Tell Ol’ Bill

09/02/2009 by Tony Attwood.

The moment one hears Tell Ol’ Bill it seems to relate directly to Things Have Changed.  Yes, there’s a different speed to the piece, but the whole feel of the music is similar.  

 

There’s that misty, removed feeling in the lyrics, and very similar orchestration.   The number of chords used is limited (although Tell Ol’ Bill is in a minor key while Things have Changed is in the more conventional major), but more than anything it is the feeling generated.  The feeling  through the arrangement on the Tell Tale Signs album, the feeling through the lyrics…  there is a world out there that is not quite making sense.

 

So wonderful is this piece at creating an image that this track alone would make Tell Tale Signs worth buying (although of course you also get Mississippi, which is also worth the cost of the whole album on its own).

 

Songs in minor keys usually have a sad, negative feel, yet this song bounces along.   The singer hardly has a penny to his name, but at the same time the river is whispering.  This is Dylan’s genius - to make a song of strangeness in a minor key bounce along, taking us all the way through to the line, “Anything is worth a try”

 

In the chordal accompaniment to the recording (which is uniquely for Dylan in B flat minor) there is that endlessly rocking G-flat major / F major interchange to introduce each line, which emphasises the opening, and which makes the whole thing rock along.   Yes, maybe the singer is near death (“the heavens have never seemed so near”) but this is nothing like “Not Dark Yet” – this is a man ok with his coming end.  He is running towards it, because anything is worth a try.

 

Thus throughout the song we have the contrasts – the rocking rhythm, the dry but well attuned voice, and these images of nameless places. 

 

And it is only as we progress that we see there is a woman involved

You trampled on me as you passed
Left the coldest kiss upon my brow
All my doubts and fears have gone at last
I’ve nothing more to tell you now.

 

And it is that realisation that takes us forward:

 

I lay awake at night with troubled dreams
The enemy is at the gate.

 

It is in fact a world gone wrong – a world that Dylan might have witnessed from the car in the video of “Times have changed” – a world where nothing is right, and everything is warped and twisted…
 
 
Tell Ol’ Bill when he comes home
Anything is worth a try
Tell him that I’m not alone
That the hour has come to do or die.

 

 

A masterpiece.

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John Brown

25/01/2009 by Tony Attwood.

It is not just the song “John Brown” that is a masterpiece – it is the performance that we have of it on MTV Unplugged.  Indeed because that is the only performance I have ever heard of this song, the two are utterly entwined, and the song is greatly enhanced by that performance.

 

There is not a note out of place, not a moment that is anything less than perfect, and Dylan gives us his message line by line, fully and ideally backed up by the band: banjo and all.

 

There is something about that backing which creates the smoke and flags of the battlefield, and which combines with the drive and vigor of the melody.   The chord sequence is tantalizing – the first verse clearly using only one chord, while the later verses sometimes (but not always) add the descending chord sequence of the guitar around that basic minor.

 

Eventually, as verse piles upon verse, we get to the final dénouement of the last two verses.  Yes, it is simple stuff, and yes we’ve heard it a million times before in a million anti-war folk songs, but never better than this.

“And I couldn’t help but think, through the thunder rolling and stink,
That I was just a puppet in a play.
And through the roar and smoke, this string is finally broke,
And a cannon ball blew my eyes away.”

As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock
At seein’ the metal brace that helped him stand.
But as he turned to go, he called his mother close
And he dropped his medals down into her hand”.

 

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Series of Dreams

17/01/2009 by Tony Attwood.

According to Wikipedia Series of Dreams is “One of Dylan’s most ambitious compositions.”   It is difficult to see quite why such a claim should be made, and in typical Wiki fashion there is no attempt at all to justify the claim. 

 

The song was omitted from “Oh Mercy” and only emerged on the Bootleg Series 1-3.  This omission comes at the same time as the omission of Dignity from the same album, and thus Series of Dreams invites us to start with this issue: why cut it?

 

Dylan’s ability to omit from albums songs that are thought by many to be his strongest pieces has caused much comment and bemusement, but if you read the comments of those who were there at the time, (a point on which Wiki is more helpful), and indeed if you simply listen to the songs that are cut it becomes clear that Dylan has two reasons for omitting a song.

