You know, It Ain’t Me Babe was on the radio the other day and it never really occurred to me how different it was as a hit to how it was in my repertoire.
~Bob Dylan (to Adrian Deevoy, Oct 1989)
Save for a faux-reggae arrangement ten years on—one of the absolute highlights of the Renaldo and Clara film—the song has usually relied on the sparsest of acoustic accompaniments in live performance, often serving as a set closer, which tempts one to suggest it addresses the audience—specifically that element that wants the man to stay the same. That ain’t him.
~Clinton Heylin (Revolution in the air)
@ #46 on my list of Dylan’s 200 best songs. Recorded on June 9th, 1964 @ Columbia Studios – NYC. This was the one & only recording session for “Another Side of Bob Dylan”
“It Ain’t Me Babe” is a song by Bob Dylan that originally appeared on his fourth album Another Side of Bob Dylan, which was released in 1964 by Columbia Records. The song, along with others on the album, marked a departure for Dylan as he began to explore the possibilities of language and deeper levels of the human experience. Within a year of its release, the song was picked up as a single by artists who were forging the folk rock movement, including The Turtles and The Byrds. Wikipedia
Go ’way from my window
Leave at your own chosen speed
I’m not the one you want, babe
I’m not the one you need
Here we have a good 89-concert from the “Fall US 89 tour”.
#5 – I Want You
Houston Fieldhouse
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York
27 October 1989
Gotta Serve Somebody
What Good Am I?
Ballad Of Hollis Brown
Lenny Bruce
I Want You
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Highway 61 Revisited
Mama, You Been On My Mind
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
To Ramona
It Ain’t Me, Babe
Everything Is Broken
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
My Back Pages
I’ll Remember You
I Shall Be Released
Like A Rolling Stone
—
Disease Of Conceit
Maggie’s Farm
8-11 Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), G.E. Smith (guitar)
1, 18 Bob Dylan piano
2, 5, 8, 10, 11 Bob Dylan harmonica.
Band:
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
G. E. Smith (guitar)
Tony Garnier (bass)
Christopher Parker (drums)
#8 – Mama, You Been On My Mind
The Never Ending Tour 1989 started in Sweden with a performance at Christinehof’s Slottspark on May 22. This was only the fourth time that Dylan had performed in Sweden. He then performed in Finland, his second performance there, before returning to Sweden. He then performed two concerts in Dublin, Ireland, the first time that he had performed there since 1965. Dylan then performed in Glasgow, Scotland his second only performance in the country. The first being in 1966. After performing concerts in Birmingham and London Dylan performed in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, Dylan performed three concerts in Spain, four in Italy, a single concert in Turkey and two concerts in Greece.
After finishing the European tour Dylan returned to the United States performing at many of the same venues that he had performed in the year before, on the first year of the Never Ending Tour. Dylan continued to perform in the United States and Canada until November 15.
– Wikipedia
Go ’way from my window
Leave at your own chosen speed
I’m not the one you want, babe
I’m not the one you need
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Never weak but always strong
To protect you an’ defend you
Whether you are right or wrong
Someone to open each and every door
But it ain’t me, babe
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe
#11 – It Ain’t Me Babe
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District. The city is one of the three major centers for the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which has a population of 850,957. At the 2010 census, the population of Troy was 50,129. Troy’s motto is Ilium fuit, Troja est, which means “Ilium was, Troy is”.
Troy is known as the Collar City due to its history in shirt, collar, and other textile production. At one point Troy was also the second largest producer of iron in the country, surpassed only by the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Rensselaer School, which later became Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was founded in 1824 with funding from Stephen Van Rensselaer, a descendant of the founding patroon, Kiliaen. In 1821, Emma Willard founded the Troy Female Seminary on 2nd Street, which moved to its current location on Pawling Avenue in 1910. It was renamed Emma Willard School in 1895. The former Female Seminary was later reopened (1916) as Russell Sage College, thanks to funding fromOlivia Slocum Sage, the widow of financier and Congressman Russell Sage. All of these institutions still exist today.Houston Field House is a multi-purpose arena on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. It is the nation’s third-oldest hockey rink, behind Northeastern University’s Matthews Arena and Princeton University’s Hobey Baker Memorial Rink. Further, it is the second-oldest arena in the ECAC Hockey League, behind Princeton’s rink. Until the opening of the Times Union Center in Albany in 1990, it was the largest arena in the Capital Region.Wikipedia
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
#14 – My Back Pages
They say ev’rything can be replaced
Yet ev’ry distance is not near
So I remember ev’ry face
Of ev’ry man who put me here
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released
The Canadian band Whitehorse do a wonderful version of Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe.
The classic tale of musical romance continues for Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland, the husband and wife duo behind Whitehorse. One year after their debut, Whitehorse returns in ambitious fashion with The Fate of the World Depends on this Kiss and a date at Massey Hall in 2013 (where this song is included).
..His talent takes many forms. He is one of the most compelling white blues singers ever recorded. He is a songwriter of exceptional facility and cleverness. He is an uncommonly skillful guitar player and harmonica player.
