Jan 30, 2012 | 100 Days with Bob Dylan
Links to Song:
Original recording for Highways 61 Revisited (1965) – http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Tombstone+Blues/4kZbsD?src=5
Later recording with the Chambers Brothers for The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 – http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Tombstone+Blues+Alternate+Ta/3hcPLk?src=5
What you should know about this song: This song was originally recorded in 1965 as an “urban” blues song, but was later recorded with vocal support from R&B group, the Chambers Brothers. The two versions are quite different, but enjoyable nonetheless.
“Dylan’s Woody Guthrie period was very nice and I liked him then, but he had a second wave of popularity when he became more psychedelic… and at that time John [Lennon] particularly became very enamored width him because of his poetry. All those songs were great lyrically.” – Paul McCartney*
Source: “Dylan: 100 Songs and Pictures” by Fine Communications
Photo Source: Don Hunstein
Jan 29, 2012 | 100 Days with Bob Dylan
Link to Song: Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream
What you should know about this song: Dylan had a number of people accompanying him on this humorous song featured on the Bringing It All Back Home album, including Bill Lee, John Hammond Jr., Bobby Gregg, and guitarist Bruce Langhorne. The song even includes a false start that similarly reflects an Elvis Presley single.* It’s a silly song, really, and many critics have attributed Dylan’s humor as the inspiration to other artists like The Beatles (source).
“We didn’t know where to cut the groove. So he went, “I was ridin’ on the Mayflower…”, and we all should have come in on ‘ridin’, but everyone sat there.” – Bruce Langhorne*
Source: “Dylan: 100 Songs and Pictures” by Fine Communications
Photo Source: BBC
Jan 28, 2012 | 100 Days with Bob Dylan
Link to Song: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
What you should know about this song: After he was famously booed offstage for using his electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan came back on stage with an acoustic and played this song as his response to the crowd. Since then, it has become one of Dylan’s most famously-covered songs, with artists such as The Grateful Dead, Them (with Van Morrison), Joan Baez, The Byrds, Leon Russell, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, and The Animals recording their own versions.* As with yesterday’s song (“She Belongs to Me”), there is much speculation over who this song is really about but many sources point to Joan Baez or possibly singer-songwriter David Blue.
“In staying with the theme of ending albums with farewell songs (both The Times They Are A-Changin and Another Side of Bob Dylan ended on this note, with “Restless Farewell” and “It’ Ain’t Me, Baby” respectively), this is the concluding song for Bringing it All Back Home. Rolling Stone Magazine described the song as “his devastating farewell to innocence, kicking Baby Blue out into the street, whether that means the end of a friendship or his abandonment of the folk scene.” (Issue 1131)
“I had carried that song around in my head for a long time, and I remember that when I was writing it, I’d remembered a Gene Vincent song, ‘Baby Blue.’ It had always been one of my favorites.” – Bod Dylan, 1985*
Photo Source: Beat Generation Gallery
Jan 27, 2012 | 100 Days with Bob Dylan
Link to Song: She Belongs to Me
What you should know about this song: This is Dylan’s first recorded anti-love song and also the first song in which he mentions the “witchy woman.” There is much speculation over who this woman could be, though many believe it refers to his fellow folk singer Joan Baez. In this 12-bar blues song, the gentleness of Dylan’s voice heavily offsets the bitterness of the lyrics. While the song rings with irony, there is something striking about the way Dylan delivers it – it’s subtle yet very well articulated. For example, while the song is titled “She Belongs to Me,” Dylan talks about how the woman belongs to no one at all: “She’s nobody’s child / The law can’t touch her at all.”
“I love that song, it’s beautiful. I really think that you can hear his Buddy Holly influence coming out of that one.” – Donovan*
Photo Source
Jan 26, 2012 | 100 Days with Bob Dylan
Link to Song: Love Minus Zero/No Limit
What you should know about this song: This is one of Dylan’s most lastingly popular hits from the Bringing It All Back Home album he recorded in 1965. Joan Baez and The Turtles are among the other artists who have covered this song on record. Some sources say it was originally written as a tribute to Dylan’s future wife, Sara Lowndes, to exemplify how she brought him calm in the midst of chaos. What I also found interesting was that some sources have pointed to a number of famous authors from which Dylan possibly pulled to create the surreal imagery found in this song’s lyrics. For example, some of the lyrics seem to recall Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and the book of Daniel from the Bible. Also, there is some speculation that the style of the song’s lyrics are reminiscent of William Blake’s Poem “The Sick Rose”(source).
“Songwriting is like fishing in a stream: you put in your life and hope you catch something. And I don’t think anyone downstream from Bob Dylan ever caught anything.” – Arlo Guthrie*
Photo Source: Daniel Kramer
