The people from the Hurricane Carter movement kept calling me and writing me. And Hurricane sent me his book, which I read and which really touched me. I felt that the man was just innocent, from his writings and knowing that part of the country. So I went to visit him and was really behind him, trying to get a new trial.
~Bob Dylan (to Bill Flanagan, March 1985)
Tonight is billed as “The Night of the Hurricane,” and Dylan is in a good mood, dedicating one song to Al Grossman, who is in the audience and “‘is not running for President” (a dig at Muhammad Ali’s attempts to turn the benefit into a political rally). Baez hams it up during her set with Dylan, and Robbie Robertson joins the Revue for a great “It Takes a Lot to Laugh.” Although not as inspired a performance as Montreal, the concert ends the tour on a high note. The traditional end-of-tour party is at the Felt Forum after the show. The partying continues at a restaurant near the Westbury Hotel.
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: A Life in Stolen Moments Day by Day 1941-1995)
The last show of the 1975 tour @ Madison Square Garden, New York City – 8 December 1975.
The show was a benefit concert for the imprisoned boxer, Hurricane Carter, hence the name of the show: “The Night of the Hurricane.” Special guests for the night: Robert Flack and Muhammad Ali.
Madison Square Garden
New York City, New York
8 December 1975 Night of The Hurricane
Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar)
Bob Neuwirth (guitar)
T-bone J. Henry Burnett (guitar)
Roger McGuinn (guitar)
Steven Soles (guitar)
Mick Ronson (guitar)
David Mansfield (steel guitar, violin, mandolin ,dobro)
I can hear the turning of the key
I’ve been deceived by the clown inside of me
I thought that he was righteous but he’s vain
Oh, something’s a-telling me I wear the ball and chain
‘Abandoned Love’ marks the very point at which Dylan decided to (temporarily) abandon love, and particularly forsaken love, as the prime subject-matter for his songs.
~Clinton Heylin (Still On The Road)
I laid on a dune, I looked at the sky
When the children were babies and played on the beach
You came up behind me, I saw you go by
You were always so close and still within reach
Sara, Sara
Whatever made you want to change your mind?
Sara, Sara
So easy to look at, so hard to define
I’ve heard it said that Dylan was never as truthful as when he wrote Blood On The Tracks, but that wasn’t necessarily truth it was just perceptive. Or when people say Sarawas written for “his wife Sara” – it doesn’t necessarily have to be about her just because my wife’s name happened to be Sara. Anyway, was it the real Sara or the Sara in the dream? I still don’t know.
-Bob Dylan (to Jonathan Cott, 17 September 1978)
Vimeo:
The night Dylan recorded the song in late July 1975, Sara, who was already separated from him, stopped by the studio. Larry Sloman recalls, “Dylan suddenly turned to his wife and said, ‘This is for you,’ and broke into the compelling song he had written for her that summer in the Hamptons. No one had heard it before, but Stone and Scarlet and Wyeth picked up the tempo, Scarlet playing some exquisite fills, underlining the melancholy of the lyrics.
-Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon (Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track)
I married Isis on the fifth day of May
But I could not hold on to her very long
So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away
For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong
–
[about Isis] Hm… Well, it’s kind of like a journey, you know, like sort of a journey type trip. I wrote that with another person and I think half the verses were mine and half the verses were his, and it just sort of ended up being what it was. I don’t really know too much in depth what it would mean.
-Bob Dylan (Rockline Interview, Hollywood, California – June 17, 1985)
The only reason that ‘Isis’ was chosen as the song to work together on was that we were at my loft apartment and Bob didn’t have a guitar with him… but I had a piano, and ‘Isis’ was the one song that he had started to write on the piano… We are sitting at a piano together and we are writing these verses in an old Western ballad kinda style.
-Jacques Levy
A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It’s hard for me to relate to that. I mean, you know, people enjoying the type of pain, you know.
~Bob Dylan (to Mary Travers April 1975)
Well, Blood On The Tracks did consciously what I used to do unconsciously. I didn’t perform it well, I didn’t have the power to perform it well, but I did write the songs; they can be changed but the idea was right…
~Bob Dylan (to Matt Damsker, September 1978)
–
In stunning, total contrast to the previous album, Before the Flood, this 16th Dylan album triumphantly shows more subtlety and nuance than anything he’d ever done, and as honed a use of understatement as on John Wesley Harding. At the time this was the most unexpected leap of Dylan’s career. After years of comparatively second-rate work and a considerable decline in his reputation, here was an album to stand with Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)
Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’
I was layin’ in bed
Wond’rin’ if she’d changed at all
If her hair was still red
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like Mama’s homemade dress
Papa’s bankbook wasn’t big enough
And I was standin’ on the side of the road
Rain fallin’ on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I’ve paid some dues gettin’ through
)