Caribbean Wind, which was written in late 1980, remains something of an enigma in Bob Dylan’s career. Although it is a song which Dylan regarded as ‘unfinished’, it has often been acclaimed as one of his most luminous creations. When it first reached a wide public on the 1985 compilation Biograph, many listeners were...
Category: Music
MASTERS OF WAR AND WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE: DYLAN AS PUBLIC POET
Masters of War and With God on Our Side can be considered to be the most didactic and moralistic examples of Bob Dylan’s early ‘protest’ material. Jesus and Judas are mentioned in both songs. Dylan’s uses these two figures to represent polar moral opposites – good and evil, faith and...
FAREWELL ANGELINA: THE SKY IS ON FIRE
Farewell Angelina is one of Bob Dylan’s most remarkable ‘unreleased songs’. Dylan’s own rather uncertain take was recorded during the Bringing It All Back Home sessions in 1965 but not released until The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 (1991). The song was then passed to Joan Baez, who recorded it as the title track...
Live intro and reading from Determined to Stand
This was recorded at the DOCKYARD CLUB, PORTSMOUTH on 28th November 2021. This is a slightly wonky recording of my talk at a fabulous ‘Dylan and the Dead’ weekend, organised by John Roberts. In between the bands I entertained the gathered multitudes with an intro to my book DETERMINED TO STAND: THE REINVENTION OF BOB...
SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES: DIG YOURSELF
Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965) is Bob Dylan’s coolest, most laconic creation. Perhaps no other example of his work expresses so much in so few words. Dylan is most well known for long songs full of complex word play, but here he demonstrates most eloquently that he is very capable of ‘stripping down’ his use...
HURRICANE AND JOEY: TWO CINEMATIC NARRATIVES FROM ‘DESIRE’
HURRICANE AND JOEY: TWO CINEMATIC NARRATIVES FROM DESIRE When the album Desire was released in early 1976, many Dylan fans were delighted that, in two of the songs, Dylan appeared to have reverted to the role that made him famous – that of a ‘protest singer’. Both songs were based around the lives...
PODCAST: A Headful of Ideas Season 1 Episode 13: Two Films about the Rolling Thunder Tour
Chris compares Martin Scorcese’s ROLLING THUNDER: A BOB DYLAN STORY with Dylan’s own RENALDO AND CLARA
PODCAST: A Headful of Ideas Season 1 Episode 12: A Bedtime Story
Chris discurses on the deeply meaningful ‘Wiggle Wiggle’
‘MY POETRY WAS LOUSY YOU SAID’ : SONGS ABOUT DYLAN
It is a commonplace that Bob Dylan made possible the emergence of a whole generation of singer-songwriters. It is not surprising, therefore, that a number of them have chosen to pay ‘tribute’ to him in song. Not all of the references to Dylan have been complimentary, however. Writing a song about the greatness of...
PODCAST: A Headful of Ideas Season 1 Episode 11: Nothing Here Now To Hold Them
Episode 11: an exploration of ‘North Country Blues’ ———————- DAILY DYLAN NEWS at the wonderful EXPECTING RAIN THE BOB DYLAN PROJECT- COMPREHENSIVE LISTINGS THE OFFICIAL SITE BOB DYLAN ARCHIVE STILL ON THE ROAD – ALL DYLAN’S GIGS WIKIPEDIA MICHAEL GRAY BOB DYLAN CONCORDANCE ISIS – DYLAN MAGAZINE DEFINITELY DYLAN BORN TO...
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