Tag Archives: Pressing On

June 23: Bob Dylan – Saved was released in 1980





Bob_Dylan_-_Saved

…just left it there. The mix… it was mixed wrong or something, I don’t know, it didn’t sound right to me anyway, so I… I don’t know. I must’ve told somebody at that time who was, uh, working on the album. I know I didn’t really say anything to the record company about it. But some people tell me that they saw it in the press that I’d said
~Bob Dylan (to Paul Vincent, Nov 1980)

Like Slow Train was a big album. Saved didn’t have those kind of numbers but to me it was just as big an album.
~Bob Dylan (to Dave Herman, July 1981)

The nearest thing to a follow-up album Dylan has ever made: a Slow Train Coming II, and inferior. Two stand-out tracks, nonetheless: the turbulent ‘Pressing On’ (Dylan creating convincing hot gospel) and the intelligently submissive, courageous address (including a lovely, aptly devotional harmonica) that is ‘What Can I Do For You?”
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

Continue reading June 23: Bob Dylan – Saved was released in 1980

Bob Dylan Pressing On: 2 great originals and 7 fine cover versions

saved

Bob Dylan Pressing On: Cover versions audio and video

When I heard Alicia Keys’s cover of Bob Dylan’s Pressing On I felt compelled to search out some of the other great versions of this overlooked gem.
Saved was the second album of Dylan’s “Christian trilogy”, following his conversion. It expanded on themes explored on its predecessor Slow Train Coming, with gospel arrangements and lyrics extolling the importance of a strong personal faith.

Let us start with a couple of Dylan’s own takes on the song, the album version and a great live interpretation from a classic concert in Toronto in 1980:

Bob Dylan – Pressing On, from the album, Saved:

The fantastic Toronto 1980 version of Pressing On:

And now the cover versions.

Continue reading Bob Dylan Pressing On: 2 great originals and 7 fine cover versions