After writing these songs, his old songs returned to live performance. While on tour in the fall of 1980, he said in an interview with Robert Hilburn, “You really are still that person some place deep down. You don’t really get that out of your system. So you can still sing them if you can get in touch with the person you were when you wrote the songs.” From the stage he talked about Leadbelly doing prison songs and then children songs, and said, “Some people liked the older songs, some people liked the newer ones. But he didn’t change. He was the same man.” That really sums up Dylan’s whole arc for me. I don’t see him as ever changing and leaving the past behind; I see him as having a core that has remained unchanged, and each phase he’s gone through he’s integrated that and carried it forward.

In “City of Gold”, Dylan sings, “far from the rat race, eats at your soul”. This sounds inspired by Gerry Goffin’s line in “Up on the Roof”, “and all that rat race noise, down in the street”. Both songs are about transcending what’s going on down on the earth. “When this old world starts getting you down”, there’s a higher power. Dylan goes on, “far from this world, stuff dreams are made of”. This comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, when Prospero says “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep”. Humphrey Bogart also famously refers to the “stuff that dreams are made of” in the 1941 film, The Maltese Falcon. Shakespeare is saying that life is fleeting and fragile. Bogie is saying this statue of a falcon, this icon of material wealth that so many people seek but are unable to find, represents humans striving to find happiness in their lives. What Dylan is saying is don’t sweat it, trouble yourself no more because there is something far greater than this earth can hold. “We know no darkness, beyond the stars above. There is a city of love.” I can’t think of too many occasions where Dylan has been this unabashedly straightforward. It’s his ultimate love song.

There is a strong connection between between the live performances of 1979-1981 and the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour. The former tour ended with the debut of “Every Grain of Sand”, and it is now the permanent show closer. I think both tours are his most personal, musically and spiritually. He has called Shot of Love from 1981 a favorite album, stating that the lyrics to the song “Shot of Love” tell of where he’s at. I believe some of the lyrics have their genesis (pardon the pun) in “City of Gold”. In it he sings, “don’t need no doctor, don’t need no dope”. In “Shot of Love”, they become “doctor, can you hear me” and “don’t need a shot of heroin”. Just as the fall-spring of 79-80 were solely gospel songs, followed by an expansion of his setlists, the Rough and Rowdy Ways has undergone a similar transformation. Even though his previous work has always been included on the latter tour, they more or less served as bookends, but now songs like “Desolation Row” and “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” are going toe to toe with the Rough and Rowdy Ways songs in the middle of the set. The same dedication he showed to his gospel songs, he’s shown to the songs of Rough and Rowdy Ways. Again through his deep connection to performing the new material every night, he’s found a way to once again relate to his old songs, seeing them all connected in the same body of work.

“City of Gold” was performed 19 times, and then never again, just as “Every Grain of Sand” was finally introduced. I don’t know if Dylan feels they can’t co-exist, but he didn’t entirely forget the song, because at some point he wrote new lyrics. These were sung by The Dixie Hummingbirds, a singing group that is almost 100 years old, which I find appropriate for the song. “City of Gold” sounds timeless to me, it sounds like it’s always existed. As the closing track on the Masked and Anonymous soundtrack album, it starts with Dylan reading lines from the film, summing up where he is at philosophically:

Things fall apart, especially all the neat order of rules and laws. The way we look at the world, is the way we really are. See it from a fair garden, and everything looks cheerful, climb to a higher plateau and you’ll see plunder and murder. Truth and Beauty are in the eye of the beholder, I stopped trying to figure everything out a long time ago.

To follow that with “City of Gold” is a response, if not a definitive answer. It seems to at least hope it could be. It parallels what Dylan famously said when asked about his religion; he said it’s in the songs, that’s what he believes in. Cynical spoken word is answered in a way only music can; a performance invoking intuitive feelings that need no explanation.

Back to Kalmar and Ruby, the songwriting team of “Nevertheless.” There is a comic flair to the song, and Dylan’s own sense of humor is legendary. The songs that made them famous were all of the musical-comedy variety. They wrote the songs for several Marx Brothers movies.

(The guitar toss at the end is very rock n’ roll!)

The themes underpinning these songs mirror some of Dylan’s own, since “love fades” is one of his recurrent motifs, and he can often appear to be a contrarian just because. In “Po’ Boy”, Dylan sings “calls down to room service, says, ‘send up a room’", which echo’s a line from one of the Marx Brothers’ most famous set pieces; the state room scene in A Night at the Opera (1935). As numerous requests for additional services fill the room literally to the ceiling, Groucho makes the request to “send up another room.” Give the anarchist a cigarette, indeed!

“Nevertheless” was recorded by Johnnie Ray. For more on what Johnnie means to Bobby, see this entry from Shadow Chasing by the always brilliant . Harry Nilsson also recorded “Nevertheless” for his album of standards, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. The album cover of which references a famous gag from comedic genius Stan Laurel. Inside many a comedian is a frustrated musician (e.g. Sandler, Fallon etc.), and many musicians imbue their art with comedy.

Back to Nilsson’s album, of which a quarter of the songs were also covered in Dylan’s trilogy of standards. Nilsson was 32 when the album was released in 1973, at the height of his critical and commercial success as a songwriter for himself and others. It was a bold and pioneering move, made in part by Nilsson’s feeling that his voice was just right at that moment for that material. So too was Dylan’s voice, particularly by the time of Triplicate, the rough edges smoothed away.

They were both steeped in traditional music. Gene’s childhood friend Jack Godden recalled that Gene and his father would always be on the porch “playing Woody Guthrie-type songs”, and even before his brief stint in the New Christy Minstrels, he was part of a folk group called the Rum Runners. His affinity for traditional music never waned. Its influence can be heard on his songwriting throughout his career. Gene’s biographer John Einarson wrote, “Gene found himself drawn to the simple virtues of folk music… singing of the verdant fields of colonial America, Appalachian mining disasters, or Civil War glories.” That sounds just like Bob to me.

