Category Archives: Bob Dylan songs

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

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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:

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan songs, Bob Dylans's best songs

Bob Dylan’s best songs: I Believe In You

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They ask me how I feel
And if my love is real
And how I know I’ll make it through
They look at me and frown
They live to drive me from this town
They don’t want me around
‘Cause I believe in you.

–

Here was something he had spent his life dealing with – rejection. But rather than believing in himself and his own judgement in the face of such hostility, he believed in Him. And how. Fusing blues commonplaces like ‘walk out on my own I A thousand miles from home … don’t mind the pain I Don’t mind the driving rain’ to express the kind of treatment meted out to many an accidental martyr, he insists such belief cannot be shaken – not even ‘if white turn to black’. At song’s end, though ‘friends forsake’ him, he knows he ‘will sustain’.
~Clinton Heylin (Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2, . 1974-2008)

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan - Gospel years, Bob Dylan songs, Bob Dylans's best songs

Bob Dylan: The Gospel Years, Part 4 – Best Song 1979 “Slow Train”

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Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions
Are they lost or are they found?
Have they counted the cost it’ll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they’re gonna have to abandon?
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

–

If I could keep only one performance from the Slow Train Coming album, it would have to be the title song, “Slow Train,” much as I love to listen to “Precious Angel,” much as I am in awe of Dylan’s vocal performance on all of “When He Returns” and pieces of “I Believe in You.” But “Slow Train” is it, the white-hot core of the album, the one track that can and must be listened to again and again and again, inexhaustible, essential.
-Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)

Previous posts in this series:

..nothing less than Dylan’s most mature and profound song about America.
– Jann Wenner (Rolling Stone Magazine)

Slow Train:

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts, Bob Dylan songs

Bob Dylan: Concerts & Videos from 1996 – 1999 @ alldylan.com

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A lot of people don’t like the road, but it’s as natural to me as breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it, and I either hate it or love it. I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy. It’s the only place you can be who you want to be.
~Bob Dylan (John Pareles Interview, Sept. 1997)

I do a certain amount of concerts every year. But it’s not a constant never-ending tour. A part of me doesn’t wanna do it at all. Just want to quit right away. Playing is a job. My trade. Like you’re journalists. You are heading for the next news item, I’m heading for the next town.
~Bob Dylan (London press conference, 4 Oct 1997)

–

Here some of the Bob Dylan videos we’ve posted on alldylan.com from 1996-1999:

1996

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan songs, Playlist

Playlist: Bob Dylan overlooked songs by decade – 2010 to 2016

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Well, to me, it’s a great song that seldom (or never) is on the “best-of” lists of the artist, and it could have/should have been. They are sometimes alternative recordings or “out of print” releases.

I am talking about great songs that are often overlooked. We are talking about personal favorites that you wouldn’t rate among the artists top 20 (maybe), but deserve more praise and recognition than they get. Continue reading Playlist: Bob Dylan overlooked songs by decade – 2010 to 2016 →