I posted “Bob Dylan Weekends” for so long on the blog that I was positive I’d already featured ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ when it popped up as the next random iTunes cut.
But apart from an early version from The Witmark Demos and a cover from my popular “attractive women playing Bob Dylan songs on YouTube” series, this classic has gone up-posted.
Before he went electric; before the motorcycle accident; before “Judas!,” The Band and The Dead; before he found Jesus, Mark Knopfler and Alicia Keys… Bob Dylan put out his first album of original material.
The 22-year-old had released his self-titled debut a year earlier, but that album featured only two originals among a slew of folk and blues covers. 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was its mirror image — two covers and eleven originals by a new voice that would revolutionize folk music.
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan contains several early classics, including ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ ‘Masters of War’ and ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.’ But for my money the best song on the album is today’s SOTD, ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right.’
This song is such a fabulous combination of scathing lyrics and melancholy music… it’s hard to know what to feel when you listen to it. I mean, if you just read the song without playing it, you might expect the finished product to sound like some sort of tirade — not unlike Dylan’s future hit ‘Positively 4th Street.’
There are many potential ways to go about these Dylan weekends. I could present the songs randomly, thematically, chronologically, alphabetically… you name it. In order to lend some organization to the process, I’ve decided to highlight, in pairs, tracks from my favorite Dylan albums according to order of release.
I won’t cover every one of his albums — his work from the mid-70s to the mid-80s is better left forgotten — and I’ll restrict myself to the studio albums, leaving the bootleg records (worthy of a series all their own) aside for the time being. But that still gives me close to 20 albums to work with, encompassing one of the most extraordinary careers in the business.
Meet Me In Montauk 