The way they sing their lyrics in conjunction with their music is central to why they move me the way that they do. I think of the words, music, and performance as a tripod. You can’t take any leg away, and when they come together for Gene and Bob, it’s in a way that is uniquely theirs. The Byrds manager Jim Dickinson captures what I think Bob and I are responding to in Gene’s songs. “We saw some value in Gene’s stuff, Dylan saw more… the thing that worked for Dylan was… the feeling that Gene gave a song… the words printed on paper without Gene’s phrasing made less sense.” Bob is not going to be bothered by things not making sense, and I never think too hard about what lyrics mean, only the way they make me feel when I hear them sung. I think in the mid 60s popular music scene, Bob saw in Gene a kindred spirit who didn’t feel the need to have everything be so cut and dry.

Jim Dickson said that Bob "recognized, even before I did, the quality that Gene had as a songwriter… Dylan understood the value of Gene Clark as a songwriter more profoundly than any of us.” Bob continued to champion Gene even after The Byrds, saying of his song “For a Spanish Guitar”, "something I or anybody else would have been proud to have written." According to Gene’s drummer Andy Kandanes, after their show at LA’s Troubadour in 1977, Bob came backstage and said “that was one of the best shows I’ve seen.” When Gene released his version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” in 1984, Andy Kandanes said Bob told Gene’s producer Tommy Kaye that he loved it, that it was one of the best versions he’d heard.

Bob was an enormous inspiration for Gene. He said that Bob “had a way of putting things down with all kinds of images to follow. Instead of just saying something in a plain and simple way he gave… places to go in your imagination… high-rolling poetry”. Along with John Lennon, Gene said that they are

Two of the best minds that we… have in the 20^th century mainly because, in my opinion, they were able to transcend just good, common logic and knowledge and get into the fact that the world is in trouble. And they were getting something out that was making a statement about it and, in a way, point some kind of direction.

Bob said each line of “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” could be its own song, and that’s exactly the kind of impact Bob had on Gene’s songwriting. Gene’s written fantastic songs like “Strength of Strings”, which is a lyric from Bob’s “Lay Down Your Weary Tune”. Gene’s “Gypsy Rider” sounds like its inspiration was from the line "The motorcycle black Madonna, two-wheeled gypsy queen" from Bob’s “Gates of Eden”.

Jimmi Seiter, someone who has worked in the music industry in various capacities for many artists, said of Gene:

He'd pick up a guitar and play and if one string was out of tune, he thought, 'OK, I'll live with that.' Gene didn't care whether he was in tune or not. It didn't matter to him - and that's the way Dylan was. They both liked to sit down and play whenever they felt like it.

In his 60 Minutes interview, Bob talks about how his songs from the 60s were almost magically written, and in a 1988 radio interview Gene described his gift as

An energy being channeled through you, but I don’t know what kind or where... I wake up and go wow there it is, and you know run out turn the tape recorder on pick up the guitar and play it... if I don’t catch it right away it goes away.

In Bob’s Nobel acceptance he says “songs are unlike literature. They’re meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page.” According to Gene’s friend Dennis Kelley, Gene said “to sing those words is really where the beauty lies… to read the lines on paper is one thing, but to sing them really makes them come alive.”

I like to think Bob still believes in Gene’s greatness. That some day when he’s playing Missouri or Kansas, where Gene was born and raised, he’ll cover one of his songs. Perhaps Gene was even in his mind when he was writing The Philosophy of Modern Song. In Bob’s chapter on “Beyond the Sea” he writes:

The clipper ships, the schooners and sloops. Onwards and onwards you go sailing over the bounding main, and off into the wild blue yonder. Sailing towards your life-your final destination… You’ve been knocking about on this voyage since forever, riding on the crest of a high rippling wave, heading for a place you never heard of. You’re the skipper. Soon the fair winds blow you into the harbor, and you see the port lights.

The following is from Gene’s song “Silent Crusade”.

I am told that my life is a clipper
The sea of time has tossed about
And I know that there’s only one skipper
Who can guide that ship about

Seems my dreams are the wings of a spirit
This vessel sails can’t fill without
From its wind comes the light of inspiration
And the darkness of doubt

It’s probably just a coincidence with the shared words and imagery, but regardless, the feeling is the same. Two incredible artists, in search of their musical destiny.

Many thanks and appreciation to the late Byrds biographer Johnny Rogan for his exhaustive research and wonderful writing in Requiem for the Timeless, volumes 1 and 2, in which the above quotes appear.

In the interim, I did fall in love with a few of his 60’s albums, but I had not heard him live until I picked up The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue. It was an ear-opening experience. My response to hearing it was visceral and immediate. I simply have not been the same since.

The picture above was taken by Ken Regan at the former North Falmouth Dinner, in case you were wondering what they were eating while recording Disc 3 - Seacrest Motel Rehearsals, Falmouth, MA – October 29, 1975 of Bob Dylan – The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings. Seventeen years later I stayed with my family at The Seacrest, enjoying my continental breakfast where Allen Ginsberg read his poetry and Bob performed a piano and drum led “Simple Twist of Fate”, as I was delighted to learn while watching Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.

Now both of my parents have come to appreciate how special Bob Dylan is through me. I particularly enjoy seeing their reactions to hearing him cover some of their favorite music. Sharing The Philosophy of Modern Song with them has been one of my most cherished experiences along my Dylan journey. They have introduced me to so many incredible artists, it’s the least I can do.

In the 2017 interview for his website with Bill Flanagan, Bob said of Amy, “She was the last real individualist around.” This is a huge statement coming from the man who said in a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, “Who’s the last individual performer that you can think of… I’m talking about artists with the willpower not to conform to anybody’s reality but their own… It’s a lost art form. I don’t know who else does it beside myself, to tell you the truth.” Amy herself said, “I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.”