 

Either it is no good, or it is very good, but not quite complete, not quite perfect.   The latter case is the one that can make omissions hard to understand.  How can he omit (for example) Blind Willie McTell?  The answer is that he knows what it might have been if only that final key could have been entered into the lock – that final door opened.   He knows it is a great, but flawed song, and can’t get the flaws out of it.   Without that final twist to resolve the problem the song is more frustrating than any of the more ordinary songs – and so gets cut.

 

So it is instructive to Series of Dreams from this perspective: it is almost right but not quite.   Indeed, being able to see where the problem is, is easier for us, at a distance.  It is notoriously hard for the artist who is “inside” the piece and living its very existence.

The problem here is with the concept of dream itself.  Dreams are confusing, surreal, mystifying, muddled, even muggy.  As such they are well suited to Dylan who has repeatedly introduced us to surrealism and “unclarity” in his songs.

 

The opening verse with its lines “Where nothing comes up to the top” and “Nothing  too very scientific” get this perfectly, and everything in the song is set fair.  It is general – a backdrop to something we have all experienced.

 

Verse two keeps up the promise… “And there’s no exit in any direction, ‘Cept the one that you can’t see with your eyes”  That odd feeling about dreams, that there was something more, except you can’t quite see it…

 

And then, suddenly Dylan stops talking about the general, the uncertain, the obscure, the surreal, and takes us into certainty.   Of course that happens in dreams – you do get dreams where an umbrella is opened – perhaps for no reason.  I can just imagine saying, “I had this weird dream last night – I had an umbrella, and I wanted it shut and put away, (I don’t know why, but it was important in the dream) but it kept opening, and every time I shut it, it came open again…”

 

That is what dreams can be like – but that gives us no insight into dreams in general, it is just a quick morning comment about last night’s dream.  And that is the key difference – “dreams in general” against the oddity, and ultimately the total insignificance of last night’s dream.

 

That is why the “middle 8” (the “bridge” as it is called in some commentaries – the B section in the classic ternary AABA form, which this piece is in) falls apart.  The music is perfection – after the exclusive use of the three major chords we suddenly hit the minor, completely unexpectedly.  But that line (“Dreams where the umbrella is folded”) lets us down, and lyrically the song fails at that point, because suddenly it is talking about trivia.  (“I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours” was a much better line, from 30 years earlier).

 

Then we are back to the A section, and Dylan is now securely fixed into telling us the details of the dreams. 

 

In one, numbers were burning
In another, I witnessed a crime
In one, I was running, and in another
All I seemed to be doing was climb

 

And that’s the problem – the song attempts to be about dreams in general (where it works perfectly) and dreams in particular, (where it is certain to fail, unless you are going to get into Freudian dream analysis where each element means something.)

 

To write a song which explains the meaning of dreams would be incredibly difficult – to write a song that we want to listen to which had that as its base would surely be impossible.   Dylan does not go down that route – he just tells us bits about the dreams, but leaves the purpose of this discourse open.  

 

Hence the opening of the song, with its discussion of dreams, and how one might think about a series of them, works wonderfully, and is interesting at every level.  The music flows, the production is very unusual for Dylan, and the notion of moving away from the normal Dylan guitar sound fits with the subject matter.  But the moment we move on and get into this subject specific content, there is nothing to hold our attention.  Since we most likely have not had dreams about umbrellas or climbing, it has no significance.

 

To enjoy the song therefore we have to stop listening to the lyrics in the second half, and that of course is not good when the composer is Dylan.   My belief is that he knew that, but because of his proximity to the moment of creation, he couldn’t see the way out.  That’s not to say that I could see how to solve the problem – only that with the benefit of distance (in terms of years and culture) I can at last spot of possible source of the problem.

 

© copyright Tony Attwood 2009.

Posted in Bootleg Series volume 3 | Print | 1 Comment »

Neighborhood Bully

12/01/2009 by Tony Attwood.

There is something distasteful about Neighbourhood Bully, despite Dylan’s assertions that it is not about Zionism.  Maybe it is not.  Maybe it is just about the state of Israel.  I would always appreciate that one is not the other, but still…

 

The point is that if you are going to write a song in praise of something it is best either to be romantic, or to evolve a scene of pastel colours, and soft tones.  If you want to be tough, be selective in what you say.  If you get into hard facts it is always going to be difficult if you slip up at any point and ay something that is palpably untrue.

