Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you
You were trying to break into another world
A world I never knew
I always kind of wondered
If you ever made it through
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you
“Shooting star” was his first album closer since “Every Grain of Sand” to share that slightly somnambulant feel, a gorgeous melody, caressed vocal and an abiding conviction that there are two kinds of people, good (i.e. saved) and lost people.
~Clinton Heylin (Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2, . 1974-2008)
This was the 6th “Oh Mercy” recording session, and Dylan also landed another master: “Everything Is Broken”.
The Studio New Orleans, Louisiana 14 or 15 March 1989 6th Oh Mercy recording session, produced by Daniel Lanois
The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s my particular sound.
~Bob Dylan (to Ron Rosenbaum – Nov 1977)
He had a piano in his room at the hotel and during the day I would go up there and he would teach me a song. I would be like a cassette machine. I would play the song over and over on the piano for him. This served a double purpose. One, he could concentrate on writing the lyrics and didn’t have to mess with playing the piano; two, I could go to the studio early that night and teach it to the band before he even got there, so they could be playing the song before he even walked through the door.
~Al Kooper (talking about BoB recording sessions)
Columbia Music Row Studios
Nashville, Tennessee
9-10 March 1966
The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s my particular sound.
~Bob Dylan (to Ron Rosenbaum – Nov 1977)
Well I cut it in between. I was touring and I was doing it whenever I got a chance to get into the studio. So it was in the works for a while. I could only do maybe two or three songs at a time.
~Bob Dylan (to Jan Wenner – Nov 1969)
Most of them are stream-of-consciousness songs, the kind that come to you in the middle of the night, when you just want to go back to bed. The harder you try to do something, the more it evades you. These weren’t like that.
~Bob Dylan (to Edna Gundersen, Sept 1989)
The Studio New Orleans, Louisiana 8 March 1989 Third Oh Mercy recording session, produced by Daniel Lanois
This new album is country Dylan, a collection of unaffected and highly tuneful love songs, riding comfortably cushioned on the Nashville sound, which sometimes, as in “To Be Alone With You” or “One More Night,” is pure Country and Western, but which for the most part is just a relaxed get-together of expert musicians who seem to know each other’s – and Dylan’s – moves as if they were playing at the Grand Ole Opry.
~Hubert Saal (March 1969)
The third recording session for ‘Nashville Skyline’ took place on February 14, 1969. This time around he managed to pull out 4 master versions: “Peggy Day”, “Tell Me That It Isn’t True”, “Country Pie” and “Lay Lady Lay”.
