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Bob Dylan The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin’

Another Side Of Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home Highway 61 Revisited Blonde On Blonde Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits John Wesley Harding

Nashville Skyline Self Portrait New Morning Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid Dylan
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Planet Waves Before The Flood Blood On The Tracks The Basement Tapes Desire Hard Rain

Street-Legal Bob Dylan At Budokan Slow Train Coming Saved Shot Of Love Infidels

Real Live Empire Burlesque Biograph Knocked Out Loaded Dylan & The Dead Down In The Groove
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Oh Mercy Under The Red Sky The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 Good As I Been To You The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration World Gone Wrong

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 MTV Unplugged Time Out Of Mind The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 The Essential Bob Dylan “Love And Theft”

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5 The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7 The Best Of Bob Dylan Modern Times Rare Tracks from the Vaults
 You’re No Good Gospel Plow
Talkin’ New York Baby, Let Me
In My Time Of Dyin’ Follow You Down
Man Of Constant Sorrow House Of The Risin’ Sun
Fixin’ To Die Freight Train Blues
Pretty Peggy-O Song To Woody
Highway 51 Blues See That My
Grave Is Kept Clean

01 The first album by the unknown 20 year-old, produced by legendary record ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
company executive John Hammond, who had also discovered Billie Holiday, ALBUMS 3
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Count Basie and guitar genius Charlie Christian. In November 1961 Dylan
entered the studio alone with his guitar (and harmonica) and recorded an
album full of the kinds of traditional songs he had been busy absorbing in
Minneapolis and Greenwich Village. Although sometimes thought of as merely
a warm-up for the great things to come, Bob Dylan already showed that the
young singer paid little mind to the folk orthodoxies of his moment, mixing
Anglo-American folk material such as “Man of Constant Sorrow” and “Pretty
Peggy-O” with blues-based material like Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My
Grave Is Kept Clean” and Bukka White’s “Fixin’ To Die.” The album contained
only two original songs, a talking blues about his arrival in New York City, and
the fine “Song To Woody,” an homage to balladeer Woody Guthrie, Dylan’s idol
at the time he arrived in New York City. Bob Dylan was issued in March 1962
to poor sales, and its star was dubbed “Hammond’s Folly” around the Columbia
Records offices. But not for long.

Bob Dylan
Produced by John Hammond
Released on March 19, 1962
 Blowin’ In The Wind
Girl From
The North Country
Masters Of War
Down The Highway
Bob Dylan’s Blues
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Don’t Think
Twice, It’s All Right
Bob Dylan’s Dream
Oxford Town
Talkin’ World War III Blues
Corrina, Corrina
Honey, Just Allow
Me One More Chance
I Shall Be Free

02 A giant step forward, Dylan’s second album, released in the spring of 1963, is ALBUMS 1
THE FREEWHEELIN’ ALBUMS 2
BOB DYLAN still one of the finest in his recorded oeuvre. With the exception of the ALBUMS 3
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traditional “Corrina, Corrina” and “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance,” it
is made up entirely of Dylan originals, including “Blowin’ In The Wind,” which
became the Dylan song most recorded by other artists, eventually including
Peter, Paul & Mary, Elvis Presley, Marlene Dietrich and Duke Ellington. As he
would do for another couple of years, Dylan performs solo (except on “Corrina”),
delivering songs that were increasingly political (“Masters of War,” “Oxford
Town,” and the quasi-apocalyptic “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”) and increasingly
crystallized presentations of a persona that could deliver love songs like “Don’t
Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Girl From The North Country” as well as playful,
wry sketches like “Bob Dylan’s Blues” and “I Shall Be Free.” Freewheelin’ was
such an advance over Dylan’s debut that it overwhelmed nearly everyone, and
established him both as the fastest-rising star in the folk music world and its
most powerful songwriter.

Blowin’ in the Wind Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

Girl From the North Country Bob Dylan’s Dream
Masters of War Oxford Town
Down the Highway Talkin’ World War III Blues
Bob Dylan’s Blues Corrina, Corrina
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance
I Shall Be Free

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
Produced by John Hammond
Released on May 27, 1963
 THE FREEWHEELIN’ BOB DYLAN original liner notes
Of all the precipitously emergent singers of folk
songs in the continuing renascence of that self-
assertive tradition, none has equaled Bob Dylan
singularity of impact. As Harry Jackson, a cowboy
singer and a painter, has exclaimed: “He’s so
goddamned real it’s unbelievable!” The irrepressible
reality of Bob Dylan is a compound of spontaneity,
candor, slicing wit and an uncommonly perceptive
03
eye and ear for the way many of us constrict our
capacity for living while a few of us don’t.
Not yet twenty-two at the time of this albums
release, Dylan is growing at a swift, experience-
hungry rate. In these performances, there is already
a marked change from his first album (Bob Dylan,
Columbia CL 1779/CS 8579), and there will surely be
many further dimensions of Dylan to come. What
makes this collection particularly arresting that it
consists in large part of Dylan’s own compositions
The resurgence of topical folk songs has become
a pervasive part of the folk movement among city
singers, but few of the young bards so far have
demonstrated a knowledge of the difference between
well-intentioned pamphleteering and the creation
of a valid musical experience. Dylan has. As the
highly critical editors of Little Sandy Review have
noted, “...right now, he is certainly our finest
contemporary folk song writer. Nobody else really
even comes close.”
The details of Dylan’s biography were summa-
rized in the notes to his first Columbia album; but to
recapitulate briefly, he was born on May 24, 1941,
in Duluth, Minnesota. His experience with adjusting
himself to new sights and sounds started early.
During his first nineteen years, he lived in Gallup,
New Mexico: Cheyenne, South Dakota; Sioux Falls,
South Dakota; Phillipsburg, Kansas; Hibbing,
Minnesota (where he was graduated from high
school), and Minneapolis (where he spent a restless
six months at the University of Minnesota).
“Everywhere he went,” Gil Turner wrote in his
article on Dylan in Sing Out, “his ears were wide
open for the music around him. He listened to the
blues singers, cowboy singers, pop singers and
others—soaking up music and styles with an
uncanny memory and facility for assimilation.
Gradually, his own preferences developed and
became more , the strongest areas being Negro
blues and county music. Among the musicians and
singers who influenced him were Hank Williams,
Muddy Waters, Jelly Roll Morton, Leadbelly, Mance
Lipscomb and Big Joe Williams.” And, above all
others, Woody Guthrie. At ten he was playing guitar,
and by the age of fifteen, Dylan had taught himself
piano, harmonica and autoharp.
In February 1961, Dylan came East, primarily to
visit Woody Guthrie at the Greystone Hospital in New
Jersey. The visits have continued, and Guthrie has
expressed approval of Dylan’s first album, being
particularly fond of the “Song to Woody” in it. By
September of 1961, Dylan’s singing in Greenwich
Village, especially at Gerde’s Folk City, had ignited a
nucleus of singers and a few critics (notably Bob
Shelton of The New York Times) into exuberant
appreciation of his work. Since then, Dylan has
inexorably increased the scope of his American
audiences while also performing briefly in London
and Rome.
The first of Dylan’s songs in this set is “Blowin’
in the Wind.” In 1962, Dylan said of the song’s
background: “I still say that some of the biggest
criminals are those that turn their heads away when
they see wrong and they know it’s wrong. I’m only
21 years old and I know that there’s been too many
wars...You people over 21 should know better.” All
that he prefers to add by way of commentary now is:
“The first way to answer these questions in the song
is by asking them. But lots of people have to first
find the wind.” On this track, and except when
otherwise noted, Dylan is heard alone—accompa-
nying himself on guitar and harmonica.
“Girl From the North Country” was first
conceived by Bob Dylan about three years before he
finally wrote it down in December 1962. “That often ALBUMS 1
happens,” he explains. “I carry a song in my head ALBUMS 2
for a long time and then it comes bursting out.” The ALBUMS 3
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song-and Dylan’s performance-reflect his particular
kind of lyricism. The mood is a fusion of yearning,
poignancy and simple appreciation of a beautiful
girl. Dylan illuminates all these corners of his vision,
but simultaneously retains his bristling sense of
self. He’s not about to go begging anything from this
girl up north.
“Masters of War” startles Dylan himself. “I’ve
never really written anything like that before,” he
recalls. “I don’t sing songs which hope people will
die, but I couldn’t help it in this one. The song is a
sort of striking out, a reaction to the last straw, a
feeling of what can you do?” The rage (which is as
much anguish as it is anger) is a away of catharsis,
a way of getting temporary relief from the heavy
feeling of impotence that affects many who cannot
understand a civilization which juggles its own
means for oblivion and calls that performance an
act toward peace.
“Down the Highway” is a distillation of Dylan’s
feeling about the blues. “The way I think about the
blues,” he says, “comes from what I learned from
Big Joe Williams. The blues is more than something
to sit home and arrange. What made the real blues
singers so great is that they were able to state all
the problems they had; but at the same time, they
 were standing outside them and could look at
them. And in that way, they had them beat. What’s
depressing today is that many young singers are
trying to get inside the blues, forgetting that
those older singers used them to get outside
their troubles.”
“Bob Dylan’s Blues” was composed spontane-
ously. It’s one of what he calls his “really off-the-
cuff songs. I start with an idea, and then I feel what
follows. Best way I can describe this one is that it’s
sort of like walking by a side street. You gaze in and
walk on.”
“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” represents to
04
Dylan a maturation of his feelings on this subject
since the earlier and almost as powerful “Let Me Die
in My Footsteps,” which is not included here but
which was released as a single record by Columbia.
Unlike most of his song-writing contemporaries
among city singers, Dylan doesn’t simply make a
polemical point in his compositions. As in this sing
about the psychopathology of peace-through-
balance-of-terror, Dylan’s images are multiply (and
sometimes horrifyingly) evocative. As a result, by
transmuting his fierce convictions into what can
only be called art, Dylan reaches basic emotions
which few political statements or extrapolations of
statistics have so far been able to touch. Whether a
song or a singer can then convert others is
something else again.
“’Hard Rain,’” adds Dylan, “is a desperate kind
of song.” It was written during the Cuban missile
crisis of October 1962 when those who allowed
themselves to think of the impossible results of the
Kennedy-Khrushchev confrontation were chilled by
the imminence of oblivion. “Every line in it,” says
Dylan, “is actually the start of a whole song. But
when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn’t have enough
time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could
into this one.” Dylan treats “Don’t Think Twice, It’s
All Right” differently from most city singers. “A lot
of people,” he says, “make it sort of a love song-
slow and easy-going. But it isn’t a love song. It’s a
statement that maybe you can say to make yourself
feel better. It’s as if you were talking to yourself. It’s
a hard song to sing. I can sing it sometimes, but I
ain’t that good yet. I don’t carry myself yet the way
that Big Joe Williams, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and
Lightnin’ Hopkins have carried themselves. I hope to
be able to someday, but they’re older people. I
sometimes am able to do it, but it happens, when it
happens, unconsciously. You see, in time, with those
old singers, music was a tool-a way to live more, a
way to make themselves feel better at certain points.
As for me, I can make myself feel better some
times, but at other times, it’s still hard to go to sleep
at night.” Dylan’s accompaniment on this track
includes Bruce Langhorne (guitar), George Barnes
(bass guitar), Dick Wellstood (piano), Gene Ramey
(bass) and Herb Lovelle (drums).
“Bob Dylan’s Dream” is another of his songs
which was transported for a time in his mind before
being written down. It was initially set off after all-
night conversation between Dylan and Oscar Brown,
Jr., in Greenwich Village. “Oscar,” says Dylan, “is a
groovy guy and the idea of this came from what we
were talking about.” The song slumbered, however,
until Dylan went to England in the winter of 1962.
There he heard a singer (whose name he recalls as
Martin Carthy) perform Lord Franklin, and that old
melody found a new adapted home in Bob Dylan’s
Dream. The song is a fond looking back at the easy
camaraderie and idealism of the young when they
are young. There is also in the Dream a wry but sad
requiem for the friendships that have evaporated
as different routes, geographical and otherwise,
are taken.
Of Oxford Town, Dylan notes with laughter that
“it’s a banjo tune I play on the guitar.” Otherwise,
this account of the ordeal of James Meredith speaks
grimly for itself.
“Talking World War III Blues” was about half
formulated beforehand and half improvised at the
recording session itself. The “talking blues” form is
tempting to many young singers because it seems
so pliable and yet so simple. However, the simpler a
form, the more revealing it is of the essence of the
performer. There’s no place to hide in the talking
blues. Because Bob Dylan is so hugely and quixoti-
cally himself, he is able to fill all the space the
talking blues affords with unmistakable originality.
In this piece, for example, he has singularly distilled
the way we all wish away our end, thermonuclear or
“natural.” Or at least, the way we try to.
“Corrina, Corrina” has been considerably
changed by Dylan. “I’m not one of those guys who
ALBUMS 1
goes around changing songs just for the sake of ALBUMS 2
changing them. But I’d never heard Corrina, Corrina ALBUMS 3
exactly the way it first was, so that this version is SONGS
the way it came out of me.” As he indicates here,
Dylan can be tender without being sentimental and
his lyricism is laced with unabashed passion. The
accompaniment is Dick Wellstood (piano), Howie
Collins (guitar), Bruce Langhorne (guitar), Leonard
Gaskin (bass) and Herb Lovelle (drums).
“Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance” was
first heard by Dylan from a recording by a now-dead
Texas blues singer. Dylan can only remember that
his first name was Henry. “What especially stayed
with me,” says Dylan, “was the plea in the title.”
Here Dylan distills the buoyant expectancy of the
love search.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Dylan isn’t
limited to one or two ways of feeling his music. He
can be poignant and mocking, angry and exultant,
reflective and whoopingly joyful. The final I Shall Be
Free is another of Dylan’s off-the-cuff songs in
which he demonstrates the vividness, unpredictability
and cutting edge of his wit.
This album, in sum, is the protean Bob Dylan as
of the time of the recording. By the next recording,
there will be more new songs and insights and
experiences. Dylan can’t stop searching and looking
and reflecting upon what he sees and hears.
 “Anything I can sing,” he observes, “I call a song.
Anything I can’t sing, I call a poem. Anything I can’t
sing or anything that’s too long to be a poem, I call
a novel. But my novels don’t have the usual story
lines. They’re about my feelings at a certain place at
a certain time.” In addition to his singing and song
writing, Dylan is working on three “novels.” One is
about the week before he came to New York and his
initial week in that city. Another is about South
Dakota people he knew. And the third is about New
York and a trip from New York to New Orleans.
Throughout everything he writes and sings, there
is the surge of a young man looking into as many
05 ALBUMS 1
diverse scenes and people as he can find (“Every ALBUMS 2
once in a while I got to ramble around”) and of a ALBUMS 3
man looking into himself. “The most important thing SONGS

I know I learned from Woody Guthrie,” says Dylan.

“I’m my own person. I’ve got basic common rights-
whether I’m here in this country or any other place.
I’ll never finish saying everything I feel, but I’ll be
doing my part to make some sense out of the way
we’re living, and not living, now. All I’m doing is
saying what’s on my mind the best way I know how.
And whatever else you say about me, everything I
do and sing and write comes out of me.”
It is this continuing explosion of a total
individual, a young man growing free rather than
absurd, that makes Bob Dylan so powerful and so
personal and so important a singer. As you can
hear in these performances.

— Nat Hentoff

Mr. Hentoff is a frequent distributor to such periodicals

as The Reporter, The New Yorker, Playboy, Commonweal
and The Village Voice and is a Contributing Editor to
HiFi/Stereo Review.
 The Times
They Are A-Changin’
Ballad Of Hollis Brown
With God On Our Side
One Too Many Mornings
North Country Blues
06
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Produced by Tom Wilson
Released on February 10, 1964
Only A Pawn In Their Game
Boots Of Spanish Leather
When The Ship Comes In
The Lonesome
Death Of Hattie Carroll
Restless Farewell
Dylan’s third album consisted entirely of his original songs, including the ALBUMS 1
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anthemic title track, which remains one of his best-known compositions. The ALBUMS 3
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album, recorded within weeks of Dylan’s August 1963 appearance at the March
on Washington alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., and released only two months
after President Kennedy was assassinated, contains several of Dylan’s most
potent socially conscious songs, including “Only A Pawn In Their Game,” about
the killing of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie
Carroll,” and the antiwar classic “With God On Our Side.” It solidified Dylan’s
position at the top of the folk music world and made him the pacesetter for
many other “protest” singer-songwriters of the time, including Phil Ochs
and Tom Paxton. But Dylan may already have been getting restless with the
“voice of a generation” label that was being hung on him. The dark-tinged,
introspective “Restless Farewell” and “One Too Many Mornings,” with their
compressed imagery and wanderlust, indicated that he had more on his mind
than being the next Woody Guthrie.
ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
 THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’ original liner notes
11 Outlined Epitaphs
By Bob Dylan

I end up then useless an’ unnecessary I stop an’ smile

in the early evenin’ the blast it’s true an’ rest awhile
blindly punchin’ at the blind startled me back but for a spell watchin’ the candles
breathin’ heavy content with of sundown dim
stutterin’ all pictures, posters an’ the like unnoticed
an’ blowin’ up that’re painted for me unnoticed for my eyes’re closed
where t’ go? ah but I turned
what is it that’s exactly wrong? an’ the nex’ time I looked __________
07
who t’ picket? the gloves of garbage ALBUMS 1
who t’ fight? had clobbered the canvas The town I was born in holds no memories ALBUMS 2
behind what windows leavin’ truckloads of trash but for the honkin’ foghorns ALBUMS 3
SONGS
will I at least clutterin’ the colors the rainy mist
hear someone from the supper table with a blindin’ sting the rocky cliffs
get up t’ ask forcin’ me t’ once again I have carried no feelings
“did I hear someone outside just now?” slam the shutters of my eyes up past the Lake Superior hills
yesterday but also me to wonderin’ the town I grew up in is the one
an hour ago when they’ll open that has left me with my legacy visions
it came t’ me much much stronger it was not a rich town
in a second’s flash than anyone whose own eyes’re my parents were not rich
an’ was all so clear aimed over here at mine it was not a poor town
it still is now “when will he open up his eyes?” an’ my parents were not poor
yes it is “who him? doncha know? he’s a crazy man it was a dyin’ town
it’s maybe hidin’ he never opens up his eyes” (it was a dyin’ town)
it must be hidin’ “but he’ll surely miss the world go by” a train line cuts the ground
the shot has shook “nah! he lives in his own world” showin’ where the fathers an’ mothers
me up . . . for I’ve never “my my then he really must be a crazy man” of me an’ my friends had picked
heard that sound before “yeah he’s a crazy man” up an’ moved from
bringing wild thoughts at first north Hibbing
ragged wild an’ so on spangled streets t’ south Hibbing.
numb wild an’ country roads old north Hibbing . . .
now though they’ve leveled out I hear sleigh bells deserted
an’ been wrung out jingle jangle already dead
leavin’ nothin’ but the strangeness virgin girls with its old stone courthouse
the roots within a washed-out cloth far into the field decayin’ in the wind
drippin’ from the clothesline pole sing an’ laugh long abandoned
strange thoughts with flickerin’ voices windows crashed out
doubtin’ thoughts softly fadin’ the breath of its broken walls
 being smothered in clingin’ moss an’ the young people the underground’s gone deeper
the old school runnin’ yes . . . says the old chimney sweeper
where my mother went to but stoppin’ for a while the underground’s outa work
rottin’ shiverin’ but still livin’ embracin’ what I left sing the bells of New York
standin’ cold an’ lonesome an’ lovin’ it-for I learned by now the underground’s more dangerous
arms cut off never t’ expect ring the bells of Los Angeles
with even the moon bypassin’ its jagged body what it cannot give me the underground’s gone
pretendin’ not t’ see cry the bells of San Juan
an’ givin’ it its final dignity __________ but where has it gone to
dogs howled over the graveyard ring the bells of Toronto
where even the markin’ stones were dead In times behind, I too
an’ there was no sound except for the wind wished I’d lived strength now shines through my window
blowin’ through the high grass in the hungry thirties regainin’ me an’ rousin’ me
08 ALBUMS 1
an’ the bricks that fell back an’ blew in Woody day by day ALBUMS 2
t’ the dirt from a slight stab t’ New York City from the weariness ALBUMS 3
of the breeze . . . it was as though an’ sang for dimes of walkin’ with ghosts SONGS

the rains of wartime had on subway trains that rose an’ had risen
left the land bombed-out an’ shattered satisfied at a nickel fare from the ruins an’ remains
an’ passin’ the hat of the model T past
south Hibbing an’ hittin’ the bars even though I clutched t’ its sheet
is where everybody came t’ start their on eighth avenue I was still refused
town again. but the winds of the an’ makin’ the rounds an’ left confused
north came followin’ an’ grew fiercer t’ the union halls for there was nobody there
an’ the years went by but when I came in t’ let me in
but I was young the fares were higher a wasteland wind whistled
an’ so I ran up t’ fifteen cents an’ climbin’ from behind the billboard “there’s nobody home
an’ kept runnin’ . . . an’ those bars that Woody’s guitar all has moved out”
rattled . . . they’ve changed flatly denied
I am still runnin’ I guess they’ve been remodeled I turned indeed
but my road has seen many changes an’ those union halls flinched at first
for I’ve served my time as a refugee like the cio but said “ok
in mental terms an’ in physical terms an’ the nmu I get the message”
an’ many a fear has vanished come now! can you see’em feelin’ unwanted? no
an’ many an attitude has fallen needin’ me unloved? no
an’ many a dream has faded for a song I felt nothin’
an’ I know I shall meet the snowy North or two for there was nobody there
again-but with changed eyes nex’ time ‘round I didn’t see no one
t’ walk lazily down its streets ah where are those forces of yesteryear? t’ want or unwant
an’ linger by the edge of town why didn’t they meet me here to love or unlove
find old friends if they’re still around an’ greet me here? maybe they’re there
talk t’ the old people but won’t let me in
 not takin’ chances everything that will fight those silent
on the ones the grittin’ of my teeth forces (be them human or otherwise)” hungry
for only a second oh what is the name of this gallant group? watchin’ waitin’
would mean lead me t’ the ballot box from high mountains
my mind has just been what man do we run? an’ me just walkin’
swallowed whole how many votes will it take butterflies in my head
an’ so I step back t’ the street for a new set of teeth an’ bitter by now
an’ then turn further down the road in the congress mouths? (here! take this kid an’ learn it well
poundin’ on doors how many hands have t’ be raised but why sir? my arms’re so heavy
lost? before hair will grow back I said take it. it’ll do yuh good
not really on the white house head? but I ain’t learned last night’s lesson yet.
just out lookin’ a Boston tea party don’t mean the am I gonna have t’ get mad with you?
a stranger? same thing . . . as it did in the newborn no no gimme gimme just stick it on top
09 ALBUMS 1
no not a stranger but rather someone years before. even the a the rest a the stuff ALBUMS 2
who just doesn’t live here meanin’ of the word here! if yuh learn it well yuh’ll ALBUMS 3
never pretendin’ t’ be knowin’ has changed. ha get an A . . . an’ don’t do anything SONGS

what’s worth seekin’ ha . . . t’ say the least I wouldn’t do)

but at least yes that party is truly gone and with each new brightnin’ phrase
without ghosts by my side but where is the party t’ dump the feelings more messy
t’ betray my childishness of the fiery cross burners till I found myself almost swallowed
t’ leadeth me down false trails an’ flamin’ match carriers? deep in burden
an’ maketh me drink from muddy waters if there was such a party spinnin’
yes it is I they would’ve been dumped walkin’ slower
who is poundin’ at your door long before this . . . who is supposed heavier heavier
if it is inside t’ dump ‘em now? glassy-eyed
who hears the noise when all can see their threads hang weak but at last I heard
but still hold strong the eagle drool
_______________ loyal but dyin’ as I zombie strolled
fightin’ for breath up past the foothills
Jim Jim who then will kill its misery? thunderstruck
where is our party? what sea shall we pollute? an’ I stopped cold
where all member’s held equal when told t’ learn an’ bellowed
an’ vow t’ infiltrate that thought what others know “I don’t wanna learn no more
among the people it hopes t’ serve in order for a soothin’ life I had enough”
an’ sets a respected road an’ t’ conquer many a brainwashed dream an’ I took a deep breath
for all of those like me I was set forth the forces on records an’ books turned around
who cry from the forces that were sold t’ me an’ ran for my life
“I am ragin’ly against absolutely an’ could be found in hung-up style shoutin’ shoutin’
everything that wants t’ force nature wanderin’ through crowded valleys back t’ the highway
t’ be unnatural (be it human or otherwise) searchin’ for what others knew away from the mountain
an’ I am violently for absolutely with the eagles’ shadows not carin’ no more
 what people knew about things
but rather how they felt about things
runnin’ down another road
through time an’ dignity
an’ I have never taken off my boots
no matter how the miles have burnt
my feet . . .
an’ I’m still on that road, Jim
I’m still sleepin’ at night by its side
an’ eatin’ where it’ll lead me t’ food
where state lines don’t stand
an’ knowledge don’t count
when feelings are hurt
10
an’ I am on the side a them hurt feelings
plunged on by unsensitive hammers
an’ made t’ bleed by rusty nails
an’ I look t’ you, Jim
where is the party for those kind of feelings?
how’re the gamblers that wheel an’ deal an’
shuffle ‘em around gonna be got outa the game?
from here in
beyond this
an’ from now on
__________
Al’s wife claimed I can’t be happy
as the New Jersey night ran backwards
an’ vanished behind our rollin’ ear
“I dig the colors outside, an’ I’m happy”
“but you sing such depressin’ songs”
“but you say so on your terms”
“but my terms aren’t so unreal”
“yes but they’re still your terms”
“but what about others that think
in those terms”
“Lenny Bruce says there’re no dirty
words . . . just dirty minds an’ I say there’re
no depressed words just depressed minds”
“but how’re you happy an’ when ‘re you happy”
“I’m happy enough now”
“why?” in the world
“cause I’m calmly lookin’ outside an’ watchin’ an’ a million instincts
the night unwind” runnin’ wild
“what’d yuh mean unwind?” an’ it’s none too many times
“I mean somethin’ like there’s no end t’ it the two shall meet)
an’ it’s so big the unseen idols create the fear
that every time I see it it’s like seein’ an’ trample hope when busted
for the first time” Woody never made me fear
“so what?” and he didn’t trample any hopes
“so anything that ain’t got no end’s for he just carried a book of Man
just gotta be poetry in one an’ gave it t’ me t’ read awhile
way or another” an’ from it I learned my greatest lesson
“yeah, but . . . “
ALBUMS 1
“an’ poetry makes me feel good” you ask “how does it feel t’ be an idol?” ALBUMS 2
“but . . .” it’d be silly of me t’ answer, wouldn’t it . . .? ALBUMS 3
“an’ poetry makes me feel happy” SONGS
“ok but . . . “ __________
“for the lack of a better word”
“but what about the songs you sing on stage?” A Russian has three an’ a half red eyes
“they’re nothin’ but the unwindin’ of five flamin’ antennas
my happiness” drags a beet-colored ball an’ chain
an’ wants t’ slip germs
__________ into my Coke machine
“burn the tree stumps at the border”
Woody Guthrie was my last idol about the sex-hungry lunatics
he was the last idol out warmongerin’ in the early mornin’
because he was the first idol “poison the sky so the planes won’t come”
I’d ever met yell the birch colored knights with
face t’ face patriotic shields
that men are men “an’ murder all the un-Americans”
shatterin’ even himself say the card-carryin’ American
as an idol book burners
an’ that men have reasons (yes we burned five books last week)
for what they do as my friend, Bobby Lee,
an’ what they say walks back an’ forth
an’ every action can be questioned free now from his native Harlem
leavin’ no command where his ma still sleeps at night
untouched an’ took for granted hearin’ rats inside the sink
obeyed an’ bowed down to an’ underneath her hardwood bed
forgettin’ your own natural instincts an’ walls of holes
(for there’re a million reasons where the cold comes in
 scared carves many castles rally ‘round all you prosecutin’ attorneys
wrapped in blankets on what has been opened the world is but a courtroom
an’ she, God knows, before my time yes
is kind a word, a tune, a story, a line but I now the defendants better ‘n you
an’ gentle keys in the wind t’ unlock my mind and while you’re busy prosecutin’
ain’t there no closer villains an’ t’ grant my closet thoughts backyard air we’re busy whistlin’
that the baby-eaten’ Russians it is not of me t’ sit an’ ponder cleanin’ up the courthouse
rats eat babies too wonderin’ an’ wastin’ time sweepin’ sweepin’
thinkin’ of thoughts that haven’t been thunk listenin’ listenin’
I talked with one thinkin’ of dreams that haven’t been dreamt winkin’ t’ one another
of the sons of Germany an’ new ideas that haven’t been wrote careful
while walkin’ once on foreign ground an’ new words t’ fit into rhyme careful
an’ I learned that (if it rhymes, it rhymes your spot is comin’ up soon
11 ALBUMS 1
he regards if it don’t, it don’t ALBUMS 2
Adolf Hitler if it comes, it comes __________ ALBUMS 3
as we here in the states if it won’t, it won’t) SONGS

regard Oh where were these magazines

Robert E. Lee no I must react an’ spit fast
with weapons of words
fasten up your holster wrapped in tunes
mr. gunslinger that’ve rolled through the simple years
an’ buy new bolts teasin’ me t’ treat them right
for your neck t’ reshape them an’ restring them
there is only up wing t’ protect my own world
an’ down wing from the mouths of all those
who’d eat it
last night I dreamt an’ hold it back from eatin’ its own food
that while healin’ ceiling (influences?
up in Harlem hundreds thousands
I saw Canada ablaze perhaps millions
an’ nobody knowin’ for all songs lead back t’ the sea
nothin’ about it an’ at one time, there was
except of course no singin’ tongue t’ imitate it)
who held the match t’ make new sounds out of old sounds
an’ new words out of old words
__________ an’ not t’ worry about the new rules
for they ain’t been made yet
Yes, I am a thief of thoughts an’ t’ shout my singin’ mind
not, I pray, a stealer of souls knowin’ that it is me an’ my kind
I have built an’ rebuilt that will make those rules . . .
upon what is waitin’ if the people of tomorrow
for the sand on the beaches really need the rules of today
when I was bummin’ up an’ down
up an’ down the street?
is it that they too just sleep
in their high thrones . . . openin’
their eyes when people pass
expectin’ each t’ bow as they go by
an’ say “thank you Mr. Magazine.
did I answer all my questions right?”
ah but mine is of another story
for I do not care t’ be made an oddball
bouncin’ past reporters’ pens
cooperatin’ with questions
aimed at eyes that want t’ see
“there’s nothin’ here
go back t’ sleep
or look at the ads
on page 33”
I don’t like t’ be stuck in print
starin’ out at cavity minds
who gobble chocolate candy bars
quite content an’ satisfied
their day complete
at seein’ what I eat for breakfast
the kinds of clothes I like t’ wear
an’ the hobbies that I like t do
 I never eat that I “expose” myself ah but Sue
I run naked when I can every time I step out she knows me well
my hobby’s collectin’ airplane glue on the stage perhaps too well
an’ is above all
“come come now Mr. Dylan our readers want __________ the true fortuneteller of my soul
t’ know the truth” I think perhaps the only one
“that is the bare hungry sniffin’ truth” The night passes fast for me now (you ask of truth?
“Mr. Dylan, you’re very funny, but really now” an’ after dancin’ out its dance there is no truth
“that’s all I have t’ say today” undresses leavin’ nothin’ but its naked dawn what fool can claim t’ carry the truth
“but you’d better answer” proudly standin’ for it is but a drunken matter
“that sounds like some kind a threat” smilin’ smilin’ romantic? yes
“it just could be ha ha ha ha” turnin’ turnin’ tragic? no I think not)
“what will my punishment” gently gently the door still knocks
12 ALBUMS 1
“a rumor tale on you ha ha” I have seen it sneak up countless an’ the wind still blows ALBUMS 2
“a what kind of tale ha ha ha ha” times . . . leavin’ me conscious bringin’ me my memories ALBUMS 3
“yes well you’ll see, Mr. Dylan, you’ll see” with a thousand sleepy thoughts of friends an’ sounds an’ colors SONGS

untamed that can’t escape

an’ I seen an’ tryin’ t’ run trapped in keyholes
or rather I have saw I think at these times Eric . . . bearded Eric
your questions’re ridiculous of many things an’ many people far in Boston
an’ most of your magazines’re also ridiculous I think of Sue most times buried beneath my window
caterin’ t’ people beautiful Sue yes I feel t’ dig the ground up
who want t’ see with the lines of a swan but I’m so tired
the boy nex’ door frightened easy an’ know not where t’ look for tools
no I shall not corporate with reporters’ whims as a fawn in the forest rap tap tap
there’re other kinds of boys nex’ door. by this time deep in dreams the rattlin’ wind
even though they’ve slanted me with her long hair spread out blows Geno in
they cannot take what I do away from me the color of the sun tellin’ me of philistines
they can disguise it soakin’ the dark that he’d run into durin’ the night
make it out t’ be a joke an’ scatterin’ light he stomps across my floor
an’ make me seem t’ the dungeons of my constant night I laugh
the ridiculous one I think love poems an’ drink cold coffee an’ old wine
in the eyes of their readers as a poor lonesome invalid light of feelin’
they can build me up knowin’ of my power as I listen t’ one of my own tongues
accordin’ t’ their own terms t’ destroy take the reins
so that they are able the good souls of the road guide the path
t’ bust me down that know no sickness an’ drop me off . . . headin’ back again
an’ “expose” me except that of kindness t’ take care of his end of the night
in their own terms (you ask of love? slam an’ Geno
givin’ blind advice there is no love then too is gone
t’ unknown eyes except in silence outside a siren whines
who have no way of knowin’ an’ silence doesn’t say a word) leadin’ me down another line
 I jump but get sidetracked but a change forewarned when I need t’ drown
by clunkin’ footsteps either t’ the clearin’ of the clouds for my road is blessed
down the street or t’ the pourin’ of the storms with many flowers
(it is as though my mind an’ after it’s desire an’ the sounds of flowers
ain’t mine t’ make up returnin’ liftin’ lost voices of the ground’s people
any more) returnin’ with me underneath up up
I wonder if the cockroaches returnin’ with it higher higher
still crawl in Dave an’ Terri’s never fearful all people
fifteenth street kitchen finally faithful no matter what creed
I wonder if they’re the same cockroaches it will guide me well no matter what color skin
ah yes the times’ve changed across all bridges inside all tunnels no matter what language an’ no matter what land
Dave still scorns me for not readin’ books never failin’ . . . for all people laugh
an’ Terri still laughs at my rakish ways in the same tongue
13 ALBUMS 1
but fifteenth street has been abandoned with the sounds of Francois Villon an’ cry ALBUMS 2
we have moved . . . echoin’ through my mad streets in the same tongue ALBUMS 3
the cats across the roof as I stumble on lost cigars endless endless SONGS

mad in love of Bertolt Brecht it’s all endless

scream into the drain pipes an’ empty bottles an’ it’s all songs
bringing’ in the sounds of music of Brendan Behan it’s just one big world of songs
the only music the hypnotic words an’ they’re all on loan
an’ it is I who is ready of A. L.. Lloyd if they’re only turned loose t’ sing
ready t’ listen each one bendin’ like its own song
restin’ restin’ an’ the woven’ spell of Paul Clayton lonely? ah yes
a silver peace entrancin’ me like China’s plague but it is the flowers an’ the mirrors
reigns an’ unescapeable of flowers that now meet my
becomes the nerves of mornin’ drownin’ in the lungs of Edith Piaf loneliness
an’ I stand up an’ yawn an’ in the mystery of Marlene Dietrich an’ mine shall be a strong loneliness
hot with jumpin’ pulse the dead poems of Eddie Freeman dissolvin’ deep
never tired love songs of Allen Ginsberg t’ the depths of my freedom
never sad an’ jail songs of Ray Bremser an’ that, then, shall
never guilty the narrow tunes of Modigliani remain my song
for I am runnin’ in a fair race an’ the singin’ plains of Harry Jackson
with no racetrack but the night the cries of Charles Aznavour there’s a movie called
an’ no competition but the dawn with melodies of Yevtushenko Shoot the Piano Player
__________ through the quiet fire of Miles Davis the last line proclaimin’
above the bells of William Blake “music, man, that’s where it’s at”
So at last at least an’ beat visions of Johnny Cash it is a religious line
the sky for me an’ the saintliness of Pete Seeger outside, the chimes rung
is a pleasant gray an’ they
meanin’ rain strokin’ my senses are still ringin’
or meanin’ snow down down
constantly meanin’ change drownin’ drownin’
 All I Really Want To Do Motorpsycho Nitemare
Black Crow Blues My Back Pages
Spanish Harlem Incident I Don’t Believe You
Chimes Of Freedom (She Acts Like
I Shall Be Free No. 10 We Never Have Met)
To Ramona Ballad In Plain D
It Ain’t Me, Babe

14 People seem not to have been too sure what to make of this record when it ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
All I Really Want To Do
Black Crow Blues
came out late in 1964. After the one-two punch of political engagement on ALBUMS 3
Spanish Harlem Incident SONGS
Chimes Of Freedom
I Shall Be Free No. 10
Freewheelin’ and The Times They Are A-Changin’, Dylan released an album of
To Ramona
Motorpsycho Nitemare acerbic, ironic love songs, full of word play, bitterness, tenderness and some-
My Back Pages
I Don’t Believe You
Ballad In Plain D times corrosive humor. His voice and image seemed to be changing as well; in
It Ain’t Me Babe
place of the rough-sounding old-timey voice of his earlier albums, the songs
were delivered in a more nasal, sometimes mocking sound – a switch from
corduroy to leather. And there was not a “protest song” to be heard. Songs like
“All I Really Want To Do” and “It Ain’t Me, Babe” were a new kind of love song,
full of ambivalence, teasing, truth telling, and evasion. “My Back Pages,” which,
like “All I Really Want to Do,” became a hit for the folk-rock band The Byrds,
was also something new – a kind of self-dramatization in imagist poetic lines, a
technique that he would expand on greatly. But it is “Chimes of Freedom,” with
its tumbling, hallucinatory, juxtaposed imagery that points most unambiguously
in the direction Dylan was heading.

