Best Songs of 2010 – Honorable Mentions
I featured a lot of Bob Dylan on the blog this year, with my Dylan Weekends spanning from late January through October. Then Dylan returned the favor with a late year release, the latest in his Bootleg series.
The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964 (which is in my backlog of things to review) is a collection of early recordings Dylan made for the purposes of selling his songs for covers and selling his talents to major labels. The 2-disc set contains rough versions of such early classics as ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ ‘Masters of War,’ ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,’ ‘The Times They Are A’Changin” and more.
Those tracks are enjoyable, as much for the loose, chatty way Dylan tackles them as the chance to hear history in the making. But nothing here is revelatory in the way some of the dug up gems on the early Bootleg albums were.
Today’s song, though, was such a find. A version of ‘Tomorrow is a Long Time’ has been officially released by Dylan before (on his second greatest hits collection) but I’d never heard it. So this demo version is my first exposure to this touching love song, one of the finest examples I’ve heard of Dylan the romantic.
[Note: As with many of the Dylan songs I’ve featured, the lyrics below are the official ones from Dylan’s site, and he strays from them quite often in his performance of the song]
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time
Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
I can’t see my reflection in the waters
I can’t speak the sounds that show no pain
I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps
Or can’t remember the sound of my own name
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
There’s beauty in the silver, singin’ river
There’s beauty in the sunrise in the sky
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love’s eyes
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
Meet Me In Montauk 
Aren’t you bending the rules a bit in counting this as a 2010 song? Would a re-cut version of “The Godfather” make your 2010 movie list?
Anyway, very sweet song.
This version was released for the first time in 2010, so it qualifies.