Amy and Bob are both natural observers of life, and share the uncanny ability to hear a song once or twice in the distant past, and bring it out of their minds and hearts much later when it’s needed for inspiration. I think Amy is a brilliant songwriter. I can remember hearing some of her lines for the first time and being blown away that someone had thought to put them into a song. Musically, she is an amalgamation of sounds. Like Bob, she has taken everything that came before, and filtered it through her own uniqueness to create something new. Because she is perceived as having a traditionally beautiful sounding voice, and Bob is not, their skill of how they use their instrument is vastly underappreciated as a result.

When Amy’s Dad asked her why she didn’t have any of her own albums, she said, “I’m done with it… I’m writing other stuff now.” Bob is famous for moving on. “She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back.”

I love this photo (Alexis Maryon/Avalon). I wonder if Amy knew polka dots are a staple of Bob’s sartorial style. She was starting to collaborate with hip hop artists (an art form Bob appreciates), and I have no doubt she would have continued to explore so many different musical forms, the way Bob has. I like to think even they would have collaborated.

Amy’s quotes above come from the wonderful Amy Winehouse: In Her Words by The Amy Winehouse Estate.

Dylan and Dinah, both bringing their own brand of humor and artistic integrity to Newport audiences. Dinah doesn’t get mentioned along with the likes of her contemporaries like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, or Billie Holiday. Her voice is different from traditional expectations, but that only enhances her emotion and phrasing. She also wasn’t afraid to bring her own uniqueness to a variety of musical styles. Sound familiar?

Dylan is known to listen to Dinah according to the apocryphal story of Bob's iPod and his playing her records on his Theme Time Radio show, but I think he may have even read the aforementioned biography. In it, Dinah is quoted as saying,

“When you get inside of a tune, the soul in you should come out. You should just be able to step back and let that soul come right out. It should flow out of you. That’s what I feel I do. That’s what I want and try to do… Frank Sinatra and Nat Cole. They get inside of a tune, and yet no one calls them blues singers. Frank and Nat use words and tunes so wonderfully that they make you know what they mean. They just don’t move through a tune mouthing the words, they use the words to tell the way they feel. This is real singing.”

As soon as I read that, I thought of Bob’s 2015 AARP interview in which he says of Sinatra, “he had this ability to get inside of the song in a sort of conversational way. Frank sang to you, not at you.” It’s a wonderful symmetry with the notion of getting inside a song. I find all the singers mentioned here to be extraordinary, so it’s always gratifying to find new ways of trying to express what it is they do that makes them so special.

I often struggle to explain what it is about the songs I’m drawn to, but there seem to be two key ingredients they all share. The singers have soul, as it’s been described by Dinah, real feeling. The music has a type of rhythm that works in conjunction with the singer, a beat or riff that the singer can respond to. It never ceases to amaze me how the Venn diagram of Dylan continually includes my other favorite musical artists.

Roger backed Bob on the Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid soundtrack, and the first track of McGuinn’s debut solo album features Dylan’s unmistakable harmonica playing. It also features the lyrics “Hey Mr. D” and “behind a locked door”, calling to mind George Harrison’s “Behind That Locked Door”, which George has said was addressed to Bob.

Bob and Roger’s collaboration would peak during the Rolling Thunder Revue tours of 1975 and 1976. Roger’s recorded arrangement of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” sounds like the version that was the penultimate song for much of the tour, with them sharing lead vocal duties.

When they came off the road, Roger went into the studio with the touring band to record the magnificent Cardiff Rose album. Although Bob doesn’t play on it, Roger includes Bob’s “Up to Me”, continuing the tradition begun with The Byrds.

Five of the songs on the album are written by Roger and Jacques Levy, who was also on the Rolling Thunder Revue as the stage director. Their experience of the tour led to their writing the brilliant “Jolly Roger”.

Roger and Jacques had been writing songs together since the dawn of the decade. 1973’s “Bag Full of Money” is a delightful ditty about D.B. Cooper, whose notoriously unsolved skyjacking achieved folk hero status. Perhaps this inspired Bob to collaborate with Jacques on songs about people like “Joey” [Gallo] and “Catfish” [Hunter].

“Gate of Horn” is another classic Levy/McGuinn composition that beautifully documents Roger’s story, namedropping a lot of notable characters from Bob’s own history, like Odetta, the Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Albert Grossman.

In this millennium, Bob's live performances have been marked by reinterpretations of his own songs, now part of the American songbook. Roger is shedding light on songs that would otherwise be forgotten, delivering vocals like a method actor while picking his seven-string Martin acoustic guitar on cowboy ballads, sea shanties, and Appalachian tunes. At 84 and 83, they are still out on the road. How lucky are we?

If Bob Dylan isn’t a false prophet, does it follow that he is indeed a prophet? Jeffrey Edward Green makes a compelling case that he is in Bob Dylan: Prophet Without God. Green makes it clear at the outset of his book that even if you can’t fully subscribe to Dylan as a prophet, he hopes you will at least gain a greater appreciation for the unique contribution Dylan has made to contemporary thought and how it’s influenced our culture. Green is also careful to acknowledge how Dylan is different from the prophetic tradition he believes he’s operating within, which emphasizes just how original of a figure Dylan is, and why it seems possible to continue to attempt to categorize him in so many ways.

Green sees Dylan warning about the the tension between individuality and justice, whereas I see Bob simply as an artist. Bob’s not prophesizing, he’s songwriting. Joan Baez said he provided the songs for the Civil Rights movement. To Green, the performance of “Only a Pawn in Their Game” at the March on Washington is an implicit message about “bourgeois individuals who ultimately prefer themselves to others”, while for me it’s an authentic way to engage in activism. Bob himself has said, “I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music… The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.” Bob’s book The Philosophy of Modern Song has 66 chapters, as The Bible has 66 books. Music encompasses Bob’s multi-faceted worldview. What that is exactly is open to endless interpretation, but ultimately Bob is an archetype of a searcher or seeker. He is constantly in pursuit of freedom, creatively and otherwise. That’s the beauty of Bob. Whatever endeavor you toil in, from corporate to caregiver, in relationship with yourself or others, he’s a touchstone for examining yourself and who you want to be.