Another Side Of Bob Dylan ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
Produced by Tom Wilson
Released on August 8, 1964
 ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN original liner notes
Some Other Kinds Of Songs . . .
Poems by Bob Dylan

baby black’s about t’ crack more lovers pass

been had been gone on motorcycles
ain’t bad carry on roped together
smokestacked i’m givin’ you from the walls of the water then
chicken shacked myself t’ pawn i look across t’ what they call
dressed in black the right bank
silver monkey __________ an’ envy
on her back your
15
mammy ma for françoise hardy trumpet ALBUMS 1
juiced pa at the seine’s edge player ALBUMS 2
janitored a giant shadow ALBUMS 3
SONGS
between the law of notre dame __________
brothers ten seeks t’ grab my foot
rat-faced sorbonne students “i could make you crawl
gravestoned whirl by on thin bicycles if i was payin’ attention”
ditch dug swirlin’ lifelike colors of leather spin he said munchin’ a sandwich
firescaped an’ substroked the breeze yawns food in between chess moves
choked far from the bellies “what d’ you wanna make
baby black or erhard meetin’ johnson me crawl for?”
hits back piles of lovers “i mean i just could”
robs, pawns fishing “could make me crawl”
lives by trade kissing “yeah, make you crawl!”
sits an’ waits on fire plug lay themselves on their books. boats. “humm, funny guy you are”
digs the heat old men “no, i just play t’ win,
eyes meet clothed in curly mustaches that’s all”
picket line float on the benches “well if you can’t win me,
across the street blankets of tourist then you’re the worst player
head rings in bright red nylon shirts i ever played”
of bed springs with straw hats of ambassadors “what d’ you mean?”
freedom’s holler (cannot hear nixon’s “i mean i lose all the time”
you ask of order dawg bark now) his jaw tightened an’ he took
she’d hock will sail away a deep breath
the world as the sun goes down “hummm, now i gotta beat you”
for a dollar an’ a quarter the doors of the river are open
baby black i must remember that straight away an’ into the ring
dressed in black i too play the guitar juno takes twenty pills an’
gunny sack it’s easy t’ stand here paints all day. life he says
 is a head kinda thing. outside
of chicago, private come down
junkie nurse home heals countless
common housewives strung out
fully on drugstore dope, legally
sold t’ help clean the kitchen.
lenny bruce shows his seventh
avenue hand-made movies, while a
bunch of women sneak little white
tablets into shoes, stockings, hats
an’ other hidin’ places. newspapers
tell neither. irma goes t’ israel
an’ writes me that there, they
16
hate nazis much more ‘n we over here
do. eichmann dies yes, an’ west
germany sends eighty-year-old
enemies don’t even put me down
in such a mysterious way.
college student trails me with
microphone an’ tape machine.
what d’ you think a the communist
party? what communist party?
he rattles off names an’ numbers.
he can’t answer my question. he
tries harder. i say “you don’t
have t’ answer my question” he
gets all squishy. i say
there’s no answer t’ my question
any more ‘n there’s an answer t’
your question. ferris wheel runs
in california park an’ the sky trembles.
turns red. above hiccups an’ pointed
chests an’ other people’s chests an’
interpret bibles t’ suit their own
means. respect is just a misinterpreted word
an’ if Jesus Christ himself came
down through these streets, Christianity
would start all over again. standin’
on the stage of all ground. insects
play in their own world. snakes
slide through the weeds. ants come an’
go through the grass. turtles an’ lizards
make their way through the sand. everything
crawls. everything . . .
an’ everything still crawls
ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
__________ ALBUMS 3
SONGS

pruned-out gestapo hermit off t’
the penitentiary. in east berlin
renata tells me that i must wear
tie t’ get in t’ this certain place
i wanna go. back here, literate
old man with rebel flag above
home sweet home sign says he won’t
vote for goldwater. “talks too
much. should keep his mouth shut”
i walk between backyards an’ see
little boy with feather in his hair
lyin’ dead on the grass. he gets
up an’ hands feather t’ another
little boy who immediately falls
down. “it’s my turn t’ be the good
guy . . . take that, redskin” bang bang.
henry miller stands on other side
of ping pong table an’ keeps
talkin’ about me. “did you ask
the poet fellow if he wants
something t’ drink” he says t’
someone gettin’ all the drinks.
i drop my ping pong paddle
an’ look at the pool. my worst
fingers. i tell reporter lady that yes jack o’diamonds
i’m monstrously against the house jack o’diamonds
unamerican activities committee one-eyed knave
an’ also the cia an’ i beg her please on the move
not t’ ask me why for it would take hits the street
too long t’ tell she asks me about sneaks. leaps
humanity an’ i say i’m not sure between pillars of chips
what that word means. she wants me springs on them like samson
t’ say what she wants me t’ say. she thumps thumps
wants me t’ say what she strikes
can understand. a loose-tempered fat is on the prowl
man in borrowed stomach slams wife you’ll only lose
in the face an’ rushes off t’ civil shouldn’t stay
rights meeting. while some strange jack o’diamonds
girl chases me up smoky mountain is a hard card t’ play
tryin’ t’ find out what sign i am.
i take allen ginsberg t’ meet fantastic jack o’diamonds
great beautiful artist an’ no trespassin’ wrecked my hand
left me here t’ stand
boards block up all there is t’ see. little tin men play
eviction. infection gangrene an’ their drums now
atom bombs. both ends exist only upside my head
because there is someone who wants in the midst of cheers
profit. boy loses eyesight. becomes flowers
airplane pilot. people pound their four queens
 with pawed out hearts there’s probably somethin’ t’ get off their feet
make believe in my drink bad luck run’s all in fun
they’re still good should pour it out it’s your choice. your voice
but i should drop inside the sink you choose
fold would throw it in his face you lose
an’ dean martin should apologize but it’d do no good run for cover
t’ the rolling stones give no gain hallaluyah
ho hum just leave a stain you choose t’ lose
weird tablestakes jack o’diamonds take yourself
young babies horseback ride an’ all his crap disappear
their fathers’ necks needs some acid jack o’diamonds
two dudes in hopped-up ford in his lap (a king’s death)
for the tenth time what hour now jack o’diamonds
17 ALBUMS 1
have rolled through town it feels late somehow (at the ace’s breath) ALBUMS 2
it’s your turn baby t’ my hounddog bays jack o’diamonds ALBUMS 3
cut the deck need more ashtrays is a hard card t’ play SONGS

on you’re goin’ under i can’t even remember

stayed too long
chinese gong
down the way
says jack o’diamonds
(a high card)
jack o’diamonds
(but ain’t high enough)
jack o’diamonds
is a hard card t’ play
jack o’diamonds used t’ laugh at me
now wants t’ collect from me
used t’ be ashamed of me
now wants t’ walk ‘long side of me
jack o’diamonds
one-armed prince
wears but a single glove
as he shoves
never loves
the moon’s too bright
as he’s fixed mirrors
‘round the room at night
it’s hard t’ think
the early days __________
please don’t stay
gather your bells an’ go run go get out of here
jack o’diamonds quick
(can open for riches) leave joshua
jack o’diamonds split
(but then it switches) go fit your battle
a colorful picture but do your thing
beats only the ten i lost my glasses
jack o’diamonds can’t see jericho
is a hard card t’ play the wind is tyin’ knots
in my hair
jack o’diamonds stays indoors nothin’ seems
wants me t’ fight his wars t’ be straight
jack o’diamonds is a hard card t’ play out there
never certain. in the middle no i shan’t go with you
commentin’ on the songs of birds i can’t go with you
chucklin’ at screamin’ mothers
jack o’diamonds drains on the brooklyn bridge
fish brains he was cockeyed
raffles what’s left over an’ stood on the edge
across the table there was a priest talkin’ to him
t’ little boy card sharks i was shiftin’ myself around
who just sat down so i could see from all sides
 in an’ out of stretched necks orchard street royal street.
an’ things pants legs in my face bourbon street
cops held people back “comere! comere!” st. claude an’ esplanade
the lady in back of me i don’t need no clothes pass an’ pull
burst into my groin an’ cross the street everything out of shape
“sick sick some are so sick” skull caps climb joe b. stuart
like a circus trapeze act by themselves out of manholes white southern poet
“oh i hope he don’t do it” an’ shoeboxes ride holds me up
he was on the other side of the railin’ the cracks of the sidewalk we charge through casa
both eyes fiery wide fishermen— blazin’ jukebox
wet with sweat i’ve suddenly been turned into gumbo overflowin’
the mouth of a shark a fish get kicked out of colored bar
rolled up soiled sleeves but does anybody streets jammed
18 ALBUMS 1
his arms were thick an’ tattooed wanna be a fisherman hypnotic stars explode ALBUMS 2
an’ he wore a silver watch any more ‘n i in louisiana murder night ALBUMS 3
i could tell at a glance don’t wanna be a fish everything’s wedged SONGS

he was uselessly lonely arm in arm

i couldn’t stay an’ look at him (swingin’ wanda’s stoned galore
i couldn’t stay an’ look at him down in new orleans must see you in mobile then
because i suddenly realized that rumbles across down governor nichel
deep in my heart brick written an’ gone)
i really wanted swear word
t’ see him jump vulgar wall ok i can get off this river too
in new york city) on bleeker street
(a mob. each member knowin’ i meet many friends
that they all know an’ see the same thing no they can’t make it who look back at me
they have the same thing in common. off the banks of their river as if they know something
can stare at each other in total blankness i am in their river i don’t know
they do not have t’ speak an’ not feel guilty (i wonder if he jumped rocco an’ his brothers
about havin’ nothing t’ say. everyday boredom i really wonder if he jumped) say that some people
soaked by the temporary happiness i turn corner are worse hung up than me
of that their search is finally over t’ get off river i don’t wanna hear it
for findin’ a way t’ communicate a leech cookout an’ get off river a basketball drops through
giant cop out. all mobs i would think. still goin’ up the hoop
an’ i was in it an’ caught by the excitement of it) i about face an’ i recall that the
an’ discover living theater’s been busted
an’ i walked away that i’m on another river
i wanted t’ see him jump so bad (has the guy jumped yet?)
that i had t’ walk away an’ hide (this time. king rex intellectual spiders
uptown uptown blesses me with plastic beads weave down sixth avenue
orchard street an’ toot toot whistles with colt forty-fives
through all those people on paper rings an’ things. stickin’ out of their
 belly buttons in all honesty i strum the guitar
an’ for the first time he wants t’ drag she dances
in my life me down there laughs
i’m proud that i realize gravity her bandana flies
i haven’t read into is my only enemy i too realize that
any masterpiece books loneliness has clutched she will die here
(an’ why did i wanna see that hands an’ squeezes you one the side of this sea
poor soul so dead?) into wrongin’ others her death is certain here
everybody has t’ do things my death is unknown
first of all two people get keep themselves occupied an’ i come t’ think that
together an’ they want their doors the workin’ ones i love her)
enlarged. second of all, more have their minds on
people see what’s happenin’ an’ the weekends i talk t’ people every day
19 ALBUMS 1
come t’ help with the door victims of the system involved in some scene ALBUMS 2
enlargement. the ones that arrive pack movie theaters good an’ evil are but words ALBUMS 3
however have nothin’ more than an’ who an’ of what invented by those SONGS

“let’s get these doors enlarged” sadistic company is he that are trapped in scenes
t’ say t’ the ones who were from that has the right
there in the first place. it follows then that t’ condemn others as trivial on what grounds are the
the whole thing revolves around whose fault grounds for judgment
nothing but this door enlargement idea. an’ who really is t’ blame an i think also
third of all, there’s a group now existin’ for one man carryin’ a gun that there is not
an’ the only thing that keeps them friends it is impossible that one thing anyplace
is that they all want the doors enlarged. it’s him anywhere that makes any
obviously, the doors’re then enlarged slaves are of no special color sense. there are only tears
fourth of all, an’ the links of chains an’ there is only sorrow
after this enlargement fall into no special order there are no problems
the group has t’ find how good an actor do you have to be
something else t’ keep and play God i have seen what i’ve loved
them together or (in greece, a little old lady slip away an’ vanish. i still
else the door enlargement a worker lady love what i’ve lost but t’ run
will prove t’ be looks at me an’ try t’ catch it’d
embarrassing rubs her chin be very greedy
an’ by sign language asks for the rest of my life
on fourteenth street how come i’m so unshaven i will never chase a livin’ soul
i meet someone “the sea is very beautiful here” into the prison grasp
who i know in front of my own self-love
wants t’ put me i reply
uptight pointin’ t’ my chin. i can’t believe that i have
wants me t’ be on an’ she believes me t’ hate anybody
his level needs no other answer an’ when i do
 it will only be out of fear in a far-off land watch truck
an’ i’ll know it an’ she stayed longer there yes i knew zapata well
because of him some of my friends
i know no answers an’ no truth i croaked with exhaustion my very best
for absolutely no soul alive that he was actually makin’ her happy have even looked
i will listen t’ no one i never knew him like the japanese
who tells me morals sometimes i would see him at certain times
there are no morals on my ceilin’ i myself think they’re
an’ i dream a lot i could’ve shot him grand . . . make great radios
the rovin’ phony do you ever see liz taylor
so go joshua the romantic idiot down there
go fit your battle i know about guys for pack is heavy
i have t’ go t’ the woods i myself am a guy there is ink
20 ALBUMS 1
for a while poison swings its pendulums runnin’ down its dusty straps ALBUMS 2
i hope you understand with a seasick sensation amarillo ALBUMS 3
but if you don’t an’ i used t’ want t’ trample on him ain’t far SONGS

it doesn’t matter i used t’ want t’ massacre him am going there too

i will be with you i used t’ want t’ murder him won’t need floor scrubbed
nex’ time around i wanted t’ be like him so much voice dubbed
don’t think about me that i ached or anything
i’ll be ok i used t’ hate enzo won’t need anything
just go ahead out there a place fumbles in the sky
right out there __________ must make it t’ trinidad
do what you say tonight
you’re gonna do michelangelo would’ve wept a flyin’ saucer texan
an’ who knows if he saw but once where charlie slept covered in cuff links
someday (whoa, charlie, i’m afraid you’ve stepped ate his steak for breakfast
someone might even beyond the borders of being kept) an’ now his car radiator
write what price what price what price disgrace has blown up down the road
a song for sleepin’ on a cherub’s face? back here, a sixty-three
about you mercury convertible
__________ crashes into girl
__________ an’ ten birds
an amazon chick just crossed
i used t’ hate enzo with an amazin’ pancho villa face the colorado border
i used t’ hate him thumb out on highway
so much that i could’ve killed him stands in the boilin’ sun __________
he was rotten an’ ruthless countin’ cars go by
an’ after what he could get zoom johnny (little johnny)
i was sure of that catch that with his father’s hammer
my beloved one met him u-turn nailed five flies
 t’ the kitchen window railroad bridge t’ the tone of principles
trapped baby bumblebees his parents supported him still your arm is raised
in orange juice bottles they bought new hankies an’ i tell you there are no politics
rib whipped his an’ johnny got lots of flowers in the afternoon you run
younger brother t’ keep appointments
an’ stuck his sister’s hand an’ so as spoked prongs with false lovers
in the garbage disposal pierce from perilous heights an’ this leaves you
pleasin’ johnny plungin’ drained by nightfall
dad’s football star through soft pillows, you ask me questions
named all the girls there IS a sound an’ i say that every question
that did it that rings if it’s a truthful question
he did no praise can be answered by askin’ it
an’ never knew a no praise you stomp
21 ALBUMS 1
one that didn’t but you must be get mad ALBUMS 2
bruiser johnny aware of poor johnny i say it’s got nothin’ t’ do with ALBUMS 3
sore loser johnny t’ hear it gertrude stein SONGS

bad in math you turn your eyes

but his parents fixed it __________ t’ the radio
got too drunk in bars an’ tell me what a
an’ his parents fixed you tell me about politics wasteland exists in television
that too this that you rant an’ rave
lovin’ johnny you speak of rats. of poverty
crew-cut johnny geese. a world of peace your fingers crawl the walls
well molded you stumble stammer the screen door leaves black marks
clean lived in pound your fist across your nose
something his parents an’ i tell you there are no politics your breath remains on
could be proud of you swear window glass
no matter what the tell me how much you care bullfight posters hang crooked above your head
cost to him you cheat the lunch counter man an’ the phone rings constantly
a structure of a manly duckling out of a pack of cigarettes you tell me how much i’ve changed
but his parents an’ i tell you there are no politics as if that is all there is t’ say
couldn’t buy him you tell me of goons’ out of the side of your mouth
into the college graves. ginks an’ finks while talkin’ on the wires
where he wanted t’ go an’ of what you’ve read in a completely different
genius johnny an’ how things should be tone of voice
poutin’ johnny an’ what you’d do if . . . than you had a minute ago
punchin’ johnny an i say someone’s been when speakin’ t’ me about something else
crashed his tamperin’ with your head i say what’s this about changes?
here son have a car good boy you jump you say “let’s go get drunk”
cadillac into raise your voice light a cigarette
a couldn’t care less an’ gyrate yourself “an’ throw up on the world”
 you go t’ your closet high treachery sails an’ rich men
mumblin’ about the phoniness of churches unveils stare t’ their
an’ spastic national leaders its last wedding song private own-ed murals
i say groovy but bang sing the bells all is lost Cinderella
also holy hollowness too the low pauper’s prayer all is lost
yes hollow holiness rice rags in blossom
an’ that some of my best friends blow in a fleet
know people that go t’ church ribbons in the street
you blow up white as a sheet
slam doors (a Mexican cigarette)
say “can’t no one say nothin’ t’ you” the people’ve been set
s say “what do You think?” t’ try t’ forget
your face laughs that their
22 ALBUMS 1
you say “oh yeeeeeaah?” whole life’s a honeymoon ALBUMS 2
i’m gonna break up i say over soon ALBUMS 3
an’ reach for your coat i’m not gettin’ caught SONGS

‘neath piles of paper slogans by all this rot

i say your house is dirty as i vanish down the road
you say you should talk with a starving actress
your hallway stinks as on each arm
we walk through it (for better or best
your stairs tilt drastically in sickness an’ madness)
your railing’s rotted i do take thee
an’ there’s blood at the i’m already married
bottom of your steps so i’ll continue as one
you say t’ meet bricks with bricks faithful done
i say t’ meet bricks with chalk ah fair blondy
you tell me monster floor plans ye lead me blindly
an’ i tell you about a bookie shop I am in the gravel
in boston givin’ odds on the presidential an’ down on the gamut
race for our anniversary
i’m not gonna bet for a while i say you can make me nervous
little children clink sings the tower
shoot craps clang sang the preacher
in the alley garbage pot inside of the altar
you say “nothin’s perfect” outside of the theater
an’ i tell you again mystery fails
there are no when treachery prevails
politics the forgotten rosary
nails
__________ itself t’ a cross
of sand
 Subterranean Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream Musicians: Al Gorgoni - guitar;
Bobby Gregg - drums; Paul Griffin -
Homesick Blues Mr. Tambourine Man piano; Bruce Langhorne - guitar;
She Belongs To Me Gates Of Eden Will Lee - bass; Joseph Macho, Jr. -
bass; Frank Owens - piano;
Maggie’s Farm It’s Alright, Ma Kenneth Rankin – guitar.
Love Minus Zero/No Limit (I’m Only Bleeding)
Outlaw Blues It’s All Over
On The Road Again Now, Baby Blue

23 One of the most interesting Dylan albums, Bringing It All Back Home is in a ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
sense two records. One side of the original 1965 LP release featured Dylan ALBUMS 3
SONGS
alone with his guitar, performing intensely poetic songs full of hermetic and at
times surreal imagery, lines almost tripping over one another in their rush to be
heard. “Mr. Tambourine Man,” became one of Dylan’s most enduringly popular
songs; it was to the nascent drug and consciousness-expansion culture what
“Blowin’ In The Wind” had been to the politically engaged folk culture of a
few years before. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” with its rhythmically
spoken lyrics, including the epochal “even the President of the United States
sometimes must have to stand naked,” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” both
stand among the best songs Dylan has written.
The other side of the record was something else again – Dylan performing
songs, most of them blues-based and full of barbed, scathing humor, accom-
panied by an electric rock and roll band. “Subterranean Homesick Blues,”
the picaresque “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream,” and “Maggie’s Farm” cohabit with
the tender and almost mystical love song-poems “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”
and “She Belongs to Me.” This record once again changed every young song-
writer’s sense of what was possible and desirable in songwriting, and it laid the
groundwork for Highway 61 Revisited, which became one of the most influential
albums of all time.

Bringing It All Back Home ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
Produced by Tom Wilson
Released on March 22, 1965
 BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME original liner notes
i’m standing there watching the parade/
feeling combination of sleepy john estes.
jayne mansfield. humphry bogart/morti-
mer snerd. murph the surf and so forth/
erotic hitchhiker wearing japanese
blanket. gets my attention by asking didn’t he see
me at this hootenanny down in puerto vallarta,
mexico/i say no you must be mistaken. i happen to
24
be one of the Supremes/then he rips off his blanket
an’ suddenly becomes a middle-aged druggist.
up for district attorney. he starts scream- ing at me
you’re the one. you’re the one that’s been causing
all them riots over in vietnam. immediately turns t’ a
bunch of people an’ says if elected, he’ll have me
electrocuted publicly on the next fourth of july. i
look around an’ all these people he’s talking to are
carrying blowtorches/ needless t’ say, i split fast go
back t’ the nice quiet country. am standing there
writing WHAAT? on my favorite wall when who should
pass by in a jet plane but my recording engineer
“i’m here t’ pick up you and your lastest works of
art. do you need any help with anything?’’
(pause)
my songs’re written with the kettledrum
in mind/a touch of any anxious color. un- mention-
able. obvious. an’ people perhaps like a soft
brazilian singer . . . i have given up at making any
attempt at perfection/ the fact that the white house
is filled with leaders that’ve never been t’ the apollo
theater amazes me. why allen ginsberg was not
chosen t’ read poetry at the inauguration boggles
my mind/if someone thinks norman mailer is more
important than hank williams that’s fine. i have no
arguments an’ i never drink milk. i would rather
model har- monica holders than discuss aztec
anthropology/ english literature. or history of the
united nations. i accept chaos. I am not sure
whether it accepts me. i know there’re some people
terrified of the bomb. but there are other people
terrified t’ be seen carrying a modern screen
magazine.
experience teaches that silence terrifies people the
most . . . i am convinced that all souls have some
superior t’ deal with/like the school system, an ALBUMS 1
invisible circle of which no one can think without ALBUMS 2
consulting someone/in the face of this, responsibil- ALBUMS 3
SONGS
ity/security, success mean absolutely nothing. . . i
would not want t’ be bach. mozart. tolstoy. joe hill.
gertrude stein or james dean/they are all dead. the
Great books’ve been written. the Great sayings have
all been said/I am about t’ sketch You a picture of
what goes on around here some- times. though I
don’t understand too well myself what’s really
happening. i do know that we’re all gonna die
someday an’ that no death has ever stopped the
world. my poems are written in a rhythm of unpoetic
distortion/ divided by pierced ears. false eyelashes/
sub- tracted by people constantly torturing each
other. with a melodic purring line of descriptive
hollowness—seen at times through dark sunglasses
an’ other forms of psychic explosion. a song is
anything that can walk by itself/i am called a
songwriter. a poem is a naked person . . . some
people say that i am a poet
(end of pause)
an’ so i answer my recording engineer
“yes. well i could use some help in getting this wall
in the plane”
— Bob Dylan
 Like A Rolling Stone
(Produced by Tom Wilson)
Tombstone Blues
It Takes A Lot To Laugh,
It Takes A Train To Cry
From A Buick 6
25
Highway 61 Revisited
Produced by Bob Johnston
“Like A Rolling Stone” produced by Tom Wilson
Released on August 30, 1965
Ballad Of A Thin Man Musicians: Mike Bloomfield - guitar;
Harvey (Goldstein) Brooks - bass;
Queen Jane Approximately Al Gorgoni - guitar; Bobby Gregg -
Highway 61 Revisited drums; Paul Griffin - piano;
Al Kooper - organ; Joseph Macho, Jr. -
Just Like bass; Frank Owens - piano;
Tom Thumb’s Blues Russ Savakus - bass.
Desolation Row
Released one month after Dylan’s legendary July 1965 appearance with the ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
electric Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the Newport Folk Festival, and only five ALBUMS 3
SONGS
months after Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited is universally
regarded as one of Dylan’s greatest and most influential records. The voice that
Dylan had been growing since Another Side of Bob Dylan was now an instrument
of irony, bitterness, gallows humor, mockery, disillusionment, and sarcasm in
the service of astonishingly vivid and disturbing images capable of meeting the
increasingly strange and livid times head-on. The album title refers to the road
that runs from Dylan’s native Minnesota down through Memphis, the Mississippi
Delta, and New Orleans, and so it places us in a vein running straight through
the middle of an America that seemed to be spiraling out of control. Backed by
a take-no-prisoners electric band, Dylan’s performances of the title song,
“Desolation Row,” “Tombstone Blues,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” the
venomous “Ballad of A Thin Man,” and his unprecedented 7-minute hit single
“Like A Rolling Stone” sat at the center of the 1960s, capturing, and maybe
adding to, the accelerating craziness of American culture in that time – the
mounting uproar over the nation’s Vietnam involvement, the exhilaration,
distortion, and secret humor of drugs, the ballooning sense that what had been
called the truth was disguising something sinister. Amazingly, Highway 61
Revisited has lost little of its presence, its power to shake up the listener, in the
ensuing decades. A classic – nothing less.
ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
 HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED original liner notes
On the slow train time does not interfere & at the
Arabian crossing waits White Heap, the man from
the newspaper & behind him the hundred Inevi-
tables made of solid rock & stone – the Cream
Judge & the Clown – the doll house where Savage
Rose & Fixable live simply in their wild animal
luxury…. Autumn, with two zeros above her nose
arguing over the sun being dark or Bach is as
26
famous as its commotion & that she herself – not
Orpheus – is the logical poet “I am the logical
poet!” she screams “Spring? Spring is nly the
beginning!” she attempts to make Cream Judge
jealous by telling him of down-to-earth people &
while the universe is erupting, she points to the slow
train & prays for rain and for time to interfere – she
is not extremely fat but rather progressively
unhappy…. The hundred Inevitables hide their
predictions & go to bars & drink & get drunk in their
very special conscious way & when tom dooley, the
kind of person you think you’ve seen before, comes
strolling in with White Heap, the hundred Inevitables
all say “who’s that man who looks so white?” & the
bartender, a good boy & one who keeps a buffalo in
his mind, says “I don’t know, but I’m sure I’ve seen
the other fellow someplace” & when Paul Sargent, a
plainclothes man from 4th street, comes in at three
in the morning & busts everybody for being
incredible, nobody really gets angry – just a little
illiterate most people get & Rome, one of the
hundred Inevitables whispers “I told you so” to
Madame John…. Savage Rose & Fixable are bravely
blowing kisses to Jade Hexagram-Carnaby Street &
to all the mysterious juveniles & the Cream Judge is
writing a book on the true meaning of a pear – last
year, he wrote one on famous dogs of the civil war &
now he has false teeth & no children…. when the
Cream met Savage Rose & Fixable, he was intro- you are right john cohen – quazimodo was right –
duced to them by none other than Lifelessness – Mozart was right…. I cannot say the word eye
Lifelessness is the Great Enemy & always wears a anymore…. when I speak this word eye, it is as if I
hip guard – he is very hipguard…. Lifelessness said am speaking of somebody’s eye that I faintly
when introducing everybody “go save the world” & remember….there is no eye – there is only a series
“involvement! that’s the issue” & things like that & of mouths – long live the mouths – your rooftop – if
Savage Rose winked at Fixable & the Cream went off you don’t already know – has been demolished….
with his arm in a sling singing “summertime & the eye is plasma & you are right about that too – you
Livin is easy”…. the Clown appears – puts a gag are lucky – you don’t have to think about such ALBUMS 1
over Autumn’s mouth & says “there are two kinds of things as eyes & rooftops & quazimodo. ALBUMS 2
people – simple people & normal people” this ALBUMS 3
SONGS
usually gets a big laugh from the sandpit & White — Bob Dylan
Heap sneezes – passes out & rips open Autumn’s
gag & says “What do you mean youre Autumn and
without you there’d be no spring! you fool! without
spring, there’d be no you! what do you think of
that???.” then Savage Rose & Fixable come by &
kick him in the brains & color him pink for being a
phony philosopher – then the Clown comes by and
screams “You phony philosopher!” & jumps on his
head – Paul Sargent comes by again in an umpire’s
suit & some college kid who’s read all about
Nietzsche comes by & says “Nietzche never wore an
umpire’s suit” & Paul says “You wanna buy some
clothes, kid?” & then Rome & John come out of the
bar & they’re going up to Harlem…. we are singing
today of the WIPE-OUT GANG –the WIPE-OUT GANG
buys, owns & operates the Insanity Factory – if you
do not know where the Insanity Factory is located,
you should hereby take two steps to the right, paint
your teeth & go to sleep…. the songs on this
specific record are not so much songs but rather
exercises in tonal breath control…. the subject
matter – tho meaningless as it is – has something
to do with the beautiful strangers….the beautiful
strangers, Vivaldi’s green jacket & the holy slow train
 Rainy Day Stuck Inside Of Mobile Temporary Like Achilles Musicians: Wayne Moss,
Charlie McCoy, Kenneth Buttrey,
Women #12 & 35 With The Memphis Absolutely Sweet Marie Hargus Robbins, Jerry Kennedy,
Pledging My Time Blues Again Fourth Time Around Joe South, Al Kooper, Bill Aikins,
Henry Strzelecki, Jaime Robertson
Visions Of Johanna Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat Obviously 5 Believers
One Of Us Must Know Just Like A Woman Sad-Eyed Lady
(Sooner Or Later) Most Likely You Go Your Of The Lowlands
I Want You Way And I’ll Go Mine

27 Issued at the height of Dylan’s fame and just before the July 1966 motorcycle ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
accident that brought his career to a halt, this double album is another of ALBUMS 3
SONGS
Dylan’s landmark recordings. Except for the opening track, “Rainy Day Women
#12 & 35,” a hit single on which Dylan sings over a raucous brass band, with the
famous refrain, “Everybody must get stoned,” Dylan had found yet another
voice for himself, slightly husky and softer, and the songs he delivers in that
voice steer for a place of deeply symbolic and sometimes hallucinatory poetry,
not as angry or distanced as the songs on Highway 61 Revisited. Blonde on
Blonde’s mixture of mystic love poems, blues, picaresque Americana and urban
fantasy speaks out of the whirlwind of a time when everything was out of whack.
Dylan had found a means of total expression that could miraculously stand up
to all that chaos and cut it down to size. Songs like “I Want You,” “Visions of
Johanna,” “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again,” “Absolutely
Sweet Marie,” “Just Like A Woman,” “Leopard-Skin Pill-box Hat,” and the epical
“Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” which took up an entire album side on the
original issue, were love songs, alternately funny, tender, and recriminatory,
dark and giddily illuminated landscapes, a peak of creativity for the songwriter
and performer alike.

Blonde On Blonde
Produced by Bob Johnston
Released on May 16, 1966
 Rainy Day Mr. Tambourine Man
Women #12 & 35 Subterranean
Blowin’ In The Wind Homesick Blues
The Times I Want You
They Are A-Changin’ Positively 4th Street
It Ain’t Me, Babe Just Like A Woman
Like A Rolling Stone

28 ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits

Produced by John Hammond, Bob Johnston, and Tom Wilson
Released on March 27, 1967
 John Wesley Harding
As I Went Out One Morning
I Dreamed
I Saw St. Augustine
All Along The Watchtower
The Ballad Of Frankie
Lee And Judas Priest
29
John Wesley Harding
Produced by Bob Johnston
Released on December 27, 1967
Drifter’s Escape Musicians: Charlie McCoy - bass;
Kenny Buttrey - drums; Pete Drake -
Dear Landlord steel guitar (on “I’ll Be Your Baby
Tonight” and “Down Along The Cove”).
I Am A Lonesome Hobo
I Pity The Poor Immigrant
The Wicked Messenger
Down Along The Cove
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
After a motorcycle crash in July 1966 brought his public appearances to a halt ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
indefinitely, rumors ran wild – fans heard that he was paralyzed, or that he ALBUMS 3
SONGS
had gone crazy, or that he was actually dead. Dylan was, in fact, holed up in
Woodstock, New York, using his recuperation time to step back from the
extraordinary storm of touring, take some stock and think more deeply about
what he was doing. The world seemed to be going crazier each month and
everyone seemed to expect him to keep pace with it or, worse, lead the way.
Perhaps he sensed a trap being prepared down that road, a sacrificial altar, and
he had a young family that was precious to him. It was a lot to think about, and
he took his time. When he did, finally, release an album, in 1967, it was nothing
anyone could have predicted. John Wesley Harding was a quiet acoustic album,
full of cryptic, symbolic songs about mortality and redemption, bravery and
betrayal, regret and hope. The title track was based on the story of a real-life
bank robber named John Wesley Hardin. “All Along The Watchtower” became
one of Dylan’s perennials, but “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine,” “The Ballad of
Frankie Lee And Judas Priest,” “The Wicked Messenger,” and “Drifter’s Escape,”
while less often performed, are enigmatic parables that occupy a unique place
in Dylan’s body of work.
ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
 JOHN WESLEY HARDING original liner notes
There were three kings and a jolly three too. The
first one had a broken nose, the second, a broken
arm and the third was broke. “Faith is the key!”
said the first king. “No, froth is the key!” said the
second. “You’re both wrong,” said the third, “the
key is Frank!”
It was late in the evening and Frank was sweeping
30
up, preparing the meat and dishing himself out
when there came a knock upon the door. “Who is
it?” he mused. “It’s us, Frank,” said the three kings
in unison, “and we’d like to have a word with you!”
Frank opened the door and the three kings
crawled in.
Terry Shute was in the midst of prying open a
hairdresser when Frank’s wife came in and caught
him. “They’re here!” she gasped. Terry dropped his
drawer and rubbed the eye. “What do they appear to
be like?” “One’s got a broken vessel and that’s the
truth, the other two I’m not so sure about.” “Fine,
thank you, that’ll be all.” “Good” she turned and
puffed. Terry tightened his belt and in an after-
thought, stated: “Wait!” “Yes?” “How many of them
would you say there were?” Vera smiled, she tapped
her toe three times. Terry watched her foot closely.
“Three?” he asked, hesitating. Vera nodded.
“Get up off my floor!” shouted Frank. The second
king, who was first to rise, mumbled, “Where’s the
better half, Frank?” Frank, who was in no mood for
jokes, took it lightly, replied, “She’s in the back of
the house, flaming it up with an arrogant man, now
come on, out with it, what’s on our minds today?”
Nobody answered.
Terry Shute then entered the room with a bang,
looking the three kings over and fondling his mop.
Getting down to the source of things, he proudly
boasted: “There is a creeping consumption in the
land. It begins with these three fellas and it travels
outward. Never in my life have I seen such a motley
crew. They ask nothing and they receive nothing.
Forgiveness is not in them. The wilderness is rotten
all over their foreheads. They scorn the widow and
abuse the child but I am afraid that they shall not
prevail over the young man’s destiny, not even
them!” Frank turned with a blast, “Get out of here,
you ragged man! Come ye no more!” Terry left the
room willingly.
“What seems to be the problem?” Frank turned
back to the three kings who were astonished. The
first king cleared his throat. His shoes were too big
and his crown was wet and lopsided but neverthe-
less, he began to speak in the most meaningful way,
“Frank,” he began, “Mr. Dylan has come out with a
new record. This record of course features none but
his own songs and we understand that you’re the
key.” “That’s right,” said Frank, “I am.” “Well
then,” said the king in a bit of excitement, “could
you please open it up for us?” Frank, who all this
time had been reclining with his eyes closed,
suddenly opened them both up as wide as a tiger.
“And just how far would you like to go in?” he asked
and the three kings all looked at each other. “Not
too far but just far enough so’s we can say that
we’ve been there,” said the first chief. “All right,”
said Frank, “I’ll see what I can do,” and he
commenced to doing it. First of all, he sat down and
crossed his legs, then he sprung up, ripped off his
shirt and began waving it in the air. A lightbulb fell
from one of his pockets and he stamped it out with
his foot. Then he took a deep breath, moaned and
punched his fist through the plate-glass window.
Settling back in his chair, he pulled out a knife, “Far
enough?” he asked. “Yeah, sure, Frank,” said the
second king. The third king just shook his head and
said he didn’t know. The first king remained silent.
The door opened and Vera stepped in. “Terry Shute
will be leaving us soon and he desires to know if you ALBUMS 1
kings got any gifts you wanna lay on him.” ALBUMS 2
Nobody answered. ALBUMS 3
SONGS
It was just before the break of day and the three
kings were tumbling along the road. The first one’s
nose had been mysteriously fixed, the second one’s
arm had healed and the third one was rich. All three
of them were blowing horns. “I’ve never been so
happy in all my life!” sang the one with all the money.
“Oh mighty thing!” said Vera to Frank, “Why didn’t
you just tell them you were a moderate man and
leave it at that instead of goosing yourself all over
the room?” “Patience, Vera,” said Frank. Terry
Shute, who was sitting over by the curtain cleaning
an ax, climbed to his feet, walked over to Vera’s
husband and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Yuh
didn’t hurt yer hand, didja Frank?” Frank just sat
there watching the workmen replace the window. “I
don’t believe so,” he said.
 Girl From Lay, Lady, Lay Musicians: Robert Wilson - piano,
organ; Hargus (Pig) Robbins - piano;
The North Country One More Night Charlie Daniels - guitar, dobro;
Nashville Skyline Rag Tell Me That It Isn’t True Norman Blake, Wayne Moss,
Kelton Herston - guitars; Pete Drake -
To Be Alone With You Country Pie steel guitar; Charlie McCoy - bass;
Kenny Buttrey - drums.
I Threw It All Away Tonight I’ll Be
Peggy Day Staying Here With You

31 The year 1969 delivered another surprise. Dylan brought a new, lighter vocal ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
sound to the studio for sessions with some of Nashville’s finest, including ALBUMS 3
SONGS
Norman Blake and Charlie Daniels. He seemed almost ready to be reborn as a
country star, singing straightforward love lyrics in new lilting tones. Of course,
Dylan had always paid close attention to country music, from his very early days
listening to the Monroe Brothers, Hank Williams and the Stanley Brothers. On
Nashville Skyline the influence of a slightly slicker, more contemporary
approach to country music gave Dylan an expanded audience, as well as a hit
single in “Lay, Lady, Lay.” Dylan sings a duet with Johnny Cash on “Girl From The
North Country,” and the album had Dylan relishing the role of Music Row writer
for hire with songs like “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You,” “To Be Alone
With You,” and the sly and sexy “Country Pie.”

Nashville Skyline ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
Produced by Bob Johnston
Released on April 9, 1969
 NASHVILLE SKYLINE original liner notes
“Of Bob Dylan”
There are those who do not imitate,
Who cannot imitate
But then there are those who emulate
At times, to expand further the light
Of an original glow.
Knowing that to imitate the living
Is mockery
And to imitate the dead
32
Is robbery
There are those
Who are beings complete unto themselves
Whole, undaunted,-a source
As leaves of grass, as stars
As mountains, alike, alike, alike,
Yet unalike
Each is complete and contained
And as each unalike star shines
Each ray of light is forever gone
To leave way for a new ray
And a new ray, as from a fountain
Complete unto itself, full, flowing
So are some souls like stars
And their words, works and songs
Like strong, quick flashes of light
From a brilliant, erupting cone.
So where are your mountains
To match some men?
This man can rhyme the tick of time
The edge of pain, the what of sane
And comprehend the good in men, the bad in men
Can feel the hate of fight, the love of right
And the creep of blight at the speed of light
The pain of dawn, the gone of gone
The end of friend, the end of end
By math of trend
What grip to hold what he is told ALBUMS 1
How long to hold, how strong to hold ALBUMS 2
How much to hold of what is told. ALBUMS 3
SONGS
And Know
The yield of rend; the break of bend
The scar of mend
I’m proud to say that I know it,
Here-in is a hell of a poet.
And lots of other things
And lots of other things.
— Johnny Cash
 All The Tired Horses Woogie Boogie The Mighty Quinn
Alberta #1 Belle Isle (Quinn The Eskimo)
I Forgot More Living The Blues Take Me As I Am
Than You’ll Ever Know Like A Rolling Stone Take A Message To Mary
Days Of 49 Copper Kettle It Hurts Me Too
Early Mornin’ Rain Gotta Travel On Minstrel Boy
In Search Of Little Sadie Blue Moon She Belongs To Me
Let It Be Me The Boxer Wigwam
Little Sadie Alberta #2

33 Self Portrait seems, at first glance, to be anything but what its title claims. It is ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
a collection of odds and ends, songs mostly written by others, some recorded ALBUMS 3
SONGS
live, some in the studio, which Dylan later claimed to have been an effort to
dismantle his fans’ expectations. His light, lilting Nashville Skyline voice croons
tunes no one would have associated with him at the time – “Blue Moon,” “Early
Mornin’ Rain,” “Copper Kettle,” and “The Boxer,” along with very unusual
reworkings of “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “She Belongs To Me,” almost as if to
say, “Go away – stop expecting so much of me.” This may in fact have been
some of his motivation for releasing the album, but it is also true that Dylan’s
taste in music is famously eclectic – later he would perform and record old pop
songs like “When Did You Leave Heaven,” George Gershwin’s “Soon,” and even
the old Dean Martin hit “Return to Me” without a hint of irony. In any case, this
two-LP set was slammed heavily by the rock critical establishment at the time,
although it sold very well to a public that was hungry for any new Dylan at all.

