Here are 5 videos you absolutely need to see. They are chosen for their historical significance and/or blistering performances.
1. When The Ship Comes In, Only A Pawn In Their Game & Keep Your Eyes On The Prize (Len Chandler)
Lincoln Memorial,
Washington, District Of Columbia
28 August 1963 March On Washington (Washington Rights March)
Oh the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin’
Like the stillness in the wind
’Fore the hurricane begins
The hour when the ship comes in
..to draw a crowd with my guitar, that’s about the most heroic thing that I can do. To play a song to calm the king, well everybody don’t get to do that. There’s only certain things a King wants to hear. And then if he don’t like it, he might send you to the gallows. Sometimes you feel like a club fighter who gets off the bus in the middle of nowhere, no cheers, no admiration, punches his way through ten rounds or whatever, always making someone else look good, vomits up the pain in the backroom, picks up his check and gets back on the bus heading out for another nowhere. Sometimes like a troubadour out of the dark ages, singing for your supper and rambling the land or singing to the girl in the window, you know, the one with the long flowing hair
~Bob Dylan – August-September 1985, Cameron Crowe Interview (for Biograph)
I really don’t have any place to put my feet up…. well, we want to play ‘cause we want to play… Why tour? It’s just that you get accustomed to it over the years. The people themselves will tell you when to stop touring.
~Bob Dylan to Kathryn Baker – Aug 1988
It’s not stand-up comedy or a stage play. Also, it breaks my concentration to have to think of things to say or to respond to the crowd. The songs themselves do the talking. My songs do, anyway.
~Bob Dylan to Edna Gundersen – Sept 1989
Here are 8 videos you absolutely need to see. They are chosen for their historical significance and/or blistering performances.
To see and hear how the band looked and sounded in February 1991, you just need to view television footage of the Grammy awards ceremony from New York on the 20th , when Dylan was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Dylan’s appearance caused a media stir par excellence on two counts. Talking point one was his performance; number two was his acceptance speech.
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Dylan performed his damning anti-war3 indictment, “Masters Of War” – a striking choice given that the Gulf War was still going on and hawkish jingoism was rife. However, since he chose to sing it without a pause for breath, and backed by this hapless/hamstrung band, no-one who did not already know the song would have got the message. In fact, many who were familiar with the song did not even recognise it. Not only did Dylan’s nasal passages sound blocked (he later revealed he’d had a cold) but it seemed he had swallowed a burst of helium before starting to sing. Some observers thought he was singing in Hebrew. The tuxedoed crowd looked on in utter bewilderment. The next day’s newspapers marvelled how only Dylan had performed a song with any meaning and purpose, but then, being Dylan, he had made it completely incomprehensible.
~Andrew Muir (One More Night: Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour)
Bob Dylan receives his Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is presented by Jack Nicholson.
You can take all the tea in China
Put it in a big brown bag for me
Sail right around all the seven oceans
Drop it straight into the deep blue sea
She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey
She’s an angel of the first degree
She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee
Bob Dylan sings the lyrics to Tupelo Honey and Van Morrison sings the lyrics Why Must I Always Explain.
Why, why must I always explain
Over and over, over again
It’s just a job you know and it’s no sweet lorraine
Tell me why must I always explain (alright)
Dundonald Ice Bowl
Belfast, Northern Ireland
6 February 1991
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