~Stacy Williams (“Bob Dylan” LP. liner notes)
Dylan’s first album can hardly be faulted. It is a brilliant debut, a performer’s tour de force,….
~Michael Gray (BD Encyclopedia)
Talkin’ New York:
Wikipedia:
Released
March 19, 1962
Recorded
November 20 and 22, 1961,Columbia Recording Studio, New York City, New York, United States
Genre
Folk
Length
36:54
Label
Columbia
Producer
John H. Hammond
Bob Dylan is the debut album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 by Columbia Records. Produced by Columbia’s legendary talent scout John H. Hammond, who signed Dylan to the label, the album features folk standards, plus two original compositions, “Talkin’ New York” and “Song to Woody”.
Man of Constant Sorrow:
Recording sessions
The album was ultimately recorded in three short afternoon sessions on November 20 and 22 (1961). Hammond later joked that Columbia spent “about $402” to record it, and the figure has entered the Dylan legend as its actual cost. Despite the low cost and short amount of time, Dylan was still difficult to record, according to Hammond. “Bobby popped every p, hissed every s, and habitually wandered off mike,” recalls Hammond. “Even more frustrating, he refused to learn from his mistakes. It occurred to me at the time that I’d never worked with anyone so undisciplined before.”
Seventeen songs were recorded, and five of the album’s chosen tracks were actually cut in single takes (“Baby Let Me Follow You Down,” “In My Time of Dyin’,” “Gospel Plow,” “Highway 51 Blues,” and “Freight Train Blues”) while the master take of “Song to Woody” was recorded after one false start. The album’s four outtakes were also cut in single takes. During the sessions, Dylan refused requests to do second takes. “I said no. I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.”
The album cover features a reversed photo of Dylan holding his acoustic guitar. It is unknown as to why the photo was flipped.
In My Time of Dyin:
In less than one year in New York, Bob Dylan has thrown the folk crowd into an uproar. Ardent fans have been shouting his praises. Devotees have found in him the image of a singing rebel, a musical Chaplin tramp, a young Woody Guthrie, or a composite of some of the best country blues singers.
~Stacy Williams (“Bob Dylan” LP. liner notes)
Track Listing:
Side one
“You’re No Good” – Jesse Fuller 1:40
“Talkin’ New York” – Bob Dylan 3:20
“In My Time of Dyin'” – trad. arr. Dylan 2:40
“Man of Constant Sorrow” – trad. arr. Dylan 3:10
“Fixin’ to Die” – Bukka White 2:22
“Pretty Peggy-O” – trad. arr. Dylan 3:23
“Highway 51” – Curtis Jones 2:52
Side two
“Gospel Plow” – trad. arr. Dylan 1:47
“Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” – trad. arr. Eric von Schmidt 2:37
“House of the Risin’ Sun” – trad. arr. Dave Van Ronk 5:20
“Freight Train Blues” – trad., Roy Acuff 2:18
“Song to Woody” – Bob Dylan 2:42
“See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” – Blind Lemon Jefferson 2:43
Personnel:
Bob Dylan – vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica
Technical personnel
John H. Hammond – production
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down:
The Songs:
By the time sessions were held for his debut album, Dylan was absorbing an enormous amount of folk material from sitting and listening to contemporaries performing in New York’s clubs and coffeehouses. Many of these individuals were also close friends who performed with Dylan, often inviting him to their apartments where they would introduce him to more folk songs. At the same time, Dylan was borrowing and listening to a large number of folk, blues, and country records, many of which were hard to find at the time. Dylan revealed in an interview in the documentary No Direction Home that he needed to hear a song only once or twice to learn it.
The final album sequence of Bob Dylan features only two original compositions; the other eleven tracks are folk standards and traditional songs. Few of these were staples of his club/coffeehouse repertoire. Only two of the covers and both originals were in his club set in September 1961.
Dylan stated in a 2000 interview that he was hesitant to reveal too much of himself at first.
See That My Grave is Kept Clean:
Aftermath
Bob Dylan did not receive much acclaim until years later. “These debut songs are essayed with differing degrees of conviction,” writes music critic Tim Riley, “[but] even when his reach exceeds his grasp, he never sounds like he knows he’s in over his head, or gushily patronizing… Like Elvis Presley, what Dylan can sing, he quickly masters; what he can’t, he twists to his own devices. And as with the Presley Sun sessions, the voice that leaps from Dylan’s first album is its most striking feature, a determined, iconoclastic baying that chews up influences, and spits out the odd mixed signal without half trying.”
However, at the time of its release, Bob Dylan received little notice, and both Hammond and Dylan were soon dismissive of the first album’s results.
Bob Dylan’s first album is a lot like the debut albums by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — a sterling effort, outclassing most, if not all, of what came before it in the genre, but similarly eclipsed by the artist’s own subsequent efforts. The difference was that not very many people heard Bob Dylan on its original release (originals on the early-’60s Columbia label are choice collectibles) because it was recorded with a much smaller audience and musical arena in mind.
~Bruce Eder (allmusic.com)