Self Portrait
Produced by Bob Johnston
Released on June 8, 1970
 If Not For You New Morning Musicians: Bob Dylan - acoustic
guitar, electric guitar, organ, piano;
Day Of The Locusts Sign On The Window David Bromberg - electric guitar,
Dobro; Harvey Brooks –electric bass;
Time Passes Slowly One More Weekend Ron Cornelius - electric guitar;
Went To See The Gypsy The Man In Me Charlie Daniels - electric bass;
Buzzy Feiten - electric guitar;
Winterlude Three Angels Al Kooper - organ, piano, electric
If Dogs Run Free Father Of Night guitar, french horn; Russ Kunkel -
drums; Billy Mundi - drums;
Hilda Harris, Albertine Robinson,
Maeretha Stewart – background vocals.

34 New Morning grew partly out of an exploration of the possibility of Dylan’s ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
writing music for a play by the great poet Archibald MacLeish. Dylan writes at ALBUMS 3
SONGS
some length of his meetings and discussions with MacLeish in his memoir
Chronicles, Volume One. The project never ended up working out, although a
few of the songs survived, and the album is filled out with love songs, pop songs,
pastorales like “Winterlude” (a waltz) as well as the funny, deadpan “If Dogs
Run Free,” all of which are about as far from the tone of his peak 1960s work
as they could possibly have been. Some of the critics who had ripped into Self
Portrait earlier that same year (1970) raved about this effort, perhaps feeling
that anything was an improvement over what they regarded as a debacle. But
despite some strong and durable songs, this is not one of Dylan’s landmark
discs. According to Chronicles he was working hard to dismantle a public image
that had become worse than a trap for him and his family. “Time passes slowly
up here in the mountains,” he sings. “We sit beside bridges and walk beside
fountains…. Time passes slowly when you’re lost in a dream.” The dream, or
amnesia as he would later refer to it, would not last all that much longer.

New Morning
Produced by Bob Johnston
October 21, 1970
 Watching The River Flow
Don’t Think
Twice, It’s All Right
Lay, Lady, Lay
Stuck Inside Of Mobile
With The Memphis
Blues Again
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
All I Really Want To Do
My Back Pages
Maggie’s Farm If Not For You
Tonight I’ll Be It’s All Over
Staying Here With You Now, Baby Blue
She Belongs To Me Tomorrow Is A Long Time
All Along The Watchtower When I Paint
The Mighty Quinn My Masterpiece
(Quinn The Eskimo) I Shall Be Released
Just Like You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Tom Thumb’s Blues Down In The Flood
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

35 ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

Produced by John Hammond,
Bob Johnston, Tom Wilson, and Leon Russell
November 17, 1971
 Main Title Theme (Billy) Turkey Chase
Cantina Theme Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
(Workin’ For The Law) Final Theme
Billy 1 Billy 4
Bunkhouse Theme Billy 7
River Theme

36 In November 1972 Dylan accepted an invitation to travel to Mexico to write ALBUMS 1

ALBUMS 2
music for the Sam Peckinpah western Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, and, as it ALBUMS 3
SONGS
turned out, to appear in it as well, as the enigmatic character Alias, alongside
actors Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn, and Jason Robards. The score produced
a truly fine song in “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” still one of Dylan’s most popular,
and also three fascinatingly different takes on a Dylan ballad about Billy the Kid.
“Billy 1,” “Billy 4,” and “Billy 7” are sung in completely different voices (yet all
unmistakably and characteristically Dylan) and evoke very different moods as
well as containing different verses about the doomed, lone, romantic figure at
the heart of the story. The rest of the album consists of instrumentals meant to
be heard under various scenes in the movie.

Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid

Produced by Gordon Carroll
July 13, 1973
 Lily Of The West Mary Ann
Can’t Help Falling In Love Big Yellow Taxi
Sarah Jane A Fool Such As I
The Ballad Of Ira Hayes Spanish Is
Mr. Bojangles The Loving Tongue

37 A disc scraped together in 1973 from more odds and ends of the previous ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
couple years, in the compilation of which Dylan apparently had no hand. The ALBUMS 3
SONGS
disc was released inexplicably by CBS records in what must be assumed as an
act of vengeance in response to Dylan’s defection to Geffen records. CBS held
the rights to dozens of unreleased Dylan songs but chose these as the first
tracks to release after Dylan had left the label. The common view is that this is
near, or at, the bottom of any ranking of Dylan albums, and it may be, but it
has its moments along the way as Dylan does other people’s songs, in a sort of
addendum to Self Portrait. The main problem is the presence of intrusive
background singers, who really cheese up the proceedings throughout. If you
can tune them out, Dylan’s version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” is a fine
performance, as is his energetic romp through “Sara Jane,” in which he sounds
as if he is having a blast, despite the softheaded lyrics. He can’t quite bring
Peter LaFarge’s recitative “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” to life, nor “Mr. Bojangles.”
He has fun with Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and turns Hank Snow’s “A Fool
Such As I” into an archly comic spoken rap over a boogaloo beat. He was
playing it for laughs; you’ll laugh too.

Dylan
Produced by Bob Johnston
November 16, 1973
 On A Night Like This Forever Young
Going, Going, Gone Forever Young
Tough Mama Dirge
Hazel You Angel You
Something Never Say Goodbye
There Is About You Wedding Song

38 For 1974’s Planet Waves, Dylan reunited in the studio in November 1973 with his ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
1966 road band, now with Levon Helm back in the drum seat and known simply ALBUMS 3
SONGS
as The Band. They were gearing up for a mega-tour in a couple of months.
Perhaps because of this, Planet Waves feels like a transitional album, as if
Dylan is trying to get himself back into focus after the preceding couple of
years of life in the country. One of his most moving songs, for instance, “Forever
Young,” is presented in two different versions with completely different feel-
ings, different meanings. “On A Night Like This” is a bouncing invitation song,
full of high spirits and anticipation, but songs like “Dirge,” “Going, Going,
Gone,” and “Wedding Song” seem to be straining at the leash, cohabiting
uneasily with more or less straight-ahead love songs like “Never Say Goodbye”
and “You Angel You.” Dylan no longer sounded as satisfied with life as he did on
New Morning; even “Forever Young” seems to be written in view of all the
storms to come, a song of hope against hope, a prayer for faith and endurance.

Planet Waves
January, 17 1974
 Most Likely You Go Your I Shall Be Released It’s Alright, Ma
Way And I’ll Go Mine Endless Highway (I’m Only Bleeding)
Lay, Lady, Lay The Night They The Shape I’m In
Rainy Day Drove Old Dixie Down When You Awake
Women #12 & 35 Stage Fright The Weight
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door Don’t Think All Along The Watchtower
It Ain’t Me, Babe Twice, It’s All Right Highway 61 Revisited
Ballad Of A Thin Man Just Like A Woman Like A Rolling Stone
Up On Cripple Creek Blowin’ In The Wind

39 Recorded in January and February of 1974 during Dylan’s North American ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
tour with The Band, Before The Flood is, like Planet Waves, a document of a ALBUMS 3
SONGS
transitional period in Dylan’s life and art. In later years Dylan seems to have
disowned the music made on, and the motives for, the tour, saying that it was as
if he was “playing” himself and the Band was playing the Band. At many points
Dylan seem to be hurling himself at his own familiar songs (there is no new
Dylan repertoire on the album, not even anything from Planet Waves) as if
against the walls of a prison cell. The result is exciting at many points, if not
particularly reflective or subtle. The original double album also included
several tracks by The Band, who had become a major rock attraction in their
own right, in the years after they had backed Dylan on the road in 1966.

Before The Flood

June 20, 1974
 Tangled Up In Blue Meet Me In The Morning Musicians: Greg Inhofer - keyboards;
Chris Weber, guitar; Kevin Odegard -
Simple Twist Of Fate Lily, Rosemary guitar; Bill Peterson - bass; Bill Berg
You’re A Big Girl Now And The Jack Of Hearts - drums; Tony Brown - bass;
Paul Griffin - organ; Eric Weissberg -
Idiot Wind If You See Her, Say Hello guitar; Charles Brown III - guitar;
Barry Kornfeld - guitar; Thomas
You’re Gonna Shelter From The Storm McFaul - keyboards; Tony Richard
Make Me Lonesome Buckets Of Rain Crooks – drums.
When You Go

40 And then came 1975’s Blood On The Tracks, recorded late in 1974, one of Dylan’s ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
greatest albums, born, at least in part, of extreme personal turmoil in his life at ALBUMS 3
SONGS
home and partly out of a creative rebirth Dylan experienced studying painting
with teacher Norman Raeben. In it, Dylan was able to muster all the intensity,
the imagistic compression, the pain and tenderness and bitterness of his best
1960s work, but with an added note of forgiveness, a deepening openness to
sadness and regret and hope and direct utterance that has kept this album one
of his most loved. It contains the overwhelmingly powerful “Idiot Wind,” a long
letter full of recrimination and sadness and love to an estranged beloved, and
the picaresque “Tangled Up In Blue,” in which Dylan manages to give the sense
of a sweeping narrative through brilliant, fragmentary images juxtaposed
incompact verses. The other songs – “Shelter From The Storm,” “Simple Twist
Of Fate” “If You See Her, Say Hello” and the rest – have a vulnerability and
honesty of expression and feeling linked to a poetic talent that is once again at
the peak of its form. The result is a lyric masterpiece for the ages.

Blood On The Tracks ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
January 20, 1975
 BLOOD ON THE TRACKS original liner notes
In the end, the plague touched us all. It was not
confined to the Oran of Camus. No. It turned up
again in America, breeding in-a-compost of greed
and uselessness and murder, in those places where
statesmen and generals stash the bodies of the
forever young. The plague ran in the blood of men in
sharkskin suits, who ran for President promising life
and delivering death. The infected young men
41
machine-gunned babies in Asian ditches; they
marshaled metal death through the mighty clouds,
up above God’s green earth, released it in silent
streams, and moved on, while the hospitals
exploded and green fields were churned to mud.
And here at home, something died. The bacillus
moved among us, slaying that old America where
the immigrants lit a million dreams in the shadows
of the bridges, killing the great brawling country of
barnstormers and wobblies and home-run hitters,
the place of Betty Grable and Carl Furillo and heavy-
weight champions of the world. And through the fog
of the plague, most art withered into journalism.
Painters left the easel to scrawl their innocence on
walls and manifestos. Symphonies died on crowded
roads. Novels served as furnished rooms for ideology.
And as the evidence piled up, as the rock was
pushed back to reveal the worms, many retreated
into that past that never was, the place of balcony
dreams in Loew’s Met, fair women and honorable
men, where we browned ourselves in the Creamsicle
summers, only faintly hearing the young men march
to the troopships, while Jo Stafford gladly promised
her fidelity. Poor America. Tossed on a pilgrim tide.
Land where the poets died.
Except Dylan.
He had remained, in front of us, or writing from
the north country, and remained true. He was not
the only one, of course; he is not the only one now.
But of all our poets, Dylan is the one who has most
clearly taken the roiled sea and put it in a glass.
Early on, he warned us, he gave many of us
voice, he told us about the hard rain that was gong
to fall, and how it would carry plague. In the teargas
in 1968 Chicago, they hurled Dylan at the walls of
the great hotels, where the infected drew the blinds,
and their butlers ordered up the bayonets. Most
of them are gone now. Dylan remains.
So forget the clenched young scholars who
analyze his rhymes into dust. Remember that he
gave us voice. When our innocence died forever,
Bob Dylan made that moment into art. The wonder
is that he survived.
That is no small thing. We live in the smoky
landscape now, as the exhausted troops seek the
roads home. The signposts have been smashed;
the maps are blurred. There is no politician
anywhere who can move anyone to hope; the plague
recedes, but it is not dead, and the statesmen are
as irrelevant as the tarnished statues in the public
parks. We live with a callous on the heart. Only the
artists can remove it. Only the artists can help
the poor land again to feel.
And here is Dylan, bringing feelings back home.
In this album, he is as personal and as universal as
Yeats or Blake; speaking for himself, risking that
dangerous opening of the veins, he speaks for us
all. The words, the music, the tone of voice speak of
regret, melancholy, a sense of inevitable farewell,
mixed with sly humor, some rage, and a sense of
simple joy. They are the poems of a survivor. The
warning voice of the innocent boy is no longer here,
because Dylan has chosen not to remain a boy. It is
not his voice that has grown richer, stronger, more
certain; it is Dylan himself. And his poetry, his
troubadour’s traveling art, seems to me to be more
meaningful than ever. I thought, listening to these
songs, of the words of Yeats, walker of the roads of
Ireland: “We make out of the quarrel with others
rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.”
Dylan is now looking at the quarrel of the self. ALBUMS 1
The crowds have moved back off the stage of history; ALBUMS 2
we are left with the solitary human, a single hair on ALBUMS 3
SONGS
the skin of the earth. Dylan speaks now for that
single hair.
If you see her,
Say hello.
She might be in Tangiers…*
So begins one of these poems, as light as a
slide on ice, and as dangerous. Dylan doesn’t fall in.
Instead, he tells us the essentials; a woman once
loved, gone off, vanished into the wild places of the
earth, still loved.
If you’re makin’ love to her,
Kiss her for the kid.
Who always has respected her,
for doin’ what she did…*
It is a simple love song, of course, which is the
proper territory of poets, but is abut love filled with
honor, and a kind of dignity, the generosity that so
few people can summon when another has become
a parenthesis in a life. That song, and some of the
other love poems in this collection, seem to me
absolutely right, in this moment at the end of wards,
as all of us, old, young, middle-aged, men and
women, are searching for some simple things to
believe in. Dylan here tips his had to Rimbaud and
Verlaine, knowing all about the seasons in hell, but
 he insists on his right to speak of love, that human
emotion that still exists, in Faulkner’s phrase, in
spite of, not because.
And yes, there is humor here too, a small grin
pasted over the hurt, delivered almost casually, as if
the poet could control the chaos of feeling with a
few simply chosen words:
Life is sad,
Life is a bust.
All ya can do,
Is do what you must.
You do what you must do,
And ya do it well.
42
I’ll do it for you,
Ah, honey baby, can’t ya tell? **
A simple song. Not Dante’s Inferno, and not
intended to be. But a song which conjures up the
American road, all the busted dreams of open
places, boxcars, the Big Dipper pricking the velvet
glitter of celebrity. Its products live on the covers of
magazines, in all of television, in the poisoned air
and dead grey lakes. But most of all, it blows
through the human heart. Dylan knows that such a
wind is the deadliest enemy of art. And when the
artists die, we all die with them.
Or listen to the long narrative poem called “Lily,
Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.” It should not be
reduced to notes, or taken out of context; it should
be experienced in full. The compression of story is
masterful, but its real wonder is in the spaces, in
what the artists left out of his painting. To me, that
has always been the key to Dylan’s art. To state
things plainly is the function of journalism; but Dylan
sings a more fugitive song: allusive, symbolic, full of
imagery and ellipses, and by leaving things out, he
allows us the grand privilege of creating along with
him. His song becomes our song because we live in
those spaces. If we listen, if we work at it, we fill up
plague. Look: he has just walked into the courtyard,
padding across the flagstones, strumming a guitar.
The words are about “flowers on the hillside
bloomin’ crazy / Crickets talkin’ back and forth in
rhyme…” A girl, red-haired and melancholy, begins
to smile. Listen; the poet sings to all of us:
But I’ll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass,
In the ones I love.
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.***
— Pete Hamill. New York. 1974
ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
* From “If You See Her, Say Hello,” © 1974 Rams Horn Music. Used By Permission. ALBUMS 3
All rights reserved.
SONGS
** From “Buckets of Rain,” © 1974 Rams Horn Music. Used By Permission.
All rights reserved.
*** From “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” © 1974 Rams Horn
Music. Used By Permission. All rights reserved.

night. And it made me thing of Ginsberg and Corso
and Ferlinghetti, and most of all, Kerouac, racing
Deam Moriarty across the country in the Fifties,
embracing wind and night, passing Huck Finn on the
riverbanks, bouncing against the Coast, and heading
back again, with Kerouac dreaming his songs of the
railroad earth. Music drove them; they always knew
they were near New York when they picked up
Symphony Sid on the radio. In San Francisco they
declared a Renaissance and read poetry to jazz,
trying to make Mallarme’s dream flourish in the soil
of America. They failed, as artists generally do, but
in some ways Dylan has kept their promise.
Now he has moved past them, driving harder
into self. Listen to “Idiot Wind.” It is a hard, cold-
blooded poem about the survivor’s anger, as
personal as anything ever committed to a record.
And yet it can also stand as the anthem for all who
feel invaded, handled, bottled, packaged’ all who
spent themselves in combat with the plague; all who
ever walked into the knives of humiliation or
celebrates fad and fashion, glorifies the dismal
the mystery, we expand and inhabit the work of art.
It is the most democratic form of creation.
Totalitarian art tells us what to fee. Dylan’s art
feels, and invites us to join him.
That quality is in all the work in this collection,
the long, major works, the casual drawings and
etchings. There are some who attack Dylan because
he will not rewrite “Like A Rolling Stone” or “Gates
Of Eden.” They are fools, because they are cheating
themselves of a shot at wonder. Every artist owns a
vision of the world, and he shouts his protest when
he sees evil mangling that vision. But he must also
tell us the vision. Now we are getting Dylan’s vision,
rich and loamy, against which the world moved so
darkly. To enter that envisioned world, is like
plunging deep into a mountain pool, where the rocks
are clear and smooth at the bottom.
So forget the Dylan whose image was eaten at
by the mongers of the idiot wind. Don’t mistake him
for Isaiah, or a magazine cover, or a leader of guitar
armies. He is only a troubadour, blood brother of
Villon, a son of Provence, and he has survived the
 Odds And Ends Clothes Line Ruben Remus
Orange Juice Blues Apple Suckling Tree Tiny Montgomery
(Blues For Breakfast) Please, Mrs. Henry You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Million Dollar Bash Tears Of Rage Don’t Ya Tell Henry
Yazoo Street Scandal Too Much Of Nothing Nothing Was Delivered
Goin’ To Acapulco Yea! Heavy And Open The Door, Homer
Katie’s Been Gone A Bottle Of Bread Long-Distance Operator
Lo And Behold! Ain’t No More Cane This Wheel’s On Fire
Bessie Smith Down In The Flood

43 In the summer and fall of 1967, Bob Dylan took time off, recuperating from his ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
motorcycle accident and taking stock of his life as well. Although he would not ALBUMS 3
SONGS
tour again for eight years, music was still very much on his mind. Dylan, while
living in the Woodstock, New York area, regularly got together for informal
sessions with the members of his 1966 backing group, who would come to be
known as The Band. The repertoire they played, and played with, at those
sessions was eclectic to say the least—traditional folk songs and doo-wop
tunes, bluegrass and country and hard blues. Along with these were a series of
original songs that used the conventions and subject matter of the traditional
material kaleidoscopically, mixing and matching idioms, switching from high
drama to comedy to the downright absurd. Among this extraordinary flowering
of material could be found nonsense ballads, giddy humor, dead-pan double-
talk, and some genuinely beautiful songs of love and grief. The musicians left a
tape recorder running much of the time, luckily for everyone. The tapes,
originally circulated by his music publishing company, fell into the hands of
collectors and were widely circulated and bootlegged. In 1975, Columbia
Records officially assembled twenty-four of the performances on a two-disc set
known as The Basement Tapes. Some of the songs went on to have a life of
their own – “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” especially – and comic gems like “Yea,
Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread,” “Please, Mrs. Henry” “Million Dollar Bash,” “Tiny
Montgomery,” and “Lo And Behold,” along with the beautiful “Tears of Rage,”
hold a unique and precious place in Dylan’s work.
The Basement Tapes ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
July 1, 1975
 THE BASEMENT TAPES original liner notes
Some years back, The Band cut a song called “The
Rumor.” It’s a tune that could well describe the
music now collected here. “The Basement Tapes”
are a bit like the phantom 1956 session that brought
Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash
together for the first and last time. In spite of the
bootlegs and cover versions, “The Basement Tapes”
have always been more of a rumor than anything else.
44 Some facts, then. The twenty-four songs on
these two discs are drawn from sessions that
took place between June and October, 1967, in the
basement of Big Pink, a house rented by some
members of The Band, up in West Saugerties, New
York. Bob Dylan sings lead on sixteen numbers; one
of them, “Goin’ To Acapulco,” has never been
bootlegged—for that matter, it has never even been
rumored. Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, Rick Danko,
and Robbie Robertson take the lead on eight others,
none of which has ever surfaced either. There’s a lot
of back-up singing all around.
The instrumental line up is: Rick Danko, bass
(mandolin on “Ain’t No More Cane”); Garth Hudson,
organ (sax on “Orange Juice Blues (Blues For
Breakfast),” accordion on “Ain’t No More Cane”);
Richard Manuel, piano (drums on “Odds And Ends,”
“Yazoo Street Scandal,” “Ain’t No More Cane” and
“Don’t Ya Tell Henry,” harp on “Long Distance
Operator”: Robbie Robertson, lead guitar (drums on
“Apple Suckling Tree,” “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”
and “This Wheel’s On Fire,” acoustic guitar on “Ain’t
No More Cane”); Bob Dylan, acoustic guitar (piano
on “Apple Suckling Tree”). Levon Helm, who had left
The Band when, as The Hawks, they were backing
Dylan on stage in 1965, had yet to rejoin his group
when most of the material with Dylan was recorded;
he was back, on drums (mandolin on “Yazoo Street
Scandal” and “Don’t Ya Tell Henry,” bass on “Ain’t
No More Cane”), for the tunes by The Band.
Cut live on a home tape recorder, with from one
to three mikes, all of the tracks have been remas-
tered; highlights have been brought out, tones
sharpened, tape hiss removed, and so on. The sound
is clear, immediate, and direct; as intimate as living
room and as slick as a barbed wire fence.
As for the quality of feeling in the music—well,
that has never been in doubt.
“...with a certain kind of blues music, you can sit down
and play it...you may have to lean forward a little.”
— Bob Dylan, 1966
In 1965 and 1966 Bob Dylan and The Hawks
played their way across the country and then
around the world; those rough tours pushed Bob
Dylan’s music, and The Band’s, to a certain limit,
and they had made stand-up, no-quarter-given-and-
no quarter-asked music if there ever was such a
thing. In the summer of 1967 Dylan and The Band
were after something else.
Neither “John Wesley Harding,” made later that
year, nor “Music From Big Pink” (for which all of
The Band’s numbers here were at one time
intended), sound much like “The Basement Tapes,”
but there are two elements the three sessions do
share; a feeling of age, a kind of classicism; and an
absolute commitment by the singers and musicians
to their material. Beneath the easy rolling surface
of The Basement Tapes, there is some serious
business going on. What was taking shape, as Dylan
and The Band fiddled with the tunes, was less a style
than a spirit—a spirit that had to do with a delight
in friendship and invention.
As you first listen to the music they made, you’ll
be hard put to pin it down, and likely not too
interested in doing so, What matters is Rick
Danko’s loping bass on “Yazoo Street Scandal”;
Garth Hudson’s omnipresent merry-go-round organ
playing (and never more evocative than it is on
“Apple Suckling Tree”); the slow, uncoiling menace
of “This Wheel’s On Fire”; Bob Dylan’s singing, as
sly as Jerry Lee Lewis, and as knowing as the old
man of the mountains.
There’s the kind of love song only Richard ALBUMS 1
Manuel can pull off, the irresistibly pretty “Katie’s ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
Been Gone”; there is the unassuming passion of The SONGS
Band’s magnificent “Ain’t No More Cane,” an old
chain gang song that ought to be a revelation to
anyone who has ever cared about The Band’s music,
because this performance seems to capture the
essence of what they have always meant to be.
There’s the lovely idea of “Bessie Smith,” written
and sung by Robbie and Rick as the plaint of one of
Bessie’s lovers, who can’t figure out if he’s lost his
heart to the woman herself or the way she sings.
There is Levon Helm’s patented mixture of carnal
bewilderment and helpless delight in “Don’t Ya Tell
Henry” (and the solos he and Robbie stomp out on
that tune)—and the tale he tells in “Yazoo Street
Scandal,” a comic horror story wherein the singer is
introduced, by his girlfriend, to the local Dark Lady,
who promptly seduces him, and then scares him half
to death.
“The Basement Tapes,” more than any other
music that has been heard from Bob Dylan and The
Band, sound like the music of a partnership. As
Dylan and The Band trade vocals across these discs,
as they trade nuances and phrases within the songs,
you can feel the warmth and the comradeship that
must have been liberating for all six men. Language,
for one thing, is completely unfettered. A good
number of the songs seem as cryptic, or as
 nonsensical, as a misnumbered crossword puzzle-
that is, if you listen only for words, and not for what
the singing and the music say—but the open spirit
of the songs is as straightforward as their un-
matched vitality and spunk.
One hears a pure, naked emotion in some of
Dylan’s writing and singing—in “Tears Of Rage,”
especially—that can’t he found anywhere else, and
I think it is the musical sympathy Dylan and The
Band shared in these sessions that gives “Tears Of
Rage,” and other numbers, their remarkable depth
and power. There are rhythms in the music that
literally sing with compliments tossed from one
45
musician to another—listen to “Lo And Behold!,”
“Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood),” “Ain’t No
More Cane.” And there is another kind of openness,
a flair for ribaldry that’s as much a matter of Levon’s
mandolin as his, or Dylan’s, singing—a spirit that
shoots a good smile straight across this album.
More than a little crazy, at times flatly bizarre
(take “Million Dollar Bash,” “Yazoo Street Scandal,”
“Don’t Ya Tell Henry,” “Lo And Behold!”), moving
easily form the confessional to the bawdy house,
roaring with humor and good times, this music
sounds to me at once like a testing and a discovery
—of musical affinity, of nerve, of some very pointed
themes; put up or shut up, obligation, escape,
homecoming, owning up, the settling of accounts
past due.
It sounds as well like a testing and a discovery
of memory and roots. “The Basement Tapes” are a
kaleidoscope like nothing I know, complete and no
more dated than the weather, but they seem to leap
out of a kaleidoscope of American music no less
immediate for its venerability. Just below the surface
of songs like “Lo And Behold!” or “Million Dollar
Bash” are the strange adventures and poker-faced
insanities chronicled in such standards as “Froggy
Went A-Courtin’” “E-ri-e,” Henry Thomas’s “Fishing
Blues,” “Cock Robin,” or “Five Nights Drunk”; the
ghost of Rabbit Brown’s sardonic “James Alley
Blues” might lie just behind “Crash On The Levee
(Down In The Flood)” (“Sometimes I Think That
You’re Too Sweet To Die,” Brown sang in 1927, “And
Another Time I Think You Oughta Be Buried Alive”)
“The Basement Tapes” summon sea chanteys;
drinking songs, tall tales, and early rock and roll.
Along side of such things—and often intertwined
with them—is something very different.
“Obviously, death is not very universally accepted. I
mean, you’d think that the traditional music people
could gather from their songs that mystery is a
fact, a traditional fact.”
— Bob Dylan, 1966
I think one can hear what Bob Dylan was talking
about in the music of “The Basement Tapes,” in
“Goin’ To Acapulco,” “Tears Of Rage,” “Too Much Of
Nothing,” and “This Wheel’s On Fire”—one can
hardly avoid hearing it. It is a plain-talk mystery; it
has nothing to do with mumbo-jumbo, charms or
spells. The “acceptance of death” that Dylan found
in “traditional music”—the ancient ballads of
mountain music—is simply a singer’s insistence on
mystery as inseparable from any honest under-
standing of what life is all about; it is the quiet terror
of a man seeking salvation who stares into a void
that stares back. It is the awesome, impenetrable
fatalism that drives the timeless ballads first
recorded in the twenties; songs like Buell Kazee’s
“East Virginia,” Clarence Ashley’s “Coo Coo Bird,”
Dock Boggs’ “Country Blues”—or a song called
“I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground,” put down by
Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1928. “I wish I was a
mole in the ground—like a mole in the ground I
would root that mountain down—And I wish I was a
mole in the ground.”
Now, what the singer wants is obvious, and
almost impossible to really comprehend. He wants
to be delivered from his like, and to be changed into
a creature insignificant and despised; like a mole in
the ground, he wants to see nothing and to be seen
by no one; he wants to destroy the world, and to
survive it.
Dylan and The Band came to terms with feeling—
came to terms with the void that looks back—in the
summer of 1967; in the most powerful and unsettling
songs on “The Basement Tapes,” they put an old,
old sense of mystery across with an intensity that
has not been heard in a long time. You can find it in
Dylan’s singing and in his lyrics on “This Wheel’s On
Fire”—and in every note Garth Hudson, Richard
Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm and Rick
Danko play.
ALBUMS 1
And it is in this way most of all that “The ALBUMS 2
Basement Tapes” are a testing and a discovery of ALBUMS 3
roots and memory; it might be why “The Basement SONGS
Tapes” are, if anything, more compelling today than
when they were first made, no more likely to fade
than Elvis Presley’s “Mystery Train” or Robert
Johnson’s “Love In Vain.” The spirit of a song like
“I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground” matters here
not as an “influence,” and not as a “source.” It is
simply that one side of “The Basement Tapes” casts
the shadow of such things and in turn, is shadowed
by them.
— Greil Marcus
 Hurricane Joey Musicians: Bob Dylan - rhythm
guitar, harmonica, piano on “Isis”;
Isis Romance In Durango Emmylou Harris - background
vocals; Rob Stoner - bass,
Mozambique Black Diamond Bay background vocals; Scarlet Rivera -
One More Cup Of Coffee Sara violin; Howard Wyeth - drums;
Vincent Bell - bellzouki; Dom Cortese
Oh, Sister - accordion; Ronee Blakley -
background vocals “Hurricane”;
Luther - congas “Hurricane.”

46 The follow-up album to Blood On The Tracks was released between the first leg ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
of Dylan’s epic Rolling Thunder Tour in late 1975 and the second in the spring ALBUMS 3
SONGS
of 1976. Desire was his biggest hit to date. Featuring violinist Scarlett Rivera, a
Dylan discovery, Desire leads off with Dylan’s blazing narrative ballad
“Hurricane,” which tells the story of boxer Ruben “Hurricane” Carter’s arrest,
trial and imprisonment, a song full of anger, rage and sarcasm that many hailed
as a return to his “protest” work of the previous decade. Several of the Desire
tracks, including “Isis” and “Romance In Durango,” were co-written with
playwright Jacques Levy, and have a quasi-surreal narrative spin to them.
Dylan’s Hebraic melisma on “One More Cup of Coffee” is another high point, as
is “Sara,” a devastatingly direct and open love letter to his wife. An album full
of tumult, energy, and confusion, pain and fire and sudden transcendence, one
of Dylan’s most interesting.

Desire ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
Produced by Don DeVito
January 5, 1976
 DESIRE original liner notes
SONGS OF REDEMPTION
Hurricane, the only innocent Hurricane, protest
song: Pro (in favor) * Attest (testify for) the
character case of Boxer Mr. Carter framed on bum
rap Passaic Country N.J. whom Dylan minstrel
visited in jail. Doctor Poet W.C. Williams dying
nearby said “A new world is only a new mind,” &
spent life redeeming pure North Jersey language so
later poets could sing “tough iron metal” talk
47
rhymes
“They want to put his ass in stir
They want to pin this triple mur-
der on him
… He coulda been the champion of the
wooorld – “
& end plain as day
“… Shame!
To live in a land where Justice is a game!”
so every Paterson kid will know News furthermore
that
“Rubin sits like Buddha in a 10 foot cell.”
Big daily Announcement. Song’ll hit streets
Supreme Courts’ll have coughed & weeped.
Rubin Carter spring pray God if there’s One in
America – familiar harmonica pieces ears that
just hard about
“criminals in their coats & their ties..”
Old Bards & Minsrels rhymed their years
news on pilgrimage road – Visitations town to
town singing Kings shepherds’ cowboys’ &
lawyers’ secrets – Good Citizen Minstrel truth’s
instantaneously heard. Big Sound in conscious
generations. Local newsboy-prophet song echoes
old youthful idealistic William ZanZinger poem.
amplified alive. 1975. Dead protest? Woody
Guthrie lineage road bards’ll still make us weep
where there’s suffereing to be sung.
Dylan’s Redemption Songs! If he can do it we
can do it. America can do it, “It’s all right Ma I can
make it,” Yes! with tough gold metal compassion,
he’s giving away Gold again – but remember,
good Anarchists, “To live outside the Law you
must be honest.” Drunken aggressive beer bottles’ll
never redeem anybody – But clear conscious
song can, every syllable pronounced, every con-
sonant sneered out with lips risen over teeth to
pronounce them exactly to a Tin microphone,
snarled out NOT for bummer ego put-down but
instead for egoless enunciation of exact phrasings
so everyone can hear intelligence – which is only
your own heart Dear.
Isis here recorded, the singer later developed
onstage sung for weeks whiteface, big grey hat
stuck with November leaves & flowers – no
instrument in hand, think Chaplinesque body
dancing to syllables sustained by Rolling Thunder
band rhythm following Dylan’s spontaneous
ritards & talk-like mouthings for clarity. “It’s only
natchural.” So you can hear it! With two-part
dialogue! Big discovery, these songs are the cul-
mination of Peotry-music as dreamt of in the
‘50s & early ‘60s – poets reciting-chanting with
instruments and bongos – Steady rhythm behind the
elastic language, poet alone at microphone
reciting-singing surreal-history love text ending in
giant “YEAH!” when minstrel gives his heart
away & says he wants to stay. Dylan will stay here
with us! “you may not see me tomorrow.” So he
now lets loose his long-vowel yowls & yawps
over smalltowns’ antennaed rooftops. To Isis Moon
Lady Language Creator Birth Goddess. Mother of
Ra. Saraswati & Kali-Ma too. Hecate, Ea, Astarte,
Sophia & Aphrodite. Divine Mother.
Oh Sister, who’s he talking about? Eternal sister?
Good citizen sisters, he’s still tender friend – lost
alone loved like a thin terrified guru by every
seeker in America who’s heard that long-vowelled
voice in heroic ecstacy, “How does it feel?”
And now come down from that Mountain of
Sound, singing like a Biblical mortal ALBUMS 1
“Oh sister am I not a brother to you ALBUMS 2
And one deserving of all affection? ALBUMS 3
SONGS
And is our purpose not the same on this Earth
To love and follow his direction?
….
We grew up together from the cradle to
The grave
….
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore,
You may not see me tomorrow.”
Follows the first City Narrative, solid facts
beating foreward with drums & violins – like a
jagged short story, ballad sung by hero making hero
of unlikely sensitive gangster Gallo, hard iron
metal Villonesque stoicism & sympathy, with long
lamenting refrain over name anonymous in 25
years Joey, with dialogue movie panoramic cold
suns over Brooklyn – and your inside news the
papers didn’t interpret for the murdered outlaw.
Black Diamond Bay’s also a short novel in
verse, oldfashioned Dylan surrealist mind-jump
inventions line by line, except D. says he’s reading
Joseph Conrad storyteller, so hear continuous
succession of Panama Hat Necktie details, explod-
ing boilers & characters disappering in tornados-
Suddenly a big dissolve & you’re sitting with
 minstrel Dylan in L.A. household watching the
same poem Cronkited on TV news: bard sings the
awful movie where everybody loses & what can
you say? My father age 80 also bowed his head &
said. “What can you do?” under his breath.
Interesting, this long real-life spy hallucination
tale opening the mind-suddenly put back into
the Samsara tube with a cynic lament, its hopeless—
ness-the condition of World on its own bummer,
not ours or Dylan’s- we’re only 25% responsible
the Crazy Wisdom Lama says.
By the time Dylan’d made the great disillusioned
national rhyme Idiot Wind
48
“...Blowing like a circle round your skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol...”
he must’ve been ready for another great surge of
unafraid prophetic feeling—odd weeks seeking
community he’d gone back to Other End Bleeker
Street music house & jammed & drunk with ancient
friend song improvisor Bob Neuwirth & also
anonymous genius street studio guitarists drummers
violin prodigies Rob Stoner, Howie Wyeth &
Botticelli-faced little David Mansfield from New
Jersey—stopped his red car in East Village for
ravehaired Scarlet Rivera walking with her violin
case—giant adolescent T-Bone Burnett mate-
rialized from Texas, Steven Soles from Blues New
York—Half-month was spent solitary on Long
Island with theatrist Jacques Levy working on song
facts phrases & rhymes, sharing information
seriousness—Lots of hight rhythmic art, like the
fast Mexican 11
syllables beginning Durango
“Hot Chili Peppers in the blistering
sun” masterpieces emerged—Song
become conscious poetry, the best
you can say in total rhythm, allowing
for your speech to fall like your
mother’s radiotalk, allowing for caught in a body we all are?
the singer to open his whole body —enough Person revealed to make
for Inspiration to breathe out Whitman’s whole nation weep. And
a long mad vowel to nail down behind it all the vast lone space of
the word into everyone’s heart - No God, or God, mindful conscious
That’s where you get the funny compassion, lifetime awareness,
syncopation—waiting to we’re here in America
pronounce the line just right at last, redeemed. O Generation
as the music marches by, free, hopeless, keep on working!
jumping in and out the fatal chords, ______________
“We may not make it through the night.”
“But he’s still like an electric bullet,” the Allen Ginsberg
Buddhist boy said, where’s the great slowdown Co-Director
ALBUMS 1
tenderness where everyone knows where Dylan’s Jack Kerouac ALBUMS 2
at under his minstrel Hat? Two songs his own heart - School ALBUMS 3
life sings alone, total. One More Cup of Coffee for of Disembodied SONGS
the Road—voice lifts in Hebraic cantillation Poetics,
never heard before in U.S. song, ancient blood Naropa Institute
singing—a new age, a new Dylan again redeemed, Boulder,
at ease—A little bit like America now, not paranoid Colorado
any more, it’s the real Seventies—(every genera- 10 November
tion-decade flowers in the middle, Poetry 1975.
Renaissance 1955, Peace Vietnam Berkeley 1965)
- for now the congregation of poets sings across
the land with new old soul-joy, shit burned out, ego
recognized & allow’d its place, pleasure-lust put
aside with suicidal pain, heart stilled & singing
clear, cantillating like synagogue cantor, “’fore
I go down to the Valley below.”
How far has he gone? All the way from scared
solitude inner prophetics—building on that mind-
honesty strangeness—to openhearted personal
historical confession. As Coffee for Road’s Semitic
mode, Sara, is profound ancient tune
revealing family paradigm—telling Wife & World
the last secrets of solitary weeping art:
“Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel
Writing Sad Eyes Lady of the Lowland for you”
Who woulda thought he’d say it, so everybody’d
finally know him, same soul crying vulnerable
 Maggie’s Farm Lay, Lady, Lay Musicians: Mick Ronson, T Bone
Burnett, Steven Soles, David
One Too Many Mornings Shelter From The Storm Mansfield - guitars; Rob Stoner -
bass; Howard Wyeth, Gary Burke -
Stuck Inside Of Mobile You’re A Big Girl Now drums; Scarlet Rivera - strings;
With The Memphis I Threw It All Away Howard Wyeth, T Bone Burnett -
Blues Again Idiot Wind
piano; Steven Soles, Rob Stoner –
background vocals.
Oh, Sister

49 The Rolling Thunder Tour, with its Cast Of Thousands, was a logistical mountain ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
to move week in and week out, and it plainly put strains on Dylan’s personal life ALBUMS 3
SONGS
as well. Somewhere in between the buoyant circus of the first leg of the tour
(captured gloriously in The Bootleg Series Volume 5 ) and the stark and even
shocking desperado bitterness and venom of the May 1976 performances
captured on Hard Rain, things changed character. Throughout these nine
performances Dylan sings like a man shaking his fist at the heavens. “Shelter
From The Storm” and especially “Idiot Wind” are almost demonic in their intensity.
Not long after these performances, the Rolling Thunder tour stopped rolling.
This snapshot of the tour’s waning days is a burning, exhilarating, painful,
exhausting and extremely powerful document.

