Category Archives: Patti Smith

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

Bob Dylan & Patti Smith – Dark Eyes – Electric Factory Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 17 December 1995

BD & PS

From the last (and one of the best) concerts of the 95-tour we get this great version of “Dark Eyes”.

…. and then three nights in Philadelphia (December 15–17). Every night Patti Smith would come on in the middle for the tenth song of the set and they would
share vocals on ‘Dark Eyes’, the acoustic song from
the end of the Empire Burlesque album of ten years
earlier, and which he had never sung live before.
The routine might have been the same every
night but there was nothing routine about it. ….
….but without question live performance brought it
alive, and it was Patti Smith who made it happen.
Here, in the tingling electricity between them as
they traded verses and duetted on the choruses, the song was the conduit of a beauty and excitement it had never possessed.
Many Dylan followers believed that he felt challenged by Patti Smith’s still possessing a fierce anti-showbiz, anti-bullshit credibility that had in his own case been compromised by then: that she therefore kept him on his toes as no performance with his own band alone would have done. As it was, he rose higher than his toes.
~Michael Gray (Bob Dylan Ecyclopedia)

BD & PS2

Lyrics:

Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside
They’re drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide
I live in another world where life and death are memorized
Where the earth is strung with lovers’ pearls and all I see are dark eyes

A cock is crowing far away and another soldier’s deep in prayer
Some mother’s child has gone astray, she can’t find him anywhere
But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise
Whom nature’s beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes

They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes,
They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I’m sure it is.
But I feel nothing for their game where beauty goes unrecognized,
All I feel is heat and flame and all I see are dark eyes.

Oh, the French girl, she’s in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel
Hunger pays a heavy price to the falling gods of speed and steel
Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies
A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes


–
BD & PS3

-Egil

Bob Dylan, Patti Smith

The Patti Smith hosted Bob Dylan podcasts

2 Comments

Check out that T-shirt, Patti sure know who her heroes should be! Also check out the admiration in Dylan’s eyes.

Patti Smith hosted a series of podcasts giving a retrospective about the life and time of Bob Dylan in 2007. I think it is time that I remind you of these great programs.

Tom Morello and many others (Roger McGuinn and Garth Hudson and commentators including the author Greil Marcus) were interviewed for the cast.

Patti Smith hosts music and conversation about Bob Dylan. His friends, early influences and collaborators discuss their close relationships with Dylan, the stories behind his greatest songs and other memorable moments of his career.

There are a lot of small great anecdotes on the life with and around Dylan.

Jakob Dylan in episode 6:

“I got to watch my heroes meet him and saw how they reacted, whether it was Joe Strummer or Tom Waits. It was peculiar. I’m so stoked to meet Tom Waits, and he’s so nervous to meet my dad. It’s a head spin.”

Journalists and biographers add critical insights and provide historical contexts. A few of todays singer-songwriters also detail how Dylan’s art influenced their own lives and careers. We also hear comments from Dylan, himself, from interviews recorded throughout the last 45 years.

All are available for listening or downloading from Legacy podacsts:

Eps1, Eps2, Eps3, Eps4, Eps5, Eps6, Eps7, Eps8, Eps9, Eps10

– Hallgeir