Category Archives: Bob Dylan songs

Bob Dylan’s best songs: I’m Not There (1956)





bob-dylan-basement-tapes-complete

“No, I don’t belong to her, I don’t belong to anybody
She’s my Christ forsaken angel but she don’t hear me cry
She’s a lone hearted mystic and she can’t carry on
When I’m there she’s alright but then she’s not when I’m gone”
-from “I´m Not There”

There are times you just pick up an instrument—something will come . . . some kind of wild line will come into your head and you’ll develop that. If it’s a tune on the piano or guitar . . . you’ll write those words down. And they might not mean anything to you at all, and you just go on. . . . Now, . . . if I do it, I just keep it for myself. So I have a big lineup of songs which I’ll never use.
—Dylan, Sing Out! June 1968

Finally, for its fortieth birthday, it received an official release under the same name as the film it unwittingly inspired, “I’m Not There.” Hallelujah.
-Clinton Heylin (Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973)

“Dylan’s saddest song, achieved without benefit of context or detail. It’s like listening to the inspiration before the song is wrapped around it.”
-John Bauldie (The Telegraph)

TOC

  1. Facts
  2. Lyrics
  3. Live versions / other notable versions

Continue reading Bob Dylan’s best songs: I’m Not There (1956)

November 14: Bob Dylan recorded Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right in 1962

bob dylan freewheelin

“..a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better… as if you were talking to yourself.”
– Nat Hentoff (liner notes)

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962, recorded on November 14 that year, and released on the 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and as a single.

“It’s hard to overestimate the importance of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the record that firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter, one of considerable skill, imagination, and vision. At the time, folk had been quite popular on college campuses and bohemian circles, making headway onto the pop charts in diluted form, and while there certainly were a number of gifted songwriters, nobody had transcended the scene as Dylan did with this record…”
– Stephen Thomas Erlewine (Allmusic.com)

Continue reading November 14: Bob Dylan recorded Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right in 1962

Bob Dylan: 12 different live versions of “All Along The Watchtower” from 12 different years





bob dylan 1988

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”

All Along The Watchtower was born @ Columbia Studio A – Nashville, Tennessee, November 6, 1967.

Here’s a tribute to this great song – 12 different live versions from 12 different years.

Capital Centre
Largo, Maryland
15 January 1974

  • Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, harmonica)
  • Robbie Robertson (guitar)
  • Garth Hudson (organ & piano)
  • Richard Manual (keyboards)
  • Rick Danko (bass)
  • Levon Helm (drums)

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

Continue reading Bob Dylan: 12 different live versions of “All Along The Watchtower” from 12 different years

May 24: Happy 75th Birthday Bob Dylan





bob dylan 2015

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

he not busy being born is busy dying

Bob Dylan, the single most important artist in the history of popular music, is 75 years old today Tuesday, May 24.

Here @ alldylan.com we got about 1500 Bob Dylan posts alive. In this tribute I’ll try to give an overview & hopefully lead you to material you might find interesting.

Here are links to some our Bob Dylan material @ alldylan.com

Bob Dylan quotes

Bootlegs

You can find some of Hallgeir’s favorites here:

Egil:

Best released/unreleased songs

bob dylan 1962

Songs

bob-dylan-desolation-row-colage21

Other people’s songs

bob-dylan-george-harrison-1971

Recording sessions

Albums

bob dylan 1977Concert videos/audio

Polls

bob dylan smoking 1981

Cover versions

Dylan

Check out this link: Bob Dylan cover version lists

Other stuff

Check out:

-Egil

Bob Dylan’s Love Sick: 2 Decades 2 versions



Bob+Dylan+Love+Sick+101642

Love Sick by Bob Dylan, was recorded in January 1997 and released on his 30th studio album Time Out of Mind in September of that year. It was released as the second single from the album in June 1998, in various CD formats some of which featured a February 25, 1998 live version of the song, from Dylan’s performance at the 1998 Grammy Awards.

I thought it would be interesting to see how the song has changed over the years. I believe these two versions show the enduring power of the song.

Continue reading Bob Dylan’s Love Sick: 2 Decades 2 versions