Category: Music

Extracts from my book DETERMINED TO STAND: The Reinvention of Bob Dylan. BLIND WILLIE McTELL / STANDING IN THE DOORWAY The first extract recalls a live performance of Blind Willie McTell from a Martin Scorsese tribute show. In Determined to Stand my analyses of late period Dylan songs are interspersed with accounts of key live...

BOB DYLAN: TO RAMONA – THE FINISHING END     To Ramona stands alone in Bob Dylan’s catalogue. Although it is clearly addressed to a girl, it is neither a devotional love song like Tomorrow Is a Long Time nor a rueful farewell to a relationship like One Too Many Mornings or Don’t Think Twice,...

BOB DYLAN: NARROW WAY …Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life,and few there be that find it – King James Bible, Matthew 7;14 For this the Golden Sun the Earth divides And, wheel’d thro’ twelve bright signs, his chariot guides. Five zones the heav’n surrounds: the centre glows With...

BOB DYLAN’S SOON AFTER MIDNIGHT THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager, Long withering out a young man’s revenue. HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep...

 BOB DYLAN: DUQUESNE WHISTLE You’re the only thing alive that keeps me going You’re like a time-bomb in my heart…”   In Tempest Bob Dylan takes us on a ‘dream journey’ through storms and bitterness and rage. The dream visions increase in intensity, as he draws us into a parallel vision of ‘modern times’ in...

BOB DYLAN’S BORN IN TIME … I walk alone through the shakin’ street…            In recent years, in his interviews and in his Theme Time Radio Hour  show, Bob Dylan has professed considerable admiration for ‘crooners’ like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. This may have come as something of a surprise to...

BOB DYLAN: TELL OL’ BILL           Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea,...

BOB DYLAN’S RED RIVER SHORE The frozen smile upon my face fits me like a glove… And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land Exodus 2:22 There in the tomb stand the dead upright, But winds come up from...