been used or referenced in television shows, films, and books.
Composition
"Mr. Tambourine Man" was written and composed in early 1964, at the same approximate time as "Chimes of Freedom", which Dylan recorded later that spring for his album Another Side of Bob Dylan. Dylan began writing and composing "Mr. Tambourine Man" in February 1964, after attending Mardi Gras in New Orleans during a cross-country road trip with several friends, and completed it sometime between the middle of March and late April of that year after he had returned to New York. Nigel Williamson has suggested in The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan that the influence of Mardi Gras can be heard in the swirling and fanciful imagery of the song's lyrics. Journalist Al Aronowitz has stated that Dylan completed the song at his home, but folk singer Judy...
Recording
During the sessions for Another Side of Bob Dylan, in June 1964, with Tom Wilson producing, Dylan recorded "Mr. Tambourine Man" with Ramblin' Jack Elliott singing harmony. As Elliott was slightly off key, that recording was not used. Later that month he recorded a publisher demo of the song at Witmark Music. More than six months passed before Dylan re-recorded the song, again with Wilson in the producer's chair, during the final Bringing It All Back Home session on January 15, 1965, the same day that "Gates of Eden", "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" were recorded. It was long thought that the four songs were each recorded in one long take. However, in the biography Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades,...
Other Dylan releases
The Bringing it All Back Home version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was included on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits in 1967 and several later Dylan compilation albums, including Biograph, Masterpieces, and The Essential Bob Dylan. The two June 1964 recordings, one with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and the other at Witmark Music, have been released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home and The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos 1962–1964, respectively. Outtakes from the January 15, 1965, recording session were released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 in 2015.
Release
"Mr. Tambourine Man" was the debut single by the American rock band the Byrds and was released on April 12, 1965 by Columbia Records, less than a month after Dylan's original. The song was also the title track of the band's debut album, which was released on June 21, 1965. The Byrds' version is abridged and in a different key from Dylan's original.
"Not Dark Yet" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded in January 1997 and released in September that year as the seventh track on his album Time Out of Mind. It was also released as a single on August 25, 1997, and later anthologized on the compilation albums The Essential Bob Dylan in 2000, The Best of Bob Dylan in 2005 and Dylan in 2007.
The song was produced by Daniel Lanois.
Recording
"Not Dark Yet" was recorded in the early sessions for Time Out of Mind in a version that featured "a radically different feel", according to Daniel Lanois. "[The demo of 'Not Dark Yet'] was quicker and more stripped-down and [later during the formal studio sessions], he changed it into a civil war ballad".
Critical reception
"Not Dark Yet" received widespread acclaim upon its release in 1997 with many critics citing it as the highlight of Time Out of Mind. The refrain "It's not dark yet but it's getting there" is often interpreted as Bob Dylan, or at least the song's first-person narrator, confronting his mortality.
Music video
An official music video for the song, directed by Michael B. Borofsky, was filmed in Memphis, Tennessee, in October 1997. The video juxtaposes both color and black-and-white footage of Dylan and his band (including Larry Campbell on electric guitar and Bucky Baxter on pedal steel guitar), performing the song on stage at the New Daisy Theatre on Beale Street, with black-and-white footage of the city outside. The video was released in March 1998, the month after Time Out of Mind won three Grammy Awards including one for Album of the Year. Another music video was shot for the song "Love Sick" at the same location on the same day, featuring Dylan and model Rachel DiPaolo, but it has never been released.
"Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching No. 1 on Canada's RPM chart, No. 7 on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100, and No. 8 on the UK Singles Chart. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song as No. 203 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
Recording sessions and release
The master take of "Positively 4th Street" was recorded on July 29, 1965, during the mid-June to early August recording sessions that produced all of the material that appeared on Dylan's 1965 album, Highway 61 Revisited. The song was the last to be attempted that day, with Dylan and a variety of session musicians having already successfully recorded master takes of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" and "Tombstone Blues". The studio band on "Positively 4th Street" featured Bobby Gregg (drums), Russ Savakus (bass), Frank Owens (piano), Al Kooper (organ) and Mike Bloomfield (guitar), with the song initially being logged on the studio's official recording session documentation under the working title of "Black Dally Rue".