Hard Rain
Produced by Don DeVito and Bob Dylan
September 1, 1976
 Changing Of The Guards Señor (Tales Musicians: Bob Dylan - electric rhythm
guitar & lead vocals; Ian Wallace -
New Pony Of Yankee Power) drums; Jerry Scheff - bass; Billy
No Time To Think True Love Tends To Forget Cross – lead guitar; Alan Pasqua -
keyboards; Bobbye Hall - percussion;
Baby, Stop Crying We Better Talk This Over Steve Douglas - tenor and soprano
saxophone ; Steven Soles - rhythm
Is Your Love In Vain? Where Are You Tonight? guitar (background vocals); David
(Journey Through Mansfield - violin & mandolin; Carolyn
Dark Heat) Dennis, Jo Ann Harris, Helena Springs
– background vocals; Steve Madaio -
trumpet (is your love in vain?).

50 One of Dylan’s most underrated albums, 1978’s Street-Legal plunges deep into ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2

BOB  DYLAN
ST R E E T - L E G A L
a pool of intense and hermetic language. A harbinger of things to come, the first
track, “Changing Of The Guards,” is a shifting procession of mythological refer-
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

ences, tarot references, intense visual imagery and scraps of dialogue, full of
struggle and light and darkness. Most of the album seems to be about anguish
and loss of direction, even dead ends, as in the fine “Señor (Tales of Yankee
Power)” and “Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat),” fueled by
lust, regret, more lust, longing, and more regret. The titles alone – “No Time To
Think,” “Is Your Love In Vain?” “We Better Talk This Over” – telegraph the pulse
of anxiety that underlies the entire album. In retrospect it is possible to hear in
much of Street-Legal evidence of the confusion and longing that might precipi-
tate the kind of religious conversion that Dylan experienced not long afterward.
The album was certainly the most slickly produced Dylan record up to that point;
some critics greeted it with a degree of suspicion because the backup band
included horns, background singers and keyboards. Whether or not a dead end
was in fact being hinted at in the music, Dylan was reaching one, along with a
breakthrough into a new arena of spiritual and creative possibility.

Street-Legal
Produced by Don DeVito
June 15, 1978
 Mr. Tambourine Man Like A Rolling Stone All Along The Watchtower
Shelter From The Storm I Shall Be Released I Want You
Love Minus Zero/No Limit Is Your Love In Vain? All I Really Want To Do
Ballad Of A Thin Man Going, Going, Gone Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
Don’t Think Blowin’ In The Wind It’s Alright, Ma
Twice, It’s All Right Just Like A Woman (I’m Only Bleeding)
Maggie’s Farm Oh, Sister Forever Young
One More Cup Simple Twist Of Fate The Times
Of Coffee (Valley Below) They Are A-Changin’

51 This 2-disc live album, recorded in Tokyo in early 1978, finds Dylan backed with ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
a band similar to that on Street-Legal, performing a kind of career retrospec- ALBUMS 3
SONGS
tive, including at least one song from every studio album he had recorded up to
that point, with the exception of Bob Dylan. Most of the tracks find superb Dylan
vocals encrusted with arranged touches from saxophone, flute, and keyboards,
as well as prominently featured background singers. It’s not a usual setting for
Dylan’s music and the approach works with varying degrees of success. When
it works it delivers new insights such as on the powerful re-imagining of “It’s
Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” and a fine reading of “Forever Young.” Dylan
sounds relaxed and happy most of the time; he makes disarming remarks
before some tunes, and takes some liberties with lyrics here and there, notably
on “Simple Twist Of Fate.” Not one of Dylan’s very best records, perhaps, but
one that has gained stature with passing time.

Bob Dylan At Budokan

Produced by Don DeVito
April 23, 1978
 Gotta Serve Somebody Do Right To Me Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitar,
vocals; Barry Beckett - keyboards;
Precious Angel Baby (Do Unto Others) Pick Withers - drums; Tim Drummond
I Believe In You When You Gonna Wake Up? - bass; Mark Knopfler - guitar; Muscle
Shoals Horns - horns; Carolyn Dennis,
Slow Train Man Gave Names Helena Springs, Revina Havis –

Gonna Change To All The Animals background vocals; Barry Beckett,

Mickey Buckins - percussion.
My Way Of Thinking When He Returns

52 In the fall of 1978, a fan threw a small silver cross onto the stage at a performance ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2

SLOW TRAIN COMING in San Diego on a night when Dylan was, by his own admission, at a low ebb in
his life. Just after this, he clearly had a profound spiritual experience that
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

bob dylan resulted in a conversion to Christianity. Dylan began Bible study with a small
group in California, and in May 1979 he entered the studio to record an album
that shook up the pop music world, and his fans, Slow Train Coming. The album’s
opening track lays it out clearly: “It might be the Devil, or it might be the Lord,
but you’re gonna have to serve somebody,” and the rest of the disc goes on
to illuminate aspects of that choice in tones alternately devotional and
evangelical. The music world was sharply divided at the time over the new turn
Dylan had taken, as they had been several times in the past; audiences often
heckled him at his live shows, as they had when he began appearing with an
electric band in the previous decade. But Dylan showed his characteristic
integrity by doing what he felt called to do, and songs like “Gotta Serve
Somebody,” “I Believe In You” and “When He Returns” rank with his best work.

Slow Train Coming

Produced by Jerry Wexler & Barry Beckett
August 20, 1979
 A Satisfied Mind Pressing On Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitars,
vocals, harmonica; Tim Drummond –
Saved In The Garden bass; Jim Keltner – drums; Fred
Tackett – guitar; Spooner Oldham –
Covenant Woman Saving Grace keyboards; Terry Young – keyboards &
What Can I Do For You? Are You Ready vocals; Clydie King, Regina Havis,
Mona Lisa Young – vocals.
Solid Rock

53 ALBUMS 1
Anyone hoping that Dylan’s Christian preoccupation was just a phase or a ALBUMS 2
momentary blip on the screen would have been very disappointed by this 1980 ALBUMS 3
SONGS
follow-up album. Saved is, if anything, an even stronger evangelical statement,
less introspective than Slow Train Coming, with tracks like “Solid Rock,” “Pressing
On” and the title song bearing witness to Dylan’s belief in Biblical prophecy. It
is in its way one of Dylan’s least personal albums; perhaps after all the years of
wrestling with his own persona, or with people’s perceptions of it, with his own
sense of possibility and right and wrong, he was glad to point listeners to a
Higher Authority. In a 1980 interview, he was quoted as saying, “I’m becoming
less and less defined as Christ becomes more and more defined.” Throughout
Saved, from his reading of the old gospel standard “A Satisfied Mind” (“it’s so
hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind”) to his own “Are You
Ready” (“have I surrendered to the will of God, or am I still acting like the
boss?”), one can feel a constant struggle with the sin of pride. Not perhaps one
of the top Dylan albums, but one with an absolutely uncompromising vision.

Saved
Produced by Jerry Wexler & Barry Beckett
June 19, 1980
 Shot Of Love The Groom’s Still Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitars,
vocals, piano, harmonica, percussion;
Heart Of Mine Waiting At The Altar Jim Keltner – drums; Tim Drummond
Property Of Jesus Dead Man, Dead Man – bass; Fred Tackett – guitar; Clydie
King, Regina McCrary, Carolyn
Lenny Bruce In The Summertime Dennis, Madelyn Quebec – backing
vocals. (With) Steve Ripley – guitar;
Watered-Down Love Trouble Carl Pickhardt – piano; Benmont
Every Grain Of Sand Tench – keyboards; Steve Douglas –
saxophone; Danny Kortchmar –
electric guitar.

54 After the hellfire and brimstone of Saved, 1981’s Shot of Love seems a little on ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
the unfocused side, although many found it easier to listen to than the previous ALBUMS 3
SONGS
record. Some of the railing-prophet energy seems to have burned off, and the
beauty and humility and meditative quality of the devotional “Every Grain of
Sand” could be said to reflect a more mellowed relation to his newfound faith.
A number of the other songs on the album could be read ambiguously, serving
either as songs of religious faith or as songs of earthly love, although the
message in “Property Of Jesus” and “Dead Man, Dead Man” is unambiguous
enough. His “Lenny Bruce,” a song of praise for the great comedian who “fought
a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts,” is very affecting. When the
album was originally issued it did not contain “The Groom’s Still Waiting At
The Altar”; a millennial song with scorching lyrics and imagery that bounces
back and forth between Middle East armageddon and a frustrated love affair. It
was added to the CD release after making its first appearance on the 1985
collection Biograph.

Shot Of Love
Produced by Chuck Plotkin and Bob Dylan (except for “Shot of Love,”
produced by Bumps Blackwell, Chuck Plotkin and Bob Dylan)
August 12, 1981
 Jokerman Man Of Peace Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitar,
harmonica, keyboards; Sly Dunbar –
Sweetheart Like You Union Sundown drums, percussion; Robbie
Shakespeare – bass; Mick Taylor –
Neighborhood Bully I And I guitar; Mark Knopfler – guitar; Alan
License To Kill Don’t Fall Clark – keyboards.
Apart On Me Tonight

55 In 1983, Dylan hit a streak of extraordinary inspiration again, and some of ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
its fruits can be found on Infidels. During this time Dylan was writing and ALBUMS 3
SONGS
performing with all the fire and spiritual depth of his Christian work, but with a
less deliberately or directly evangelical element. Instead he produced a number
of songs that had the feeling of prophecy inflected by inner struggle. The
album’s strongest track must certainly be “Jokerman,” a cryptic, densely
symbolic exploration into the ambiguity of salvation, the close relation between
pride and the impulse to save, the temptations of idolatry, and the difficulty of
trusting even the believing self, a theme explored in more direct terms on “Man
Of Peace.” “Sweetheart Like You” is a subtle and brilliant love song, worthy of
Blood on the Tracks. Oddly, some of the very best things recorded at the Infidels
session were left off the album; a couple of these, “Blind Willie McTell” and
the scorching “Foot of Pride,” show up on The Bootleg Series Volume 1-3.

Infidels
Produced by Bob Dylan For “Wreck of the Old 97 Productions”
and Mark Knopfler for Chariscourt, LTD.
October 27, 1983
 Highway 61 Revisited Tangled Up In Blue Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitar,
harmonica, vocals; Greg Sutton –
Maggie’s Farm Masters Of War bass; Colin Allen – drums; Ian
McLagen – keyboards; Mick Taylor –
I And I Ballad Of A Thin Man guitar; Carlos Santanna – additional
License To Kill Girl From guitar on “Tombstone Blues.”

It Ain’t Me, Babe The North Country

Tombstone Blues

56 ALBUMS 1
Dylan’s European tour of 1984 is documented in this interesting set drawn from ALBUMS 2
July concerts in England and Ireland, a mixture of solo and band performances ALBUMS 3
SONGS
most notable for a solo version of “Tangled Up In Blue” with markedly different
lyrics than those found on Blood On The Tracks. A pulsating “Highway 61 Revisited”
kicks things off and the leader’s vocals are strong rhythmically and musically.
However, on some songs he does not always sound absolutely in sync with the
lyrics, as on “It Ain’t Me Babe,” where there seems to be a disconnect between
his delivery and the song’s meaning, although he plainly enjoys hearing the
audience sing along on the refrain (even dropping out so they can sing it alone
one time). “I And I” and “License To Kill,” from the recent Infidels, get a couple
of the set’s best readings, and Carlos Santana joins the band on guitar for a
rocking version of “Tombstone Blues.” Nothing new here in terms of repertoire,
just a record of a hard-working “song and dance man,” as he once called
himself, serving up the goods on the road, as he had been doing for over two
decades at that point.

Real Live
Produced by Glyn Johns
November 29, 1984
 Tight Connection To Trust Yourself Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitar, keyboards,
vocals; Mick Taylor, Ted Perlman, Mike
My Heart (Has Anybody Emotionally Yours Campbell, Ron Wood, Syd McGuiness, Al Kooper,
Seen My Love) When The Night Comes Stuart Kimball, Ira Ingber – guitars; Don
Heffington, Sly Dunbar, Anton Fig, Jim Keltner –
Seeing The Falling From The Sky drums; Robbie Shakespeare, Bob Glaub, Howie
Real You At Last Something’s Epstein, John Paris – bass; Alan Clark, Richard
Scher, Vince Melamed – Synthesizer; Benmont
I’ll Remember You Burning, Baby Tench – keyboards; Bashiri Johnson –
Clean-Cut Kid Dark Eyes percussion; Chops, Urban Blight Horns - horns;
David Watson – Sax; Carol Dennis, Queen Esther
Never Gonna Marrow, Peggi Blu, Madelyn Quebec – vocals.
Be The Same Again

57 ALBUMS 1
This 1985 album is certainly among the more underrated ones in Dylan’s catalog. ALBUMS 2
Remixed by producer du jour, Arthur Baker, it has a slicker, more “produced” ALBUMS 3
SONGS
feel to it than any of his previous albums, with the possible exception of Street-
Legal. It doesn’t seem to have gotten its due for being what it is, an album full
of love songs, most of them with a high gloss to be sure. Standout tracks include
the slashing “Seeing The Real You At Last,” which plays a game with lines from
old movie dialogue, the fine poetry of “Tight Connection to My Heart” (an alternate
version of this, titled “Someone’s Got A Hold Of My Heart,” may be heard on The
Bootleg Series 1-3) and “Clean Cut Kid,” a scary song about an All-American
boy who came back psychologically damaged from war. Some of the songs are
flat-out pop tunes, like “Emotionally Yours,” “Never Gonna Be The Same Again,”
and “I’ll Remember You,” and that may have something to do with why the set
is undervalued. But they are good pop songs, and Dylan sings them well. “Dark
Eyes,” a last-minute addition, is a quiet, haunting solo performance.

Empire Burlesque
May 30, 1985
 Lay, Lady, Lay Percy’s Song [10/23/63] I Don’t Believe You To Ramona Jet Pilot [October 1965] Romance In
Baby, Let Me Mixed Up Confusion (She Acts Like We Never You’re A Big Caribbean Wind [4/7/81] Durango [Live 12/4/75]
Follow You Down Tombstone Blues Have Met) [Live 5/6/66] Girl Now [9/25/74] Up To Me [9/25/74] Señor (Tales
If Not For You The Groom’s Still Visions Of Abandoned Love Baby, I’m In The Of Yankee Power)
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight Waiting At The Altar Johanna [Live 5/26/66] [July 1975] Mood For You [7/9/62] Gotta Serve Somebody
I’ll Keep It Most Likely You Go Every Grain Of Sand Tangled Up In Blue I Wanna Be Your I Believe In You
With Mine [1/4/65] Your Way And I’ll Go Mine Quinn The Eskimo (The It’s All Over Now, Lover [October 1965] Time Passes Slowly
The Times Like A Rolling Stone Mighty Quinn) [July 1967] Baby Blue [Live 5/17/66] I Want You I Shall Be Released
They Are A-Changin’ Lay Down Your Mr. Tambourine Man Can You Please Heart Of Mine [Live Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
Blowin’ In The Wind Weary Tune [10/24/63] Dear Landlord Crawl Out Your Window? August 1981] All Along The Watchtower
Masters Of War Subterranean It Ain’t Me, Babe Positively 4th Street On A Night Like This Solid Rock
The Lonesome Homesick Blues You Angel You Isis [Live 12/4/75] Just Like A Woman Forever Young [June 1973]
Death Of Hattie Carroll Million Dollar Bash
58 The 1985 release of the 5-LP set Biograph set off a widespread media reevaluation ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
of Dylan’s art and his place in American culture. It also brought Dylan’s music, ALBUMS 3
SONGS
in all its variety and scope, to a new generation of listeners. For better or for
worse, it kicked off the record industry phenomenon of the boxed-set career
retrospective. Brilliantly programmed, Biograph was a career retrospective,
but it followed no particular chronological or thematic order. Instead it had a
kind of free-associative quality that proved to be a perfect light in which to view
all the facets of Dylan’s work. Mixing familiar tracks from Dylan’s albums with
unheard live performances and studio outtakes, the set itself has its own
allusive aesthetic, working by juxtaposition and leaps of intuition – resembling, to
that extent, Dylan’s own aesthetic. Among Biograph’s many previously unissued
treasures are the Blood On The Tracks outtake “Up To Me,” a stunning live 1966
solo version of “Visions of Johanna,” the poignant and beautiful “Percy’s Song,”
full-tilt live versions of “Isis” and “Romance In Durango” from the Rolling
Thunder Revue, the early unissued tracks “I’ll Keep It With Mine” and “Lay Down
Your Weary Tune,” the Shot Of Love outtake “Caribbean Wind,” the 1965 mini-epic
“Jet Pilot”…. There are way too many highlights to list. All in all, Biograph is, in
itself, a kind of masterpiece, and still the best all-around introduction to Dylan.