 

In Neighbourhood Bully there’s eleven bouncing rocking strophic verses all fixed on three chords.  It gives you a sense of power and certainty.  You want to say, wow, yeah, let’s go and get them.  Except, except…

 

Take the opening.   “His enemies say, he’s on their land”.  Yes, when speaking of the state of Israel, most of the world, and United Nations Resolution 242, say that the land Israel took during the six days war should be returned to the countries from which it took the land.  Long term occupation is not acceptable. 

 

So Dylan’s got it right there.  People do say Israel is on their neighbours’ land.  Equally most people with a semblance of a balanced view of the world acknowledge that the Six Days War was not started by Israel, and that Israel showed extraordinary military ability by knocking out all their neighbours so quickly.

 

But where does that get us?   Simply to an argument that says that Israel has made matters worse for itself by continuing the occupation, and that had it worked out a settlement within the first year, it would not still be fighting.  Can’t prove it of course, but it is an argument.

 

What has all this got to do with “Neighborhood Bully”?  Simply that by invoking a line such as “on their land” in the second out of 55 lines of a song, Dylan invites us to get involved in such debate.  The song continues by telling us how badly off Israel is, how everyone is against Israel, and then we have….

 

Verse six, which opens with the classic, “He got no allies to really speak of,” and we think simply of the United States of America, and are reminded of the fact that 40% of Israel’s budget is spent on defence – an insane level of expenditure which can only be maintained by the financial contribution of the USA.

 

This is not to attempt in a few lines to have a serious debate about Israel, but to think about the song.  If Dylan really wants to make a statement about Israel, then putting that line in is catastrophic.  For the neutral listener it destroys the song in one simple line – and we still have five and a half verses to go.

 

Back on the political front, in writing this I am of course aware that the US also gives extraordinary levels of aid to Egypt, following the Camp David Accord, and I’m aware of the corruption and insanity of the many Arab regimes – indeed I have lived part of my life in one of the Arab protagonists against Israel, which at least gives me a little insight.

 

But I repeat this is not the main thrust of my problem with this song.  It is the point I made at the start.  If you are going to do a political song, you don’t have to be balanced (no such song ever is), and your facts don’t have to be inclusive (ditto).   But you have to avoid lines which are just so incredibly wrong that they bring the whole song down and make those who don’t believe dismiss what you have said.

 

Think of “Times they are a changing”.  It brings us all together, and joins everyone.   “Neighbourhood Bully” just pushes people further apart.

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Foot of Pride

11/01/2009 by Tony Attwood.

It doesn’t quite matter how you approach Foot of Pride, there’s something very odd about it.  According to the booklet notes it is very rarely commented upon, and one can understand why.  Apart from the fact that it never made it onto a mainstream album (it’s an outtake from Infidels, along with Blind Willy McTell) it is, well, quite plainly, odd.

 

Musically it is a variant 12 bar blues – but greatly extended.  In B major you get the B, B, E, B section that you’d expect, and then a chorus section with the repeated “Well there ain’t no going back” bit.

 

The 12 bar format, we must never forget, was created for the simplest of popular music: the blues.  It is the chordal format for “Well I woke up this morning, blues falling down like hail” – that simple yet elegant statement of falling into the abyss.  It was never intended for something as complex as Foot of Pride with its internal rhymes and lines of ever changing length.

 

It is probable that this is what Dylan was wanting to play with – just how far can you stretch the old 12 bar format without it breaking.  And the answer is, well, this far.  Which is a long way.

 

What works here is Dylan’s performance.  If he hadn’t been100% with the lyrics he’d never have got his way around them.  The band hold themselves together in the face of this torrent of words, although they do speed up slightly (shame on you Mr Knoffler).

 

But for what purpose?  Or is it just an experiment?

 

Even the opening two lines take us to another world, where the realities of our domain don’t apply.

 

“Like the lion tears flesh off of a man

So can a woman who passes herself off as a male”

 

You see my point.  It isn’t actually anything.  That’s not to say it isn’t about anything – it is beyond that.  It isn’t anything.  

 

The booklet that comes with the boxed set of the Bootleg 1 to 3 collection makes a decent fist of the problem, but even so…   There’s Christian religion allusions mixed up with people who are self-possessed, self-obsessed, inward looking, defensive…  But that first verse really doesn’t quite fit, and the people we are hearing about change from verse to verse without any explanation.

