November 9: Bob Dylan recorded Wedding Song in 1973

BD1973

I love you more than ever, more than time and more than love
I love you more than money and more than the stars above
Love you more than madness, more than waves upon the sea
Love you more than life itself, you mean that much to me

 

 Bob Dylan wrote this great love song 42 years ago today! 


BOB DYLAN – Wedding Song – February 9th, 1974 – Afternoon Show. Seattle Center Coliseum, Seattle, Washington:

“Wedding Song” was recorded on November 9th in 1973.

I Love “Planet Waves” & this is one of the best songs from the album.

You gave me babies one, two, three, what is more, you saved my life
Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, your love cuts like a knife
My thoughts of you don’t ever rest, they’d kill me if I lie
I’d sacrifice the world for you and watch my senses die

 

Facts – The 5th Planet Waves session:

Village Recorder – Santa Monica, California
9 November 1973

Session songs:

  1. Wedding Song
  2. Adalita
  3. Adalita
  4. Forever Young
Only no.1 was released.

Personnel: Bob Dylan (guitar, harmonica, vocal)

It is one of the key tracks, and probably the last song he wrote for the album.
The song is addressing Dylan’s forthcoming Tour, and he is trying to convince the woman (Sara probably) that it will be ok (no old & bad habits will surface..).

It’s never been my duty to remake the world at large
Nor is it my intention to sound a battle charge
’Cause I love you more than all of that with a love that doesn’t bend
And if there is eternity I’d love you there again

The performance is so strong that one can’t help but hope the guy in the song manages to win his bride over again. Yet that sense of being written in the moment, and a certain self-serving justification of his own actions, makes its closest kin “Ballad in Plain D,” another song he wrote in haste and regretted at leisure.
~Clinton Heylin (Still On The Road)

Wedding Song has a quick, easy flow to it, lyrically and melodically, and the contradictory message conveyed by both words and performance are fascinating. “When I was deep in the poverty you taught me how to give” is a fine tribute. But the next verse is a catalog of horrors: “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” is a phrase that always refers to a pattern of retaliatory punishment; “your love cuts like a knife” is odd praise, odder still because it’s sung without sarcasm or irony.  …. The last line of the verse is particularly scary, given its form as part of a pledge of love: “I’d sacrifice the world for you to watch my senses die.” …
~Paul Williams (Performing Artist 1)

Oh, can’t you see that you were born to stand by my side
And I was born to be with you, you were born to be my bride
You’re the other half of what I am, you’re the missing piece
And I love you more than ever with that love that doesn’t cease

You turn the tide on me each day and teach my eyes to see
Just bein’ next to you is a natural thing for me
And I could never let you go, no matter what goes on
‘Cause I love you more than ever now that the past is gone

-Egil & Hallgeir

3 thoughts on “November 9: Bob Dylan recorded Wedding Song in 1973”

  1. Love this song! Similar to Nobody ‘Cept You, which I wish had made the album instead of You Angel You. One of his best album closers.

  2. Early manifestations of “hard rain.” Still beautiful and profound. Thanks for sharing this a-live version.

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