Green only briefly mentions the idea that a prophet and poet share a similar space, which prompted me to look into this further, yielding this quote from Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel:

The prophet is a poet. His experience is one known to the poets. What the poets know as poetic inspiration, the prophets call divine revelation. . . The inspiration of the artist is what is meant by “the hand of the Lord which rests upon the prophet.” What makes the difference between the prophet and the ordinary person is the possession of a heightened and unified awareness of certain aspects of life. Like a poet, he is endowed with sensibility, enthusiasm, and tenderness, and above all, with a way of thinking imaginatively. Prophecy is the product of poetic imagination. - The Prophets (Harper & Row: 1962), 367–368

Regardless of whether it’s prophecy or poetry, Bob fits the above description, as he has been inspired and given great gifts. Green’s book is wonderful because it grapples with how to make sense of a charisma and brilliance so special it comes along only every few centuries. If this is all too hyperbolic and you just want to listen to the music, Bob also said, “I think of myself more as a song and dance man.”

If someone should tell you Bob Dylan can’t sing, or it’s difficult to listen to his voice, just play them the following.

The fascinating thing about the recording above is that it comes in the middle of the sessions for The Times They Are a-Changin. It wasn’t a warm up, and it wasn’t like it was done because Dylan had no material of his own, as the album ultimately is all Dylan originals. I think it’s evidence that even within the confines of an LP, Dylan is thinking along the lines of a concert setlist. Certain types of songs, regardless of who wrote them, are going to be needed to be delivered in a certain way at certain points during the listening experience. Larry Starr points out in his book Listening to Bob Dylan, that the harmonica is Dylan’s second voice, and this too is on full display in his recording of the traditional song “Moonshiner.”

The sauce may just be Bob’s favorite inspiration because he’s at his best yet again on another traditional song about making your own booze.

His singing voice on the much maligned Self Portrait is among my favorites. The official bootleg series release Another Self Portrait was ear opening because it removed a lot of the production. Without his original songwriting, Dylan once again proves that he is a brilliant performing artist of any material that speaks to him.

Luckily for us, such a diverse scope of songs appeal to Dylan. When a non-Dylan person in my life wants me to recommend something of his to listen to, I like to tailor the request to what music I know they already like. As much as I want to showcase his unique songwriting talent, I’m always tempted to give them a song he has interpreted because the sound and vibe often seem more important to me than the words themselves. This seems to be true for Dylan himself when he’s recording a new album. He’ll often start with other’s songs that capture a certain mood, something to meditate on till the band has the feeling he’s listening for.

Another time period where the sound of Dylan’s voice really resonates with me is during The Basement Tapes, perhaps because he’s not singing for a record or an audience. As this beautiful vocal proves, I understand the feeling because of how he’s singing the words, even if they don’t make logical sense.

This is not to say that Bob’s words aren’t audacious, indelible, wise, hilarious, and worthy of study. But as Bob said in his Nobel lecture, “the words in Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page.” Is there a greater purveyor of song than Bob Dylan?

We’ve read 14 books since August of 2023. The fourth book was my first, Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s “Time Out of Mind” by the great Graley Herren, who was in attendance! One of the special features of the group is that the author usually joins us for our discussion, availing themselves to answer all of our burning questions. Three months later, I had the honor to facilitate a conversation with Erin Callahan and Court Carney for The Politics and Power of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances: Play a Song for Me. Since then I’ve led a few more, most recently being joined by Laura Tenschert to discuss her brilliant contributions to Dylan at 80 and Erin and Court’s book. Since Laura’s podcast was what first got me into more than just listening to Bob’s music, it felt like a wonderful full circle moment.

Peter White is the heart and soul of the book club. Sensing my enthusiasm, he was gracious enough to ask me to join him as an advisor. Now with Roberta Rakove and Brian Walsh, we reach out to authors, try to come up with new ideas or improvements for our site, and ultimately come up with the schedule of books to read. The book I was most delighted to add to our list was The Philosophy of Modern Song, by the man himself. An invitation was extended for Bob to join us! I had some thoughts I wanted to share, but thought it would be fun to have members of our group each take a different chapter/song for discussion. Everyone who volunteered went above and beyond with their research, preparation, and presentation. We were all so thrilled with the outcome, we decided to continue the format with the same book the following month.

My favorite part of the advisory group is figuring out together what the schedule of books should be. Selfishly, I sometimes want to put forth a book I really want to read anyway. Then again, a book I’ve already enjoyed, I want others to read it too. The most important consideration though is balancing the types of books month to month, like building a setlist or track list for an LP. Some books will never go out of style, but we also want to be timely with new releases. We want a good mix of scholarly work, fandom, biography, etcetera. For example, two books I really enjoyed in back to back months were Professor Raphael Falco’s No One To Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan and Mary Lee Kortes’ Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob. This is my submission if there is a volume II of the latter. We are always looking for suggestions of books to include, and someone to lead the discussion, so if you have ideas we’d love to hear from you!

Has this been just a long commercial for the book club, and a way to recognize kind and intelligent people? Yes, but that’s what makes the Dylan community great.

P.S. - I included an inordinate amount of links to my former blog posts. Instead of shameless self promotion, think of it as a way to catch up or revisit 2024, a year in review.

During the documentary, we see Bob singing “Only a Pawn in Their Game”, and Robbie Robertson relates the story of Bob tuning in to watch the ‘68 Comeback Special. It would have been extremely unlikely for Bob to have sat down to give an interview for this film. Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President is the only thing I can think of in recent memory, and it’s so good, it makes me wish he would do this more.