Musical structure and lyrics
The song, like most of Dylan's, is composed of a simple harmonic, or chordal, and melodic structure; the verse has a I-ii-IV-I progression followed by I-V-IV-vi-V. The song is in the key of F# Major.
Inspiration and the significance of 4th Street
There is uncertainty about which "4th Street" the title refers to, and many scholars and fans have speculated that it refers to more than one. New York City's 4th Street is at the heart of the Manhattan residential district Greenwich Village, where Dylan once lived. This area was central to the burgeoning folk music scene of the early 1960s, which centered around Dylan and many other influential singer-songwriters. For example, Gerde's Folk City was originally located at 11 West 4th Street. However, the song also may concern Dylan's stay at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where 4th Street S.E. is one of the two main roads crossing through the part of campus known as Dinkytown, where Dylan lived and performed.
Cover versions
Living Voices were the first to cover the song in 1966, on their Positively 4th Street and Other Message Folk Songs LP.
"Silvio" is a folk rock song written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter and released by Dylan as the seventh track of his 1988 album Down in the Groove. Performed alongside the Grateful Dead, the song was released as the album's only single and spent eight weeks on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, peaking at #5 on July 1, 1988.
Composition and recording
"Silvio" is one of two songs co-written by Dylan and longtime Grateful Dead associate Robert Hunter on Down in the Groove (along with "Ugliest Girl in the World"). Hunter and Dylan would also later co-write most of the songs on Dylan's 2009 album Together Through Life as well as the 2012 song "Duquesne Whistle". The track was recorded the year after Dylan had toured with the Grateful Dead as his backing group and is notable for featuring three members of that band singing backing vocals: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Brent Mydland. The song is performed in the key of G major.
Critical reception and legacy
In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon call the song "the gem of the album", noting that the "rhythm is irresistible, and the combination of acoustic guitar (Dylan), drums, and bass works magnificently".
Notable cover versions
Grayson Capps from the compilation album Bob Dylan in the 80s: Volume One (2014)
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Recorded on January 14, 1965, it was released as a single in the U.S. by Columbia Records on March 8, and release in the U.K. followed on April 23.
It is the first track on the album Bringing It All Back Home, released some two weeks later. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit in the United States, peaking at number 39 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Tangled Up in Blue" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The opening track of his 15th studio album Blood on the Tracks (1975), the song was released as the album's sole single and reached No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Written by Dylan and produced by his brother David Zimmerman, the song concerns relationships from different narrative perspectives. Dylan has altered the lyrics in subsequent performances, changing the point of view and details in the song.
Background and recording
The song was written in the summer of 1974, after Dylan's comeback tour with The Band that year and his separation from Sara Dylan, whom he had married in 1965. Dylan had moved to a farm in Minnesota with his brother, David Zimmerman, and there started to write the songs that were recorded for his album Blood on the Tracks. In the spring of 1974, Dylan had taken art classes at Carnegie Hall and was influenced by his tutor Norman Raeben, and in particular Raeben's view of time, when writing the lyrics. In a 1978 interview Dylan explained this style of songwriting: "What's different about it is that there's a code in the lyrics, and there's also no sense of time. There's no respect for it. You've got yesterday, today, and tomorrow all in the...
Composition and lyrical interpretation
With "Tangled Up in Blue", Dylan used shifting perspectives of time, influenced by his recent studies under Raeben. Michael Gray describes the structure of "Tangled Up in Blue's" lyrics as the story of a love affair and career and how the "past upon present, public upon privacy, distance upon friendship, [and] disintegration upon love" transform and are complicated over time. Timothy Hampton, Professor of Comparative Literature and French at the University of California, Berkeley, has described the structure of the lyrics as a set of sonnets, with seven stanzas each of 14 lines, each with a volta after line eight.
