Song of the Day #776: ‘Let Me Die In My Footsteps’ – Bob Dylan
So after last week’s look at Bob Dylan’s 2009 Christmas album, I now jump 47 years back in time to a 1962 track that a young Dylan recorded for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan but wound up not including on the album.
Dylan’s Bootleg Series, which includes eight released volumes and a ninth due next month, is an extraordinary supplement to his catalog of live and studio albums. Dylan has treasure troves of unreleased material, much of which tops his official output, and it’s a treat to see those songs so lovingly resurrected.
Song of the Day #770: ‘O’ Little Town of Bethlehem’ – Bob Dylan
I started the Dylan Weekends series back in the closing days of January. And here we are in the closing days of August, a full seven months later.
It took me that long to explore every studio album Dylan has released so far — 34 of them — while leaving out 20 other albums consisting of either greatest hits, live performances or unreleased tracks.
It is to those albums that I will turn my attention next, specifically the amazing bootleg series that is surely the best project of its sort ever attempted.
Song of the Day #769: ‘Little Drummer Boy’ – Bob Dylan
Fans who’ve followed Bob Dylan over his five decade (and counting) recording career, as well as non-fans who I’ve subjected to six months (and counting) of Dylan Weekends, know to expect the unexpected. But even the die-hards were likely thrown by Dylan’s most recent release, 2009′s Christmas in the Heart, an album of Christmas standards.
Was this a throwback to his Christian phase? A joke? Another acoustic covers collection along the lines of Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong? It was none of the above, or maybe all of the above and something else besides.
Song of the Day #763: ‘I Feel A Change Comin’ On’ – Bob Dylan
Many of Bob Dylan’s albums are noteworthy for the atmosphere they evoke. The Basement Tapes sounds like it truly was recorded by a group huddled together in a basement (which it was, in part, but that’s not really important). Oh Mercy evokes the gothic New Orleans streets outside the studio. Blonde On Blonde has always sounded to me like the music of a shanty fishing town.
Together Through Life is one of the best examples of Dylan’s work creating an atmosphere. In this case, it’s the sound of a dive bar on the U.S.-Mexico border. The instrumentation (particularly David Hidalgo’s accordion), Dylan’s hard-luck vocals and the songs themselves all paint that place vividly in my mind.
Song of the Day #762: ‘This Dream Of You’ – Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan’s 33rd studio album, and currently his most recent collection of original songs, was 2009′s Together Through Life. After the five year span between Love and Theft and Modern Times, a wait of less than three years for this CD was welcome. And the album came as a surprise, announced in the media just a month or two before its release.
Together Through Life can be viewed as the completion of a trilogy that began with Love and Theft, as the three albums share a producer (Dylan himself, under his Jack Frost pseudonym) and a general vibe and attitude. Time Out Of Mind, his other brilliant release of the past dozen years, stands apart from these three though it marked his creative resurgence.