It would have been doubly surprising if Bob turned up in this documentary because he’s already said some amazing things about Elvis, and Bob is not going to repeat himself. Also, as often is the case with Bob, his comments will raise more questions than provide answers. For example, from a press conference in Rome in 2001:

Reporter: Sometimes when you’re standing with your guitar onstage it reminds me of somebody old: Elvis Presley poses from 1955, ‘56. How do you react to that?

Dylan: No. Is that a compliment or-

Reporter: Yeah, it’s a compliment. But Elvis had a strong influence on you-

Dylan: He did. Growing up he did.

Reporter: He had a beautiful recording of your song “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” Do you remember how you reacted to that?

Dylan: Oh, well, what can you say? When somebody like that records a song I’m sure any songwriter would feel intensely gratified.

Reporter: Would you say that there’s a lineage? Somebody said that Elvis freed the body, Bob Dylan freed the mind. [Bruce Springsteen]

Dylan: Freed the mind? Well, it’s good to be liberated from whatever. We should all feel that way.

Reporter: One more Elvis question. Did you meet Elvis?

Dylan: I never did meet him. That’s what I’m supposed to say.

Then with Douglas Brinkley in 2009, Bob said,

I never met Elvis, because I didn’t want to meet Elvis… I wanted to see the powerful, mystical Elvis that had crash-landed from a burning star onto American soil. The Elvis that was bursting with life. That’s the Elvis that inspired us to all the possibilities of life.

The part of that quote not reproduced here is essentially what the documentary explores leading up to his TV special return. It’s why Bob’s music, along with The Beatles’, make an appearance in a film about Elvis. Elvis had lost touch with music that moved the artist and the audience.

Those that were interviewed for the film all did a fantastic job, particularly with their respect for Elvis as a person, not just as an artist. The film concludes by noting the Elvis TV special marked his return to live performance, which included over a thousand concerts, until he was gone at the all too soon age of 42. It reminded me of the conclusion of Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese, which implies that tour was the catalyst to Bob’s subsequent never ending touring.

We have been blessed that Bob is approaching being around twice as long as Elvis. He has been written off and come back a few times himself. Yet another milestone period in his career began with the live music he was making in the fall of 2019, and even a pandemic couldn’t stop him. It continued with the release of Rough and Rowdy Ways, Shadow Kingdom, and the tour of the former has been particularly remarkable. It’s clear that Bob thinks so, otherwise he wouldn’t have committed to three years in advance of constant care and attention to those songs.

What will 2025 bring? An official live album of Rough and Rowdy Ways? A new album of original songs? Will the biopic coming on Christmas bring award nominations and inspire new fans? To quote the great Ray Padgett, “What comes next is more a mystery than it’s been in years. But often, with Dylan, that’s the most exciting place to be.”

The song was likely written during their first extended period of time without the other Beatles over Thanksgiving 1968. George would write to Dylan of the experience, "it was really beautiful being with you and I hope we shall meet sometime again during this incarnation. Love to you all from us all." They would go on to play tennis on the Isle of Wight, go into the studio for Bob’s New Morning album, and triumph together at The Concert for Bangladesh. Then there seems to be a lack of Bob and George stories that I can think of, with one notable exception you don’t often hear. George reportedly showed Bob a film of his 1974 Dark Horse Tour, to which Bob advised him to shelve it, and it still hasn’t seen the light of day.

In Scott M. Marshall’s book A Spiritual Life, I read a story that I hadn’t recalled seeing elsewhere before. It begins with Dave Kelly, hired as Dylan’s personal assistant in October 1979 because he met Dylan’s criteria of understanding the music business and being sincere in his Christian faith. Bob’s assignment to Dave was to find representatives from all the major churches in the San Francisco area that he could give free tickets to in exchange for making themselves available after the show to those who might want to learn more about what Bob would be preaching each night from the stage. It turned out none of the churches were interested unless they could be the only ones doing it, and Bob had said there should be a different church each night for two weeks. Dave said, “He was disgusted by it. He could not believe that they would really think like that because that’s so un-Christian. He couldn’t believe they would leave these kids unattended because of their own ego or their own sense of they were right and those other guys were wrong.” Around the same time, Dave goes on to say:

Bob was supposed to have dinner with George Harrison, who was in the same hotel. But what we found out was he had literally just checked out. It was the first time that they would’ve been able to talk in a while and you figure that George is going to talk to Bob about his newfound faith. But apparently George had very quickly checked out right before Dylan arrived which was very, I thought, symbolic of how everybody was treating him-even people that he knew and loved and had been his friend for many years and had admired him. And from George’s perspective, semi-worshipped Dylan, but he was not about to have that meeting and talk about that stuff because maybe he was too afraid of what might happen. I remember Bob saying, ‘He was supposed to meet with me here tonight, to have dinner, and he checked out early.’ I think Dylan took that pretty much as an insult and at the same time, like a ‘Why is he afraid to meet with me? What’s he scared of?’ kind of thing. I never heard any follow-up, like there was an emergency at home or anything, so it just seemed very fishy.

I’ve always thought that Bob going Gospel was more interesting to his music and life, than “going electric.” The first story related by his personal assistant Dave Kelly I think goes a long way to explain why Dylan moved on from Christianity, at least in a formal sense. It’s important to understand that in the context of why I think George may have snubbed Bob. George grew up Catholic, but like Bob had become disenchanted with organized religion, which like all institutions can be extremely flawed. George may have thought this was the place Bob was coming from, and he may have felt this had nothing in common with his own spiritual journey. I don’t recall George cropping up again until Bob’s shows in London in 1981, but by then he had incorporated some secular songs back into the setlist.

