Tag Archives: Seeing The Real You At Last

Bob Dylan: 5 fine live versions of “Seeing The Real You At Last”

bob dylan 1986 sydney

Well, I thought that the rain would cool things down
But it looks like it don’t
I’d like to get you to change your mind
But it looks like you won’t
~Bob Dylan from “Seeing The Real You at Last”

Edward G. Robinson, in his 1948 film (costarring Humphrey Bogart) Key Largo, mutters, “Think this rain would cool things off, but it don’t”; Dylan transmutes this into the opening lines of “Seeing the Real You at Last,” a song which gives some indication of being almost entirely composed of film dialogue, a veritable tour de force of imaginative borrowing. Our detectives have identified another line from Key Largo, two sets of lines from The Maltese Falcon (Bogart: “I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble” and, to Mary Astor, ”I’ll have some rotten nights after I’ve sent you over, but that’ll pass”), two bits of Bogart/Lauren Bacall dialog (one from To Have and Have Not, the other the closing lines of The Big Sleep), plus lines from The Hustler and from a Clint Eastwood film called Bronco Billy … all in “Seeing the Real You at Last.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)

What I got out of Buddy [Holly] was that you can take influences from anywhere. Like his ‘That’ll be the Day’. I read somewhere that it was a line he heard in a movie, and I started realizing you can take things from everyday life that you hear people say. I still find that true. You can go anywhere in daily life and have your ears open and hear something … If it has resonance, you can use it in a song.
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn, 2004)

This is not a particular good Dylan song (not even close to top 200), but he’s given some interesting live versions over a period from 1986 – 2004.

First performance: Athletic Park, Wellington, New Zealand – 5 February 1986

Last performance: Stabler Arena, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – 16 November 2004.

It has been performed 247 times live.

Here are five of them:

Continue reading Bob Dylan: 5 fine live versions of “Seeing The Real You At Last”

Bob Dylan – US Summer Tour 1986 – True Confession Tour part 3 (Videos, Audio, and more)

bob dylan tom petty 1986

Before diving into the music of the “US Summer Tour – 86”, let’s look at some videos leading up to the tour.

Let’s kick off with the Tokyo (backstage Budokan) interview. (It should probably have been included in part 2 of this series, but I didn’t find it till now).

10 March 1986
MTV Interview, Backstage, Budokan Hall, Tokyo

…probably I’d do ANY song that I’d ever written, but to put them in a show is a different thing, because it takes time, and there’s not a lotta time when you play for a few hours.
~Bob Dylan (1986-03-10)

..and same place.. with Tom Petty (talking about touring with Dylan):

Continue reading Bob Dylan – US Summer Tour 1986 – True Confession Tour part 3 (Videos, Audio, and more)