 

What it reminds me of – and it is a strange think to think about when hearing a piece of Dylan obscuranti – is the cover of Strange Days, by the Doors.  All these freaks and oddities, there for no reason.

 

It is a really interesting song, not least because of the quality of singing and playing, but above all if you listen to it too much, instead of insight and awareness, the only thing you are left with is madness.  When Dylan says, “I’m going to look at you, til my eyes go blind,” you want to say, “Oh if only I had thought of that.  When he says, “Your time will come, let hot iron blow as he raised the shade,” you are thinking, “I am so glad I never thought of that.”

Posted in Bootleg Series volume 3, The Songs | Print | 1 Comment »

Standing in the doorway

07/01/2009 by Tony Attwood.

“Time out of mind” starts just about as low as you can imagine – “Love Sick” tells us the singer has had enough – enough not just of love, but of life.  It is the ultimate farewell song.

 

Except it is not, for although it is hard to imagine the album could get any lower in emotional terms Dylan does just that.  And we are asking just how sick of life has Dylan got?

 

“Dirt Road Blues” seems to offer some chance of respite, but then we have “Standing in the Doorway”, and amazingly we are even deeper in the emotional mire than “Love Sick”.

 

It is an extraordinary achievement, not just because of the lyrics, not just because of the melody, nor even the chord sequence (which unusually modulates from E major to A major) but also for the production.  Dylan’s songs, as we all know, are often rushed through, recorded with errors from the accompanying musicians allowed to stand.  (Think of the bass player on Johanna if you want one example).

 

But not here – this is perfection; the perfection of darkness.

 

Yet in contrast Dylan’s voice is soft and gentle, as if he is resigned to his fate – and indeed that is where he ultimately takes us with Not Dark Yet.

 

But that is three tracks away.   We start off here with very Dylan-esque commentary (“Yesterday everything was going too fast, Today, it’s moving too slow”) but then almost immediately we are shocked…

“Don’t know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you
It probably wouldn’t matter to you anyhow.”

 

What?

 

Not only are the lyrics shocking, but the melody just strolls along, with the descending bass (and thank goodness for a bass player who has learned his part) and the slide guitar.  Even the drummer knows how to be laid back.

 

There’s no doubt that the subject matter has not changed from “Love Sick” – his lover has left…

“The ghost of our old love has not gone away
Don’t look like it will anytime soon”

And we remember that this is the man who just a few years back gave us that most amazing lovers’ line ever, “I’m going to look at you til my eyes go blind”.

 

We also wonder, did he kill her?

“Maybe they’ll get me and maybe they won’t” suggests that this is more of a horror than we ever imagined.  Or is going to kill himself…

“I know the mercy of God must be near, I’ve been riding the midnight train”

And…

 
“I can hear the church bells ringing in the yard I wonder who they’re ringing for”

He is trying to live on (“Last night I danced with a stranger, But she just reminded me you were the one”) but he is going nowhere.  Anyway, he’s sick of love, as we already know.

 

So life stops, he stops, and he prepares us for the journey towards death that Not Dark Yet foretells.   He has nothing to do, and nowhere to go – reliant on others now, not himself.  This is the end, “I see nothing to be gained by any explanation”.

And that’s it.

 

“You left me standing in the doorway crying
Blues wrapped around my head”

 

But it would be a mistake to think this is just about the lyrics.   “Standing in the doorway” is an extraordinary piece of music, brilliantly played.  What Dylan song has given us such lyricism, such gentleness, and all played against such a dreadful storyline?   Nowhere has lost love been portrayed so exquisitely.  

 

On its own this song is an utter masterpiece.   In the context of Time Out of Mind it is a work of genius.   For this is the song, along with Not Dark Yet, that gives us the meaning of the album’s title.

 

If Dylan had written nothing else, he would be worthy of a place in the hall of fame.

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When the ship comes in

24/12/2008 by Tony Attwood.

Amidst all the moral relativism of Dylan, all the references to the fact that “you are right on your side, and I’m all right on mine”, all the comments about not following leaders, and the commentary that says that everyone is just a pawn in everyone else’s game, suddenly like a beacon of certainty there is When the Ship Comes In.

