Category Archives: dylan weekends

by

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.

Continue reading →

by

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.

Continue reading →

by

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.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #756: ‘Nettie Moore’ – Bob Dylan

The New York Times stirred up a bit of controversy when they reported that a number of lyrics on Modern Times had apparently been lifted by Bob Dylan from Civil War era poet Henry Timrod. This followed the borrowing of several lines on Love and Theft from an obscure novel by Japanese writer Junichi Saga.

Serious fans of Bob Dylan, and of folk and blues music in general, consider this much ado about nothing. This sort of music is passed down through generations like an oral tradition, with each new artist building on what he borrows wholesale from those who’ve inspired him. Dylan has done that from day one, twisting together new songs from the melodies and text of time-worn classics.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #755: ‘Thunder On the Mountain’ – Bob Dylan

In 2006, Bob Dylan completed the trifecta he began nine years earlier, releasing Modern Times as the follow-up to Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft.

This trio of albums rivals Dylan’s other stellar triple shots: Bring It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde in the 60s; and Blood On the Tracks, The Basement Tapes and Desire in the 70s.

I’ve said it many times before in many different ways… most recording artists would sell their mothers for one string of albums as great as any of those. That Dylan has done it three times, among 25 other albums of varying degrees of greatness, is simply astounding.

Continue reading →