Critical reception
Billboard regarded "Tangled Up in Blue" as Dylan's most powerful and most commercial single in a long time, saying that Dylan's voice and the "strong acoustic background" instrumentals were reminiscent of Dylan's early songs. Cash Box said that it is a "great tune...with lyrics pouring forth in profusion and with Bob's voice in excellent shape." Jon Landau in Rolling Stone praised Dylan's lyrics and delivery of the song, but was unimpressed by the accompanying musicians and the production of the album, while Jonathan Cott, in the same issue of the magazine, called the track "brilliant and haunted." Cott likened the effect of the album's lyrics to those of the Italian 13th-century poem referred to in the song, quoting from the song:
Covers and references
The song has been covered by various artists, including Barb Jungr, Jerry Garcia, Half Japanese, Robyn Hitchcock, the Indigo Girls, Kim Larsen, T-Bone Burnett, Great White, Joan Baez, Ani Difranco, KT Tunstall, The Whitlams, and The String Cheese Incident. Mary Lee's Corvette covered the entire Blood on The Tracks album in 2002, including "Tangled Up in Blue". According to Hootie & the Blowfish vocalist Darius Rucker, their song "Only Wanna Be with You" was written as a tribute to Dylan; it includes the lines "Put on a little Dylan sitting on a fence," "Ain't Bobby so cool?", and "I'm tangled up in blue."
"The Times They Are a-Changin'" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released as the title track of his 1964 album of the same name. Dylan wrote it as an anthem of change for the time, influenced by Irish and Scottish ballads.
Released as a 45-rpm single in Britain in 1965, it reached number 9 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was not released as a single in the US.
Inspiration and composition
Dylan appears to have written the song in September and October 1963. He recorded it as a Witmark publishing demo at that time, a version that was later released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. The song was then recorded at Columbia Studios in New York on October 23 and 24; the latter session yielding the version that became the title song of Dylan's third album. The a- in the song title is an archaic intensifying prefix, as in the British songs "A-Hunting We Will Go" and "Here We Come a-Wassailing", from the 18th and 19th century.
"Things Have Changed" is a song from the film Wonder Boys, written and performed by Bob Dylan and released as a single on May 1, 2000. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.
It was included in the compilation albums The Essential Bob Dylan in 2000, The Best of Bob Dylan in 2005 and Dylan in 2007.
Background and recording
The song was inspired by a meeting with country musician Marty Stuart and Stuart's song "The Observations of a Crow" from the concept album The Pilgrim. Dylan critics disagree about when this song was recorded. According to Olof Björner, "Things Have Changed" was recorded in May 1999 at Sterling Sound studios in New York. Clinton Heylin, in his account of Dylan's songs between 1974 and 2008, believes the song was recorded at Sony Studios, New York, probably on July 25 and 26, 1999. On these latter dates, Dylan was touring the US with Paul Simon.
Music video and chart position
Curtis Hanson, who directed Wonder Boys, also directed the music video for "Things Have Changed". He intercut footage of Dylan with sequences from the feature film, to suggest that Dylan was interacting with the film's characters. The video appears on the bonus DVD included in the Limited Edition version of Dylan's 2006 album Modern Times.
Cover versions
"Things Have Changed" has been covered by many artists. Among the very first was country singer Waylon Jennings who made it a staple of his final live shows in 2000 and 2001. Other notable versions include those by Barb Jungr on her 2002 album Every Grain of Sand: Barb Jungr Sings Bob Dylan, The Persuasions on their 2010 album Knockin' on Bob's Door, Curtis Stigers on his 2012 album Let's Go Out Tonight and Bettye LaVette on her 2018 album Things Have Changed, which takes its name from the song. Both Margo Price and Adia Victoria also have performed the song live in arrangements inspired by LaVette's.
"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" is a song written by the American musician Bob Dylan in 1967 in Woodstock, New York, during the self-imposed exile from public appearances that followed his July 29, 1966 motorcycle accident. A recording of Dylan performing the song in September 1971 was released on the Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol.
II album in November of that year, marking the first official release of the song by its author. Earlier 1967 recordings of the song, performed by Dylan and the Band, were issued on the 1975 album The Basement Tapes and the 2014 album The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete.
Other covers
The British beat group Unit 4 + 2 released a recording of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" as a single in 1968, but it suffered poor sales as a result of the competing version released by the Byrds and consequently it did not chart. Joan Baez included a gender-switched version of the song, in which she sings "Tomorrow's the day my man's gonna come", on her 1968 album of Dylan covers, Any Day Now.