Despite the subsequent Wilburys albums, George’s beautiful slide guitar appearance on Bob’s “Under the Red Sky”, and singing “My Back Pages” at “Bobfest”, I somehow feel they were never as close again after the story related above. It breaks my heart that there was never a Wilburys tour, Bob didn’t appear at The Concert for George, and all the new music of Bob’s George never got to hear. Instead, I’ll think of the pinnacle of their musical and personal relationship at The Concert for Bangladesh. “I’d like to bring you on a friend of us all, Mr. Bob Dylan.”

In the film, Slim Pickens character refers to the character played by Katy Jurado as “Mama”. She’s referenced in this way in “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and also the song that would later become “Wagon Wheel”. Perhaps she was still on Dylan’s mind when he wrote “Tough Mama”, which would appear on his next album, Planet Waves.

Dylan does have that mystique that makes him appear to operate outside of time, but surely it’s someone else who inspired “Mama, You’ve Been On My Mind”, written in 1964. All three songs, however, do appear in the early setlists of Bob Dylan’s return to the stage in 1974. Though The Band also is featured in the recorded version of “Tough Mama”, it finds superior form in live performance. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is one of my favorite studio recordings, but also in live performance The Band helps give it new dimensions. However, it’s the solo version of Dylan doing “Mama, You’ve Been On My Mind” that I believe is the finest version of that song I’ve heard.

I’ll admit I seem to always find the latest “new” version of Dylan songs becoming my favorite. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve listened to the previous ones so many times my ear craves something different. Regardless, at the moment, the acoustic songs that have been newly officially released from 1974 I believe are superior to the acoustic renderings from the following year on the Rolling Thunder Review. The end of the Rolling Thunder Revue movie implies that outing was the great impetus for a never-ending amount of touring to follow, but the joy of playing with The Band and the passion that’s burning when it’s just his voice, guitar, and harmonica are now seeming to indicate the fire had already been lit. Perhaps it had even been lit around a campfire in Durango two years before.

Bob: “Remember that song by The Moonglows? What was that called?”

George: “‘Sincerely’? ‘Most of All’?”

Bob: “Nah, the other one.”

George: Oh, ‘Ten Commandments of Love’.”

Bob: “Yeah, that’s it. We should do something like that but invert it.”

Even if “Acne” is a parody, Bob is simply too committed to the performance for there not to be some genuine affection for the style of music.

The same could be said of “Silhouettes” on The Basement Tapes. I was blessed to grow up listening to stacks of my dad’s 45s, including this song by The Rays. I nearly lost it when I heard Bob and The Band slow the tempo while speeding up the vocal phrasing of “I was sore” and “down your door”. Even in this ramshackle performance, Bob is brilliant. This music may have been thought of as square, but it is still part of the soundscape of his youth. It is mixed up with the rest of the medicine down in the basement of Big Pink. As he wrote in “Tarantula”, “You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past.”

Bob has sung “Never Let Me Go” and “It’s All in the Game” live with two of my favorite singing partners of his, Joan Baez and Clydie King. I think these songs can be safely classified as Doo-wop, among other quaint genres. All the best songs occupy multiple spaces. Of the latter, he writes in The Philosophy of Modern Song, “The arrangement is key. You will not hear arrangements like this these days. It is way thought out, with a real live echo chamber on the vocalist, and layered with counterpoint parts of the strings, and communal voices filling in the gaps. But nothing gets in the way.” This song was a favorite of my mom’s mom. Perhaps Bob’s mom Beatty liked it too.

In The Philosophy of Modern Song chapter on “My Prayer”, Bob writes, “The guy in the Platters, Tony Williams, is one of the greatest singers ever… there’s nobody that beats this guy.” I have often thought this, so this was one of the things I was most delighted to read in his book. He goes on, “The Platters don’t need back-alley blues full of flatted notes and double entendres, they carry their soul with a cooler-than-thou looseness, offhand and urbane.” The Platters for me have always been the link between the American songbook of the 1940’s and the rock and rhythm of the 1960’s. In the 1950’s they are simultaneously having hits with the likes of Jerome Kern’s “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and also “The Great Pretender”, which they perform in the rock ‘n’ roll movie, “Rock Around the Clock”.

One of my favorite groups during the last gasp of Doo-wop in the early 1960’s is The Duprees, formed by Italian American guys in Jersey. Trying to capitalize on The Platters’ formula of updating standards, they had a top ten hit with “You Belong to Me”. I like their version of “These Foolish Things” even better. Bob has sung both of these songs.

Dion DiMucci, who started in the group The Belmonts, went on to sing pop, rock, folk, Christian music, you name it. He was the first to record “Abraham, Martin, and John”, which Bob so beautifully covered live with Clydie King. Bob wrote the liner notes for Dion’s 2020 album, “Blues with Friends”, which features the likes of Paul Simon, Van Morrison, and Bruce Springsteen. He wrote, “With a Vaudevillian Father and the Doo-wop street corners of the Bronx as teachers, Dion learned early on that they way to be heard and reach hearts was to sing in his own rhythmic voice… Dion knows how to sing and he knows just the right way to craft these songs.” The liner notes sound an awful lot like a chapter from The Philosophy of Modern Song. The last chapter of that book is Dion’s version of yet another standard being updated, “Where or When”. Bob writes, “When Dion’s voice bursts through for a solo moment in the bridge, it captures that moment of shimmering persistence of memory in a way the printed word can only hint at. But so it is with music, it is of a time but also timeless… music transcends time by living within it.”

This most recent dream though is something I think all of us Bobcats wish would happen to us in real life. You are at an intimate venue for some other reason, and Bob Dylan comes on as a surprise guest. In my dream, it’s the auditorium of Roosevelt Elementary in Melrose, MA. The site of such former triumphs as my lead role as February in the 2nd grade play, which was smart casting the shortest month to be played by someone of my stature, and where I mimed Jackie Wilson’s version of “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” for the talent show in 4th grade. But I digress.