Biograph ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
Produced by Jeff Rosen
November 7, 1985
 BIOGRAPH original liner notes
The first glimpses of Bob Dylan come from
friends and classmates in his hometown of Hibbing,
Minnesota. Most of them had a frame of reference
that didn’t stretch much farther than the small, gray
midwestern mining town where they lived. Young
Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman on May 24th, 1941
looked mighty different around Hibbing. The
explosive film Blackboard Jungle had touched his
59
life and so had the late-night rhythm and blues
stations from Chicago. When most of the other kids
in Hibbing were still riding bicycles, Dylan was
thinking about leather jackets and motorcycles.
He hounded the local record store for the newest
singles from Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Jimmy
Reed, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker
and others. Soon Dylan had formed his own bands,
The Golden Chords, The Shadow Blasters, Elston
Gunn & The Rock Boppers. When he took the stage
for a high school talent show, fellow students were
shocked at the slight kid who opened his mouth and
came out wailing, with a fully realized Little Richard
howl. He would not be long for Hibbing, Minnesota.
“My family settled in Hibbing I think in about ’46
or ’47. My father had polio when I was very young.
There was a big epidemic. He lost his job in Duluth
and we moved to the Iron Range and moved in with
my grandmother Florence and my grandfather who
was still alive at the time. We slept in the living room
of my grandma’s house for about a year or two, I
slept on a roll-a-way bed, that’s all I remember.
Two of my uncles, my father’s brothers, had gone
to electrical school and by this time had gotten
electrician licenses. They had moved from Duluth to
up here where they operated out of a store called
Micka Electric, wiring homes and things... my father
never walked right again and suffered much pain his
whole life. I never understood this until much later
but it must have been hard for him because before
that he’d been a very active and physical type guy.
Anyway, the brothers took him in as a partner, my
uncle Paul and my uncle Maurice, and this is where
he worked for the rest of his life. Later, they bought
the store and started selling lamps, clocks, radios,
anything electrical and then much later TV’s and
furniture. They still did wiring though and that was
their main thing. I worked on the truck sometimes
but it was never meant for me. This was not a rich or
poor town, everybody had pretty much the same
thing and the very wealthy people didn’t live there,
they were the ones that owned the mines and they
lived thousands of miles away.”
“I always wanted to be a guitar player and a
singer,” Bob Dylan said recently on a break from
sessions for a new album. “Since I was ten, eleven
or twelve, it was all that interested me. That was the
only thing that I did that meant anything really.
Henrietta was the first rock ‘n’ roll record I heard.
Before that I’d listen to Hank Williams a lot. Before
that, Johnny Ray. He was the first singer whose voice
and style, I guess, I totally fell in love with. There
was just something about the way he sang When
Your Sweetheart Sends A Letter... that just knocked
me out. I loved his style, wanted to dress like him
too, that was real early though. I ran into him in the
elevator in Sydney, Australia late in ’78 and told him
how he impressed me so when I was growing up... I
still have a few of his records.”
After high school graduation in 1959, Dylan
traveled first to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. He
enrolled in classes at the University of Minnesota
but ended spending more time in the nearby
Bohemian district known as Dinkytown, where he
played in a coffee house, The Ten O’Clock Scholar.
Dylan was taken in by the artistic community and it
was there that he first became acquainted in the
rural folk music of artists like Big Bill Broonzy,
Leadbelly, Roscoe Holcomb and the great Woody
Guthrie. “By that time, I was singing stuff like Ruby
Lee by The Sunny Mountain Boys, and Jack
O’Diamonds by Odetta and somehow because of my
earlier rock ‘n’ roll background was unconsciously
crossing the two styles. This made me different
from your regular folk singers, who were either folk ALBUMS 1
song purists or concert-hall singers, who just ALBUMS 2
happened to be singing folk songs. I’d played by ALBUMS 3
SONGS
myself with just a guitar and harmonica or as part of
a duo with Spider John Koerner, who played mostly
ballads and Josh White-type blues. He knew more
songs than I did. Whoa Boys Can’t Ya Line ’M, John
Hardy, Golden Vanity, I learned all those from him.
We sounded great, not unlike the Delmore Brothers.
I could always hear my voice sounding better as a
harmony singer. In New York, I worked off and on
with Mark Spoelstra and later with Jim Kweskin. Jim
and I sounded pretty similar to Cisco and Woody.”
“Minneapolis was the first big city I lived in, if
you want to call it that,” remembered Dylan. “I
came out of the wilderness and just naturally fell in
with the beat scene, the Bohemian, BeBop crowd, it
was all pretty much connected... St. Louis, Kansas
City, you usually went from town to town and found
the same setup in all these places, people comin’
and goin’, nobody with any place special to live. You
always ran into people you knew from the last place.
I had already decided that society, as it was, was
pretty phony and I didn’t want to be part of that...
also, there was a lot of unrest in the country. You
could feel it, a lot of frustration, sort of like a calm
before a hurricane, things were shaking up. Where I
was at, people just passed through, really, carrying
horns, guitars, suitcases, whatever, just like the
 stories you hear, free love, wine, poetry, nobody had
any money anyway. There were a lot of poets and
painters, drifters, scholarly types, experts at one
thing or another who had dropped out of the regular
nine-to-five life, there were a lot of house parties
most of the time. They were usually in lofts or
warehouses or something or sometimes in the park,
in the alley, wherever there was space. It was
always crowded, no place to stand or breathe. There
were always a lot of poems recited—‘Into the room
people come and go talking of Michelangelo,
measuring their lives in coffee spoons’... ‘What I’d
like to know is what do you think of your blue-eyed
60
boy now, Mr. Death.’ T.S. Eliot, e.e. cummings. It was
sort of like that and it kind of woke me up... Suzie
Rotolo, a girlfriend of mine in New York, later turned
me on to all the French poets but for then it was
Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso and Ferlinghetti—
Gasoline, Coney Island of the Mind... oh man, it was
wild—‘I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness’ that said more to me than
any of the stuff I’d been raised on. On The Road,
Dean Moriarty, this made perfect sense to me...
anyway the whole scene was an unforgettable one,
guys and girls some of whom reminded me of saints,
some people had odd jobs—bus boy, bartender,
exterminator, stuff like that but I don’t think working
was on most people’s minds—just to make enough
to eat, you know. Most of everybody, anyway, you
had the feeling that they’d just been kicked out of
something. It was outside, there was no formula,
never was ‘main stream’ or ‘the thing to do’ in any
sense. America was still very ‘straight’, ‘post-war’
and sort of into a gray-flannel suit thing. McCarthy,
commies, puritanical, very claustrophobic and what
ever was happening of any real value was happening
away from that and sort of hidden from view and it
would be years before the media would be able to
recognize it and choke-hold it and reduce it to
silliness. Anyway, I got in at the tail-end of that and
it was magic... everyday was like Sunday, it’s like it
was waiting for me, it had just as big an impact on
me as Elvis Presley. Pound, Camus, T.S. Eliot, e.e.
cummings, mostly expatriate Americans who were
off in Paris and Tangiers. Burroughs, Nova Express,
John Rechy, Gary Snyder, Ferlinghetti, Pictures From
The Gone World, the newer poets and folk music,
jazz, Monk, Coltrane, Sonny and Brownie, Big Bill
Broonzy, Charlie Christian... it all left the rest of
everything in the dust... I knew I had to get to New
York though, I’d been dreaming about that for a
long time.”
Dylan mapped out his strategy. Then performing
as a solo guitarist and singer, he was playing at a
St. Paul local coffee house and pizza parlor called
The Purple Onion. The Purple Onion was located next
to the main highway heading out of town. It was
owned by Bill Danialson, who took a liking to Dylan
and occasionally allowed him to sleep in the back
room. It was a particularly heavy winter in the
Midwest and Dylan’s plan was to play at the club
until the snow subsided enough for him to hitchhike
East. It never happened.
Recalled Dylan, “I just got up one morning and
left. I’d spent so much time thinking about it I
couldn’t think about it anymore. Snow or no snow, it
was time for me to go. I made a lot of friends and I
guess some enemies too, but I had to overlook it all.
I’d learned as much as I could and used up all my
options. It all got real old real fast. When I arrived in
Minneapolis it had seemed like a big city or a big
town. When I left it was like some rural outpost that
you see once from a passing train. I stood on the
highway during a blizzard snowstorm believing in
the mercy of the world and headed East, didn’t have
nothing but my guitar and suitcase. That was my
whole world. The first ride I got, you know, was from
some old guy in a jalopy, sort of a Bela Lugosi type,
who carried me into Wisconsin. Of all the rides I’ve
ever gotten it’s the only one that stands out in my
mind. People hitchhiked a lot back then, they rode
the bus or they stuck out their thumb and hitch-
hiked. It was real natural. I wouldn’t do that today.
People aren’t as friendly and there’s too many drugs
on the road.”
It would be several months before Dylan actually
arrived in New York. He stopped first in Madison,
Wisconsin and fell in with the folk and blues
community there. Then he moved on to Chicago,
where he had some phone numbers to try and ended
up staying there for a couple of months. Eventually
Dylan got a ride to New York with a couple of college
kids. “They needed two people to help drive to New
York and that’s how I left. Me and a guy named Fred
Underhill went with them. Fred was from William-
ALBUMS 1
stown or somewhere and he knew New York.” ALBUMS 2
Dylan and Underhill were dropped off on the ALBUMS 3
New York side of the George Washington Bridge and SONGS
immediately took a subway to Greenwich Village. It
was the worst New York winter in 60 years and the
snow was knee-deep. “Where I came from there
was always plenty of snow so I was used to that,”
said Dylan, “but going to New York was like going to
the moon. You just didn’t get on a plane and go
there, you know. New York! Ed Sullivan, the New
York Yankees, Broadway, Harlem... you might as well
have been talking about China. It was some place
which not too many people had gone, and anybody
who did go never came back.”
The frail-looking Dylan was a voracious learner.
Once in New York, he was at the center of all action.
It was a chance to actually see and sometimes meet
the artists he’d come to admire, including Woody
Guthrie. Dylan listened to everybody and took it all
in. “I was lucky to meet Lonnie Johnson at the
same club I was working and I must say he greatly
influenced me. You can hear it in that first record. I
mean Corrina, Corrina... that’s pretty much Lonnie
Johnson. I used to watch him every chance I got and
sometimes he’d let me play with him. I think he and
Tampa Red and of course Scrapper Blackwell, that’s
my favorite style of guitar playing... the harmonica
part, well, I’d always liked Wayne Raney and Jimmy
 Reed, Sonny Terry... Li’l Junior Parker, ‘told you
baby, bam bam bam bam once upon a time bam bam
bam bam I’d be yours bam bam bam bam (foot tap)
li’1 girl you’d be mine... but that’s all right... I know
you’d love some other man’... but I couldn’t get it in
the rack like that or adjust the equipment to an
amplified slow pace so I took to blowing out...
actually Woody had done it... I had to do it that way
to be heard on the street, you know above the
noise... like an accordion... Victoria Spivey too, oh
man I loved her... I learned so much from her I could
never put into words.” Dylan soon developed a style
that would synthesize many different folk influences.
61
At the time, it was a bold move. Even the stodgiest
standards sounded different Dylan’s way. Some
purists didn’t appreciate the irreverence. “I could
sing How High The Moon or If I Gave My Heart To You
and it would come out like Mule Skinner Blues.”
“There was just a clique, you know,” said Dylan.
“Folk Music was a strict and rigid establishment. If
you sang Southern Mountain Blues, you didn’t sing
Southern Mountain Ballads and you didn’t sing City
Blues. If you sang Texas cowboy songs, you didn’t
play English ballads. It was really pathetic. You just
didn’t. If you sang folk songs from the thirties, you
didn’t do bluegrass tunes or Appalachian ballads. It
was very strict. Everybody had their particular thing
that they did. I didn’t much ever pay attention to
that. If I liked a song, I would just learn it and sing it
the only way I could play it. Part of it was a technical
problem which I never had the time or the inclination
for, if you want to call it a problem. But it didn’t go
down well with tight thinking people. You know, I’d
hear things like ‘I was in the Lincoln Brigade’ and
‘the kid is really bastardizing up that song.’ The
other singers never seemed to mind, though. In fact,
quite a few of them began to copy my attitude in
guitar phrasing and such.”
Performing first at Village clubs like The Gas
Light, The Commons, Cafe Rienzi and later Gerde’s
Folk City, Dylan had a quirky stage presence, equal
parts humor and intensity. He also took several jobs
as a guitarist or harmonica player. One session was
a record date with noted folk artist Carolyn Hester.
Rehearsing for the Hester session at the home of a
friend, Dylan first met the distinguished Columbia
Records producer and talent scout John Hammond
(Aretha Franklin, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and
later Bruce Springsteen). Hammond kept young
Dylan in mind.
Dylan was soon to receive one of the most
important reviews of his life, possibly the last one
that meant as much. Noted New York Times folk
critic Robert Shelton had raved about Dylan’s show
at Gerde’s Folk City, in an unprecedented review, for
Dylan was merely the opening act and not the main
headliner (“... there is no doubt he is bursting at the
seams with talent”). Nineteen-year-old Dylan read
and re-read the review, showing it to friends and
re-reading it again. By the next morning, Dylan was
fresh and ready for his Hester session. The crinkled
review was still in his hand. It was only the second
time he’d worked in a major studio, the first being a
short stint on harmonica for a Harry Belafonte
record earlier that summer. Hammond signed Dylan
that afternoon.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dylan. “I left there
and I remember walking out of the studio. I was like
on a cloud. It was up on 7th Avenue and when I left I
was happening to be walking by a record store. It
was one of the most thrilling moments in my life. I
couldn’t believe that I was staring at all the records
in the window, Frankie Laine, Frank Sinatra, Patti
Page, Mitch Miller, Tony Bennett and so on and soon
I, myself, would be among them in the window. I
guess I was pretty naive, you know. It was even
before I made a record, just knowing I was going to
make one and it was going to be in that window. I
wanted to go in there dressed in the rags like I was
and tell the owner, ‘You don’t know me now, but you
will.’ It never occurred to me that it could have been
otherwise. I didn’t know that just because you make
a record it has to be displayed in a window next to
Frank Sinatra, let alone they have to carry it in the
store. John Hammond recorded me soon after that.”
Dylan’s first album was recorded in a matter
of hours. The session was over when they ran out of
tape and Hammond estimated the entire cost at
$402. These were, indeed, the good old days. All the
material was recorded live and it’s important to
note that Dylan would maintain that spirit of studio
spontaneity for the next twenty years. Most of the
music included in this collection was recorded in
two or three takes.
“You didn’t get a lot of studio time then,” he
ALBUMS 1
said. “Six months to make a record... It wasn’t even ALBUMS 2
conceivable. My early records, all the way up to the ALBUMS 3
late seventies, were done in periods of hours. Days, SONGS
maybe. Since the late sixties, maybe since Sgt.
Pepper on, everybody started to spend more of their
time in the studio, actually making songs up and
building them in the studio. I’ve done a little bit of
that but I’d rather have some kind of song before I
get there. It just seems to work out better that way.”
Much was made in subsequent years of the
fact that Dylan had only one of his own compositions
(Song to Woody) on that first album. “I just took in
what I had,” he explained. “I tried a bunch of stuff
and John Hammond would say, ‘Well, let’s use this
one’ and I’d sing that one and he’d say, ‘Let’s use
that one.’ I must have played a whole lot of songs.
He kept what he kept, you know. He didn’t ask me
what I wrote and what I didn’t write. I was only doing
a few of my own songs back then, anyway. You didn’t
really do too many of your own songs back then. And
if you did... you’d just try to sneak them in. The first
bunch of songs I wrote, I never would say I wrote
them. It was just something you didn’t do.”
The first album was released before Dylan’s 21st
birthday, and it sold an unremarkable 5,000 copies.
While the executives fretted over whether their “ris-
ing young star” was still a sound investment, Dylan
was taking large steps in finding his songwriting
 voice. His live show strengthened and deepened
as he added more of his own material. He was able
to take an audience from laughter to thoughtful
silence in a handful of sharply chosen words.
Dylan’s second album featured Dylan compositions
and it was a success.
Along with the applause, remained the tradition-
alist doubters, as always. Blowin’ In The Wind, first
published in Broadside Magazine in 1962, did much
to silence the opposition. It was an indisputably
strong song, simple and timeless from the first
listening. It would become the fastest selling single
in Warner Brothers history in the hands of Peter,
62
Paul and Mary, and the first to bring a new social
awareness to the pop charts. To this day it’s Dylan’s
most covered composition, from Bobby Darin to
Marlene Dietrich. When folk music found its largest
audience, it was because of this song.
The songs that followed during this period stung
and inspired and often took their stories directly
from newspaper or word-of-mouth accounts. The
Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll was the actual
story of a Baltimore maid mistakenly murdered by a
drunken socialite. The socialite escaped with a six-
month sentence. Dylan wrote of the brutal injustice
with a masterful touch, never did it approach the
heavy-handed. It was exactly this delicate quality
that made Dylan’s social commentary so original
and his imitators so obvious.
“When I started writing those kinds of songs,
there wasn’t anybody doing things like that,” said
Dylan. “Woody Guthrie had done similar things but
he hadn’t really done that type of song. Besides,
I had learned from Woody Guthrie and knew and
could sing anything he had done. But now the
times had changed and things would be different.
He contributed a lot to my style lyrically and
dynamically but my musical background had been
different, with rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues
playing a big part earlier on. Actually attitude had
more to do with it than technical ability and that’s
what the folk movement lacked. In other words, I
played all the folk songs with a rock ‘n’ roll attitude.
This is what made me different and allowed me to
cut through all the mess and be heard. People with
no definition of feeling and that sort of thing, and
there were too many of them... I remember when
protest song writing was big. Phil Ochs came to
town, Tim Hardin was around, Patrick Sky, Buffy St.
Marie, but there never was any such thing. It was
like the term ‘Beatnik’ or ‘Hippie.’ These were terms
made up by magazine people who are invisible who
like to put a label on something to cheapen it. Then
it can be controlled better by other people who are
also invisible. Nobody ever said, ‘Well, here’s
another protest song I’m going to sing’... Anyway,
the guy who was best at that was Peter LaFarge. He
was a champion rodeo cowboy and sometime back
he’d also been a boxer. He had a lot of his bones
broken. I think he’d also been shot up in Korea.
Anyway, he wrote Ira Hayes, Iron Mountain, Johnny
Half-Breed, White Girl and about a hundred other
things. There was one about Custer, ‘the general, he
don’t ride well anymore.’ We were pretty tight for a
while. We had the same girlfriend. Actually, Peter is
one of the great unsung heroes of the day. His style
was just a little bit too erratic. But it wasn’t his fault,
he was always hurting and having to overcome it.
Johnny Cash recorded a bunch of his songs. When I
think of a guitar poet or protest singer, I always
think of Peter, but he was a love song writer too.”
His work made a subtle, if pointed shift with
Another Side of Bob Dylan. “Tom Wilson, the
producer, titled it that,” noted Dylan. “I begged
and pleaded with him not to do it. You know, I
thought it was overstating the obvious. I knew I was
going to have to take a lot of heat for a title like that
and it was my feeling that it wasn’t a good idea
coming after The Times They Are A-Changin’, it just
wasn’t right. It seemed like a negation of the past
which in no way was true. I know that Tom didn’t
mean it that way, but that’s what I figured that
people would take it to mean, but Tom meant well
and he had control, so he had it his way. I guess in
the long run, he might have been right to do what
he did. It doesn’t matter now.”
Wilson recalled at the time, “I didn’t even
particularly like folk music. I’d been recording Sun
Ra and Coltrane and I thought folk music was for
the dumb guys. This guy played like the dumb guys
but then these words came out. I was flabbergasted.
I said to Albert Grossman, who was there in the
studio, I said, ‘if you put some background to this,
ALBUMS 1
you might have a white Ray Charles with a message.’ ALBUMS 2
But it wasn’t until a year later that everyone agreed ALBUMS 3
that we should put a band behind him. I had to find a SONGS
band. But it was a very gradual process.” Wilson
takes the credit for Dylan going electric. “It came
from me.”
The album, recorded in two nights, proved that
Dylan was never simply a revolutionary or even a
political singer in the conventional sense. These
were songs about the politics of love. Throughout all
the styles, periods and influences of his work, one of
Dylan’s only constants has been the love song. At
composing them there are few as talented. He’s
approached the subject from all sides, from It Ain’t
Me Babe and To Ramona to Lay Lady Lay and
Sweetheart Like You.
So strong was Dylan’s impact on the folk stages
of America in the early sixties that when he chose to
move back to his original high school roots in rock
and roll, even to dress differently, there was an
almost immediate uproar. For some time press
conferences, articles and interviews were filled with
pointed questions like, “Does it take a lot of trouble
to get your hair like that?” “How do you feel about
selling out?” and “How many folk singers are there
now?” (Dylan’s chain-smoking replies were, “No,
you just have to sleep on it for about twenty years,”
 “I don’t feel guilt,” and “136” respectively.) Asked
about his music, he said, “It’s mathematical... I use
words like most people use numbers. That’s about
the best I can do.”
The songs were, as he once said, about
objection, obsession or rejection. They had also
begun to cry out for instrumentation. While touring
England, Dylan had met and heard the new wave of
English pop bands, from The Beatles to The Animals,
The Pretty Things, Manfred Mann, The Stones, The
Who. By January, Dylan was recording his break-
through Bringing It All Back Home album. Half the
album would feature a hard-edged rock and blues
63
backing, the other half form-bending solo acoustic
music. The Byrds’ own electrified hit version of
Mr. Tambourine Man, taken from a Dylan demo tape,
had become a single. Dylan was reaching a level of
popularity beyond even his own expectations.
But there were still many folk purists in Dylan’s
audience and all signs were pointing to a showdown.
It would come in the summer of 1965, at the
Newport Folk Festival. Never one for complacency,
Dylan had shown up at the folk music capital of
the world in a black leather jacket, plugged in his
Fender electric and began the prestigious Sunday
night showcase performance (the bill included Pete
Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary) with an earsplitting
Maggie’s Farm. Dylan, fresh from having recorded
Like A Rolling Stone, blasted through the set with a
vengeance. The reaction, by most accounts, was
somewhat less than generous. The purists booed.
“I didn’t really know what was going to happen,”
Dylan shrugged at a San Francisco press conference
in December ’65. “They certainly booed, I’ll tell you
that. You could hear it all over the place. I don’t
know who they were... they’ve done it just about all
over... I mean, they must be pretty rich to go some
place and boo. I mean, I couldn’t afford it if I was
in their shoes.”
Typically, the controversy fueled one of Dylan’s
most famous and fruitful periods. At this point he
was writing whole batches of songs in long, all-night
sessions in coffee houses, homes of friends, on
napkins and tablecloths. Dylan was firing on all
cylinders. The prolific artist was even coming in
with songs he’d written on the way to the studio.
Within minutes they became records with only one
criteria—feel. A story from Al Kooper’s fine book,
Backstage Passes helps recall the atmosphere.
Then-guitarist Kooper, an early Dylan fan, had
wandered into the empty studio where a session was
due to begin. He asked producer Tom Wilson for a
spot in the band and Wilson advised Kooper to take
a shot and simply be there, guitar in hand, when
Dylan arrived. Dylan soon appeared with guitarist
Michael Bloomfield in tow and Kooper was casually
switched to organ. Kooper did not play organ, but
the musician kept quiet and improvised when Dylan
counted off his newest song, Like A Rolling Stone.
After the take, Wilson objected to the organ-playing.
Dylan asked that it be turned up. The next take,
released five days later, bumped off The Beatles’ Help
to become Dylan’s first number-one single. At almost
six minutes, it was then the longest hit in history.
Country artist Johnny Tillotson stopped Dylan in
the street to tell him Like A Rolling Stone had gone
to number one. Dylan was amazed. It was less than
five years from the day he’d stared in the window of
the record store on 7th Avenue and the weight of
that fact didn’t escape him.
Perhaps only Elvis Presley before him had been
able to stir up public emotions and at the same time
redefine popular music. Before Dylan, Chuck Berry
had been one of the only popular artists to sing his
own songs. After Dylan, singer-songwriters were no
longer akin to ambidexterity—interesting, but not
necessary. “I didn’t know it at the time but all the
radio songs were written at Tin Pan Alley, the Brill
Building,” Dylan recalled. “They had stables of
songwriters up there that provided songs for artists.
I heard of it but not paid much attention. They were
good songwriters but the world they knew and the
world I knew were totally different. Most of all the
songs, though, being recorded came from there, I
guess because most singers didn’t write their own.
They didn’t even think about it. Anyway, Tin Pan Alley
is gone. I put an end to it. People can record their
own songs now. They’re almost expected to do it.
The funny thing about it though is that I didn’t start
out as a songwriter. I just drifted into it. Those other
people had it down to a science.”
Dylan’s concerts in the mid-sixties grew
to be strange and mysterious affairs. With Mike
Bloomfield off touring as part of the Paul Butterfield
Blues Band, Dylan had settled on a new band
ALBUMS 1
featuring drummer Levon Helm and a stunning new ALBUMS 2
blues-and-rock guitarist, Jamie (Robbie) Robertson. ALBUMS 3
(Called Levon and The Hawks, the group would years SONGS
later rename themselves and go on to their own
success as The Band.) Dylan himself was exploring
the inner limits of his songwriting ability and the
outer limits of his stage presence. The result was an
amazing series of performances in 1965 and 1966.
Dylan on-stage and the tumultuous ’66 tour of
the British Isles are well documented in this
collection. Following wrestlers and carnivals into
halls where rock had never been before (or since),
every stop was another drama. Another show on
the same tour was released in underground circles
as The Royal Albert Hall Concert and it’s still a
cherished recording. The show actually took place
in Manchester but an amazing bit of audience-and-
artist dialogue (Audience member: “Judas!” Dylan
“I don’t believe you... you’re a liar”) was taken from
the Albert Hall concert days later. These concerts
with Bob Dylan and The Band are now thought to be
highlights in rock history but they too were booed at
the time.
Remembers Robbie Robertson today, “That
tour was a very strange process. You can hear the
violence, and the dynamics in the music. We’d go
from town to town, from country to country and it
was like a job. We set up, we played, they booed and
 threw things at us. Then we went to the next town,
played, they booed, threw things and we left again.
I remember thinking, ‘This is a strange way to make
a buck.’
“I give tremendous credit to Bob in that
everybody at the time said, ‘Get rid of these guys
they’re terrible.’ They said it behind our backs, and
they said it with the group standing right there. Dylan
never did anything about it. He never once came to
me and said, ‘Robbie, this is not working...’ The only
reason tapes of those shows exist today is because
we wanted to know, ‘Are we crazy?’ We’d go back to
the hotel room, listen to a tape of the show and think,
64
shit, that’s not bad. Why is everybody so upset?”
(It’s an interesting footnote to music history
that along an early English tour, Dylan would visit
the home of John Lennon and the two would pen a
song together. “I don’t remember what it was,
though,” said Dylan. “We played some stuff into a
tape recorder but I don’t know what happened to it.
I can remember playing it and the recorder was on.
I don’t remember anything about the song.”)
Lennon would later comment on their relation-
ship. “I’ve grown up enough to communicate with
him... Both of us were always uptight, you know, and
of course I wouldn’t know whether he was uptight
because I was so uptight, and then when he wasn’t
uptight, I was—all that bit. But we just sat it out
because we just liked being together.”
Back in the States, Dylan had reached house-
hold-name status. Not only was he an unlikely
hit-singles artist, Bob Dylan was now a culture hero
and a conversation piece. He was a genius. He was a
sellout. He was a poet, he wasn’t a poet. He was
straight. He had to be On Something. It’s conceivable
that the artist himself never scheduled a moment to
reflect on all the commotion. He continued writing
and touring, even while recording Blonde on Blonde
in Nashville. It has remained as one of the most
artful albums in modern music, and one that came
closest to Dylan’s truest musical intentions. He told
Ron Rosenbaum in a ’78 Playboy interview, “It’s that
thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and
bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s
my sound. I haven’t been able to succeed in getting
it all the time.”
Those present for the Blonde on Blonde
sessions remember it as an unlikely setting for
greatness. Compared to the circus-quality of the
live shows, this was a twilight zone of complacency.
While struggling songwriter and then-janitor Kris
Kristofferson cleaned the ashtrays, Dylan recorded
with a band that was made up of traditional Nashville
studio musicians and several New York favorites
like Robertson and Kooper. “Blonde on Blonde was
very different from what we were doing out on the
road,” said Robertson. “This was a very controlled
atmosphere. I remember the Nashville studio
musicians playing a lot of card games. Dylan would
finish a song, we would cut the song and then they’d
go back to cards. They basically did their routine,
and it sounded beautiful. Some songs pushed it
somewhere else, like Obviously Five Believers where
we had four screaming guitar solos.”
“The sessions happened late at night,” recalled
Kooper. “The afternoons were mostly for songwrit-
ing.” Dylan sometimes worked on his hotel piano,
other times at a studio typewriter. Songs like Visions
of Johanna (original title: Seems like a Freezeout)
and Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands would make it to
acetate stage and Dylan would often take the discs
with him on the road to play for others. “How does
this sound for you?” he would ask. “Have you ever
heard anything like this before?” Usually they hadn’t.
Dylan’s singing—once the quality Woody
Guthrie liked best about him—had also gotten more
expressive. Part rocker, part wounded romantic,
part cynic and part believer, he had learned to make
records now, and the rush was felt on radios all over
the world. Like A Rolling Stone, Positively 4th Street
and I Want You were classic singles as well as songs.
John Lennon said in a Rolling Stone interview in
1970, “You don’t have to hear what Bob Dylan’s
saying, you just have to hear the way he says it.”
More than a few artists, from Bruce Springsteen
to David Bowie, have been saddled with the phrase
“the new Bob Dylan” at one time or another in their
careers. But for Dylan himself, there weren’t many
examples to look at. As his momentum doubled and
re-doubled, the still somewhat frail Dylan charged
forward. He amped and pushed himself to the limits
of personal stamina. He worked constantly, rarely
ate, rarely stopped. Like James Dean before him,
Dylan left behind a wake of peers who stood in awe
of his talent and in fear for his safety and health.
ALBUMS 1
Late in July 1966, their worst fears nearly came ALBUMS 2
true. While joyriding in Woodstock, the back wheel ALBUMS 3
locked on Dylan’s Triumph 500. He was thrown from SONGS
the seat and drilled into the pavement, suffering a
concussion, a number of facial cuts and several
broken vertebrae in his neck. It could have been
much worse. Amid macabre Deanish reports that he
was either dead, paralyzed, cryogenically frozen or
retired, Dylan quietly recuperated for several
months. It was much-needed time to regroup but
long after the wounds healed, he would still be
working to regain his personal equilibrium.
While Dylan laid low at his then-home in upstate
New York, The Band was recording at the nearby
basement-home studio they had dubbed Big Pink.
Dylan was writing a wide range of new songs and the
idea was to record them at a leisurely pace, possibly
as demos for other artists. The sessions stretched
through several months of the down-time, and over
the period Dylan and The Band recorded a large
group of songs that ran from the seminal I Shall Be
Released to the jaunty story-telling of Million Dollar
Bash, to a number of songs too bawdy to even
record. There were new characters, new rhythms...
and when what Robertson called “a tape of a tape of
a tape of a dub of a tape” slipped out, the world
soon had its first bootleg album. This, of course,
didn’t much please the victims of the theft. Even
 though the mood of The Basement Tapes, as they
were called, was forbidden and exciting, (Neil Young
for years kept a mastertape copy and played it
during the breaks in his own sessions often) the
songs stayed on the shelf until 1975.
“The bootleg records,” Dylan commented,
“those are outrageous. I mean, they have stuff you
do in a phone booth. Like, nobody’s around. If you’re
just sitting and strumming in a motel, you don’t
think anybody’s there, you know... it’s like the phone
is tapped... and then it appears on a bootleg record.
With a cover that’s got a picture of you that was
taken from underneath your bed and it’s got a strip-
65
tease type title and it costs $30. Amazing. Then you
wonder why most artists feel so paranoid.”
It would be a while before Dylan officially
re-emerged on record with a quietly thoughtful
Nashville album called John Wesley Harding. In his
recuperation period, he had watched his own
influence take Rock in an explosive new direction.
Rock was more topical and meaningful, the form
had been stretched and now studio techniques were
changing too. The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Rolling Stones
answered with Satanic Majesties and now the pop
world was waiting on Dylan. Dylan was waiting on
Dylan too. Did he feel confident about meeting the
challenge?
“Not really,” he smiled, “I didn’t know the studio
like those guys did. They had obviously spent a lot of
hours in the studio, figuring that stuff out and I
hadn’t. And not only hadn’t I, but I didn’t really care
to and I’d lost my (studio) contacts at that point. I’d
been out of commission for awhile. All I had were
these songs that I’d just sort of scribbled down.”
“We recorded that album, and I didn’t know
what to make of it. Lots of times people will get
excited and they say, ‘this is great, this is fantastic.’
But usually they’re full of shit. They’re just trying to
tell you something to make you feel good. People
have a way of telling you what they think you want
to hear—anytime I don’t know something and I ask
somebody, I usually know less about it after I ask
than before. You’ve got to know or you don’t know
and I really didn’t know about that album at all. So I
figured the best thing to do would be to put it out as
quickly as possible, call it John Wesley Harding
because that was one song that I had no idea what
it was about, why it was even on the album. I figured
I’d call the album that, call attention to it, make it
something special... the spelling on that album, I
just thought that was the way he spelled his name. I
asked Columbia to release it with no publicity and
no hype because this was the season of hype. And
my feeling was that if they put it out with no hype,
there was enough interest in the album anyway,
people would go out and get it. And if you hyped it,
there was always that possibility it would piss
people off. They didn’t spend any money advertising
the album and the album just really took off. People
have made a lot out of it, as if it was some sort of
ink blot test or something. But it never was intended
to be anything else but just a bunch of songs, really,
maybe it was better’n I thought.”
Nashville Skyline continued Dylan’s string of
albums recorded at the CBS studio in the country
music capital of the world. His voice, sweetened by
a brief break from cigarettes, Dylan produced one
of his biggest single hits in April of 1969. Written for
the movie Midnight Cowboy, Lay Lady Lay missed
the deadline for inclusion on the soundtrack. The
producers used Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’
instead. Dylan released Lay Lady Lay himself and it
is that love song that became one of his longest
lasting hits. “I don’t know what made me sound that
way. Today I don’t think I could sound that way if I
wanted too. Clive Davis really wanted to release that
song as a single. Actually I was slightly embarrassed
by it, wasn’t even sure I even liked the song. He said
it was a smash hit... I thought he was crazy. I was
really astonished, you know, when he turned out to
be right.”
Dylan’s next release was 1970’s Self Portrait, a
double album of standards and several live tracks
from his concert at the Isle of Wight. Criticized as
trivial at the time, now revered by critics looking for
an argument, the album seemed to make a simple
statement—he enjoyed singing other people’s
material but it also further signaled that Bob Dylan
had no responsibility toward the vocal few who
still demanded to know why he stopped writing
“protest songs.” One man, A.J. Weberman, had even
become famous for going through Dylan’s garbage
ALBUMS 1
for “clues.” ALBUMS 2
“Self Portrait,” Dylan explained recently, “was ALBUMS 3
a bunch of tracks that we’d done all the time I’d SONGS
gone to Nashville. We did that stuff to get a (studio)
sound. To open up we’d do two or three songs, just
to get things right and then we’d go on and do what
we were going to do. And then there was a lot of
other stuff that was just on the shelf. But I was
being bootlegged at the time and a lot of stuff that
was worse was appearing on bootleg records. So I
just figured I’d put all this stuff together and put it
out, my own bootleg record, so to speak. You know,
if it actually had been a bootleg record, people
probably would have sneaked around to buy it and
played it for each other secretly. Also, I wasn’t going
to be anybody’s puppet and I figured this record
would put an end to that... I was just so fed up with
all that who people thought I was nonsense.”
It would be his last work of the sixties, a
decade that Dylan had largely spent in a spin-cycle
of touring and recording. He had become a part
of everybody else’s sixties experience but did he
feel like he’d had one of his own?
“I never looked at it that way,” answered Dylan.
“I didn’t even consider it being the sixties. People
who were in it, it never occurred to anybody that we
were living in the sixties. It was too much like a
 pressure cooker. There wasn’t any time to sit around
and think about it. Not like what we’re living now is
the eighties where everybody says, ‘These are the
eighties and ain’t it great.’ In the sixties they didn’t
say that. Nobody wanted to say that. There were a
lot of people who jumped on the bandwagon who
didn’t know it existed before. As far as I know,
they’re the only ones who made a big deal about
it. People like to think of themselves as being
important when they write about things that are
important. But for people who were active, it didn’t
matter. It could have been the twenties. Nobody
really figured it out until the late sixties that
66
something happened. I remember Joe Strummer
said that when he first heard my records, I’d already
been there and gone. And in a way that’s kind of
true. It was like a flying saucer landed... that’s what
the sixties were like. Everybody heard about it, but
only a few really saw it.”
Dylan soon released New Morning, a confident
album of originals. It was another critically heralded
return for a man who’d never really left. He’d simply
learned to work at his own pace, a pace that tended
not to interfere with the raising of his family.
Dylan spent the next few years in New York,
popping up only occasionally with performances
like Concert for Bangladesh or a single like
Watching the River Flow or George Jackson. In 1973,
Kris Kristofferson talked Dylan into joining him on
the Durango, Mexico set of the late Sam Peckinpah’s
Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid. Dylan ended up not
only scoring the movie, but turning in a clever
performance as Alias, sidekick to Billy the Kid.
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, one of Dylan’s most
successful singles, was released from the
soundtrack album. The film featured Peckinpah’s
trademark violent and unpolished beauty, and the
music fit it perfectly. The project seemed to signal a
new period of activity. “I think he’s getting ready for
something,” said co-star Kris Kristofferson at the
time. “He sat down at the piano the other night. He
had that look in his eyes...” Said Dylan, “Actually, I
was just one of Peckinpah’s pawns. There wasn’t a
part for me and Sam just liked me around. I moved
with my family to Durango for about three months.
Rudy Wurlitzer, who was writing this thing, invented
a part for me but there wasn’t any dimension to it
and I was very uncomfortable in this non-role. But
then time started to slip away and there I was
trapped deep in the heart of Mexico with some
madman, ordering people around like a little king.
You had to play the dummy all day. I used to think to
myself, ‘Well now, how would Dustin Hoffman play
this?’ That’s why I wore glasses in that reading part.
I saw him do it in Papillon. It was crazy, all these
generals making you jump into hot ants, setting up
turkey shoots and whatever and drinking tequila ’til
they passed out. Sam was a wonderful guy though.
He was an outlaw. A real hombre. Somebody from
the old school. Men like they don’t make anymore. I
could see why actors would do anything for him. At
night when it was quiet, I would listen to the bells. It
was a strange feeling, watching how this movie was
made and I know it was wide and big and breathless,
at least what was in Sam’s mind, but it didn’t come
out that way. Sam himself just didn’t have final
control and that was the problem. I saw it in a movie
house one cut away from his and I could tell that it
had been chopped to pieces. Someone other than
Sam had taken a knife to some valuable scenes that
were in it. The music seemed to be scattered and
used in every other place but the scenes in which
we did it for. Except for Heaven’s Door, I can’t say
as though I recognized anything I’d done for being
in the place I’d done it for. Why did I do it, I guess I
had a fondness for Billy the Kid. In no way can I say
I did it for the money. Anyway, I was too beat to take
it personal. I mean, it didn’t hurt but I was sleep-
walking most of the time and had no real reason to
be there. I’d gotten my family out of New York, that
was the important thing, there was a lot of pressure
back there. But even so, my wife got fed up almost
immediately. She’d say to me, ‘What the hell are we
doing here?’ It was not an easy question to answer.”
Much in music had changed over the previous
few years. Bob Dylan could now look around to
see a world of rock megatours, chartered 747’s,
mega-platinum artists, rockers on the cover of
world news magazines and more. Dylan, who first
left Minnesota at a time when rock and roll was still
a forbidden entity, was about to venture back at a
time when it had become the biggest business.
In 1974 he reunited with The Band and began
recording a batch of new songs in Los Angeles.
ALBUMS 1
First titled Ceremonies of the Horseman and later ALBUMS 2
re-titled Planet Waves, the album (and the first ALBUMS 3
single, On A Night Like This) set the tone for a high- SONGS
spirited return. Dylan’s first coast-to-coast US tour
was announced. The seats sold out in hours but the
event brought on board a number of new questions.
What would Dylan be like? Could he match the
intensity of his early days in huge arenas? Would
he mean as much?
The questions were dispensed with in short
order. Dylan appeared at full strength, with an
adrenalin-charged voice and powerful backing from
The Band. The concerts were cheered like victory
parties. Remembers Robbie Robertson, “We were
hoping to do an extremely different kind of show. But
we rehearsed and eventually settled on a show that
wasn’t dissimilar from our last tours (in ’65-’66). But
this time when we played, everybody loved us. I
don’t know if we needed it but it was kind of a relief.”
All the while, Dylan had some problems with the
myth-making proportions of the tour. “I think I was
just playing a role on that tour,” he said. “I was
playing Bob Dylan and The Band was playing The
Band. It was all sort of mindless. The people that
came out to see us came mostly to see what they
missed the first time around. It was just more of a
‘legendary’ kind of thing. They’ve heard about it,
they’d bought the records, whatever, but what they
 saw didn’t give any clue to what was. What got it to
that level wasn’t what they saw. What they saw you
could compare to early Elvis and later Elvis, really.
Because it wasn’t quite the same, when we needed
that acceptance it wasn’t there. By this time it didn’t
matter. Time had proven them all wrong. We were
cleaning up but it was an emotionless trip.”
“Rock-and-roll had become a highly extrava-
gant enterprise. T-shirts, concert booklets, lighting
shows, costume changes, glitter and glamour... it
was just a big show, a big circus except there
weren’t any elephants, nothing really exceptional
just Sound and Lights, Sound and Lights, and more
67
Sound and Lights. That’s what it had become and
that’s what it still is. It is like those guys who
watched the H bomb explode on Bikini Island and
then turn to each other and say, ‘Beautiful, man, just
incredibly beautiful.’ That’s what this whole scene
had become. The only thing people talked about was
energy this, energy that. The highest compliments
were things like ‘Wow, lotta energy, man.’ It had
become absurd. The bigger and louder something
was, the more energy it was supposed to have. You
know, like knock me out, drive me to the wall, kick
my brains in, blow me up, whip me ’til it hurts, that’s
what people were accepting as heavy energy.
Actually it was just big industry moving in on the
music. Like the armaments manufacturers selling
weapons to both sides in a war, inventing bigger and
better things to take your head off while behind
your back, there’s a few people laughing and getting
rich off your vanity. Have you ever seen a slaughter-
house where they bring in a herd of cattle? They
round them all up, put them all in one area, pacify
’m and slaughter them... big business, brings in lots
of bucks, heavy energy. It always reminds me of
that. The greatest praise we got on that tour was
‘incredible energy, man’, it would make me want to
puke. The scene had changed somewhat when we
stepped into that picture. We were expected to
produce a show that lived up to everybody’s
expectations. And we did. It was utterly profound.
“What they saw wasn’t really what they would
have seen in ’66 or ’65. If they had seen that, that
was much more demanding. That was a much more
demanding show. People didn’t know what it was at
that point. When people don’t know what something
is, they don’t understand it and they start to get, you
know, weird and defensive. Nothing is predictable
and you’re always out on the edge. Anything can
happen. I always had those songs though and so I
always figured everything was alright.”
When the tour was over commemorated by a
cover in Newsweek, the same magazine that once
questioned his authorship of Blowin’ In The Wind,
Dylan responded in surprising style. Just as he had
cultivated his most public performing style yet,
he reversed himself, contacted several acoustic
musicians and told his label he was going to record
some “private songs.” He wanted to do them
quickly, in a small way.
He began recording what is often recognized
as his finest album of the seventies, Blood On The
Tracks. Reportedly inspired by the breakup of his
marriage, the album derived more of its style from
Dylan’s renewed interest in painting. The songs cut
deep and their sense of perspective and reality was
always changing. This was acoustic soul music and
clearly not the work of an artist intent on staying
in arenas touring on the strength of his own myth.
“I’m not concerned with the myth,” Dylan said
in a 1977 interview, “because I can’t work under the
myth. The myth can’t write the songs. It’s the blood
behind the myth that creates the art. The myth
doesn’t exist for me like it may for other people. I’d
rather go on, above the myth.”
After Blood On The Tracks, Dylan stayed in
New York. He recorded one of his most successful
albums, Desire, with a new group of musicians led
by Scarlet Rivera. Dylan had seen her playing on
a street comer and invited her to join the band.
Her violin helped characterize Hurricane, the
unreleased Abandoned Love and many other songs
from this period.
Dylan also began popping up in clubs around
Greenwich Village, on some of the same stages
where he started out. More than a few visitors in the
Village, accustomed to seeing the early photos of a
long-gone Dylan still pasted in the windows, did a
triple take when they actually saw Dylan back again
on the stage. Slowly, those club performances grew
to include others like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Joan
Baez, T-Bone Burnett, Robert McGuinn, Mick Ronson
and others. Those shows built into the Rolling
ALBUMS 1
Thunder Revue, a bicentennial tour of small to mid ALBUMS 2
size halls that was documented in a TV special, a ALBUMS 3
number of books and later in Dylan’s own film SONGS
Renaldo and Clara. In what was now Dylan’s third or
fourth wave of popularity, even candidate Jimmy
Carter was campaigning for president with a speech
that quoted Bob Dylan.
By the time of Renaldo and Clara’s release,
Dylan was already past it. He had relocated to a
converted rehearsal hall in Santa Monica, California
and was rehearsing musicians for a band he could
both tour and record with. The resulting eleven-
piece group was one of his biggest and most
precise. They toured the world in 1978 and also
recorded the underrated Street Legal album. The
sound of this period was something close to the
dense precision of Blonde on Blonde, with a
measure of gospel blues added. Street Legal defined
Dylan’s work for the next several years. Said Dylan,
“The critics treated this record spitefully... I saw
one review that accused me of going ‘Vegas’ and
copying Bruce Springsteen because I was using
Steve Douglas, a saxophone player... the Vegas
comparison was, well you know, I don’t think the guy
had ever been to Vegas and the saxophone thing
was almost slanderous... I mean I don’t copy guys
that are under fifty years old and though I wasn’t
familiar with Bruce’s work, his saxophone player
 couldn’t be spoken of in the same breath as Steve
Douglas who’d played with Duane Eddy and on
literally all of Phil Spector’s records... I mean no
offense to Clarence or anything but he’s not in the
same category and the guy who reviewed my stuff
should have known it... anyway people need to
be encouraged, not stepped on and put in a
straight jacket.”
After his world tour, reports would soon
circulate that Dylan had become a born-again
Christian. The next album told the bigger story.
Dylan was inspired with religious thought but he’d
also struck a smoldering studio groove with
68
celebrated rhythm and blues producers Jerry Wexler
and Barry Beckett. This partnership produced one of
the most finely recorded albums of Dylan’s record-
ing career. Slow Train Coming was both a critically
praised and successful work. Dylan received his
first Grammy and the album went platinum. It also
won the Dove Award for Inspirational Album of 1979.
The follow-up album, Saved, with its Biblical
inscription on the outer sleeve, fared less well.
Religious themes have had a place in his music from
the beginning, but for a time the media searched
these songs for clues to his commitment. Although
the messages might have been too much for pop
music mentality, the meaning behind the songs did
not fall entirely on deaf ears. “Yes mon,” said Bob
Marley,... “that is a good verse too, a revelation, a
link-up with a Rasta, as Haile Selassie is the
Conquering Lion of the house of Judah. And me like
his song Serve Somebody quite a bit as well... I glad
him do it, too, y’know, because there comes a time
when an artist just cannot follow the crowd. If you
are an artist like Bob Dylan, you got to make the
crowd follow you. I can tell you that it doesn’t mean
anything to him that people might not like what
he is doing. Him still do it. And that is the most
important thing. Him still do it.”
Shot of Love, a somewhat more secular LP
recorded in Los Angeles, was produced by Dylan and
Chuck Plotkin (with the help from Bumps Blackwell
on Shot of Love).
The range of influence was wider, the music
was technically improved from earlier days but the
feel could have been 1966. This was raw Dylan, live
in the studio, scrambling to get to the heart of his
new songs. “People didn’t listen to that album in a
realistic way. First of all, Shot of Love was one of the
last songs Bumps Blackwell produced and even
though he only produced one song, I gotta say that
of all the producers I ever used, he was the best,
the most knowledgeable and he had the best
instincts... I would have liked him to do the whole
thing but things got screwed up and he wasn’t so
called ‘contemporary’... what came out was
something close to what would have come out if he
was really there... also Clydie King and I sound
pretty close to what’s all the best of every tradi-
tional style so how could anybody complain about
that... and the record had something that, I don’t
know, could have been made in the ’40s or maybe
the ’50s... there was a cross element of songs on
it... the critics, I hate to keep talking about them,
wouldn’t allow the people to make up their own
minds... all they talked about was Jesus this and
Jesus that, like it was some kind of Methodist
record. I don’t know what was happening, maybe
Boy George or something but Shot of Love didn’t fit
into the current format. It probably never will.
Anyway people were always looking for some excuse
to write me off and this was as good as any... I can’t
say if being ‘non-commercial’ is a put down or a
compliment.” The next album, Infidels, was a critical
and artistic success that also ushered Dylan into the
video age with Sweetheart Like You and Jokerman.
“I don’t feel like I know what I’m going to do
even next week, or not do,” Dylan said of the future.
“Mostly I just write songs, make records, and do
tours, that takes up most of my time, so I just
expect it to go on that way. I started a book awhile
back called Ho Chi Minh in Harlem. I’d probably like
to finish that. Maybe write some stories the way
Kerouac did, about some of the people I know and
knew, change the names—New developments, new
ideas? I guess I’d like to do a concept album like,
you know, Red Headed Stranger or something,
maybe a children’s album, or an album of cover
songs but I don’t know if the people would let me
get away with that... A Million Miles From Nowhere, I
Who Have Nothing, All My Tomorrows, I’m In The
Mood For Love, More Than You Know, It’s A Sin To
Tell A Lie... I guess someday I’d like to do an album
ALBUMS 1
of standards, also, maybe instrumentals, guitar ALBUMS 2
melodies with percussion, people don’t know I can ALBUMS 3
do that sort of thing. I can get away with a lot more SONGS
in a show than I can on record... I mean I’m aware
of synthesizers and drum machines but they don’t
affect my stuff to any great degree. There’s a great
temptation to see how false you can be. I can see
where pretty soon the human voice will be synthe-
sized, become totally unreal. You know, like put in
Paul Anka and get him sounding like Howlin’ Wolf or
vice versa. I guess it don’t matter but it’s irritating,
it’s a cheap substitution for reality, stimulating little
boys and little girls with sex in a bottle, it’s all got
the soul of a robot, your mind thinks it’s true but
your heart knows it’s wrong. Too much chaos on the
airways for the senses to take, assault on the all too
fragile imagination as it is... fill up everything, put in
every color, clog it all up... if you wanna make things
clear, you’ve got to leave other things out... like
that’s why the old black and white movies look
better than color movies, they give your eye and
your imagination something to do, well, that’s one of
the reasons, same thing with the old music and the
new music... probably too much progress or
something. I don’t know.”
While Dylan had often deflected artistic inquiries
in the past, on this day he was almost earnest in his
 observations. Bob Dylan’s perspective in the mid
eighties is a valuable one, one he seemed inspired
to have gained.
“No, I really don’t have a plan. You know what I
mean, if you’ve heard my records and know what
was going on at the time I turned them out. A lot of
the styles and lyrical dynamics that I use I feel I
have invented myself or stumbled into accidentally.
Either back in the sixties or even in the late
seventies or eighties using certain combinations
that have never come up before, so I work mostly in
that area. I can’t stop doing it just because a whole
lot of other people have taken certain elements of it
69
and used it for their own thing. I mean Muddy Waters
didn’t stop playing just because the J. Geils Band
started making records. I noticed that George Jones
didn’t roll over just because Merle Haggard appeared.
It’s actually quite complimentary to witness your
own influence in someone else’s success. But I don’t
know, I guess it can be taken the other way too...
look at what happened to Lefty Frizzell. Link Wray
invented heavy metal music but who knows it? T-
Bone Walker is really the essence of city blues, can
wipe B.B. Jones off the map but who can tell you
that? Isn’t Bessie Smith rock ‘n’ roll? People forget.
You have to know there’s always someone else
that’s gonna come along after you. There’s always
going to be a faster, bigger and younger gun, right?
Pop music on the radio? I don’t know. I listen mostly
to Preacher stations and the country music stations
and maybe the oldies stations... that’s about it. At
the moment I like Judy Rodman, I’ve Been Had By
Love Before, more than anything happening on the
pop stations. I don’t think of myself really as a pop
singer anyway, so what do I know.”
For a man often credited with helping to define
rock, Dylan was careful to point out that he was
never owned by it.
“The thing about rock ‘n’ roll is that for me
anyway it wasn’t enough. Tutti Frutti and Blue Suede
Shoes were great catch phrases and driving pulse
rhythms and you could get high on the energy but
they weren’t serious or didn’t reflect life in a
realistic way. 1 knew that when I got into folk music,
it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs
are filled with more despair, more sadness, more
triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much
deeper feelings... My Bonnie Love Is Lang A Growing,
Go Down Ye Bloody Red Roses, even Jesse James or
Down By the Willow Garden, definitely not pussy
stuff. There is more real life in one line than there
was in all the rock ‘n’ roll themes. I needed that.
Life is full of complexities and rock ‘n’ roll didn’t
reflect that. It was just put on a happy face and ride
sally ride, there was nothing even resembling Sixteen
Snow White Horses or See That My Grave Is Kept
Clean in even the vaguest way. If I did anything, I
brought one to the other. There was nothing serious
happening in music when I started, not even the
Beatles. They were singing Love Me Do and Marvin
Gaye... he didn’t do What’s Going On until the ’70’s.”
What did he think of the new music?
“Nothing is new. Everybody just gets their
chance—most of it just sounds recycled and shuffled
around, watered down. Even rap records, I love that
stuff but it’s not new, you used to hear that stuff all
the time... there was this one guy, Big Brown, he
wore a jail blanket, that’s all he ever used to wear,
summer and winter, John Hammond would remember
him too—he was like Othello, he’d recite epics like
some grand Roman orator, really backwater stuff
though, Stagger Lee, Cocaine Smitty, Hattiesburg
Hattie. Where were the record companies when he
was around? Even him though, it’s like it was done
30 years before that... and God knows when else. I
think of Luke the Drifter as rap records and as far
as concept and intelligence and warring with words,
Mighty Sparrow was and probably still is king. You
go see him and in the audience there’s people just
standing up and arguing away with him about every
kind of thing... politics, sex, outerspace, whatever,
he answers ’m all back, never breaks stride, all in
poetry, his shows are like prize fights and he always
comes out on top, all this and a fifteen or twenty
piece band just blasting away... Calypso King...
Mighty Sparrow... he’s fantastic. Rock ‘n’ roll, I don’t
know, rhythm and blues or whatever, I think it’s
gone. In its pure form. There are some guys true to
it but it’s so hard. You have to be so dedicated and
committed and everything is against it. I’d like to
see Charlie Sexton become a big star, but the whole
machine would have to break down right now before
that could happen. It was easier before. Now it’s just
ALBUMS 1
rock, capital R, no roll, the roll’s gone, homosexual ALBUMS 2
rock, working man’s rock, stockbroker rock, it’s ALBUMS 3
now a highly visible enterprise, big establishment SONGS
thing. You know things go better with Coke because
Aretha Franklin told you so and Maxwell House
Coffee must be OK because Ray Charles is singing
about it. Everybody’s singing about ketchup or
headache medicine or something. In the beginning
it wasn’t anything like that, had nothing to do with
pantyhose and perfume and barbecue sauce... you
were eligible to get busted for playing it. It’s like
Lyndon Johnson saying we shall overcome to a
nationwide audience, ridiculous... there’s an old
saying, ‘If you want to defeat your enemy, sing his
song’ and that’s pretty much still true. I think it’s
happened and nobody knows the difference. In the
old days, there’s that phrase again, you paid the
price to play. You could get run out of town or
pushed over a cliff. Of course there was always
someone there with a net. I’m not trying to paint just
one side of a picture. But, you know, it was tough
getting heard, it was radical. You felt like you were
part of some circus side show. Now it’s the main
event. You can even go to college and study rock-
and-roll, they turn out professors who grade your
records. There’s enough dribble, magazine articles,
proclamations, declarations, whatever, written
 about it to keep you guessing for a lifetime but it’s
not in reading and writing about it, it’s in doing it...
the best stuff was done without the spotlight before
the commentaries and what not... when they came
to define it, I think they killed something very impor-
tant about it. The corporate world, when they figured
out what it was and how to use it they snuffed the
breath out of it and killed it. What do they care?
Anything that’s in the way, they run over like a
bulldozer, once they understood it they killed it and
made it a thing of the past, put up a monument to it
and now that’s what you’re hearing, the headstone,
it’s a billion dollar business. I don’t know, I guess
70
it’s hard to find flaws with this. Used to be, they were
very much afraid, you know, like hide your daughters,
that sort of thing... Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry...
they all struck fear into the heart. Now they got a
purpose sort of... to sell soap, blue jeans, anything,
it’s become country club music... White House...
Kentucky Fried Chicken... it’s all been neutralized...
nothing threatening, nothing magical... nothing
challenging. For me I hate to see it because it set
me free, set the whole world on fire, there’s a lot of
us who still can remember, who’ve been there. What
I’m telling is no lie but then again who wants to hear
it? You just get yourself worked up over nothing.”
Dylan considered the thought.
“The truth about anything in this society, as you
know, is too threatening. Gossip is King. It’s like
‘conscience’ is a dirty word. Whatever is truthful
haunts you and don’t let you sleep at night.
Especially anybody who’s living a lie gets hurt. You
get a lot of ugly reactions from people not familiar
with it. A lot of times you don’t even bother. Not that
I’m an expert or anything but I’ve always tried to
stick that into my music in some kind of way or at
least not to leave it untouched. The old stuff stayed
in your head long after it was over, you know, even
something as simple as ‘to know, know, know him is
to love, love, love him,’ it became monumental in
some kind of way, now it’s just blabbering noise and
after you shut it off you’ve forgotten about it and
you’re glad—Some Like It Hot. Oh mercy! Spare me
please! These things are just hooks, fish hooks in
the back of your neck... nothing means anything,
people just showing off, dancing to a pack of lies—
lotta people gotta be dead first before anybody
takes notice, the same people who praise you when
you’re dead, when you were alive they wouldn’t give
you the time of day. I like to wonder about some of
these people who elevated John Lennon to such a
mega-god as if when he was alive they were always
on his side. I wonder who they think he was singing
to when he sang ‘just give me some truth.’ Everything
is just too commercial, like a sprawling octopus, too
much part of the system. Sometimes you feel like
you’re walking around in that movie Invasion Of The
Body Snatchers and you wonder if it’s got you yet, if
you’re still one of the few or are you ‘them’ now.
You never know do you? When people don’t get
threatened and challenged, I mean in some kind of
way, they don’t get confronted, never have to make
decisions, they never take a stand, they never grow,
live their lives in a fishtank, stay in the same old
scene forever, die and never get a break or a
chance to say goodbye. I have views contrary to all
that. I think that this world is just a passing through
place and that the dead have eyes and that even the
unborn can see and I don’t care who knows it. I
don’t know. I can go off on tangents... things that
got nothing to do with music... The great folk music
and the great rock ‘n’ roll you might not hear it
again. Like the horse and buggy. Sure, a horse and
buggy is more soulful than a car but it takes longer
to get where you’re going and besides that, you
could get killed on the road.”
Sitting across from Bob Dylan on this afternoon,
one could see his influences very clearly. His speech
sometimes flecked with the country-isms of his
youth, a leather jacket draped on his shoulders, a
sharp hand gesture with a cigarette barely holding
its ash... for all the years of who-is-Bob-Dylan
analysis, the answer seemed obvious. He still is, as
he always has been, a long figure with a guitar and a
point-of-view.
“Basically, I’m self taught. What I mean by that
actually is that I picked it all up from other people
by watching them, by imitating them. I seldom ever
asked them to take me aside and show me how to
do it. I started out as a traveling guitar player and
singer,” Dylan reflected. “It had nothing to do
with writing songs, fortune and fame, that sort of
thing. You know what I mean? I could always play a
ALBUMS 1
song on a concert-hall stage or from the back of a ALBUMS 2
truck, a nightclub or on the street, whatever, and ALBUMS 3
that was the important thing, singing the song, SONGS
contributing something and paying my way. The
most inspiring type of entertainer for me has always
been somebody like Jimmie Rodgers, somebody who
could do it alone and was totally original. He was
combining elements of blues and hillbilly sounds
before anyone else had thought of it. He recorded at
the same time as Blind Willie McTell but he wasn’t
just another white boy singing black. That was his
great genius and he was there first. All he had to do
was appear with his guitar and a straw hat and he
played on the same stage with big bands, girly
choruses and follies burlesque and he sang in a
plaintive voice and style and he’s outlasted them all.
You don’t remember who else was on the bill. I
never saw him. I only heard his records. I never saw
Woody Guthrie in his prime. I think maybe the
greatest of all those I ever saw was Cisco Houston.
He was in his last days but you couldn’t tell—he
looked like Clark Gable and he was absolutely
magnificent... I always like to think that there’s a
real person talking to me, just one voice you know,
that’s all I can handle—Cliff Carlysle... Robert
Johnson, for me this is a deep reality, someone
who’s telling me where he’s been that I haven’t and
 what it’s like there—somebody whose life I can
feel... Jimmie Rodgers or even Judy Garland, she was
a great singer... or Al Jolson... God knows there are
so few of them, but who knows? Maybe there are
just enough. I always thought that one man, the lone
balladeer with the guitar could blow an entire army
off the stage if he knew what he was doing... I’ve
seen it happen. It’s important to stay away from the
celebrity trap. The Andy Warhol-fame-for-a minute
type trip. The media is a great meatgrinder, it’s
never satisfied and it must be fed but there’s power
in darkness too and in keeping things hidden. Look
at Napoleon. Napoleon conquered Europe and
71
nobody even knew what he looked like... people get
too famous too fast these days and it destroys them.
Some guys got it down—Leonard Cohen, Paul Brady,
Lou Reed, secret heroes—John Prine, David Allen
Coe, Tom Waits, I listen more to that kind of stuff
than whatever is popular at the moment, they’re not
just witchdoctoring up the planet, they don’t set up
barriers... Gordon Lightfoot, every time I hear a
song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever. Pop
culture, what is it? IBM, Calvin Klein, General
Motors, Mickey Mouse, and that whole kind of thing,
conformity to fashion, ideas, conformity to other
people’s opinions, conformity in the mirror, lots of
singers who can’t even deliver live on stage, use
tapes and things... Van Gogh never sold but a few
paintings while he was alive, incredible, as far as he
was concerned he was a failure. I don’t think for a
minute though that he’s having the last laugh cause
that’s not what I think it’s about. Artists should
remember that—There’s a tremendous hypocrisy in
this thing.”
From the demos, to the songs, to the hits and
the neverheards, this is a collection of music that
anyone should take the time to listen to in sequence.
And when the last notes of Forever Young disappear,
consider this: Dylan’s influence continues to be
heard all around us, from his own work to the music
of artists like Springsteen, The Clash, The Pretenders,
U2, The Blasters, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
and many others. Fan-sponsored publications like
Telegraph and Wanted Man pour over set lists from
twenty years ago, as well as Dylan’s movements of
today. To many, Dylan’s life is already the stuff of
myth. To Dylan, it’s a life only half begun. Just listen
to the fire in his impassioned vocal on the USA for
Africa single We Are The World. A hero to many, Bob
Dylan has his own definition of the word.
“I think of a hero as someone who understands
the degree of responsibility that comes with his
freedom, someone who’s not afraid to jump in front
of a freight train to save a loved one’s life, to draw a
crowd with my guitar, that’s about the most heroic
thing that I can do. To play a song to calm the king,
well, everybody don’t get to do that. There’s only
certain things a King wants to hear. And then if he
don’t like it, he might send you to the gallows.
Sometimes you feel like a club fighter who gets off
the bus in the middle of nowhere, no cheers, no
admiration, punches his way through ten rounds or
whatever, always making someone else look good,
vomits up the pain in the back room, picks up his
check and gets back on the bus heading out for
another nowhere. Sometimes like a troubadour out
of the dark ages, singing for your supper and
rambling the land or singing to the girl in the
window, you know, the one with the long flowing hair
who’s combing it in the candlelight, maybe she
invites you up. Maybe she says, ‘Sing me another
song, sweetness, sing me that song about the cat
and the fiddle, the knave and long sea voyage’ or
maybe she don’t. You gotta be able to feel your
dream before anyone else is aware of it. ‘Your
parents don’t like me, they say I’m too poor’... Gotta
learn to bite the bullet like Tom Mix, take the blows,
like the song says. Or like Charles Aznavour, ‘you
must learn to leave the table when love is no longer
being served’ but that’s a hard thing to do. You got
to be strong and stay connected to what started it
all, the inspiration behind the inspiration, to who you
were when people didn’t mind stepping on you, it’s
easy to say but the air gets thin at the top, you get
light-headed, your environment changes, new
people come into your life...”
Bob Dylan stood and walked to a nearby
window. He stared out at a small courtyard. A cat
shrieked from an overhanging balcony. Dylan was
restless and ready to go. I asked him how he viewed
his impact upon modern culture. He shrugged.
“In the big picture, on the big stage, I’m not too
sure, to take yourself seriously or to take seriously
ALBUMS 1
what other people are thinking, you know that ALBUMS 2
could be your downfall. I mean it’s a weakness. I ALBUMS 3
know I’ve done some important things but in what SONGS
context, I don’t know, and also for who. It’s hard to
relate to fans. I mean I relate to people as people
but people as fans, I’m not sure I know what that
means and don’t forget John Lennon was murdered
by a so-called fan—I know it gives them all a bad
name but so what? I don’t think of myself as a fan of
anybody, I am more of an admirer, so why should I
think of anyone as a fan of me? If they like you, they
do and if they don’t, well that’s their business—
nobody owes anybody anything. And anyway fans are
consumers, they buy products and the company
tries to please the consumers. That type of thing
can rule your life. If the fan don’t like you, he
becomes somebody else’s fan, like the Paul Simon
song, Got To Keep The Customer Satisfied—I’m not
gonna live and die behind that—I’m not selling
breakfast cereal, or razor blades or whatever. I’m
always hearing people saying how ‘Dylan should do
this and do that, make an album like he did in the
sixties.’ How the hell do they know? I could make
Blonde on Blonde tomorrow and the same people
would probably say its outdated... that’s the way
people are. As far as the sixties go, it wasn’t any big
deal. Time marches on. I mean if I had a choice I
 would rather have lived at the time of King David,
when he was the high King of Israel, I’d love to have
been riding with him or hiding in caves with him
when he was a hunted outlaw. I wonder what he
would have been saying and about who—or maybe
at the time of Jesus and Mary Magdalene—that
would have been interesting huh, really test your
nerve... or maybe even later in the time of the
Apostles when they were overturning the world...
what happened in the ’60s? Wiretapping? What was
so revolutionary about it? You know, there was a
time when people thought the world was flat and
that women didn’t have souls... you can say how
72 ALBUMS 1
ridiculous and how could they have been so stupid ALBUMS 2
but nevertheless people did think it to be truth just ALBUMS 3
like right now a lot of what’s thought to be truth will SONGS

