I love you more than ever, more than time and more than love
I love you more than money and more than the stars above
Love you more than madness, more than waves upon the sea
Love you more than life itself, you mean that much to me
Bob Dylan wrote this great love song 46 years ago today!
BOB DYLAN – Wedding Song – February 9th, 1974 – Afternoon Show. Seattle Center Coliseum, Seattle, Washington:
“Wedding Song” was recorded on November 9th in 1973.
I Love “Planet Waves” & this is one of the best songs from the album.
You gave me babies one, two, three, what is more, you saved my life
Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, your love cuts like a knife
My thoughts of you don’t ever rest, they’d kill me if I lie
I’d sacrifice the world for you and watch my senses die
Facts – The 5th Planet Waves session:
Village Recorder – Santa Monica, California
9 November 1973
Session songs:
- Wedding Song
- Adalita
- Adalita
- Forever Young
Personnel: Bob Dylan (guitar, harmonica, vocal)
It is one of the key tracks, and probably the last song he wrote for the album.
The song is addressing Dylan’s forthcoming Tour, and he is trying to convince the woman (Sara probably) that it will be ok (no old & bad habits will surface..).
It’s never been my duty to remake the world at large
Nor is it my intention to sound a battle charge
’Cause I love you more than all of that with a love that doesn’t bend
And if there is eternity I’d love you there again
The performance is so strong that one can’t help but hope the guy in the song manages to win his bride over again. Yet that sense of being written in the moment, and a certain self-serving justification of his own actions, makes its closest kin “Ballad in Plain D,” another song he wrote in haste and regretted at leisure.
~Clinton Heylin (Still On The Road)“Wedding Song has a quick, easy flow to it, lyrically and melodically, and the contradictory message conveyed by both words and performance are fascinating. “When I was deep in the poverty you taught me how to give” is a fine tribute. But the next verse is a catalog of horrors: “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” is a phrase that always refers to a pattern of retaliatory punishment; “your love cuts like a knife” is odd praise, odder still because it’s sung without sarcasm or irony. …. The last line of the verse is particularly scary, given its form as part of a pledge of love: “I’d sacrifice the world for you to watch my senses die.” …
~Paul Williams (Performing Artist 1)
Oh, can’t you see that you were born to stand by my side
And I was born to be with you, you were born to be my bride
You’re the other half of what I am, you’re the missing piece
And I love you more than ever with that love that doesn’t ceaseYou turn the tide on me each day and teach my eyes to see
Just bein’ next to you is a natural thing for me
And I could never let you go, no matter what goes on
‘Cause I love you more than ever now that the past is gone
-Egil & Hallgeir
-Egil & Hallgeir Bobby’s natural voice at his best, crisp, clear and passionate. When I first heard him he was doing what he thought would get him attention cause he was mostly singing Woody’s songs. I know he listened to Dave Van Ronk and Ramblin’ Jack and integrated some of their rough edged phrasing into his own style. He wasn’t trying to sing pretty and he kinda’ mumbled but there was something very engaging about this new personality in the village scene.
All of us who knew him back then heard his stories of being a runaway orphan, (and a whole lot more). They gave him a lot of street cred to build on. Here’s an excerpt from my book, “This Singin’Thing” sub titled “Untold tales of a traveling troubadour of the 1960s.” There are several early Dylan stories in the book, this one is about our first meeting.
Tall Tales from Bobby
He’d appeared on the scene in 1960 and started the rounds of the basket houses, clubs like the Café Wha’ where you could walk in off the street and play for tips. At that time he was singing Woody Guthrie songs in a voice that sounded like he had a mouth full of corn mush. He really did look like a homeless waif and rough as his singing was, I found it to be curiously engaging. One morning about a couple of weeks after he showed up in New York City he wandered into the Gaslight. I was having a morning blast of espresso and invited him to join me. He mumbled something like “sure enough” and sat down on the other side of the booth. I introduced myself, told him that I’d seen one of his performances, had enjoyed it and was interested in knowing something of his background. He fiddled with the brim of a crumpled old cap that was squished down on a very tousled head of hair and proceeded to unwind a most unusual ball of yarn. “I’m an orphan and I was raised on an Indian reservation in Gallup, New Mexico. I ran away to travel with the circus when I was sixteen. I hoboed around and rode the rails with Big Bill Broonzy. Then I hitchhiked to Memphis where I played piano for Elvis Presley.” As I was listening to these fanciful tales, I thought, this guy looks to be about 19 years old and these are really some wild stories. And as we later found out, that’s all they were, stories. But hey, they were good stories. Most of us who had been in the Village for a while took them with a substantial sprinkling of salt. But there were many who were believers. When the news surfaced that his real name was Bob Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minnesota, his fans would not have been more astonished if they had just learned that the Pope was not Catholic.
The book is available in print or kindle from Amazon. Also, here’s a video and story I think you’ll find interesting. It’s about “Tomorrow is a Long Time.” and there are lot’s of interesting comments . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiPBnKph70w