Tag: Bob Dylan

CARIBBEAN WIND: UPON A PAINTED OCEAN
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CARIBBEAN WIND: UPON A PAINTED OCEAN

  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...

MASTERS OF WAR AND WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE: DYLAN AS PUBLIC POET
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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
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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
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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...

HURRICANE AND JOEY: TWO CINEMATIC NARRATIVES FROM ‘DESIRE’
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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...