For some reason, Joan Baez is being honored for her lifetime of activism at my elementary school. I’m in the last row, in one of those metal folding chairs that wrestlers swing over each other’s backs. We’ve come to the part of the ceremony where Joan’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement is being highlighted, and the montage being shown on a screen shows Joan and Bob singing at the March on Washington. I turn to whoever is next to me, that I can’t quite make out, and getting choked up I say, “wouldn’t it be something if Bob were actually here? He never does stuff like that though.” Then, lo and behold, Bob is standing right next to me there in the dark. He’s waiting to be called up on stage. He looks exactly like I did the last time I saw him, wearing his open smock of Outlaw Tour fame.

Next thing I know, Bob is doing his set from in front of the stage, down on the floor for some reason. Perhaps they couldn’t get his piano up on the stage. I run up to be stage left, and I’m able to see that Bob is still playing that four-finger piano with the pinky out. I can’t figure out what he is playing, but it sounds like 50s rock n’ roll, something wildly inappropriate to be honoring Joan Baez’s commitment to Civil Rights. Regardless, I yell, “thank you Bobby!” He looks right at me, and with a big smile says, “you’re welcome.”

No footage has emerged from my dream, so even though my dream was in color, I’ll leave you with this beautiful black and white image from Alma Har'el’s Shadow Kingdom. Which according to Definitely Dylan, is a type of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Dylan could easily have been writing about himself. That excerpt comes from the book’s chapter on Darin’s “Beyond the Sea”, in which there is an image of whaling that immediately calls to mind “Moby Dick”, famously referenced by Dylan in his Nobel Lecture among books that have stayed in his imagination. Water is a symbol of dreams, and the flow of life. Dylan writes, “Onwards and onwards you go sailing over the bounding main, and off into the wild blue yonder. Sailing towards your life… you’ve been knocking about on this voyage since forever, riding on the crest of a high rippling wave, heading for a place you never heard of. You’re the skipper.”

Bobby Darin was also a songwriter. Penning songs as unlike each other as “Dream Lover”, “As Long As I’m Singing”, “18 Yellow Roses”, and “Simple Song of Freedom”, which was covered by Tim Hardin. Darin had a hit with Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter”, which Dylan covered with The Band on The Basement Tapes. Darin also put his artistry in service of movements beyond music. He campaigned for Bobby Kennedy. Darin’s manager Steve Blauner said, “whenever they'd be on a plane together, and Bobby would come on and he'd say 'sing my favorite song' and it was ‘Blowin' in the Wind’. Bobby would take the guitar out and play it." Around this time, Darin started to go by Bob Darin, donned denim, and refused to play the hits he was famous for. Sound familiar?

Closing the chapter on “Beyond the Sea”, Dylan writes about Darin’s phrasing, once again applicable to himself. “Time and time again he’ll slip the first few words of a line upstairs into the end of the previous line. He’s very subtle and you don’t realize he’s doing this. But if he sang songs like this straight, it probably wouldn’t reach you. He’s playful. He’s a playful melodist and he doesn’t need words. He keeps it simple even when he’s singing about nothing.”

Enter Definitely Dylan. Nobody has enriched the man and his music for me more than Laura Tenschert. When you listen to the radio show and now podcast, you can hear the joy in her voice, and joyful is exactly how I feel when I am listening to Bob. Laura makes magnificent connections across Dylan’s many artistic mediums, and between him and other artists. She understands that there are no “right” answers, and what can be more satisfying than that for a man who contains multitudes?

Erin Callahan’s Infinity Goes Up on Trial tackles big ideas that fuse Bob Dylan, art, and our shared humanity. She is incredibly articulate and knowledgeable about a wide range of topics, and through her podcast has introduced me to some extraordinary people. Erin is extremely generous in every sense of the word. She believes that everyone should have a voice at the Dylan table. Nobody is considered as having more or less value or quantifying their contributions based on their credentials.

Case in point, Roberta Rakove. I know she doesn’t consider herself any kind of serious Dylanologist, but the reality is she has an incredible amount of wisdom and enthusiasm to offer. See her fun and informative exploration of The Man in Me or read her poignant Bob Dylan and Our Plague Years. She is passionate about politics, and I am inspired by her devotion to action. I find this a natural extension of Dylan, because if he was only once identified specifically with social activism, he continues to remain an artist committed to truth and justice. She is also the only other person I know who likes the song “Joey” as much as I do.

Henry Bernstein is a renaissance man. He is a wonderful conversationalist as evidenced by his not one, not two, but three podcasts! He is my favorite Twitter feed to follow not just because it is full of delightful original Dylan content like his Taylor Swift Mashup, but because it is so eclectic. He somehow manages to make me interested in things I know nothing about, like Star Trek and comic book movies, while bringing me back to things I once followed more closely like baseball and WWE. I want to talk to him just as much about the Coen Brothers and Michael Chabon as I do Bob Dylan.

I like to celebrate what I consider Dylanologists’ own proper art, inspired by Dylan’s art. The community around Dylan has added a whole other dimension to my appreciation. They are truly some of the kindest and most interesting people I have ever met in real life and online. Whatever the next big news item is in Dylanland, we’ll be processing it together.

He is a very funny person! Yet there is also a deep introspection, a searching, sometimes rage or hurt, but never sadness. Sad is not a word I would use to describe his music. It could even be apocalyptic. As Erin Callahan noted in The Power and Politics of Bob Dylan’s Live Performances, he said, “well after the apocalypse there will be something else.” It is never over with Dylan. He is in perpetual motion, and it is simply beautiful.

I love the way he sings. His phrasing is so intoxicating, and he has an extremely expressive voice. Couple that with the extraordinary musicians he surrounds himself with and it makes for incredible listening. They are all fabulous. You are not just getting him, there is The Band, Joan Baez, Jim Keltner, Clydie King, Sly and Robbie, The Heartbreakers, Grateful Dead, Tony Garnier, Charlie Sexton, and the list goes on.

