Ok, let’s be honest, folks. There are times when being a Bob Dylan fan is what you might call ‘challenging’….All the tired horses in the sun…. Mmmm… They Killed Him with an ‘angelic’ children’s choir….O Little Town of Bethlehem… well, yes… The bit in We Are the World where Stevie Wonder has to...
Category: Music
Post
Extracts from DETERMINED TO STAND: The Reinvention of Bob Dylan: Dark Eyes and Roll On John
1 Hi folks… DETERMINED TO STAND: The Reinvention of Bob Dylan is now available HERE Here are some extracts from the book….. DARK EYES 4th December 1995. The Beacon Theater, New York City. It is the sixth date of the short ‘Paradise Lost’ tour, on which Dylan is supported by Patti Smith and her...
Post
RAISE THOSE LAUGHING EYES: SPANISH IS THE LOVING TONGUE
A new ‘stand alone’ single by Bob Dylan has always been a rare thing. In June 1971 Watching the River Flow arrived in our house – a little, unfancy artefact with that distinctive orange label. It was not a big hit, or any kind of hit at all. Nor was it any kind of...
Post
YOUR LOVE CUTS LIKE A KNIFE: WEDDING SONG
In the closing months of 1973, Bob Dylan was back in the studio recording a ‘proper’ album of new songs, his first for over three years. The resulting Planet Waves, the only studio album on which The Band backed him, was seen as somewhat underwhelming at the time and has always stood in...
Post
SELF PORTRAIT: AN AMERICAN SYMPHONY
Self Portrait has long been Bob Dylan’s most controversial album. On its release in 1970 it was greeted with shock and incomprehension. Here was the great protest singer and visionary poet of his age crooning ‘corny’ country songs. On the double fold out cover there were a whole lot of shots...
Post
NOTHIN’ HERE NOW TO HOLD THEM: THE TRAGEDY OF NORTH COUNTRY BLUES
North Country Blues could be called Bob Dylan’s most obscure protest song. Tucked away at the end of the generally bleak Times They Are a-Changin’ album, it has never, like the terrifying ‘murder ballad’ The Ballad of Hollis Brown, been electrified. Unlike Dylan’s ‘alternative history lesson’ With God on our Side it has not been...
Post
BEAUTY IS TRUTH: BOB DYLAN’S POEM TO JOANIE
The pursuit of and definition of beauty has been one of the major concerns of poets throughout the ages. In perhaps his best known poem, Sonnet 18, Shakespeare asks if it is wise to compare the object of his love to a summer’s day, which despite all its glories will inevitably fade away. But...