later be proved false... actually I’m amazed that I’ve

been around this long, never thought I would be.
I try to learn from both the wise and the unwise, not
pay attention to anybody, do what I want to do. I
can’t say I haven’t done my share of playing the
fool. There was never any secret. I was in the right
place at the right time. People dissect my songs like
rabbits but they all miss the point. I mean have you
ever seen ‘something’s happening but you don’t
know what it is do you, Mr. Jones’ played over the
war in Lebanon? Or the AIDS epidemic? Or Mengele’s
bones? Sometimes I think I’ve been doing this too
long. I can understand why Rimbaud quit writing
poetry when he was 19... How would I change my
life? Yeah, well, sometimes I think that I get by on
only 50% of what I got, sometimes even less.
I’d like to change that I guess... that’s about all I
can think of.”

—Cameron Crowe
 You Wanna Ramble
They Killed Him
Driftin’ Too Far From Shore
Precious Memories
73
Knocked Out Loaded
July 14, 1986
Maybe Someday Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitar;
T Bone Burnett, Jack Sherman, Ron
Brownsville Girl Wood, Ira Ingber, Tom Petty, Dave
Stewart – guitar; James Jamerson Jr.,
Got My Mind Made Up Vito San Filippo, John Paris, Howie
Under Your Spell Epstein, Carl Sealove, John McKenzie
– bass; Al Kooper, Vince Melamed,
Benmont Tench, Patrick Seymour –
keyboards; Raymond Lee Pounds,
Anton Fig, Don Heffington, Stan Lynch,
Clem Burke – drums; Steve Douglas –
saxophone; Steve Madaio – trumpet;
Larry Meyers – Mandolin; Al Perkins –
steel guitar; Milton Gabriel, Mike
Berment, Brian Parris – steel drums;
Philip Lyn Jones – conga; Peggi Blu,
Elisecia Wright, Carole Dennis,
Madeline Quebec, Muffy Hendrix,
Annette May Thomas – vocals.
ALBUMS 1
One of the less substantial albums in the Dylan canon, its title borrowed from ALBUMS 2
the old Louis Jordan tune “Junco Partner,” Knocked Out Loaded is another ALBUMS 3
SONGS
collection of odds and ends. Yet it contains one masterpiece, the eleven-minute
epic “Brownsville Girl,” written with playwright Sam Shepard, a shaggy-doggish
yarn about romance in the West dovetailed with memories of watching Gregory
Peck in the film The Gunfighter. The lyrics play with time, memory, people, and
places, and the delivery is staggering. Starting almost conversationally, Dylan
ratchets up the intensity verse by verse, like a good preacher, until he is
throwing everything he has into every line by the end, before bringing it in for a
good landing. The set would be essential if just for that, although his remake of
Junior Parker’s “I Wanna Ramble,” his pleasant, reggae-tinged reading of the
spiritual “Precious Memories,” and the funny, bitter “Maybe Someday” are
valuable additions.
 Slow Train
I Want You
Gotta Serve Somebody
Queen Jane Approximately
Joey
All Along The Watchtower
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

74 ALBUMS 1
Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia had a bond that stretched back to their shared roots ALBUMS 2
in traditional music. Their 1989 tour is remembered fondly by fans, although ALBUMS 3
SONGS
this record captures the hit and miss quality of a performer and a group both
known for letting spontaneity rule their live performances. As Bob Weir of the
Grateful Dead put it in 2006, “We could have been better rehearsed. A lot of the
time was spent rehearsing songs that were never played. If I had to do it over
again, I would have had him (Dylan) give us a song list.” Nevertheless, “Slow
Train” and “Queen Jane” stand out as fine performances.

Dylan & The Dead

Produced by Jerry Garcia and John Cutler
January 18, 1988
 Let’s Stick Together Ugliest Girl In The World Musicians: Bob Dylan – vocals, guitar,
harmonica; Danny Kortchmar, Steve Jones,
When Did Silvio Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton – guitar; Steve
You Leave Heaven? Ninety Miles An Hour Jordan, Stephen Shelton, Myron Grombacher,
Sly Dunbar, Henry Spinetti, Mike Baird –
Sally Sue Brown (Down A Dead End Street) drums; Randy Jackson, Paul Simonon, Robbie
Shakespeare, Ron Wood, Kip Winger, Nathan
Death Is Not The End Shenandoah East, Larry Klein – bass; Madelyn Quebec –
Had A Dream Rank Strangers To Me vocals, keyboards; Kevin Savigar, Alan Clarke,
Beau Hill, Mitchell Froom – keyboards; Bobby
About You, Baby King, Willie Green, Clyde King, Carol Dennis,
Peggi Blu, Alexandra Brown, FULL FORCE –
background vocals; Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir,
Brent Mydland - Additional vocals

75 ALBUMS 1
Down In The Groove, from 1988, contains four Dylan originals, two of which were ALBUMS 2
written with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, and none of which are master- ALBUMS 3
SONGS
pieces, although “Silvio” percolates with a steady beat and would soon become
a concert staple rave-up.
Tellingly, Dylan tries his hand at a couple of older folk songs, the traditional
“Shenandoah” and the Stanley Brothers’ “Rank Strangers,” as well as the old
pop tune “When Did You Leave Heaven,” which, although it was a hit for Guy
Lombardo, Dylan may have picked up from a filmed performance of Big Bill
Broonzy’s. In these years of the late 1980s the one place he seemed to reliably
find his focus was when he turned his gaze to traditional folk, country, and blues
tunes. Although the performances on Down In The Groove don’t really jell, they
do point the way toward his remarkable solo albums of traditional tunes, Good
As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong.

Down In The Groove

May 19, 1988
 Political World Most Of The Time Musicians: Bob Dylan – vocal,
guitar; Daniel Lanois – dobro; Mason
Where Teardrops Fall What Good Am I? Ruffner, Brian Stoltz, Paul Synegal –
guitar; Tony Hall, Larry Jolivet – bass;
Everything Is Broken Disease Of Conceit Cyril Neville, Daryl Johnson –
Ring Them Bells What Was It You Wanted percussion; Willie Green – drums;
Alton Rubin jr. – scrub board;
Man In The Shooting Star John Hart – sax; Rockin’ Dopsie –
Long Black Coat accordion; Malcolm Burn –
tambourine.

76 ALBUMS 1
Recorded in New Orleans in 1989, Oh Mercy was a much more ambitious album ALBUMS 2
than its immediate predecessors. Ten new originals by Dylan, his strongest writing ALBUMS 3
SONGS
since Infidels, are set off by producer Daniel Lanois’ moody atmospherics. The
album has a sound that commands attention, and the leader’s vocals are pulled
together, even – or especially – when he is singing of confusion and chaos, as
on “Political World” and “Everything Is Broken.” And “Shooting Star” and “Most
of the Time” are two of the most moving ballads he ever wrote. Despite the
album’s overall mood of regret and anxiety, the record let everyone know that
Dylan was far from finished artistically. Dylan’s description, in Chronicles,
Volume One, of the album’s genesis and recording is one of the most honest and
accurate renderings of the ups and downs and reversals and tensions of the
creative process ever printed.

Oh Mercy
Produced by Daniel Lanois
September 12, 1989
 Wiggle Wiggle 10,000 Men Musicians: Bob Dylan - guitar, harp, Bruce Hornsby – piano; Paulinho Da
accordion, vocals; Slash, David Costa – percussion; Elton John –
Under The Red Sky 2X2 Lindley, Waddy Wachtel, Robben Ford, piano; David Lindley – bouzouki;
Jimmy Vaughan, Stevie Ray Vaughan David McMurray – sax; Rayse Biggs –
Unbelievable God Knows – guitar; George Harrison, David trumpet; Sweet Pea Atkinson,
Born In Time Handy Dandy Lindley - slide Guitar; Al Kooper – Sir Harry Bowens, Donald Ray Mitchell,
keyboards; Jamie Muhoberac – organ; David Was, David Crosby -
T.V. Talkin’ Song Cat’s In The Well Randy Jackson, Don Was – bass; background vocals.
Kenny Aronoff – drums;

77 The personnel listing of Dylan’s 1990 studio album Under The Red Sky, produced ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
by Don and David Was, is encrusted with the names of guest performers ALBUMS 3
SONGS
including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elton John, David Crosby, Bruce Hornsby and
George Harrison, but their presence was not quite enough to bring Under The
Red Sky up to the level of Dylan’s best work. One critic praises Dylan’s use of
nursery rhyme motifs in some of the songs, but they don’t really help much.
Still, as with almost every Dylan album, Under The Red Sky has its bright spots,
in this case “God Knows,” and the ballad “Born In Time,” both of which were
originally considered for inclusion on Oh Mercy. Possibly Dylan knew he was in
need of serious creative renewal; in his next studio effort, Good As I Been To
You, he headed straight back to the deepest well he could find.

Under The Red Sky

Produced by Don Was and David Was and Jack Frost
September 11, 1990
 Hard Times In New
York Town [12/22/61]
He Was A Friend
Of Mine [11/20/61]
Man On The Street [11/22/61]
No More Auction
Block [Late 1962]
House Carpenter [3/19/62]
Talkin’ Bear Mountain
Picnic Massacre Blues
[4/25/62]
Let Me Die
In My Footsteps [4/25/62]
Rambling,
Gambling Willie [4/24/62]
Talkin’ Hava
Negeilah Blues [4/25/62]
Quit Your Low
Down Ways [7/9/62]
Worried Blues [7/9/62]
Kingsport Town [11/14/62]
Walkin’ Down The Line [1963]
Walls Of Red Wing [4/24/63]
Paths Of Victory [8/12/63]
Talkin’ John Birch
Paranoid Blues [10/26/63]
Who Killed
Davey Moore? [10/26/63]
Only A Hobo [8/12/63]
Moonshiner [8/12/63]
When The Ship Comes In [1962]
The Times They
Are A-Changin’ [1963]
Last Thoughts
On Woody Guthrie [4/12/63]
Seven Curses [8/6/63]
Eternal Circle [10/24/63]
Suze (The Cough
Song) [10/24/63]
Mama, You
Been On My Mind [6/9/64]
Farewell Angelina [1/13/65]
Subterranean
Homesick Blues [1/13/65]
If You Gotta Go, Go Now
(Or Else You Got To
Stay All Night) [1/15/65]
Sitting On A
Barbed-Wire Fence [6/15/65]
Like A Rolling Stone [6/15/65]
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes
A Train To Cry [6/15/65]
I’ll Keep It With Mine [1/27/66]
She’s Your Lover Now [1/21/66]
I Shall Be Released [Fall 1967]
Santa Fe [Fall 1967]
If Not For You [5/1/70]
Wallflower [11/4/71]
Nobody ‘Cept You [11/2/73]
Tangled Up In Blue [9/16/74]
Call Letter Blues [9/16/74]
Idiot Wind [9/19/74]
If You See Her, Say Hello
[9/16/74]
Golden Loom [7/30/75]
Catfish [7/28/75]
Seven Days [4/21/76]
Ye Shall Be Changed [5/27/79]
Every Grain Of Sand [9/23/80]
You Changed My Life [4/23/81]
Need A Woman [5/4/81]
Angelina [5/4/81]
Someone’s Got A
Hold Of My Heart [4/25/83]
Tell Me [4/21/83]
Lord Protect My Child [5/3/83]
Foot Of Pride [4/25/83]
Blind Willie Mctell [5/5/83]
When The Night Comes
Falling From The Sky [2/19/85]
Series Of Dreams [3/23/89]

78 Released in 1991, this three disc set was a revelation. Although fans had known ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
for years that there was plenty of unreleased Dylan material in the Columbia ALBUMS 3
SONGS
Records vaults, a fair amount of which had dribbled out on unauthorized or
“bootleg” versions, this compilation still inspired a kind of awe. It is hard to
think of even a handful of performers of this or any era whose unissued work
could fill three discs worth of material as good as this. Spanning almost all
of Dylan’s career to that point, from Minneapolis to Oh Mercy, The Bootleg
Series Volume 1 – 3 presents surprise after surprise – new versions of familiar
material, previously unknown repertoire, live performances, studio alternates
– in a dizzying overview of one of the most protean and vibrant creative careers
of the 20th Century. Every listener will find his or her own favorites, although any
list of highlights would have to include the wry, Guthrie-like “Hard Times In New
York Town,” the subtle and poetic “Walls Of Red Wing” (about a Minnesota
reformatory), “Mama, You Been On My Mind,” the unfinished 1966 masterpiece
“She’s Your Lover Now,” the great Infidels outtakes “Blind Willie McTell” and,
especially, the searing, nightmarish “Foot Of Pride”. . . There isn’t much point
in going on; this is a set full of precious gems, each one different and reflecting
a distinct part of the genius who produced them.

The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
(Rare And Unreleased) 1961-1991
Produced by Jeff Rosen
March 26, 1991
 BOOTLEG SERIES VOL 1-3 original liner notes
Introduction
For most of those fabulous ‘60s, to be a bona-fide,
hard-core, full paid-up Bob Dylan fan didn’t demand
much more than buying the records, enthusing
about the songs and Dylan’s singing to incredulous
friends and puzzled parents, dreaming about one
day seeing him in concert, and always waiting, with
tetchy impatience, for news of what he was up to.
In the faxless ‘60s, when TVs were still steam-
79
driven and urgent correspondence was carried in
the saddlebags of the Pony Express, news of Dylan’s
doings would often come limping along months after
the event. Over in England in 1965, Dylan was being
hailed as a great new folk singer, and his “latest
protest”—“The Times They Are A-Changin’”—was
storming into the Top 20, several months after the
decidedly non-folk rock-rap recording of “Subter-
ranean Homesick Blues.” Even in the States, not
everyone was hip to what was happening. In
Newport, the fussy old folkies who’d cherished the
socially outspoken Bobby Dylan stuck their fingers
in their ears and yelled “turn it down!” as Bob and
the Butterfield Band raved on at the infamous 1965
Folk Festival, even though “Like A Rolling Stone”
had been roaring out of every radio set just about
on the hour in the week leading up to that “first
electric concert.” Times sure were different then.
By the end of the decade, die-hard enthusiasts
had recording of Bob Dylan singing 103 songs on
nine Columbia albums, not counting the “Greatest
Hits.” Each of the records had been bought with
baited breath, and carried home in triumph, with the
rest of the day set aside for lyric transcription,
analysis, and the appropriate indulgence of
wonderment at how different each record was from
the one that had preceded it. But then in late
summer 1969, things changed. And for Dylan fans,
life was never to be the same again.
It all began when a strange white label ‘bootleg”
record called “Great White Wonder” came out of
California. It was, as far as the fans were concerned,
the tenth new Bob Dylan LP, though it didn’t say so
on the sleeve. Although it sounded as though it had
been recorded by means of tin-can-and-string
technology, it was crammed with delights. Half of
the tracks were taken from “The Basement Tapes,”
gloriously crazy songs recorded with The Band in
Woodstock in 1967; the other songs on “Great White
Wonder” were recordings from 1961, on which a
very young bob Dylan sang his way spiritedly through
all kinds of great blues and folk songs—why, he
even tried telling a joke!
For the most part this stuff was great—and
seemed all the more exciting just because, being
rare, unreleased, and most certainly unofficial, it
was something that we shouldn’t really be listening
to—forbidden fruit, and the sweeter for it. The
record company was understandably outraged,
the copyright people were justifiably up in arms, but
we had Bob Dylan singing “Baby, Please Don’t Go,”
and “This Wheel’s On Fire,” and “I Shall be
Released,” and life had never seemed so good.
Then, in December 1969, In “Rolling Stone” #47,
the second anniversary issue, Greil Marcus was let
loose over five big pages to enthuse about countless
hours of other unreleased Dylan tapes that he’d
scrambled and hustled for himself; private recordings
in friends’ apartments, tapes of early coffeehouse
gigs in Greenwich Village, and songs recorded for,
but never used on the official albums; outtake
versions—some of them with very different words
or arrangements—of songs we already knew; and
tapes of concerts, both solo and with The Hawks,
later known as The Band. “Dylan’s greatest
recordings,” Marcus maintained.
Thus began the great tape hunt, the quest to
collect anything and everything that Bob Dylan had
ever recorded. Over the last 20 years, a feverish
underground network of collectors has been at
work, tracking, tracing, and trading tapes.
And now at last, something of the true extent
and value of much of the buried treasure long
sought after by tape collectors is brought to light. In
this cornucopia of previously unissued material are ALBUMS 1
stashed home recordings, demo recordings, ALBUMS 2
outtakes, alternative takes, coffeehouse recordings, ALBUMS 3
SONGS
concert recordings, and more. Much of it teaches us
a good deal about the way in which Dylan developed
as a songwriter or performer in those early years;
some of it is nothing short of sensational—
performances of staggering power and subtlety and
seemingly infinite variety. The main focus in this
collection is on Dylan as the songwriter: 38 songs
that have never been released on an official album,
as well as demo and rehearsal versions of well-
known songs. Subsequent volumes will deal with live
work, including the legendary 1966 Royal Albert hall
appearance. For those who never suspected this
material even existed, there are untold delights in
store. And for those exhaustive and insatiable
collectors, the “completists” who like to think that
they’ve heard everything, included here are a bunch
of previously unsuspected tracks.
Whatever reputation Bob Dylan has enjoyed as a
writer and performer in his 30-year recording
career will inevitably have to be reviewed in the
light of this historic collection. And if the writers
and critics who are called upon to reassess Bob
Dylan’s achievements find that the superlatives have
all been used up on his back catalog of official
releases, they’ll just have to come up with a bunch
of superlative outtakes, won’t they?
— JOHN BAULDIE, London, 1991
 Jim Jones Step It Up And Go
Blackjack Davey Tomorrow Night
Canadee-i-O Arthur McBride
Sittin’ On Top Of The World You’re Gonna Quit Me
Little Maggie Diamond Joe
Hard Times Froggie Went A Courtin’

80 If the end of the 1980s saw a series of albums that suggested (with the ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
exception of Oh Mercy) that Dylan was having trouble finding his focus, his ALBUMS 3
SONGS
live performances tended to come to life with the inclusion of the kinds of
traditional old-time country and blues and bluegrass tunes that had been his
stock in trade in his early years in New York. In 1992, Dylan went into the
recording studio, steering for his old-time used-to-be, and came out with his
first completely solo album in 19 years, containing not one Dylan original. Good
As I Been To You is Dylan, by himself, playing blues, ballads, and folk songs
associated with the Stanley Brothers (“Little Maggie”), The Mississippi Sheiks
(“Sittin’ On Top of The World”), Lonnie Johnson (“Tomorrow Night”), Paul Brady
(“Arthur McBride”), and Blind Blake (“You’re Gonna Quit Me”) as well as
traditional songs like “Frankie And Albert” and “Froggie Went A-Courtin’.” He
finds his own twist on almost all of them, and the disc contains his most
committed singing and guitar playing on record in years. Here he was, once
again, soaking up energy and inspiration from the people who had been
important to him in the beginning, and it was plainly doing him good.

Good As I Been To You

November 3, 1992
 It’s Alright, Ma Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
(I’m Only Bleeding) - everyone
– Bob Dylan
Girl From
My Back Pages The North Country
- Bob Dylan, - Bob Dylan
Roger McGuinn,
Tom Petty,
Neil Young,
Eric Clapton,
George Harrison

Selections from
81 On October 16, 1992, an impressive and eclectic group of artists gathered at ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
Madison Square Garden in New York City for the purpose of celebrating ALBUMS 3
SONGS
the music of Bob Dylan on the occasion of his 30th anniversary of recording.
Bringing together musical greats as far-flung as Johnny Cash and Eddie Vedder,
The Clancy Brothers and Lou Reed, the four-hour show celebrated a truly re-
markable lifetime of songs in front of a sold-out audience of over 18,000.
Warmly dubbed the Bobfest by participant Neil Young, the show was broadcast
around the world and featured a cast of musical notables performing carefully
chosen and often surprising selections from the incomparable Dylan songbook.
At evening’s end, the man of honor himself appeared on stage and gracefully
brought it all back home again. In a world where all-star celebrity gatherings
have become commonplace, the Bob Dylan celebration stood out as, first and
foremost, a legitimately memorable musical event.
— From the original 1993 liner notes, by David Wild

Selections from
The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration
Produced by Jeff Rosen and Don DeVito
August 24, 1993
 Love Henry Stack A Lee
Ragged & Dirty Two Soldiers
Blood In My Eyes Jack-A-Roe
Broke Down Engine Lone Pilgrim
Delia

82 Some kind of light must have gone on for Dylan during the recording of Good ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
As I Been To You, because the next year, 1993, he came out with another solo ALBUMS 3
SONGS
album made up entirely of traditional tunes, as good as its predecessor and
maybe better in some cases. In World Gone Wrong Dylan again chooses
material from the Anglo-American and African-American traditions, and at least
one associated with both – his decision to perform West Virginia coal miner
Frank Hutchison’s version of the African-American murder ballad “Stack A Lee”
is inspired. As on the preceding album, he has the Mississippi Sheiks on the
brain, performing their “Blood In My Eyes” as well as the album’s title song.
Throughout, he chooses unusual and tasty items from across the spectrum of
the traditional repertoire, and brings his own sensibility to them. In particular,
his roaring version of Blind Willie McTell’s “Broke Down Engine” and his quiet
and eerily beautiful delivery of the ballad “Lone Pilgrim” are standouts.

World Gone Wrong ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
Produced by Bob Dylan
October 26, 1993
 WORLD GONE WRONG original liner notes
About the Songs
(what they’re about)
BROKE DOWN ENGINE is a Blind Willie Mctell
masterpiece. it’s about trains, mystery on the
rails—the train of love, the train that carried my
girl from town—The Southern Pacific, Baltimore &
Ohio whatever—it’s about variations of human
longing—the low hum in meter & syllables. it’s
about dupes of commerce & politics colliding on
tracks, not being pushed around by ordinary
83
standards. it’s about revival, getting a new lease on
life, not just posing there—paint chipped & flaked,
mattress bare, single bulb swinging above the bed.
it’s about Ambiguity, the fortunes of the privilege
elite, flood control—watching the red dawn not
bothering to dress.
LOVE HENRY is a “traditionalist” ballad. Tom Paley
used to do it. a perverse tale. Henry—modern
corporate man off some foreign boat, unable to
handle his “psychosis” responsible for organizing
the Intelligentsia, disarming the people, an infantile
sensualist—white teeth, wide smile, lotza money,
kowtow to fairy queen exploiters & corrupt religious
establishments, career minded, limousine double
parked, imposing his will & dishonest garbage in
popular magazines. he lays his head on a pillow of
down & falls asleep. he shoulda known better, he
must’ve had a hearing problem.
STACK A LEE is Frank Hutchinson’s version. what
does the song say exactly? it says no man gains
immortality thru public acclaim. truth is shadowy. in
the pre-postindustrial age, victims of violence were
allowed (in fact it was their duty) to be judges over
their offenders—parents were punished for their
children’s crimes (we’ve come a long way since
then) the song says that a man’s hat is his crown.
futurologists would insist it’s a matter of taste. they
say “let’s sleep on it” but theory already living in
the sanitarium. No Rights Without Duty is the name
of the game & fame is a trick. playing for time is
only horsing around. Stack’s in a cell, no wall phone.
he is not some egotistical degraded existentialist
dionysian idiot, neither does he represent any
alternative lifestyle scam (give me a thousand acres
of tractable land & all the gang members that exist
& you’ll see the Authentic alternative lifestyle, the
Agrarian one) Billy didn’t have an insurance plan,
didn’t get airsick yet his ghost is more real & genuine
than all the dead souls on the boob tube—a
monumental epic of blunder & misunderstanding.
a romance tale without the cupidity.
BLOOD IN MY EYES is one of two songs done by the
Mississippi Sheiks, a little known de facto group
whom in their former glory must’ve been something
to behold. rebellion against routine seems to be
their strong theme. all their songs are raw to the
bone & are faultlessly made for these modern times
(the New Dark Ages) nothing effete about the
Mississippi Sheiks.
WORLD GONE WRONG is also by them & goes against
cultural policy. “strange things are happening like
never before” strange things alright—strange
things like courage becoming befuddled & nonfun-
damental. evil charlatans masquerading in pullover
vests & tuxedos talking gobbledygook, monstrous
pompous superficial pageantry parading down
lonely streets on limited access highways. strange
things indeed—irrationalist bimbos & bozos, the
stuff of legend, coming in from left field—infamy on
the landscape—“pray to the Good Lord” hit the
light switch!
JACK-A-ROE is another Tom Paley ballad (Tom, one
of the original New Lost City Ramblers) the young
virgin follows her heart (which can’t be confined) &
in it the secrets of the universe. “there was a wealthy
merchant” wealthy & philosophically influential
perhaps with an odd penchant for young folk. the
song cannot be categorized—is worlds away from
reality but “gets inside” reality anyway & strips it of
its steel and concrete. inverted symmetry, legally ALBUMS 1
stateless, traveling under a false passport. “before ALBUMS 2
you step on board, sir...” are you any good at what ALBUMS 3
SONGS
you do? submerge you personality.
DELIA is one sad tale-two or more versions mixed
into one. the song has no middle range, comes
whipping around the corner, seems to be about
counterfeit loyalty. Delia herself, no Queen Gertrude,
Elizabeth 1 or even Evita Peron, doesn’t ride a
Harley Davidson across the desert highway, doesn’t
need a blood change & would never go on a shopping
spree. the guy in the courthouse sounds like a pimp
in primary colors. he’s not interested in mosques on
the temple mount, armageddon or world war 111,
doesn’t put his face in his knees & weep & wears no
dunce hat, makes no apology & is doomed to
obscurity. does this song have rectitude? you bet.
toleration of the unacceptable leads to the last
round-up. the singer’s not talking from a head full
of booze.
Jerry Garcia showed me TWO SOLDIERS (Hazel & Alice
do it pretty similar) a battle song extraordinaire,
some dragoon officer’s epaulettes laying liquid in
the mud, physical plunge into Limitationville, war
dominated by finance (lending money for interest
being a nauseating & revolting thing) love is not
collateral. hittin’ em where they ain’t (in the
 imperfect state that they’re in) America when
Mother was the queen of Her heart, before Charlie
Chaplin, before the Wild One, before the Children of
the Sun—before the celestial grunge, before the
insane world of entertainment exploded in our
faces—before all the ancient & honorable artillery
had been taken out of the city, learning to go
forward by turning back the clock, stopping the
mind from thinking in hours, firing a few random
shots at the face of time.
(early ‘92) Why Do You Look At Me So Strangley
Tour (European ‘92) The One Sad Cry of Pity Tour
(Australia & West Coast America ‘92) Principles Of
Action Tour (Mexico—South American ‘92) Outburst
Of Consciousness Tour (‘92) Don’t Let Your Deal Go
Down Tour(‘93) & others too many to mention each
with their own character & design. to know which
was which consult the playlists.
— Bob Dylan

RAGGED & DIRTY one of the Willie Browns did this—

schmaltz & pickled herring, stuffed cabbage, heavy
84 ALBUMS 1
moral vocabulary—sweetness & sentiment, house ALBUMS 2
rocking, superior beauty, not just standing there ALBUMS 3
—the seductive magic of the thumbs up salute, SONGS

carefully thought out overtones & stepping sideways,

the idols of human worship paying thru the nose,
lords of the illogical in smoking jackets, sufferers
from a weak education, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle—
taking stupid chances—being mistreated only just
so far.

LONE PILGRIM is from an old Doc Watson record.

what attracts me to the song is how the lunacy
of trying to fool the self is set aside at some given
point. salvation & the needs of mankind are
prominent & hegemony takes a breathing spell. “my
soul flew to mansions on high” what’s essentially
true is virtual reality. technology to wipe out truth is
now available. not everybody can afford it but it’s
available. when the cost comes down look out! there
wont be songs like these anymore. factually there
aren’t any now.

by the way, don’t be bewildered by the Never Ending

Tour chatter. there was a Never Ending Tour but it
ended in ‘91 with the departure of guitarist G.E.
Smith. that one’s long gone but there have been
many others since then. The Money Never Runs Out
Tour (fall of ‘91) Southern Sympathizer Tour
 Tangled Up In Blue Silvio
Changing Of The Guards Ring Them Bells
The Groom’s Still Gotta Serve Somebody
Waiting At The Altar Series Of Dreams
Hurricane Brownsville Girl
Forever Young Under The Red Sky
Jokerman Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
Dignity

85 ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3

Produced by Gordon Carroll, Don DeVito, Jerry Wexler, Barry Beckett, Chuck Plotkin,
Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, Daniel Lanois, Don Was, and David Was
November 15, 1994
 Tombstone Blues Rainy Day Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitar,
harmonica, vocals; Tony Garnier –
Shooting Star Women #12 & 35 bass; John Jackson – guitar; Bucky
All Along The Watchtower Desolation Row Baxter – pedal steel, dobro; Winston
Watson – drums; Brendan O’Brien –
The Times Dignity hammond organ.
They Are A-Changin’ Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
John Brown Like A Rolling Stone
With God On Our Side

86 In November 1994 Dylan entered the Sony studios to tape a segment for MTV’s ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
Unplugged series, intended to present performers in an acoustic setting. ALBUMS 3
SONGS
Fronting his regular touring band and playing to a wildly enthusiastic audience,
Dylan served up rolling, energetic versions of favorites like “Tombstone Blues”
and “All Along The Watchtower,” as well as interestingly subtle, underplayed
readings of “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Desolation Row” and “Shooting
Star.” But the jewel of the set is Dylan’s reworking of 1989’s Oh Mercy outtake
“Dignity,” with its tumbling, jostling imagery.

