[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying, “This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem”
I traveled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Filene Center Wolf Trap Farm Park For The Performing Arts Vienna, Virginia 24 August 1997
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful
Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire
People carry roses
Make promises by the hours
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can’t buy her
–
One of his sweetest love songs – apart from the brothel, death and Apocalypse references.
“My love she speaks like silence.” Tricky, but then she is quite a woman: true, morally elevated, yet winking and laughing like the flowers. The very scent of her swirls through this honeyed river of song, borne along on gentle tumbles and ripples of guitar. Frankly, we’re all enamoured … Until that bastard bridge at midnight trembles, the wind howls like a hammer, and she’s suddenly a raven at the window. So- what?- she’s death?With a broken wing too? Now we’re confused, now we’re in a bit of a pickle. Romance over? What happened? What does it mean? Sigh.
– MOJO Magzine – 100 Greatest Dylan Songs[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Performances:
163 times acoustic w/ band – top year 1994 (24 times)
119 times acoustic – top year – top year 1992 (48 times)
1 time as an instrumental – 1978
90 times w/band – top year 1978 (60 times)
–
First performance: Troy, New York – February 12 , 1965
Last played: Broomfield, Colorado – October 30, 2012
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Lets just start with Dylan´s cool acceptance speech for Winning the “Original Song: 2001 Oscar”:
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Bob Dylan scholars have determined that “To Ramona” is a song about Joan Baez; Dylan’s warning her that the folk protest movement will draw her in deep, but he recognizes that she doesn’t necessarily have a problem with that, and much as he loves and wants her, he has to let her think for herself, both for her sake and for his.
-Patrick Robbins (covermesongs.com)
–
Quite whom the singer is trying to mollify (and/or seduce) remains pure guesswork. One possibility must be Sara Lowndes, who became close to Dylan in the aftermath of his breakup with Suze. She could be said to have “cracked country lips,” being a Delaware girl, and her bronzed skin and dusky features may have suggested Spanish ances- try—and the Mediterranean goddess status the name “Ramona” implies.
– Clinton Heylin (Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Whoever it might be, it´s a great song.
It´s been performed:
137 times acoustic w/ band – top year 2000 (33 times)
99 times acoustic – top year – top year 1986 (33 times)
1 time as an instrumental – Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – 20 March 1978
127 times w/band – top year 1978 (64 times)
First live performance:
Freebody Park, Newport, Rhode Island – 26 July 1964
Newport Folk Festival.
Last live performance:
Port Chester, New York, Capitol Theatre – June 14, 2017
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]..they were terrific, spectacularly good… superb!
… Most of all, I think, the wondrous music this team is creating at this show is a reflection of the mind-state of the singer/rhythm guitarist/bandleader/harmonica player – Bob Dylan, the author of this magnificent work of accidental art, this recording which stops time and leaves me as a listener breathless and thrilled, over and over again.
-Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performance Artist 1986-1990 And Beyond)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Portland, Oregon
21 August 1990
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
G. E. Smith (guitar)
Tony Garnier (bass)
Christopher Parker (drums)
Steve Bruton (guitar)
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]happen.” In the case of Portland ‘90, this moment is not one song but a sequence of songs: the unforgettable first electric set of “Subterranean Homesick Blues”/”I Want You”/”You’re a Big Girl Now”/”Masters of War”/”I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”/”otta Serve Somebody.” The “moment” in which Dylan and his collaborators succeed in stopping time is also the entire concert, every song including the twelve that follow the six just named (a four-song acoustic band set, a second six-song electric set, and two encores).
-Paul Williams[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Subterranean Homesick Blues
I Want You “I Want You” sounds terrific from the get-go, multiple guitars playing the evocative and recognizable opening notes of the song with keyboard richness against a bright and easy rhythm backup..”
–Paul Williams
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