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Bob Dylan: 5 great songs recorded in 1981

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This is not a “best from 1981” list, just 5 Great songs Bob Dylan recorded in 1981.

Angelina

How to comment on this extraordinary piece of writing? Recorded at the ‘Shot of Love’ sessions of April-May 1980, Angelina is unlike anything else Bob Dylan has ever written – part Cocteau film, part Braque painting, totally surreal, it defies logic and heads off for the deepest, darkest parts of poetic mystery. Though Dylan has never commented about the song in public, chances are that he’d confess that it was as much mystery to him as to anyone else.
~John Bauldie (TBS1-3 booklet)

Rundown Studios
Santa Monica, California
26 March 1981
1st Shot Of Love recording session. Produced by Jimmy Iovine.

Released on THE BOOTLEG SERIES (RARE & UNRELEASED) 1961-1991, 26 March 1991.

Well, it’s always been my nature
To take chances
My right hand drawing back
While my left hand advances

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylans's best songs, The Best Songs

Bob Dylan’s best songs: Every Grain of Sand

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bob dylan smoking 1981

That was an inspired song that came to me. I felt like I was just putting down words that were coming from somewhere else, and I just stuck it out.
~Bob Dylan (“Biograph” notes)

“That’s an excellent song, very painless song to write,… It took like 12 seconds – or that’s how it felt.”
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Hilburn – Feb 1992)

…But “Every Grain of Sand” is something special: the “Chimes of Freedom” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” of Bob Dylan’s Christian period. A pearl among swine, it has surety and strength all down the line. Also vulnerability.
~Paul Nelson (from his famous “Rolling Stone Magazine” review of “Shot Of Love” – Oct. 1981)

 

Bob_Dylan-Shot_Of_Love-Frontal

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan albums, Music Calendar

August 10: Bob Dylan released Shot of Love in 1981

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Bob_Dylan-Shot_Of_Love

August 10: Bob Dylan released Shot of Love in 1981

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand

Shot of Love is Bob Dylan’s 21st studio album, it was released by Columbia Records in August 1981.

It is generally considered to be Dylan’s last of a trilogy of overtly religious, Christian albums. Also, it was his first since becoming born-again to focus on secular themes, from straight-ahead love songs to an ode to the deceased comedian Lenny Bruce. Arrangements are rooted more in rock’n’roll, less in gospel than on Dylan’s previous two albums. So maybe it is more of a new start than a gospel-tinged end?

Bob Dylan France 1981

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Bob Dylan

The songs he didn’t write: Bob Dylan Let’s Begin (Jimmy Webb)

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avignon 1981 bob dylan

Jimmy Layne Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He has written numerous platinum-selling songs, including “Up, Up and Away”, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, “Wichita Lineman”, “Galveston”, “The Worst That Could Happen”, “All I Know”, and “MacArthur Park”. He has had successful collaborations with Glen Campbell, Michael Feinstein, The 5th Dimension, Art Garfunkel, and Richard Harris.

In addition, his compositions have been performed by many popular contemporary artists, including America, Johnny Cash, Rosemary Clooney, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, John Denver, Amy Grant, Isaac Hayes, Thelma Houston, Billy Joel, Tom Jones, Johnny Maestro & the Brooklyn Bridge, Rod McKuen, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Carly Simon, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, The Supremes, James Taylor, The Temptations, Dionne Warwick,Larry Coryell (The Real Great Escape) and Bob Dylan.

Webb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990. He received the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993, the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award in 2003, the ASCAP “Voice of Music” Award in 2006, and the Ivor Novello Special International Award in 2012.

Jimmy Webb‘s song Let’s begin was first released on Leah Kunkel’s album, I run with trouble from 1980.

Bob Dylan performed it 18 times live in 1981. I found two very fine performances.

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts

July 21: Bob Dylan live in Vienna 1981 (2 audience films)

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Vienna 1981 4Shot Of Love Tour Concert #25

I have a double DVD set of this concert in my collection. The pictures are taken from one (or both?) of the audience films included here, but the sound is so much better!

Let’s Begin from the sound upgraded DVD:

It is one of the real gems from Europe 81. It is too bad it’s not on YouTube or one of the other video sharing sites. What I have found are two concerts that are documents from a fantastic tour. They are both worth watching, but I think you should seek out the “release” with the sound upgrade.

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