“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”
Continue reading May 29: Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower, Verona, Italy 1984 (video)
When did you leave heaven ?
How could they let you go ?
How’s every thing in heaven ?
I’d like to know.
Today it’s “Down In the Groove”s birthday. Here is a live version of one it’s songs.
When Did You Leave Heaven? was written by Walter Bullock & Richard Whiting.
What possessed Dylan to record something as banal as ‘When Did You Leave Heaven?’ is
one of life’s little mysteries. I am not sure if this is the same angel that was flying too close
to the ground in 1983, or if another one had gone AWOL from paradise. At any rate, I wish
she had not flown in Dylan’s direction. As with much of the material released on “Down
In The Groove” Dylan’s choice of ‘When Did You Leave Heaven?’ smacks of a man
desperate for a direction home.
~Derek Barker (The Songs He Didn’t Write: Bob Dylan Under the Influence)
Continue reading May 28: Bob Dylan When Did You Leave Heaven ? Stockholm, Sweden, 1989 (Video)
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
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.
You can find some of Hallgeir’s favorites here:
Egil:
Concert videos/audio
–
-Egil
If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early Spring, is livin’ there, I hear
Say for me that I’m all right though things get kind of slow
She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so
We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we’ve never been apartIf you get close to her, kiss her once for me
I always have respected her for busting out and gettin’ free
Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won’t stand in the way
Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stayI see a lot of people as I make the rounds
And I hear her name here and there as I go from town to town
And I’ve never gotten used to it, I’ve just learned to turn it off
Either I’m too sensitive or else I’m gettin’ softSundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she’s passin’ back this way, I’m not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she’s got the time
Check out:
-Egil
And the gobsmacking footage of his performance in Newcastle a couple of days later, included entire on the No Direction Home DVD, proves no less maelstromic. Here we can see he is visibly speeding out of his brains and probably more than a little miffed that the Mr. Jones puffing on his pipe in the front row thinks he’s attending a poetry recital.
~Clinton Heylin (Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973)
–
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next mealHow does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?–
Continue reading May 21: Bob Dylan Like A Rolling Stone, Newcastle, England 1966 (video)