He is a fan of music and is a knowledgeable historian on it as well. He is amazing at taking songs written by others and making them his own. He is so eclectic with his choices that you can go to him for any type of music. I connect with his artistic instinct. I can hear a song by another artist, but then he will do something with it that stops me in my tracks.

There are many wonderful versions of his songs by other artists, which is a testament to his craft. He has built songs that will last. When he changes up his own songs, I am in awe of how malleable they are. Dylan is like a cicada to me. About every seventeen years he hits a phase that contains a few more of my favorites than other periods. 1963-65, 80-83, 97-2001, and 2020+. Rough and Rowdy Ways is a remarkable album, and The Tour is equally, if not more astounding. 

I saw a sensational show in the fall of 2019, and the trend continued in 2021, 2023, and 2024. The first time I saw him do “False Prophet” with such swagger, it made me cry. If that sounds like a strange song for such a reaction, it was actually the sight of him that did it. His pose to me seemed to be straight out of 1966. Sitting in the front row and hearing him debut “Footlights” in Boston was magical. When he came out from behind the piano at the end of the show and was ten feet away from me, he just looked magnificent, soaking in the adulation. His harp playing last month on “Shooting Star” moved me to tears. Now it was sound that had put me outside of time.

If I ever meet the man, I will say “Mr. Bob”, like how he said “Mr. Frank” at Sinatra’s 80th birthday. I would not address him as Dylan, because that is not a person, that is his creation. He is Bob, and since I do not know him personally but do want to acknowledge him as a person and not just an artist, “Mr. Bob” seems like a nice compromise. I would just say, “Thank you for doing what you do, and sharing your gifts with all of us.” I like to show people appreciation, and thinking about the person versus the artist, I would want to convey that I know the art he makes comes at a cost to him. I feel blessed to exist on the planet at the same as Bob Dylan.

If Gene Clark was arguably the prime creative energy in The Byrds, he most certainly was the most gifted singer and songwriter. In the beginning, The Byrds should have been the perfect vehicle for Gene Clark to emerge as the force he was. Ironically, it's a Dylan composition that will propel The Byrds to superstardom, but without Gene at the helm. It's unfortunate no tape has surfaced of Gene's first try at Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", but regardless, it's not surprising that Roger McGuinn delivered what was deemed the more convincing vocal for the moment at hand. McGuinn's track record in The Byrds shows his ability to mold his vocals into the required style, and this would be the first of two number 1's with him as the lead vocalist. Perhaps Gene's own style of strumming and singing was too original to fit into someone's else's trip.

Despite this, Dylan himself recognized how special Gene's gifts were. "Gene Clark intrigues me more and more." Derek Taylor attributed this quote to Dylan in promotional materials for The Byrds in late 1965 and 1966. This would have been around the time of "Set You Free This Time", a wonderful Byrds recording that is often cited as an example of one of Gene's most Dylanesque tracks. To me though, it's pure Gene Clark. It's a great place to start your exploration of his music, because I feel it was his strongest composition to date, and it has all the elements that flourish in his later art in terms of tender vocals, beautiful melodies, and introspective and complex lyrics.

Clark's 1971 album "White Light" includes Dylan and Richard Manuel's "Tears of Rage", and features the congas and percussion of Bobbye Hall, who would later join Dylan on his 1978 world tour. "White Light" should be recognized more widely as one of the great singer-songwriter albums in a decade famed for them. Whether the musicians that have followed have realized it or not, they are deeply indebted to what Gene achieves on this album. It beautifully captures Gene's ability to fuse folk and country into a popular formula that continues to delight listeners. From this album comes "For A Spanish Guitar", which Dylan has called "something I or anybody else would have been proud to have written." (Byrd Lives: Cult Hero Gene Clark's 21 Best Songs (rollingstone.com) High praise indeed.

I really think Gene's 1974 album "No Other" should have an entire book written about it, but I'll single out Strength of Strings as one of the highlights, which Dylan fans will recognize as a phrase from 1963's "Lay Down Your Weary Tune". There's another interesting Dylan connection with this album, and that is Clydie King's participation as a vocalist on it. (No Other - Wikipedia) King would go on to be an invaluable presence in Dylan's touring band in the early 80's, and on his records in the first half of the decade. It's hard to imagine Dylan hadn't heard “No Other” as he was preparing his seminal album the following year, "Blood on the Tracks". "No Other" has more studio production than any other album of Clark's. While that may not be true for Dylan on "Blood on the Tracks", he did choose to pivot away from more sparse and acoustic tracks to ones with more instrumentation, and even sped up the vocals for a more commercial sound.

When Gene released his version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" in the 80's, Clark's producer "Tommy Kaye phoned excitedly with news that Dylan was enthusing about Clark's cover of 'Mr. Tambourine Man'. 'Dylan said it was one of the best versions he'd heard. He really loved it.'" Listening to Gene's majestic version, it's not hard to believe, especially when Dylan himself loves to continually reinterpret his own songs.

Dylan's work in the 80's has certainly been getting a long overdue reappraisal as of late, and there is a lot of greatness in Gene's output in this decade as well. A song that is already well acknowledged by Gene's fans is “Gypsy Rider”. I hear a possible inspiration from two decades earlier in Dylan's "Gates of Eden" in the line "The motorcycle black Madonna, two-wheeled gypsy queen", and Clark's own biker tune.

Why do I love both Gene Clark and Bob Dylan? Perhaps Jimmi Seiter, someone who has worked in the music industry in many capacities for many artists, has found the key ingredient that they share. "... Gene was more like Bob Dylan. He'd pick up a guitar and play and if one string was out of tune, he thought, 'OK, I'll live with that.' Gene didn't care whether he was in tune or not. It didn't matter to him - and that's the way Dylan was. They both liked to sit down and play whenever they felt like it."

Many thanks and appreciation to the late Byrds biographer Johnny Rogan for his exhaustive research and wonderful writing in Requiem for the Timeless, Volumes 1 and 2, in which the above quotes appear.

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