MTV Unplugged
Produced by Jeff Kramer, Jeff Rosen
June 30, 1995
 Love Sick
Dirt Road Blues
Standing In The Doorway
Million Miles
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Til I Fell In Love With You
87
Time Out Of Mind
Produced by Daniel Lanois, in association
with Jack Frost Productions
September 30, 1997
Not Dark Yet Musicians: Bob Dylan – guitar,
acoustic and electric rhythm lead,
Cold Irons Bound harmonica, piano, vocals; Daniel
Lanois – guitar, mando-guitar,
Make You Feel My Love firebird, Martin 0018, Gretch gold top,
Can’t Wait rhythm & lead; “Bucky” Baxter –
acoustic guitar, pedal steel; “Duke”
Highlands Robillard – guitar, electric L5 Gibson;
Robert Britt – Martin acoustic &
Fender Stratocaster; Winston Watson
– Drums; Cindy Cashdollar – slide
guitar; Tony Garnier – Electric Bass &
acoustic upright bass; Augie Meyers –
vox organ combo, Hammond B3 organ
& accordion; Jim Dickenson –
keyboards, Wurlitzer electric piano &
pump organ; Jim Keltner – drums;
David Kemper – drums; Brian Blade –
drums; Tony Mangurian – percussion.
ALBUMS 1
In 1997, Dylan released his first album of new compositions since Under The ALBUMS 2
Red Sky, the amazing Time Out of Mind. Produced, like Oh Mercy, by Daniel ALBUMS 3
SONGS
Lanois, Time Out Of Mind is set in a spooky, subaqueous aural medium that
quavers around Dylan’s stripped-to-the-bone vocals like the light in an
aquarium. Through this oddly-lit gloom, Dylan sings with shocking candor about
a world come loose from its moorings, of exhaustion, emptiness, aimlessness,
lost love and the prospect of death. There is an honesty and directness here
that is liberating for both the listener and the singer. His vocals are as strong,
as focused, and as pure as anything he had done for years. The album contained
moody ballads (“Make You Feel My Love,” “Not Dark Yet,” “Standing In The
Doorway”), blues-based quasi-recitatives (“Million Miles,” “Til I fell In Love
With You” and the 16 1/2 – minute “Highlands”), and a few scalding, claustral
explorations of the borderline of sanity, “Cold Irons Bound,” “Love Sick” and
“Can’t Wait.” In addition there is the beautiful and unique “Tryin’ To Get To
Heaven,” with its haunting line, “When you think that you’ve lost everything/You
find out you can always loooooose a little more…” The buzz surrounding the
album’s release brought Dylan to a wider, and younger, audience than he had
enjoyed in years. The album sold millions and earned Dylan a Grammy® Award
for Album of the Year (his first ever.)
 She Belongs To Me Mr. Tambourine Man Just Like
4th Time Around Tell Me, Momma Tom Thumb’s Blues
Visions Of Johanna I Don’t Believe You Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
It’s All Over (She Acts Like We One Too Many Mornings
Now, Baby Blue Never Have Met) Ballad Of A Thin Man
Baby, Let Me What it was like live. The music that Dylan and his electric band made during
Desolation Row Like A Rolling Stone
Just Like A Woman Follow You Down their 1966 world tour was like nothing the world had ever heard. Ever since
Dylan’s first appearance with an electric backup band at the 1965 Newport Folk
Festival his electric performances had caused an outcry in the folk and pop
music worlds alike. The music was assaultive, in your face; it came right up to
you, rather than inviting you to gather around and listen as “folk” music was
supposed to. The band Dylan used for the 1966 tour, known then as the Hawks
88 and soon, with Levon Helm replacing Mickey Jones on drums, to be known as The ALBUMS 1
T h e B o o t l e g S e r i e s Vo l . 4 ALBUMS 2
Band, was a group of individual talents willing to follow Dylan into uncharted
BOB DYLAN LIVE 1966
ALBUMS 3
waters. They played loud and strong and every night they tested the boundaries SONGS

of what people could listen to as they flung themselves and their audiences
against the limits of their own energies.
The show captured on Live 1966 follows the standard format for one of
that year’s programs. Dylan first plays an acoustic set of songs from Bringing
It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde, with none of his
earlier “protest” songs in evidence. Each performance sets a spell, creates
an eerie, one-on-one intimacy with the listener. Dylan’s ability to sustain this
kind of focused, understated intensity through the long reaches of songs like
“Desolation Row” and, especially, “Visions of Johanna” is astonishing. After
intermission he would come back with the Hawks and blow the roof off the
venue, with a set consisting of his recent songs like “Ballad Of A Thin Man,”
and older songs gone electric, like Another Side’s “I Don’t Believe You (She
Acts Like We Never Have Met).” The performances would be met by a mixture
of cheers, stunned confusion, and catcalls from audience members outraged
at his “betrayal” of folk music. In this set’s most famous moment, someone in
the audience yells out, “Judas!” The response from the stage is a tidal wave
called “Like A Rolling Stone.” The concert was recorded and released illegally,
The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert becoming one of the first and best-selling rock bootlegs, known universally
as the Royal Albert Hall concert – a mistake, since, although the band
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 did play at the Albert Hall on this British leg of the tour, this performance is ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
Bob Dylan Live 1966: taken from a slightly earlier one at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. Fasten your
The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert safety belts.
Produced by Jeff Rosen
October 13, 1998
 BOOTLEG SERIES VOLUME 4 original liner notes
In 1913, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky wrote
music for The Rite Of Spring, a Diaghilev ballet,
choreographed by Nijinsky. His twelve-tone scales
and use of unfamiliar structures caused not just a
scandal, but rather a riot, as Parisian audiences
stood and shouted, drowning out the orchestra. They
considered Stravinsky’s score a “blasphemous
attempt to destroy music as an art” and booed
89
roundly throughout the piece.
In 1922, modern dancer Isadora Duncan began
a tour with her husband, Russian poet Sergei Esenin.
He read and she danced in auditoriums across the
U.S. It was the height of the Red Scare and the
powers that be were threatened by the Bolshevik
Revolution of a few years before. When Duncan
performed in Boston, she gave an impassioned
speech, imploring a highly conservative audience—
“You were once wild here, don’t let them tame you!”
When she waved a red scarf and bared a breast,
declaring “nudity is truth, it is beauty, it is art!” the
audience fled the hall.
In 1935, actor-director-writer Antonin Artaud
performed his play The Cenci, a dramatized myth of
murder, incest and adultery, in Paris. Artaud had
championed the “Theater Of Cruelty,” where an
audience was to be transformed through their
encounter with his work. Settings were designed to
disorient the spectator: recorded sound effects of
trampling feet, an amplified metronome and tolling
church bells were played through loudspeakers
located in the four corners of the building and
spectators were assaulted with macabre lighting
effects. The play soon closed, and Artaud eventually
wound up in an asylum.
In May of 1966, Bob Dylan stands on an English
stage, coming back for the second half of a concert.
The first part, done solo and acoustic, was well
received, even though the lyrics were not the
socially-conscious, politically-motivating messages
that had gained Dylan popularity barely a year
before. Now he appears in a mod cut suit and
pointed boots in front of a five-piece band with an
electric guitar in hand, playing incandescent rock
and roll. There are catcalls throughout the set,
and finally, just before the last number, someone
yells “Judas!” Dylan replies, “I don’t believe you!”
turns to the band and snarls, “Play fucking loud!”
Drummer Mickey Jones cracks the snare like a rifle
shot and The Hawks roar into “Like A Rolling Stone.”
Dylan’s voice is a velvet sneer as he shouts out the
line “How does it feeeeeeel” and the performance
rolls on with power, defiance and a sheer majesty
rarely captured on tape.
By the time the first so-called “Royal Albert
Hall” bootleg came out, some four or five years
later, the mythology was in place: a blues-tinged
Woody Guthrie comes out of the midwest, moves to
N.Y., writes some poetic topical songs that become
the soundtrack for the civil rights and anti-war
struggles, turns inward and begins doing existen-
tially surrealistic visionary work, hooks up with a
kick-ass rock band, barnstorms the U.S., Australia
and Europe, ends four months of grueling touring
with a triumphant concert, returns to the U.S.,
breaks his neck in a motorcycle accident, and
retires into a 20-month seclusion. When he returns,
it’s as a vastly changed man, a bearded biblical
poet, with acoustic parables from a whole other
century. So what happened, and why were those
people so angry? Therein lies a tale…
From the 30 years down the road viewpoint,
history looks like the inevitable evolution of
events—but when you’re living through them, the
perspective is a bit more chaotic. I first met Bob
Dylan in mid-1960, a few months before he headed
east to visit Woody Guthrie. There was a beat/folk
music scene going down in Dinkytown, a section of
Minneapolis just off the University of Minnesota
campus. Apartments, shops, and The Scholar, a
store-front coffee house, were there. It was a dark
and mellow kind of place where you could nurse a
cup, play chess, stare out the window or talk about
foreign films without being hassled. ALBUMS 1
Though I didn’t know it till I read some books ALBUMS 2
years later, it turns out that both Bob and I were ALBUMS 3
SONGS
musical expatriates from the R&R scene. He’d been
involved with a high school band, and played piano
on a few gigs with Top 40 hitman Bobby Vee. I had a
garage blues-rock group that played a combination
of Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed styled music—we cut
a couple acetates and played a few dances at the
VFW hall. When the band broke up with people
getting drafted or otherwise leaving town, I
gravitated toward the Dinkytown scene, and ran
across the people making music there. In the 1960s
you couldn’t find a band with amps, PA and drum
kits on every block and there weren’t even that
many Fender guitars around—and half of those
were being played in the Flame and other CW bars
downtown. The music around the U was in the trad
folk line, made by people who were enamored of
mountain banjo melodies and old string bands with
names like Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers. These
people had big record and tape collections. Some
even sent off to the Library Of Congress to buy tape
dubs from the field recording collections at $17 an
hour. A Folk Society was formed—people met to
discuss and play these songs and it was all pretty
academic. I’d gone backwards from the Chicago
blues bands to discover the roots in delta blues/folk
people like Leadbelly and Sonny Terry, and ran across
 their Folkways recordings with Woody Guthrie.
When I met Bob, he was a guy who’d started out with
Odetta and Harry Belafonte tunes and was just
getting heavily into Woody and his songs as sung by
Jack Elliott; he flat-picked guitar and was starting to
play harp in a neck rack. We played at some parties
here and there and traded a few harp riffs.
Bob headed east in late 1960. We exchanged
letters and he proudly sent back a flyer advertising
him playing at Gerde’s Folk City on a bill with John
Lee Hooker. When he signed with Columbia and they
put out his first album in February of 1962, as far as
I was concerned, he was a star. From there on, it
90
was just a matter of degrees.
The album was a nice mix of blues and interest-
ing versions of trad folk songs, with a couple of
Guthrie-esque originals for good measure. During
sessions for his next, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,
Bob was hooked up with a four-piece band. The
resulting 45, “Mixed-Up Confusion/Corrina, Corrina,”
paired the trad tune with a rocking original that
sounded like Woody gone rockabilly, with some nice
piano and harp interplay—it was cool, if a bit
misguided. The single wasn’t commercial enough for
Top 40 radio, and electric instruments were anathema
to the folk crowd who were consciously turning their
backs on mainstream culture and pop music. The
band tunes originally slated for the album were
scratched, with only “Corrina” remaining.
By early 1964 Bob was considered a spokesman
by a number of groups with varying agendas. He’d
appeared at the August 1963 March on Washington
rally, where Martin Luther King had given his famous
“I have a dream” speech. Bob sang “Only A Pawn
In Their Game” and Peter, Paul and Mary performed
his anthem, “Blowin’ In The Wind.” His new The
Times They Are A-Changin’ album had Bertolt
Brecht-inspired political ballads, but also included
gut-wrenching songs of loss like “One Too Many
Mornings” and “Boots Of Spanish Leather.” He’d
appeared at a number of “cause” concerts, played
some voter registration rallies in Mississippi and
become the fair-haired boy of the topical song
movement, with new songs appearing regularly in
Sing Out! and Broadside, the bibles of the activists.
In June 1964, Bob went into the studio and
changed directions; in a single day he cut Another
Side Of Bob Dylan, which mixed love songs and
humorous talking blues with the surrealistic
imagery of “Chimes Of Freedom.” The result was a
wave of disapproval from the People’s Songs crowd.
It’s worth noting that Bob didn’t come up with the
album name. Cameron Crowe quotes him in the
Biograph box set booklet: “Tom Wilson titled it that,
I begged and pleaded with him not to do it. You
know, I thought it was overstating the obvious…it
seemed like a negation of the past, which in no way
was true.” As Richard Williams put it in A Man Called
Alias: “The fact was though, that at the very moment
when Bob Dylan was beginning to receive acclama-
tion as the voice of his generation’s political
consciousness, his new album was full of personal
songs…The album moved off an interior landscape
in which murdered black servants, wicked arms
dealers, assassinated presidents and starving
miners were nowhere to be found.”
Reaction was quick to come—in the November
issue of Sing Out!, editor Irwin Silber chastised him
in an open letter:
“…You said you weren’t a writer of ‘protest’
songs…but any songwriter who tries to deal
honestly with reality in this world is bound to write
‘protest’ songs. How can he help himself? Your new
songs seem to be all inner directed now, inner-
probing, self-conscious—maybe even a little
maudlin or cruel on occasion. And it’s happening
on-stage too. You seem to be relating to a handful
of cronies behind the scenes now—rather than the
rest of us out front. Now that’s all okay—if that’s
the way you want it. But then you’re a different Bob
Dylan from the one we knew. The old one never
wasted our precious time… The American Success
Machinery chews up geniuses at the rate of one a
day and still hungers for more. Unable to produce
real art on its own, the Establishment breeds
creativity in protest against and non-conformity to
the System. And then, through notoriety, fast money
and status, it makes it almost impossible for the
artist to function and grow. It is a process that must
be constantly guarded against and fought. Give it
some thought Bob. Believe me when I say that this
letter is written out of love and deep concern…
Irwin Silber”
By then, Koerner, Ray & Glover, the blues-folk
group I played with, had a couple of albums out and
ALBUMS 1
we were booked into the Newport Folk Festival. Of ALBUMS 2
course Bob was there as well and we connected up ALBUMS 3
at the hotel. One of my strongest memories of the SONGS
weekend is of an afternoon with the festival rolling
on in a topical-traditional mode outside, while in a
room he, Bob Neuwirth, and I sang old Hank
Williams tunes—and worked out the harmonies on
“Tell Me”—an original number off the new Rolling
Stones’ first album. In October, The Animals were on
The Ed Sullivan Show doing a rock version of “House
Of The Rising Sun,” a ballad also on Bob’s first
album. The handwriting was in the air…
In January 1965, over a three-day session,
Bob cut tracks for Bringing It All Back Home,
another trip deeper down his new road. One side of
the album was with a band, one side solo acoustic.
There was a lot to chew on there—the solo sides
included “Gates Of Eden,” with phrases like “upon
four-legged forest clouds the cowboy angel rides”
and “the motorcycle black madonna two-wheeled
gypsy queen” which sounded similar to the kind of
word play that William Burroughs had used in his
cut up manuscripts like Naked Lunch. Add in “Mr.
Tambourine Man,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only
Bleeding)” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and
you have some incredibly compelling moody
masterpieces—which are performed excellently.
It may be true that Bob never had a great voice,
 but dammit, it’s evocative and delivers his words
with just-right emotional intensity—can you
imagine anyone doing them with more compassion
or authority?
The electric side caused more waves.
Most of the tunes were basically folk-styled pieces
backed up with a band—with one big exception,
“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” a power-driven
speed-rapped riff which mixed Chuck Berry riffs
with Allen Ginsberg-like bursts of poetic imagery. It
was a true breakthrough and amazing to hear on the
radio—a weird combination of joyous rock and
literate lyrics that caught the ear, tickled your funny
91
bone and had your foot tapping all at once. It rose
to number #39 on the pop charts. When I first heard
it, I grinned and thought, cool—he got big enough
to get a band backing him.
A couple of months later, around the late
March album release time, Bob was sitting in on harp
with The Byrds, the first “folk-rock” group to crack
the Top 40. They had several Dylan tunes in their
repertoire. There was definitely something afoot.
After doing several joint concerts with Joan
Baez, Bob went to England for a two-week tour in
late April. It was filmed and released in 1967 as
Don’t Look Back. It’s a document of a man in
conflict—dutifully doing the dates he’d been booked
into for some time, playing a repertoire that he’d
largely outgrown in those fast-moving days. (Though
there were six songs from the new album included
in the set lists.) The radio hit in England was “The
Times They Are A-Changin’” and to anyone paying
attention, it should’ve been obvious that so was Bob.
The press conferences were exercises in absurdist
humor and Bob was wearing a sharp leather jacket
instead of his work shirt. One of the most telling
shots in the movie shows him pausing to look in a
music shop window, eyeing a Burns electric guitar.
The Beatles and the Stones admired him, but the
fans wanted to hear more of sloganeering and less
of rock poetry. He came back to the U.S. burned out.
“After I finished the English tour, I quit because
it was too easy,” Bob told writer Jules Siegel a year
later. “There was nothing happening for me. Every
concert was the same: first half, second half, two
encores and run out, then having to take care of
myself all night. I didn’t understand; I’d get standing
ovations and it didn’t mean anything. The first time I
felt no shame. But then I was just following myself
after that. It was down to a pattern.” Writing was
always cathartic and in one of his bouts at the
typewriter he spewed out a long rambling stream.
“It was ten pages long. It wasn’t called anything,
just a rhythm thing on paper all about my steady
hatred directed at some point that was honest. In
the end it wasn’t hatred, it was telling someone
something they didn’t know, telling them they were
lucky. Revenge, that’s a better word. I had never
thought of it as a song until one day I was at the pia-
no, and on the paper it was singing ‘how does it
feel?’ in a slow motion pace, in the utmost of slow
motion following something…I wrote it. I didn’t fail.
It was straight.” In mid-June 1965, he was in a New
York studio with some session cats plus hotshot
guitarist Mike Bloomfield, who was soon to work
with The Paul Butterfield Band. Over two days they
cut three tunes, one of which was the six-minute
epic “Like A Rolling Stone.”
A month later it was on the radio—it had been
released to DJs split in half on a 45 with Part 1 on
the A side, part 2 on the B, but most of them were
putting it back together on tape and playing a
complete version. If “Subterranean” was a kick on
a car radio, imagine hearing “You used to ride on a
chrome horse with your diplomat, who carried on
his shoulder a Siamese cat/ain’t it hard when you
discover that he really wasn’t where it’s at, after he
took from you everything he could steal—how does
it feeeel?” and then that perfect guitar fill lacing in
and out. The tune both soared and rocked, and it
was a whole other trip hearing it on the grounds of
the Newport Festival in late July, on little
transistor radios.
There was a weird feel in the air at Newport. Fire
trucks were stationed at the gates, standing ready
in case the hoses were needed to quell a riot, and
there was a restlessness running through the crowds
that had everybody on edge. One eruption occurred
at an afternoon workshop when folklorist and song
collector Alan Lomax (he’d done the field recordings
of Son House, Fred McDowell and Muddy Waters)
made a very condescending introduction to The Paul
Butterfield Band on an afternoon blues workshop,
ALBUMS 1
something along the lines of “Let’s see what these ALBUMS 2
white kids think they can do.” As the band kicked ALBUMS 3
off the first electric set ever heard on the Folk Fest SONGS
grounds, manager Albert Grossman (who also
managed Bob) came up to Lomax and told him that
was a pretty shitty job of running a workshop. Lomax
said “oh yeah?” Somebody threw a punch and they
wound up rolling and scuffling in the dirt for a number
of seconds as bystanders bemusedly watched these
two physical and industry-sized behemoths going at
each other. Bob did a solo workshop in the afternoon
of the first day, then decided for his next-day
concert appearance he wanted to do his new single.
Guitarist Bloomfield was already there with Butter’s
band, so it was an easy job to recruit the rhythm
section of bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam
Lay, and keyboardists Al Kooper (who was also on
the single session) and Barry Goldberg. Overnight
rehearsals resulted in a three-song set.
There seemed to be two main kinds of acceptable
music at the festival, a yearly event since 1963:
either straight-ahead traditional (mountain ballads,
banjo breakdowns, spirituals, worksongs, blues and
bluegrass), or singer-songwriters doing current
event/protest songs. Neither category allowed for
electric guitars or drum kits, these were considered
despised symbols of Tin Pan Alley force-fed pop song
 culture. There were several agendas rampant that
night: the evening concert began with Pete Seeger,
the original venerable topical song singer playing a
tape recording of a newborn baby crying and asking
the night’s performers to tell the baby about the
world it would grow up in—it was pretty obvious the
message he had in mind. There was also a heavy-
handed emphasis on traditional music—even to the
extent of having a black group singing work songs
while chopping a log on-stage. When it was time for
Dylan to come on in mid-concert the amps and
keyboards were hauled out. The expectations were
high—till then the show had been fairly dull.
92
I was watching from Chip Monck’s lighting
trailer off to the side. Chip ran a hip hospitality
house; performers were welcomed, he had a well-
stocked refrigerator and there usually was some
good smoking material on hand. There’d been a
discussion that afternoon about doing something
different with the lights during Bob’s set—after a
fair amount of chuckling the idea of having the
entire stage go red at the end of a tune was arrived
at and approved.
The first tune played was “Maggie’s Farm.” The
line “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more,”
given the context, took on a whole OTHER meaning.
There was a power and energy there, but the
problem was that the PA sound basically sucked.
Paul Rothchild, an Elektra Records album producer,
was clearly in over his head as he struggled with the
sound board. Vocal and guitar volumes surged and/
or disappeared and the keyboards were virtually
inaudible. I heard people yelling “turn up the
voice,” “can’t hear the piano” etc. Backstage,
according to later published reports, Seeger was
going somewhat berserk, trying to cut the power
cables, outraged at this loud and abrasive deviation
from his vision. On-stage, the band drove on,
kicking into “Like A Rolling Stone.” Without stage
monitors, the on-stage sound was a mess and the
beat got turned around and scrambled in spots. Still
the raw energy was undeniable, stirring more yells
from the crowd, including a few voices calling out
for the old tunes. They sounded betrayed, angry that
Dylan, with his amplified accompanists, seemed to
be embracing the world of commercial music from
which they’d made such a conspicuously conscious
effort to turn away from.
The band plowed on with “It Takes A Lot To
Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry” (still called “Phan-
tom Engineer”), taken at too fast a tempo to have
the melancholy majesty it would later grow into.
Amid more shouts about both sound and repertoire
the band quit the stage—now the crowd was mad.
They wanted more than three songs—some wanted
the band, some wanted their old familiar trouba-
dour. The stage was dark and empty for a few
minutes while Emcee Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul
and Mary urged Dylan to return—but Bob said that
was all the tunes they’d worked up. Peter said,
“Then go back alone, people came to see you.” So
Bob went out with a borrowed acoustic guitar and
did two more totally prophetic titles; “It’s All Over
Now, Baby Blue” and, after bumming a harp from
the front rows of the audience, “Mr. Tambourine
Man.” The soreheads were somewhat placated by
hearing the older material and it looked like they’d
won, he’d abandoned the dreaded electric gear. But
it was obviously an end of a chapter, and a kind of
farewell. An edgy and riled up crowd filed out later
that night to the calming sounds of a soulful solo
harmonica, Mel Lyman of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band
playing a deeply felt “Rock Of Ages”—it took the
edge off. The fire trucks weren’t needed after all.
Four days later, at 10 a.m. July 29 in New York
City’s Columbia Records studios, recording for the
new album got underway, with the same crew from
the “Rolling Stone” sessions. Bob had invited me
down to hang out and I found a corner in the control
room. As far as I could tell, producer Bob Johnston
was from the John Hammond school of production;
call out take numbers, keep the logs, make phone
calls, and stay out of the way. The only people I
heard making comments about the takes were
Albert and Neuwirth. The sessions seemed loose but
businesslike. The session men would gather around
Bob as he ran down a tune for them, singing a few
verses as they noted down the changes, then sit
down with their instruments and try out lines and
rhythms. First tune up was “Phantom Engineer,”
taken at the same fast pace as Newport. After a
couple takes it was played back and Bob moved on
to “Tombstone Blues.” After about four or five
takes, Bob was satisfied, and a lunch break was
called. As most of the musicians and crew split, Bob
ALBUMS 1
sat down at the piano and worked over “Phantom ALBUMS 2
Engineer” for an hour or more. When the crew was ALBUMS 3
back in place, Bob ran down how he wanted it done SONGS
differently—and in three takes they got the lovely
version on the album, “It Takes A Lot To Laugh,”
with some tasty guitar and piano builds in it.
Then Bob pulled out a newer tune, “Positively
4th Street.” As the band worked over the arrange-
ment, each take getting tighter, Neuwirth and I
looked at each other, nodding as Bob unleashed
lyrics which might have been inspired by Newport,
but covered a lot of different times and places.
(Fourth Street ran through the heart of Dinkytown.
In N.Y.C., Bob lived on West 4th Street for a few
years.) “You got a lotta nerve to say you are my
friend, when I was down you just stood there
grinning/You got a lotta nerve to say you got a
helping hand to lend, you just wanna be on the side
that’s winning.” By the final verse and the line
“you’d know what a drag it is to see you” it was
obvious there was another hit single there. The
Chambers Brothers quartet who’d also been at
Newport dropped by that day and while listening to
tape playbacks they came up with some harmony
parts for the chorus of “Tombstone Blues.” Bob
liked it and told Johnston to get them an acetate to
work with. (They later came in and overdubbed their
parts on the track, but that version wasn’t used.)
 At the time I was conscious of watching history
go down. Bob was in high gear, at a creative peak,
and both Kooper and Bloomfield were positive
energy fields in their own rights, definitely in synch
with Bob’s flow. Sometimes the recording creative
process can be deadly to watch. There are often
long stretches of boredom as endless retakes are
done to repair some minuscule imperfections, but
that wasn’t the case here. Bob liked working fast
and the band was good at synching with and
abetting his drive. There really was a feeling of
magic afoot. That night after the session, I caught a
ride uptown in the station wagon. Neuwirth drove
93
and Bob peered quietly out the window. When
“Rolling Stone” came on the radio there was an odd
moment, a kind of reality shift that nobody acknowl-
edged, but its presence seemed right, it fit.
The following day’s session was called at the
more reasonable hour of 3 or 4 p.m., with mostly the
same crew, except Harvey Brooks who was later
added on bass. The energy wasn’t quite as charged
as yesterday’s, but it was still a productive day.
“From A Buick 6” went down in about three takes,
but “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” took
a few more, as there were a lot of breakdowns
getting into it. It seemed to me the result was a
paler version of “Positively 4th Street,” with less
interesting lyrics. This take, issued as a single,
didn’t have the rough energy of a later version cut
with The Hawks. The last tune attempted that night
was a long song called “Desolation Row.” By the
first verse into it, it was obvious that Bob’s guitar
was rather painfully out of tune. Both Neuwirth and I
pointed it out, but Albert didn’t want to stop the
take. “Let him go,” he said inscrutably. Some 12
minutes later, Bob called for a playback and as it
began he scowled. “It’s way outta tune—why didn’t
you stop me?” “It’s a long song.” Albert replied,
“You’ll get it next time.”
After a weekend up the country, where Bob and
Kooper spent an afternoon going over the song list
and getting chord charts together for the musicians,
the following week’s sessions were back on the
energy track. At some point drummer Sam Lay from
Butter’s band showed up and ended up taking over
the drum kit on “Highway 61 Revisited.” In fact, the
cigar-sized toy siren-whistle that Bob wound up
sticking in his harp-holder and used to punctuate
the tune came out of Lay’s drum case. The real
highlight of that session was “Ballad Of A Thin Man”
with its almost sinister refrain “something’s
happening and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr.
Jones?” I remember the leer on the organ player’s
face as he dropped in some horror-movie swells
here and there. I had to head back to Minnesota, so
I missed the session where the album take of
“Desolation” was cut—but even without hearing
that, I knew this was gonna be a killer album, one
that was going to take his fans right up to the edge.
Three weeks later there was an August 28 gig at
Forest Hills, New York, with a new backup band.
Besides Kooper and Brooks, now added were Robbie
Robertson on guitar and Levon Helm on drums. They
came from The Hawks, a Canadian band that had
backed rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. Both had
been part of the excellent backup band on a recent
John Hammond album, So Many Roads, and Robbie’s
in-concert Hubert Sumlin-inspired scorch-guitar
tones were a match for Bloomfield’s manic fills. Bob
decided to do the first half of the concert solo, then
bring on the band. “Keep playing, no matter how
weird it gets,” he told the sidemen.
From Variety: “Bob Dylan split 15,000 of his fans
down the middle at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium
Sunday night… The most influential writer-performer
on the pop music scene during the past decade,
Dylan has apparently evolved too fast for some of
his young followers, who are ready for radical
changes in practically everything else…repeating
the same scene that occurred during his perfor-
mance at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan delivered
a round of folk-rock songs but had to pound his
material against a hostile wall of anti-claquers,
some of whom berated him for betraying the cause
of folk music.”
A few days later the Highway 61 Revisited album
was released, about the same time as a Hollywood
Bowl concert with the same personnel. A tour
through the south was set to begin in late Septem-
ber, but Kooper and Brooks opted out. In mid-month,
Bob was in Toronto checking out and then rehears-
ing with The Hawks, who wound up backing him for
the rest of the tour.
On September 24 the tour began in Austin. It’s
worth pointing out that in many ways Bob was
ALBUMS 1
jumping off a cliff here—he wasn’t merely moving ALBUMS 2
beyond the folk/topical-song audience, he was ALBUMS 3
risking his whole career. There wasn’t guarantee of SONGS
success in the pop field; it wasn’t a matter of going
where the easy money was at all. He was not only
chancing falling on his face in the competitive rock
scene, but alienating his old fans as well. They wanted
more of the same, yet Bob was tired of preaching to
the choir; he had his own vision to follow.
From Newsweek, for their story on the new
“folk-rock” phenomenon: “The conversion of Dylan
the performer to folk-rock was instinctive. ‘I had
this thing called ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues.’ It
just didn’t sound right by myself. I tried the piano,
the harpsichord. I tried it as a blues. I tried it on pipe
organ, the kazoo. But it fit right in with the band. I
haven’t changed a bit. I just got tired of playing the
guitar by myself…’”
He was given more room to talk in an interview
with Joseph Hass for the Chicago Daily News: “…I
didn’t go into folk music to make any money, but
because it was easy, you could be by yourself. You
didn’t need anybody, all you needed was a guitar,
you didn’t need anybody else at all… I was playing
R&R when I was 13 and 14 and 15, but I had to quit
when I was 16 or 17 because I just couldn’t make it
that way, the image of the day was Frankie Avalon or
Fabian, or this whole athletic supercleaness bit,
 which if you didn’t have that you couldn’t make any
friends…about 1958 or ’59 I discovered Odetta,
Harry Belafonte, that stuff and I became a folk
singer… you couldn’t make it livable back then with
R&R, you couldn’t carry around an amplifier and
electric guitar and expect to survive, it was just too
much of a hangup. It cost money to buy an electric
guitar, and then you had to make more money to
have enough people to play the music, you need two
or three to create some conglomeration of sound…”
A few days into the tour, “Positively 4th Street”
hit the radio (it rose to #7). The tour got to N.Y.,
played Carnegie Hall, then knocked off a quick
94
recording session where four tunes were cut,
including a raw and driving version of “Can You
Please Crawl Out Your Window?” and “I Wanna Be
Your Lover,” another good rocker that fell by the
wayside. Back on the road for a month-and-a-half
worth of dates, including one November 5 at the same
Minneapolis auditorium where Elvis had appeared a
decade earlier, just around the time “Heartbreak
Hotel” first came out. Tickets ranged from $2 to a
top of $4.50. Bob put me on the list, but I guess he
didn’t have much pull, because the seats were at
the back of the hall. Bob was several songs into the
solo acoustic set when a guy came in late and sat
down beside me. After a couple of tunes he leaned
over and said, “Excuse me, do you know who that
is?” “Uhhh—who were you expecting to see?” I
asked. “Bob Dylan, ‘Like A Rolling Stone,’” he replied.
He seemed bemused when I explained that was him
and that the band would be out later. That was the
point when I realized that the scene was moving to
a whole other level. The band set was strong, and
Bob was obviously charged about working with the
group, though the sound was a bit hit and miss in
the big hall. Backstage I met up with Bob, Neuwirth,
Robbie and the rest. Dylan said it’d been going well,
and that although people seemed to be booing the
band set because they’d read about it as a thing to
do, in some places people actually really dug it. He
seemed patient about it—there wasn’t a defiant
feeling which had been there to a degree before,
rather it was more of a man following his convic-
tions and willing to wait till people were ready to
hear what he was saying. I went along back to the
hotel as they packed up, ready to fly out that night
for the next gig in Buffalo, New York. As Bob closed
up his suitcase he pointed to the rabbit suit hanging
on a doorknob, with his harp rack draped over it—
“There’s Bob Dylan,” he smiled. “Right there.”
Gigs continued through November: Cleveland,
Toronto, Chicago and Washington. At month’s end,
drummer Levon Helm got fed up with going out
every night, playing kick-ass tunes and getting
booed because of all the non-musical baggage that
came attached—so he quit and went back to Arkan-
sas. His chair was filled by session man Bobby
Gregg. More recording in N.Y. with a couple of tunes
attempted; another shot at “Can You Please Crawl
Out Your Window?” and another long one, “Freeze
Out” (which later became “Visions Of Johanna”).
The next day, December 1, the tour hit Seattle,
followed by a couple weeks in California. The San
Francisco public television station televised a live
press conference, which mixed some suits trying to
get Bob to explain the reasons for his popularity
along with Allen Ginsberg asking “Do you think you’ll
ever be hung as a thief?” Bob mentioned that there
were a few places where he hadn’t been booed;
Texas, Atlanta, Boston, Ohio and Minneapolis. In
mid-December the New York Herald-Tribune and The
New York Times Sunday magazines simultaneously
featured long articles on Dylan. The Tribune piece,
though uncredited, was actually written by Dylan.
The tour took a month off, resuming shortly
after more late January album sessions in N.Y.C.,
now with Sandy Konikoff (another Hawks alumnus)
on drums. A number of tunes that would later turn
up on Blonde On Blonde were tried, but only one
from this session, “One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or
Later)” made the cut. After a week-and-a-half of
east coast dates, Bob went into the Nashville Colum-
bia studios for three days of recording. Five takes
resulted, including such gems as the mystical love
ballad “Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands” and
“Visions Of Johanna,” with its spectral evocation of
a haunted night ride to dawn. Back on the road
again, Ottawa, Montreal, Philadelphia. Somewhere
near the end of February, “One Of Us Must Know
(Sooner Or Later)” was released (it made it to #45).
After Miami there was a week off. Lay back? You
must be kidding; back to Nashville for more sessions,
with another three-day shot the second week of
March, completing the rest of the Blonde On Blonde
ALBUMS 1
tracks, which included several tunes that became ALBUMS 2
radio hits, “Just Like A Woman,” “I Want You” and ALBUMS 3
“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” Listening to the album SONGS
now, it sounds like a contemplative work, the result
of long and careful crafting. But when you look at
the tour schedule you see that it was wrenched out
of stolen moments, done on the run, which makes
the accomplishment all the more amazing.
The next day the tour continued, winding up
in Vancouver at the end of March. Although the
calendar shows a couple of weeks off, album mixing
and photo sessions were going on. Bob was not just
burning the candle at both ends, he was using a
blowtorch on the middle, and running on various
octanes of ingredients.
Then began the European leg of the tour, with
yet another drummer, Mickey Jones (he’d previously
worked with Trini Lopez and Johnny Rivers). An April
9 date in Honolulu was followed by a hostile press
welcome to a week-and-a-half in Australia. The
group hit Stockholm on April 29. There would be 23
more concerts over the next six weeks. Joining up
was filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, who’d shot Bob’s
previous European dates for Don’t Look Back.
Among other things, there was an ABC television
special in the works, and his film would provide
some raw material for that. Around this time “Rainy
Day Women #12 & 35” was released to mixed
 newspaper reviews—it was called a drug song by
some, a load of rubbish by others.
The English musical press had been fanning the
flames for some time. Their review of “Rolling
Stone” the previous August called it “sub-standard
Dylan.” It went on; “the monotonous melody line
and expressionless intoning…will offend folk
purists with the strings [sic] and electric guitars,
unlikely to appeal to pop fans because of its length,
monotony and surrealist lyrics…but Dylan no doubt
enjoys confounding critics and going over to the
electronic enemy.” This was followed a month later
by an interview with British folkie and staunch
95
traditionalist Ewan MacColl, who muttered, “Dylan is
to me the perfect symbol of the anti-artist in our
society. He’s against everything—the last resort of
someone who really doesn’t want to change the
world…He deals in generalizations…also I think
his poetry is punk. Derivative and old hat.” This set
off a firestorm of letters to the editors, and drew
comments from other musicians as well—most of
them taking Dylan’s side. But it was obvious that
opinions were running volatile.
May 5th was in Dublin, the electric set is
interrupted by shouts and the review is headlined
“The Night Of The Big Letdown.” The following night
in Belfast is more of the same. The fact that the
band is right on the money is proved with a track
from Dublin that turned up on Biograph, “I Don’t
Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)”;
Garth’s organ swirls in and out of Robbie’s guitar
lines as Dylan’s vocal and harp ride the top of the
sound wave.
May 10th was the first date on British soil; again
shouts of “turn it down” and walkouts were gleefully
reported. Most of the halls’ small PA systems
weren’t adequate to handle a band, so the tour took
the innovative step of bringing in its own gear, a
practice that wouldn’t become common until
several years later. With their amps, soundboards
and huge speaker cabinets, the sound was, quite
simply, the loudest that most of the audience had
EVER heard. But if Bob was in the people’s faces,
they were in his as well. At many venues, when the
hall sold out, extra seats were added at the sides
and back of the stage. In Like The Night by C.P. Lee,
(a recent chronicle of the European tour which
focuses on his hometown show in Manchester)
photos show faces peering intently from a few feet
behind the drum kit—literally surrounding the band.
On to Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool. Another
track from the live set surfaced later as the B-side
of “I Want You”—“Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”
(Like the previously mentioned live number, it came
from a line feed recorded on a Nagra for the
filmmakers.) Again, the track is a great example of
the power and precision that the ensemble could
muster up in the face of overt hostility. Leicester,
then Sheffield—the first of four shows recorded by
Columbia, using a three-track machine. Later at the
hotel, everybody listens to playbacks and probably
gets some welcome confirmation of the fact that,
yes, they are playing some great shit, the booing
has nothing to do with the quality of what they’re
creating. The combination of the hectic schedule
and the intense white heat in which Dylan was
working were beginning to take their toll. Watching
him in the film that was later shown as Eat The
Document is scary, he has a wired-to-the-bone
stoned fragility that makes it look like he might
vanish in a burst of flame at any second. He’s at a
peak of young-lion power and beauty, but you can
see the ghost of electricity in the bones of his face
for sure—he looks like a man with exposed
nerve endings.
Paul Williams in Performing Artist: The Music Of
Bob Dylan 1960-73 describes the psychic scene:
“The concerts were incandescent because the singer
was living for art, was literally burning himself out,
not to please the audience and certainly not out of
obligation, but for the sheer joy of doing it, traveling
with intrepid companions out into unknown aesthetic
realms, shining lights into unexplored darkness.”
May 17, Manchester. This show is also recorded
by Columbia, and is the actual source for the
recordings in this set, as well as the numerous
bootlegs from “The Royal Albert Hall.” The audience
is pin-drop respectful and responsive during the
acoustic portion, they’ve heard over half of these
tunes before and they’re on ground that’s comfort-
able here. Then comes the band set and all hell
breaks loose again.
On to Glasgow (filmed from on-stage by
Pennebaker), Edinburgh and Newcastle. At both
Scottish gigs Dylan is subjected to slow hand-claps
ALBUMS 1
and walkouts. C.P. Lee quotes a member of the ALBUMS 2
Scottish Communist party as saying that this was ALBUMS 3
actually the result of heated party meetings, where SONGS
the subject was how to respond to Dylan as a traitor
to the proletariat cause. (A real Communist plot!?!)
Dylan has one last press conference in Paris, the
day before his show at the Odeon on his 25th
birthday. There are photos of him with a marionette
on his knee—strings would help them both. Back to
London for the final two shows at Royal Albert Hall.
By now it looks like Dylan is dangerously close to
crashing out altogether. Still, he manages to
impress a crowd of fans and rock royalty over two
nights, again with Columbia recording. It’s later said
that the first night’s electric set was distorted on
the tapes, which is why they weren’t issued, and that
the second night was distorted in other ways.
(Though some great tapes have emerged from the
solo set, check out “Visions Of Johanna” from the
26th on Biograph.)
Free at last, Bob heads to Spain for a brief
holiday before returning to the U.S. June and July
are busy weeks in Woodstock, editing film for the
ABC TV special. Pennebaker had come up with a
fairly straightforward tour/performance version
called Something Is Happening, but Bob and
cameraman Howard Alk decide to re-edit, using
outtakes. The result becomes the rarely seen Eat
 The Document, which was, in short, an ahead-of-its-
time prototype for the way MTV-style rock videos
were later made. There are a lot of jump cuts,
barely glimpsed faces, songs cut off in the middle
and fans interviewed saying “he needs shooting”—
it’s no wonder it was rejected by the network.
At the end of July, the wheel on Bob’s Triumph
motorcycle locks up and he’s thrown, breaking his
neck. He goes into total seclusion and all projects,
including Tarantula, a book of free-form fragments,
are shelved. He’s not heard from again musically
until November of 1967. When he returns, he’s had a
haircut, grown a beard, and is singing spare
96 ALBUMS 1
mystical songs, with an acoustic guitar. By then ALBUMS 2
1966 was not only just the past, it was another life. ALBUMS 3
And so the myth begins… SONGS

When the first bootlegs came out they were mis-

identified. Why? Well, for one thing, it makes a
better story—the last-ever concert of a kick-ass
tour before the artist crashed, burned and turned
his back on his previous existence. There may also
have been some incorrectly marked tape boxes
used, with mismatching dates and locations. All this
has been the subject of endless speculation and
arguments in fanzines and on the Internet.
But at bottom, what really matters is that one
night in 1966, a poet stood on a stage with a band
he chose to help him propel his vision and made
incredibly powerful music which was utterly unique.
He was true to his vision and he went right to the
edge for it. To this day, this concert stands as one of
the greatest events in rock music.