 

Never has Dylan been more certain than here that there is an answer, that you are wrong and these guys (whoever they are) are right.   There is a truth, and I am part of it.

 

The image of the ship itself takes us back to earlier days – to the time when the British explored the new world.  Wealthy men paid for the ships to sail to the Americas, and if one ever returned then even greater wealth and fortune was yours.  Your ship came in, and you really were made for ever more.

 

Dylan retains the nautical imagery through the opening verse and a half, and its all a jolly caper of exploration, until we suddenly have

 

And the words that are used for to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken.

The song is now so familiar to us after all these years it is hard to remember what a jolt those lines brought on first hearing.  Words getting the ship confused?   What is all this about?   Every reference until then has been to the nautical adventure.

 

Then he is back to talking about the ship literally, until  it is the final verse where Dylan suddenly develops this alternative theme, and takes us into a realisation that the ship is a metaphor for change.  We are the new army.  We are the revolution.  Stand aside, for we are the future.  Times they are a changing.  We are David, you are Goliath.

 

The trouble is we have no idea who or what we are – at least not from this song.  Are we the Jews entering the promised land?  Or the young throwing aside the President of the United States?  Are we overthrowing capitalism, or are we saying no to war and bringing in the world of peace and love.

 

We don’t know.  In the end it is the sheer vigour and vitality of the song and the guitar playing that carries us through so that after a couple of listens we really don’t care.   It is enough to know that somewhere there is an answer.

 

The classical structure of the song (every chord is one taken from the major scale – no flattened sevenths or thirds here), emphasises the straightness of the song – this is the positive side of folk singing (a total contrast to North Country Blues.)

 

We can join in the celebration – and indeed we should.  Because the whole wide world is watching.  Who cares if we don’t know why.  Let’s just enjoy it while we can.

 

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Spanish Harlem Incident

22/12/2008 by Tony Attwood.

This is one of Dylan’s unsung masterpieces – an extraordinary piece of music to the accompaniment of lyrics about a visit to a fortune teller / possible lover.   (She’s one or the other, or both, possibly at the same time).

 

The guitar playing takes us into unknown structures – we can resolve what Dylan plays in the original into recognizable chords, but that’s not what Dylan plays.  The melody likewise flows in a most unDylan-like manner.  The way the second half of the melody in each of the three verses changes so dramatically from the first half is unexpected – almost shocking, certainly surprising – especially because he is so demonstrative.  There is no uncertainty here.

 

This is the hobo out on the streets, saying “here I am babe looking for direction” in terms of the fortune teller’s palm reading.  It’s hardly unusual in terms of the history of songwriting but there are such unexpected lines that we are forced to sit up and take notice.  Where else is Dylan saying things such as

“I am homeless, come and take me to the reach of your rattling drums.”

Or

“The night is pitch black, come an’ make my pale face fit into place, oh, please!”

Or

“You have slayed me, you have made me, I got to laugh halfways off my heels.
I got to know, babe, will you surround me?  So I can tell if I’m really real.”

 

What is so remarkable is the context – for this comes from the album that starts with “All I really want to do,” and ends with “It Ain’t Me Babe” – two songs that define Dylan’s obsession with not being trapped by a woman who wants to wrap him up and define his being.   It is an obsession which starts on Freewheeling and continues way into the rock era – and yet here in Spanish Harlem he is proclaiming that this woman can take him and make him into a person – through her he can discover who is really is.

 

It is this utter reversal of a constant Dylan theme – the laughter and sneering at those around who are defined by others rather than who define themselves, and yet here he is asking the fortune telling lover to do exactly that: to define him, make him, create him.

 

The fact that the defining words come in the second half of each verse, where the music itself comes alive in such an extraordinary lyrical and chordal fashion shouts out that this is a unique moment in Dylan’s songwriting.  It is a moment to cherish.

 

 

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Highlands

21/12/2008 by Tony Attwood.

For me, to understand of Highlands, there needs to be a view of “Time out of mind”.  While many Dylan songs can stand apart from the albums on which they make the first appearance, most of Time out of Mind is fixed within the original album.

 

And indeed not just fixed within the album – but within a position within the album.   “Love Sick”, the opening track, sounds as if it is the end of everything – as if the singer can go no lower than where he is now.  And yet Dylan takes us down and down until the ultimate depths of “Not Dark Yet” – the song about dying.

 

After which there is no way but on and on, until we enter a misty no-mans-land, a vision of what is after death.  This is not heaven or hell, nor the currently popular vision of all-encompassing darkness out of which comes something appallingly awful.  This is white mist, memories, flashbacks, strange characters, and confusion of what actually happened in the past, and what you might think happened, but which might well simply be an invention.

 

It’s a 12 bar blues – much extended but still a 12 bar blues with meandering guitars which help us meander to the various places.

 

From the very start we are transported from place to place, verse by verse.  The opening verse is not one of those classics that begins “I dreamed that…” and carries on with dreaming I was back in the good times, that you were still alive, or whatever.

 

In the first verse the emotions of the singer are in the beautiful land and in the second he’s back in the daily grind.  So which one is true – as the third verse shows, he has no idea, and he’s really not trying to sort it out.

 

Verse four is back to the vision, the emotional home, and the singer knows he can make it there, but only slowly, gradually, and the methodology of transport is not yet clear.  What a transformation this is from track seven on the album where the only way forward is to enter the darkness.   He has moved on, to a world that is beyond the death of Not Dark Yet.

 

Verse five, and he uses the methodology that everyone who is seriously into music will use – music as a method of transportation to another world.  In this case he tries Neil Young – it doesn’t take him to the Highlands but it takes him a little along the road – although not to anywhere he recognises.

 

By verse six it is all getting too much, everything is breaking up, nothing is connecting, nothing is wanted, no possessions, just a search for a mental liberty, until in verse seven there is that flash of revelation just at the moment of waking – that moment where there is a beautiful insight, but as consciousness comes pouring in, it is lost, and in verse eight he’s moved on again, this time to Boston – just another image, another past moment – real or imagined.

 

By now the images are becoming almost dream-like – as in those dreams where nothing is quite as it should be, and you have know it is a dream, but you don’t know it enough to get out.   The conversation in the restaurant becomes surreal, all touch is being lost with the Highlands, we are getting bogged down in dream-like detail.

 

The next transformation back is a sudden jump – one second in the street, next back in the Highlands, but with each of these jumps there is a further disconnection from the current world and an ever stronger link with the new imagined Highland world – and he is lost.  He can’t join in the fun and games of those around him any more, because there have been too many jumps.

He recognizes the problem in the penultimate verse:

“I got new eyes, Everything looks far away”

While the end gives us the solution

There’s a way to get there, and I’ll figure it out somehow
But I’m already there in my mind, And that’s good enough for now

 

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Lay Lady Lay

17/12/2008 by Tony Attwood.

Here’s a simple thought: “What is Lay Lady Lay” about? There’s an oft-repeated story that when the Everly Brothers heard it they mistook it for a song about lesbians, and turned it down. That was based on a mishearing. With the lyrics printed on hundreds of Dylan web sites we can see it isn’t so… but where does the song take us?

Whatever colors you have in your mind  I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine

Is almost Donovan Leitch like – I am the magician I can make you see whatever you want to see.

But then who is the man whose “clothes are dirty but his hands are clean?” There’s memories of Rolling Stone here – (You used to be so amused At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used)

But no, in this case…you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen

Of course this is a softer kinder world – the harshness of Rolling Stone is not here. “Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile” is said with warmth and affection.

Contrary to all the warnings on Rolling Stone

“You can have your cake and eat it too”

Only the ending is unequivocally clear – I want to wake up next to you.

So what makes it such a wonderful song?

Certainly, if we take the warmth of the words, then it is clear that the music fits perfectly too, for it is warm and kind. But there’s more, because the chord sequence is utterly unexpected – indeed I have seen experienced hardened rock musicians who can tell you a chord sequence as they hear a song for the first time, stumble over what happens here.

A, C sharp minor, G, D

Where did that G come from? How do you get a melody to go from C sharp minor (where the top note is G sharp) to G major? Personally, I can’t think of another song that uses such a sequence.

Dylan pulls it off, and the melody glides lyrically along. Quite probably no one can ever use such a sequence again, for it is utterly Lay Lady Lay. Who cares about the lyrics this time around – it is the melody over that extraordinary chord sequence that makes it happen.

Posted in Nashville Skyline, At Boudakan, Greatest Hits Volume 2, Essential Bob Dylan, The Songs | Print | No Comments »