—Tony Glover
St. Paul, May 1998
 Don’t Think It’s All Over Rainy Day I Shall Be Released Gotta Serve Somebody
Twice, It’s All Right Now, Baby Blue Women #12 & 35 You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere Jokerman
The Times Mr. Tambourine Man All Along The Watchtower Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door Silvio
They Are A-Changin’ Subterranean The Mighty Quinn Forever Young Everything Is Broken
It Ain’t Me, Babe Homesick Blues (Quinn The Eskimo) Tangled Up In Blue Not Dark Yet
Maggie’s Farm Like A Rolling Stone I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight Shelter From The Storm Things Have Changed
Positively 4th Street Lay, Lady, Lay Hurricane
Just Like A Woman If Not For You

97 ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

The Essential Bob Dylan

Produced by Gordon Carroll, Don DeVito, Jerry Wexler, Barry
Beckett, Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, Daniel Lanois, Tom Wilson,
Bob Johnston, John Hammond, and Leon Russell
 Tweedle Dee High Water Musicians: Bob Dylan – vocals,
guitar, piano; Larry Campbell –
& Tweedle Dum (For Charley Patton) guitar, violin, banjo, mandolin;
Mississippi Moonlight Charlie Sexton – guitar; Tony Garnier
– bass; David Kemper – drums; Augie
Summer Days Honest With Me Meyers – vox organ, B3, accordion;
Clay Meyers - bongos on “Tweedle
Bye And Bye Po’ Boy Dee” and “Honest With Me.”
Lonesome Day Blues Cry A While
Floater (Too Much To Ask) Sugar Baby

98 “Love And Theft,” Dylan’s next studio album after Time Out of Mind, was ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
released on September 11, 2001. “Love and Theft” dispenses with the unified ALBUMS 3
SONGS

BOB DYLAN
tone of Time Out Of Mind, displaying a richer mix of materials and even better
vocals. This is, in fact, one of Dylan’s very best vocal performances ever –
roaring, sly, snarling, whimsical, totally assured – a tour de force, despite the
obvious ravages of the years on his voice. The album has an ingenious arrange-
ment in which a couple of very distinct types of material play off against one
another; six of the twelve tunes are blues-based material of one sort or another,
from the rockabilly extravaganza “Summer Days” to the scary, apocalyptic
“High Water (For Charley Patton)” to the blazing, swaggering “Cry A While,”
with its Charley Patton-derived guitar riff. Another five of them are easygoing,
light, romantic songs with an occasionally wistful aspect, like “Po’ Boy,” “Bye
And Bye” and the gorgeous “Moonlight.” “Mississippi” is one of Dylan’s most
sustained lyrics in years, and an excellent performance. The final song on the
disc, “Sugar Baby,” is unlike any of the others, a heartbreaking song of loss, of
letting go, even of defeat – a much older, wiser, and sadder version of “Don’t
Think Twice, It’s All Right.” All in all, “Love And Theft” has to be counted among

“Love And Theft” the very top Dylan albums. To see it follow Time Out Of Mind, 35 years after
Blonde On Blonde and 25 years after Blood On The Tracks, leaves one shaking
one’s head in amazement, and gratitude.

“Love And Theft”

Produced by Jack Frost
September 11, 2001
 Tonight I’ll Be
Staying Here With You
It Ain’t Me, Babe
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
The Lonesome
Death Of Hattie Carroll
Romance In Durango
Isis
Mr. Tambourine Man
99
The
BOB DYLAN LIVE 1975
THE ROLLING THUNDER REVUE
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5
Bob Dylan Live 1975:
The Rolling Thunder Revue
Produced by Jeff Rosen and Steve Berkowitz
November 26, 2002
Simple Twist Of Fate It Takes A Lot To Laugh,
Blowin’ In The Wind It Takes A Train To Cry
Mama, You Oh, Sister
Been On My Mind Hurricane
I Shall Be Released One More Cup
It’s All Over Of Coffee (Valley Below)
Now, Baby Blue Sara
Love Minus Zero/No Limit Just Like A Woman
Tangled Up In Blue Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
The Water Is Wide
Bootleg Series Vo l . 5 The Rolling Thunder Revue was one of Dylan’s most inspired ideas: take a group ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
of congenial musicians, capable of doing short individual sets as well as playing ALBUMS 3
SONGS
together, and head out into America playing at small venues, scattering excite-
ment, surprise and wonder in all directions. At various times the tour included
Dylan’s old singing partner Joan Baez, his early role model and fellow Guthrie
acolyte Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Canadian folk and pop star Joni Mitchell, painter
and aide de camp Bob Neuwirth, playwright Sam Shepard, poet Allen Ginsberg,
and even, for a short stretch, his mother, Beatrice Zimmerman, and his wife
Sara. The Tour was part rock and roll extravaganza, part Medicine Show and
traveling carnival troupe. It was also a moveable film-in-progress; much of
Dylan’s Renaldo And Clara was filmed during the tour, and the film’s musical
segments come from those shows. The tracks on Bootleg Vol. 5 capture the tone
and feeling perfectly. Many of his older tunes got new treatments to invigorating
effect, as you can hear on “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “It Ain’t Me Babe” and
many others. Dylan joined voices with Joan Baez for several duets, including the
rarely-heard “Mama You Been On My Mind.” A fine souvenir of an exhilarating
and optimistic time.
ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
 BOOTLEG SERIES VOLUME 5 original liner notes
Like countless others in the Sixties, my life was
changed by Bob Dylan. Now I’d like to be able to say
that I heard “Blowin’ in the Wind” and then rushed
off to Mississippi to register voters for SNCC or that
after listening to “The Times They Are A Changin’,” I
marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King
but that wasn’t the case. I was a little late coming to
the Dylan party.
100
In fact, I got turned on to Dylan because I was a
charter member of the Rolling Stones Fan Club.
That was about the extent of my anti-social activity.
Growing up in semi-suburban Queens, New York, I
was a member of the Kiwanis Club at Bayside High
and had an after-school job reconciling bank
statements for a neighborhood pizzeria. Then came
that fateful day in June of 1965. I went into a record
store on Bell Boulevard and looked at that week’s
single charts. There, at number 43, was a song called
“Like a Rolling Stone” by someone named B. Dylan.
I was irate. Convinced that this Dylan guy was
ripping off Mick and the boys name to get famous, I
bought his record. And it changed my life. From the
opening cacophony of ethereal organ, honky-tonk
piano and blistering guitar, I was hooked. Then that
voice—one part sneer, one part salve—kicked in
and like in some surreal, urban fairy tale (“Once
upon a time…”), I was transported to a world
populated by bums and diplomats, Napoleon in rags
and Siamese cats, Miss Lonely and the Mystery
Tramp. How did it feel? Like I was home.
When the album was released, I borrowed my
parents’ car and drove into Flushing to a store named
Gertz where I picked up Highway 61 Revisited, on
sale for $1.88 in mono. It was a revelation. The King
of the Philistines put the pied pipers in prison. Dump
trucks unloaded heads. God talked to Abraham.
Angels left looking just like ghosts. Einstein disguised
himself as Robin Hood and Romeo met Cinderella
out on Desolation Row. I immediately knew
something was happening and I knew that it wasn’t
the Kiwanis Club. Or the Rolling Stones.
Within a month, I had the whole Dylan canon.
And a few weeks after that I spotted a small ad in
the paper for a Dylan concert in White Plains. I
immediately wrote for tickets and convinced my
parents to drive me to Westchester. They took in a
movie while my friend and I went to the show. The
place was jammed and after about an hour wait,
Dylan finally strode onstage. He did a stunning solo
set, mixing up the classic folk ballads with some
middle-period love-hate songs and some new,
amazingly intense songs like “Freeze-Out” (later
to be released as “Visions of Johanna”) and
“Desolation Row.” A quick bow and he was off.
After the intermission, the lights dimmed and
five strangers wandered onstage. The drummer
tested the high-hats, the guitar players plugged into
amplifiers and then Dylan strode back onstage. I
noticed he was wearing an olive box-checkered suit.
A quick countdown and then wham—the most
incredible rock music I’d ever heard permeated the
hall. Like a dream, it was over all too fast. Dylan
took a regal half-bow, waved to someone in the
audience and ambled off.
To the best of my recollection of that February
night in White Plains, there were no boos, no calls of
“Judas!” from the folk-purist segment of Dylan’s
audience. (For a great evocation of the drama of
these ’65-’66 shows see Tony Glover’s liner notes to
the Bob Dylan—Live 1966 two-CD set.) Just mind-
blowing music that seemed as spontaneous as it
was divine.
On the ride home that music was still resounding
in my head. That cinched it. My cultural touchstone
was no longer Andy Bathgate of the New York
Rangers. It was now B. Dylan. Each chance I got, I
started driving to the city and hanging out in
Greenwich Village. I bought clothes at the Paul
Sergeant store mentioned on the liner notes to
Highway 61. I watched the chess players and
musicians in Washington Square Park. I saw the ALBUMS 1
Fugs at the Players Theatre on MacDougal Street ALBUMS 2
singing their odes to pot, pussy and perversity. ALBUMS 3
SONGS
Needless to say, I wasn’t going to major in
accounting anymore. No, thanks to Dylan, I was
exploring Rimbaud and going to Students for a
Democratic Society meetings and loitering at the
Peace Eye Bookstore in the East Village, hoping
to catch a glimpse of Allen Ginsberg. And waiting
for the next musical pronouncement from the
Minnesota bard himself.
Blonde on Blonde just cemented the relationship.
Haunting yet perfectly unobtrusive music servicing
brilliant, enigmatic songs. Even more enigmatic
photos on the inner sleeve. A whole side of one album
given to a marvelous ode to a mysterious muse—
the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. With a new
arsenal of material, I couldn’t wait to see Dylan play
those songs. Little did I know I’d have to wait
eight years.
I still recall the item in the New York Post. The
rock star Bob Dylan had been seriously injured in a
motorcycle accident. His tour was canceled. He was
holed up in a place in upstate New York called
Woodstock. Then the rumors spread. He had been
horribly disfigured. No, he was paralyzed. Come on,
he didn’t even have a motorcycle accident, he had
merely lost his mind. Wait, that couldn’t be true—
 he was seen in a local café drinking coffee and
doing The New York Times crossword puzzle.
His next album, John Wesley Harding only fueled
the rumors. The majesty of the musical genre that
Dylan invented (which was labeled “folk-rock”) had
given way to a trimmed-down acoustic sound played
by some of Nashville’s best session men. And those
murky, late night freeze-out songs that seemed to
come right out of urban lofts like Andy Warhol’s
Factory had been replaced by taut, woodsy, almost
biblical parable-songs. Now it was the rock’n rollers
who felt betrayed.
A year and a half later almost everyone felt
101
betrayed. I was in my senior year of college, in the
middle of a three-month, twenty-four hour occupa-
tion of the Social Sciences building at Queens
College, when Nashville Skyline was released in
April of 1969. We were protesting the war, fighting
racism, embracing Significant Issues, and Dylan,
whether he liked it or not, was our leader (even
though he had warned “don’t follow leaders...”).
So what was this Nashville Skyline, these moon-
June-spoon country songs? And what was with that
high-pitched voice? The troops on the front line
were mystified and disgruntled.
But I secretly loved the album. I didn’t know
from country music but these songs certainly spoke
to me. There was the poignancy of “I Threw It All
Away,” the seductiveness of “Lay, Lady, Lay,”
the surrealism of “Country Pie.” It was clear that
the one thing that you couldn’t have if you were
interested in the work of Mr. Dylan was expectations
about that work. So with that in mind, I bought and
cherished his next collection of outtakes and covers
called, wryly enough, Self-Portrait. In 1970, I moved
to the Midwest to organize welfare mothers and go
to graduate school and it was a New Morning for
both Dylan and me. But then the well seemed to run
a little dry. For years we had to make do with a
greatest hits collection (volume 2, no less!) and a
soundtrack album that was mostly instrumental. I
guess with all those tired horses in the sun, how was
he supposed to get any riding/writing done?
Dylan brought it all back home (or back on the
road, to be more precise) in 1974. With the release
of Planet Waves, an album that seemed to be an
attempt to reconcile artistic vision with the
demands of domesticity, Dylan took to the road with
the Band (his 1966 back-up band who had gone on
to fame with their own finely-crafted albums) in
January of 1974. By then I had graduated with a
master’s degree in deviance from the University of
Wisconsin and I was writing about rock music for
Rolling Stone magazine.
I saw the opening night show in Chicago in the
cavernous Chicago Stadium (home of the Chicago
Black Hawks). Even though the stage had been
decorated with carpets, lamps and even a couch to
give a sense of intimacy and warmth to this cold
arena, I could sense that Dylan felt a little stilted.
Maybe it was the rust of eight years off. Maybe it
was the expectations of the crowd that made the
Dylan/Band reunion a major Media Event in itself. In
the end, the experience wasn’t totally pleasant for
either the Band or Dylan.
“Tour ’74 was hard work, just the intensity of the
music was so high that it was really straining,”
Robbie Robertson remembered. “Whenever Bob
sings with the Band it’s like Thunder and Mountains,
you know, screaming at the gods in the sky and
everything is so high-pitched, such intensity and
energy. We can certainly do that but we can do a
bunch of other things too, and we didn’t get to that.
I think that his anticipation and nervousness on that
tour didn’t allow for any laid-back stuff…we didn’t
do any of that on Tour ’74.”
My sense at the time was that Dylan was
ambivalent about that tour. When I told him that two
years later, he seemed to agree. “Yeah, I got kind of
held up on that tour, you know, I mean I wasn’t
really in control of the situation. Nobody was in
control. We were just shuffled around from airport
to limo to hotel lobby to hockey rinks. I felt like
Willis Reed. And in order for me to do what ever it is
that I do, I have to have control and I didn’t have too
much control on that specific tour.”
But with the album and the tour, it was clear that
Dylan was once again out on the front lines, doing
what he does best—telling the tribe the news of the
hour. The next dispatch was the breathtakingly
heart-breaking Blood On The Tracks. I got a chance
to hear an early version of that album and I did a
preview piece for Rolling Stone (in fact, that album
ALBUMS 1
helped me out of a jam when I got assigned by Rolling ALBUMS 2
Stone to cover the George Harrison tour. I came on ALBUMS 3
when they reached the East Coast; right after Stone SONGS
editor Ben Fong Torres’ piece lambasting the tour
was printed. After that, Harrison wanted nothing to
do with anyone from Rolling Stone but, at promoter
Bill Graham’s urging, he reluctantly agreed to sit
down and hear my plea for an interview for my
article. We met in a dressing room in the bowels of
Madison Square Garden the day of the show. To
break the ice, I asked Harrison if he had heard
Dylan’s still unreleased album. “Yeah, isn’t it great?”
George enthused. And after we both broke into
“Tangled Up in Blue,” trading lines, Harrison
warmed up and gave me an interview).
Blood On The Tracks was released in January of
1975. By that summer, Dylan started spending a lot
of time back in New York, hitting some of the same
spots that he had thirteen years earlier when he
first burst onto the music scene. One of the places
that Dylan frequented was The Other End, the latest
incarnation of The Bitter End, a popular music and
comedy venue in the early Sixties. At the Other End
one night, Dylan ran into Jacques Levy, an off-
Broadway director and ex-clinical psychologist who
had written lyrics for ex-Byrd Roger McGuinn. It
seems that Dylan had been working on some new
 material and the two went around the corner to
Levy’s loft. Dylan sat down on the piano and started
into a slow dirge. Next thing they knew, they were
trading lyrics and they worked all through the night.
The song became “Isis,” a picaresque narrative
about grave robbing and lost love. Late that night,
Levy typed up the then current version of the lyrics
and he and Dylan went back to the Other End, where
Bob proceeded to read them to the lucky few who
were sitting around the bar.
The collaboration went so well that the two of
them went out to the Hamptons for three weeks and
continued to knock out songs. “Romance in
102
Durango,” a story about a gunslinger and his love on
the run, “Joey,” the true story of Crazy Joe Gallo, the
iconoclastic mobster that was hit in Umberto’s Clam
Bar, and “Mozambique,” an ironic, saccharined
picture-postcard for a country that was verging on
revolution. “One of the things about [those songs]
that’s so wonderful is that they give [Dylan] a
chance to do some acting,” Levy told me. “Bob was
really open, ready to come out, ready to express
how he felt about things.”
Working feverishly, with only a few breaks to go
shoot some eight ball, an album’s worth of material
coalesced. Including a song Bob wrote by himself,
an autobiographical, bittersweet lament to his wife,
“Sara.” The song was incredibly powerful—
listening to it was as intimate as viewing snapshots
from a family album—except this album belonged
to one of the most famous people on the planet. By
the end of July, they were back in the city and Dylan
headed straight for the studio.
The first session was on Monday, July 28th and
Dylan had assembled a cast of musicians that was
Felliniesque in its scope. Crammed into Columbia’s
studio were guitar hero Eric Clapton, his backup
vocalist Yvonne Elliman, an eight-member English
R&B funk band named Kokomo, singer Emmylou
Harris, and studio pros Hugh McCracken and Vinnie
Bell. Plus Village bassist Rob Stoner, who was then
backing long-time Dylan pal Bobby Neuwirth, folkie
Eric Frandsen, an old friend of Bob’s, and Sugar
Blue, whose regular gig was blowing harp out on
Eighth Street for spare change.
Then there was Scarlet Rivera. Dylan had been
riding around the city with an aspiring singer named
Sheena when he saw a dramatic-looking woman
with waist-length jet-black hair carrying a violin.
They stopped the car, asked her if she could play
that violin and next thing she knew she was in the
middle of this madness.
“That was amazing,” Clapton later told a
Rolling Stone interviewer. “[Bob] was trying to find a
situation where he could make music with new
people. He was just driving around, picking
musicians up and bringing them back to the
sessions. It ended up with something like twenty-
four musicians in the studio, all playing these
incredibly incongruous instruments. Accordion,
violin—and it didn’t really work. He was after a
really large sound but the songs were so personal
that he wasn’t comfortable with all the people
around… I had to get in the fresh air ‘cause it was
just madness in there.”
After two nights of this, Dylan and his producer
Don DeVito met with Rob Stoner who, by virtue of his
ability to watch Dylan’s fingers and communicate
the changes to the rest of the musicians, had
become the de facto bandleader. They decided to go
with a smaller group. Since Kokomo was departing,
a drummer was needed. Urgent calls were put out to
super session men Jim Gordon and Kenny Buttrey, to
no avail. Then Stoner suggested his drummer, Howie
Wyeth. On Wednesday night, Wyeth, Stoner, Emmylou,
Scarlet and Sheena joined Dylan and after one take
of “Isis,” it was evident that magic was afoot.
“One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below),” “Joey,”
“Mozambique,” “Hurricane,” “Oh, Sister,” “Black
Diamond Bay”– if they completed a song, it was a
take. They worked feverishly through the night,
recording until 6 a.m. and listening to playbacks
until 8 a.m. when it was time to move the cars lest
they get towed away. On the way back down to the
Village, to drop off the musicians, Dylan was ecstatic.
“He felt that he had succeeded, from the playbacks,
from the vibrations,” Sheena remembered. “And
he immediately started talking about a tour.”
It was speculated that one impetus for the tour
was a song that Dylan and Levy wrote about the
imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. Carter
was a fierce middleweight who seemed destined to
be the champ. He was also a proud black man who
ALBUMS 1
was very outspoken about racial and social issues; ALBUMS 2
something that boxers just didn’t do in the era when ALBUMS 3
Muhammad Ali was still Cassius Clay. So the suspicion SONGS
that Carter was a marked man by the authorities
was reinforced when he and his companion John
Artis were arrested in June of 1966 for the murder
of three whites in a tavern shoot-up. Two of the
wounded victims described the killer as a light-
skinned black, about six feet tall, with a pencil-thin
moustache. Carter was 5’ 8,” 155 pounds, and he
was hardly light-skinned. No matter, he was convicted
and sent to Rahway State Prison where he always
maintained his innocence and even penned a book
called The Sixteenth Round. A defense committee
was formed and a copy of the book was sent to many
celebrities, Dylan included. After reading the book,
Dylan visited Rubin in jail and was convinced that
“this man’s philosophy and my philosophy were
running on the same road.” So it was natural for
Dylan and Levy to work up a song about Rubin’s plight
called “Hurricane.” In fact, Dylan felt so passionate
about this cause that he paid a visit to Walter
Yetnikoff, the president of Columbia Records, urging
him to get the song out as soon as possible.
Carter’s plight notwithstanding, the reality is
that Dylan had decided to put together a unique
form of a musical revue long before any of the
 songs for the Desire album were even written.
Robbie Robertson remembered that even before the
sturm und drang of Tour ’74, Dylan had been talking
about traveling by train and having a “gypsy
caravan situation happening where it was loose and
different people could get up and do different things
at different times and nothing would be out of place.”
But the idea for a revue crystallized in Dylan’s mind
in the spring of 1975. “I was in Corsica,” Bob later
told me. “I was just sitting in a field, overlooking
some vineyards. The sky was pink, the sun was going
down and the moon was sapphire. I recall getting a
ride into town with a man with a donkey cart and I
103
was sitting on this donkey cart, bouncing around on
the road there, and that’s when it flashed on me that
I was gonna go back to America and get serious and
do what it is that I do because by that time people
didn’t know what it was that I did. All kinds of
people, most people don’t know what I do, only the
people that see our show know what it is that I do,
the rest of the people just have to imagine it.”
Perhaps as a reaction to the impersonality of
that limited Tour ’74, Dylan decided to put together
an old-timey medicine show, a musical extension of
the commedia dell’arte, the Italian street theatre
troupes. Instead of traveling by train, as he had
previously envisioned, they would pile into buses
and campers and criss-cross the Northeast. It was
guerilla theatre at its best. A small hall would be
rented, under an assumed name. A week before the
gig, local college campuses would be invaded by
advance men who circulated handbills for the show,
so that the tickets sold largely by word-of-mouth.
The night before the show, the buses would hit town,
then immediately after the show, they’d take off for
the next venue. Now all Dylan had to do was cast
the characters.
For that, he dug back into his past. Joan Baez
was a logical choice. When Dylan first began
performing, the already established folk star often
brought him onto her stage. Seeing them reunite
and perform old Dylan classics like “Blowin’ In The
Wind” or “Mama You Been On My Mind” would be a
folkies dream. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was another
natural. A contemporary of the great Woody Guthrie,
one of Dylan’s musical forefathers, Elliot was one of
Bob’s early champions. Bobby Neuwirth, Dylan’s long
time confidant and a musician in his own right, was
enlisted to put together the back-up band. He made
some very eclectic choices. Of course, it included
the band that Bob used to record Desire, which
meant Stoner on bass, Wyeth on drums and Scarlet
on the violin. To supplement them, Neuwirth hired
a lanky, young Texas songwriter/guitarist named
T-Bone Burnett, an L.A. songwriter named Steve
Soles, Mick Ronson, the guitar virtuoso who was
most famous for playing with David Bowie, and David
Mansfield, a multi-instrumentalist who had a band
called Quacky Duck. Luther Rix provided percussion.
But chance played a part in the makeup of the
revue too. One night at the Other End, Dylan shared
a piano for a few hours with the actress/musician
Ronee Blakely. By the end of the night, she was on
the bus. Another night, the ex-Byrd Roger McGuinn
and I stumbled into the Other End after a late night
meal in Chinatown. We bumped into Bob and next
thing we knew, McGuinn was part of the band and I
was invited by Dylan to cover the tour, which I did
for Rolling Stone.
Now the tour needed a name. And even the
genesis of the name was shrouded in mystery. There
were reports that Dylan first wanted to call it the
Montezuma Revue. But by late October when the
tour was about to depart from New York, the name
had morphed into the Rolling Thunder Revue. There
was a prevailing theory that the tour was named
after an Indian medicine man/shaman named Rolling
Thunder, who had been the subject of an eponymous
book. Others maintained that the tour was named
after that ignoble episode at the end of the Vietnam
War when Nixon decided to saturate-bomb Cambodia.
That bombing mission was code-named Rolling
Thunder. And when Neuwirth outfitted the back-up
band with T-shirts that read “Guam,” that speculation
increased since Guam was the U.S. base that those
flights originated from.
But according to Dylan, there was a simpler
explanation for Rolling Thunder. “I was just sitting
outside my house one day thinking about a name for
this tour, when all of a sudden, I looked into the sky
and I heard a boom! Then, boom, boom, boom,
boom, rolling from west to east. So I figured that
should be the name.” (If Bob was sitting at home at
ALBUMS 1
Malibu at the time, McGuinn was convinced that the ALBUMS 2
noise was from jets taking off from the nearby ALBUMS 3
Vanderburg Air Force base and that the tour should SONGS
have actually been named the Sonic Boom Jet
Revue.) Dylan was later pleased to learn that in
American Indian lore the phrase “Rolling Thunder”
means “speaking truth.”
When the buses (and two campers, one for
Dylan and one for tour promoter Barry Imhoff)
finally rolled out of New York, there were seventy
people on board, including the famous beat poet
Allen Ginsberg and his long-time lover Peter
Orlovsky. Fifteen of those seventy people were part
of a film crew. Besides shooting footage of the
concerts, Dylan had decided to make a full-length
film along the way. On off-days, the Rolling Thunder
musicians were to be cast as actors in a mythocu-
mentary that would combine scripted pieces,
documentary footage and improvised scenes. (The
resultant four-hour movie Renaldo and Clara was
savaged by the critics but greatly influenced a
whole generation of music video directors.)
The first stop on the tour was the Sea Crest
Motel in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. They
rehearsed there for a few days and made a surprise
visit to a Mah Jongg convention where Dylan and
Baez sang and Ginsberg recited some poetry to the
 blue-haired Jewish mommas in the audience. On
October 30, the tour officially opened, appropriately
enough in Plymouth. At 8:20, the band took the
stage at the quaint 1800-seat Plymouth Memorial
Auditorium and Neuwirth broke into an easygoing
version of “Good Love Is Hard To Find.” After songs
from T-Bone, Stoner, Soles, Ronson and Ronee Blakely
came on for a solo spot. Then Neuwirth started a
song about Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and sure enough,
Jack rambled onstage. He did four numbers,
accompanied by an unintroduced Roger McGuinn on
banjo. Jack left only to be followed by a short, wiry
figure emerging from the backstage darkness. It
104
was Dylan, clad in jeans, a vest, a black leather
jacket and wearing a gray hat, strumming on an
acoustic guitar. “Here’s another old friend,”
Neuwirth slyly said and the audience cheered as
Dylan and Neuwirth dueted on “When I Paint My
Masterpiece.” A smoking, almost bossa nova
version of “It Ain’t Me Babe” was next and by the
song’s end, almost all of the 1800 spectators were
on their feet, cheering. Neuwirth gestured towards
his old friend. “Bob Dylan!” he shouted.
Then the tempo picked up with a torrid version
of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” followed by
“Romance In Durango” which featured Scarlet’s
gypsy violin. Then Dylan slipped off his guitar, sipped
some coffee and grabbed the mike as the band
ripped into “Isis.” Levy was right, these new
narrative songs gave Dylan the chance to emote and
he gestured with one hand, then both, feet tapping
constantly, eyes burning intensively as he related
the star-crossed story of Isis. The song ended with a
signature Dylan harmonica flourish, then a quick
wave and the curtain slowly tumbled down, ending
the first half of the show.
After a while, the lights flicked and with the
curtain still down, a familiar sound rang out through
the hall. Two iconographic voices, one low and
guttural, the other vibrant and soaring. The curtain
slowly lifted to reveal an amazing sight—Dylan and
Baez, together again, sharing a mike, singing “The
Times They Are A Changin.’” Then they went into a
Johnny Ace song, “Never Let Me Go,” followed by an
intense, compelling version of “The Lonesome Death
Of Hattie Carroll.” After doing “I Shall Be Released”
Dylan affectionately patted Baez on the hair and
yielded the stage to her. Baez then did a five-song
set and brought on Roger McGuinn who led the band
in a blistering version of “Chestnut Mare.” Then
Baez came back and finished her set with “The
Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
As soon as Baez departed, before the audience
could even catch its collective breath, Dylan ambled
onstage alone and soloed on “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
Then he was joined by a pared-down ensemble of
Stoner, Wyeth and Scarlet and they performed the
haunting “Oh, Sister.” A screen was lowered and
Rubin Carter’s face appeared above the performers,
as they ripped through “Hurricane.” “One More Cup
Of Coffee (Valley Below)” was next, followed by a
moving “Sara.” The rest of the band then filtered on
for a tender version of “Just Like A Woman.” Then it
was hootenanny time as Neuwirth, Ramblin’ Jack,
Baez, and Dylan each took a verse of “This Land Is
Your Land.” It wasn’t until 11:30, three hours after
showtime, that Dylan led the assemblage offstage.
But the audience wouldn’t let up—the standing
ovation lasted for a full eight minutes. The Revue
had exhausted all their songs so the crowd
reluctantly filtered out, content to know that they
were the first to see this new world of music—the
first to see Plymouth Rock.
Except for varying songs here and there, that
was the essential structure of a Rolling Thunder
show. Except the Revue just got tighter and tighter
as they wended their way around New England.
Another night in Plymouth then on to North
Dartmouth, playing the gym at Southern Massachu-
setts University. Lowell was next, another college
gym, but Dylan and Ginsberg found time to pay a
visit to Jack Kerouac’s grave where the film crew
caught them improvising a blues song after
Ginsberg read a selection from Kerouac’s Mexico
City Blues.
Lowell was also the first place that Dylan donned
whiteface make-up, igniting a flurry of press reports
that speculated on the significance of it. Some
pundits claimed it was an attempt to distance
himself from the audience. Ronee Blakely was
convinced that it was a strategy to force people to
look at the two most expressive areas of his face,
his eyes and his mouth since the rest of his face
ALBUMS 1
was blanked out by the clown-white makeup. When I ALBUMS 2
asked him why he wore the make-up, Dylan seemed ALBUMS 3
perturbed at the question. “I don’t know… there’s SONGS
always people that don’t understand, always people
that try to make more out of it than what it is. One
reason I put it on is so you can see my face from far
away.” Then again, when Bruce Springsteen turned
up in New Haven and went backstage after the show,
his girlfriend also asked Dylan why he wore the
make-up. “I saw it once in a movie.”
From Lowell the Revue moved to Rhode Island
where the tour was joined by Rolling Thunder
himself, in full Cherokee regalia, along with his wife
Spotted Fawn and another Native American brave.
The next morning, Rolling Thunder and his entou-
rage led the musicians in a moving sunrise
ceremony on a beach in Newport. Then it was onto
the buses and forward to Stockbridge, Massachu-
setts, stopping briefly for a private tour of the
Breakers, the Vanderbilt mansion. The next shows
were at the Springfield Coliseum and by now the
band was sizzling. Jacques Levy had blocked out the
shows so that local artists could get up and do their
thing as the tour progressed. So in Springfield, Arlo
Guthrie showed up and did a few numbers. In New
Haven, Joni Mitchell did likewise and enjoyed it so
much that she wound up on the rest of the tour. In
 Toronto, Gordon Lightfoot brought the house down
when he sat in.
By the time Rolling Thunder got to the metro-
politan Boston area, they had been on the road for
three weeks and the music was incendiary. Most of
the tracks on these discs were culled from those
venues. Except for a few of the Dylan-Baez duets
that opened the second half of the shows, all of
these tracks collected here are from Bob’s
segments of the shows.
The first stop in the Boston area was in
Worcester, a working-class town adjacent to
Boston. The Memorial Auditorium is a gorgeous old
105
hall filled with ornate woodcarvings and a beautiful
marble lobby. “Hurricane,” taken from that concert,
includes a plea from Dylan for anyone who was
politically connected to help get Rubin out of jail
and “back onto the streets.” I’m sure the vibrations
from this torrid performance worked their way all
the way down to Trenton State penitentiary where
Rubin was then confined.
The next night the tour visited Cambridge,
playing the tiny Harvard Square Theatre. The 1850
seats had long been sold-out and those lucky few
were treated to a night to remember. Six tracks
from this compilation were recorded there including
a reworked “Simple Twist Of Fate” and “Knockin’ On
Heaven’s Door,” which had been added to the second
set and featured verses that Dylan improvised from
town to town. “Thanks for coming,” a hoarse Dylan
announced that night after the song. “We’ll be in the
area a few days, maybe we’ll see you tomorrow
night.” The next day was a doubleheader, two shows
at the classic Boston Music Hall, the largest (at
4200 seats) theatre in New England, a venue that
even once hosted the Bolshoi Ballet. Three songs
from that afternoon matinee are included here, an
evocative solo acoustic version of “Mr. Tambourine
Man,” a heartfelt “Sara” (witnessed live by Sara
Dylan who by then had hooked up with the tour), and
the Baez duet on “I Shall Be Released.”
There was hardly time to scarf down some dinner
before the second show began. But the momentum
continued. The band burned through “an autobio-
graphical song for ya,” 1965’s “It Takes A Lot To
Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry.” The core songs from
Desire come from this show—red-hot versions of
“Isis,” “Oh, Sister,” and “One More Cup Of Coffee
(Valley Below).” “Tangled Up In Blue” gets a slight
lyric reworking and a tender, almost wistful reading.
But the highlight of that night (and for me, of this
entire collection) was the compelling, mesmerizing,
steamrolling version of “The Lonesome Death Of
Hattie Carroll.”
After Boston there were stops at Brandeis
University and Hartford, Connecticut where Rick
Danko of the Band played and Texas singer/
songwriter Kinky Friedman visited (Kinky would go
on to join the tour on its second Southern leg.) Then
it was on to Maine where Dylan’s mother joined the
tour (she would later go onstage and clap along
during the finale in Toronto). From Maine it was a
short hop over the border to Quebec City, from there
a quick flight to Toronto, and then, finally, the train
ride to Montreal, where another live recording
was made.
By now the tour (and film) were costing so much
that the Revue was being booked into hockey rinks—
the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the Forum in
Montreal. Maybe it was the taping, maybe it was the
presence of fellow poet and songwriter Leonard
Cohen (Dylan dispatched me to pick up Leonard in
his Montreal home to make sure he’d witness the
concert), but the Montreal show was so smoking
that the appreciative audience gave the Revue a
screaming, rollicking, standing ovation complete
with a shower of huge rolls of toilet paper that were
flung down from the rafters. Two of Bob’s acoustic
numbers come from this show, “It’s All Over Now,
Baby Blue” and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit.” While
those were songs that Dylan frequently played, the
Montreal audience was treated to a rare perfor-
mance of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” off
the Nashville Skyline album. No longer a C&W ditty,
Dylan had completely reworked the lyrics and the
band, led by some searing guitar fills from Ronson
and some great pedal steel work from Mansfield,
drove the message home with a fevered urgency.
Even a cursory listen to these tracks points to
the stark contrast between these Rolling Thunder
dates and the concerts from 1966. The catcalls and
the Judas cries are replaced by fans screaming “We
love you, Bobby” and “Dylan for President!” And the
ALBUMS 1
love was reciprocated as a relaxed Dylan actually ALBUMS 2
bantered with the audience. When one spectator at ALBUMS 3
the second Boston show yelled out “Just Like A SONGS
Woman,” Dylan looked shocked. “Just Like A Woman?
What’s just like a woman? WHAT’s just like a
woman? Nothing like a woman!” Later that same
show, someone else made the same request and he
complied. At the same Boston show someone else
yelled, “Do a protest song!” “OK, here’s one for ya,”
Dylan smiled and went into “Oh, Sister.” Throughout
the tour, Dylan regularly dedicated songs to people
as diverse as David Crosby, Sam Peckinpah, Albert
Grossman, Herman Melville, Gertrude Stein, his
mother, your mother, D.H. Lawrence, and Arthur
Rimbaud (in the interests of full disclosure, he even
dedicated a song to this reporter in Waterbury,
Connecticut).
What’s also evident from even a first listening
is how magnificent Dylan’s performances were on
this tour. The Desire album was released on January
5 of 1976, well after the first leg of Rolling Thunder
had disbanded. By then, the album versions of songs
like “Isis,” “Romance In Durango,” “Oh, Sister,”
and “One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)” had
been rendered almost superfluous by the amazing
live readings of those songs on the tour. Just listen
to “Isis” in its two incarnations and you’ll see the
 change—it’s like the difference between watching
a movie on a many-times rented video versus
watching it on a DVD on a high-definition TV.
For many, seeing Dylan this powerful and this
animated was a revelation. Even during the
rehearsals for the show everyone knew something
special was about to transpire. “I’ve never heard
Dylan sing so powerful before,” Allen Ginsberg
pulled me aside and confessed during one rehearsal.
“He sounds like an emperor of sound.” As the band
rolled through a rollicking version of “A Hard Rain’s
A-Gonna Fall,” Ginsberg sung along, stamping his
foot, slapping his thighs. “It’s more like he’s
106
actually pronouncing the words,” the poet shouted
to me. “The electric-made rhythm is exact to actual
American speech with no romantic distortion. It
syncopates even more.” And as Dylan boogied
across the stage, bouncing on one foot, Ginsberg
marveled, “This song has become a dance of joy!”
By opening night, Allen was ecstatic. “It’s the
vision of the ‘60’s becoming real,” he told me at
intermission. “Dylan’s diction is real clear. He’s
showing an elastic, rhythmic precision, singing
much more like he speaks.” That was certainly true
on the Desire songs that were specially written as
narratives and gave Dylan a chance to work out his
acting chops. But it’s equally true for the stunning
solo performances he did on the tour. Just listen to
“Love Minus Zero/No Limit” from the Montreal show
or “Tangled Up In Blue” from Boston. This is Dylan
engaged, openhearted, playful, a performer at the
top of his game.
Playfulness was certainly the note struck on the
Dylan-Baez collaborations contained herein. Baez
told me that trying to follow Dylan’s lead was almost
impossible; he was constantly changing songs,
verses, phrasings. For the first few nights, she relied
on reading his lips and keeping her guitar tuned so
low that if Dylan changed keys or tunings she could
follow. By the time these duets were recorded they
were totally in synch—just listen to “Mama, You
Been On My Mind” or their soulful cover of the
traditional “The Water Is Wide.”
After Montreal the tour made two more stops,
both concerts to draw attention to Rubin Carter’s
plight. The first was a concert at the Clinton
Correctional Facility where Rubin had been moved.
The second was a huge fundraiser, “The Night of the
Hurricane,” at Madison Square Garden. After that
show, there was a farewell party for the Revue at an
uptown restaurant where Bob and Sara circulated
and gave each participant a beautiful silver
medallion to commemorate the tour. But even after
most of the performers dispersed back to their
homes, Dylan lingered on in New York, almost
reluctant to admit that the tour was over. Right
before Rolling Thunder hit the road, I asked Bob why
tour? The question seemed to take him by surprise.
“Why tour? ‘Cause, uh, I think that’s what I have to
do. It’s in my blood.”
Twenty-seven years later, Dylan’s still “on that
road, heading for another joint.” In fact, it didn’t
take him too long to put together a second Rolling
Thunder tour of the South in 1976, but somehow the
magic that was generated in that brisk autumnal
Northeastern air was missing the second time
around. Since Rolling Thunder, he’s been on the road
more often than he’s been home. But if touring’s still
in his blood, it seems to be an infectious disease.
Baez still performs regularly as does Roger McGuinn,
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Joni Mitchell. T-Bone
Burnett has gone on to find a niche as a producer,
winning a Grammy® for the soundtrack to “Oh
Brother, Where Art Thou?” David Mansfield is now
composing scores for films. After taking some years
off to paint, Neuwirth has recently released several
fine albums. Sadly enough, Mick Ronson and Howie
Wyeth’s musical contributions have been silenced
forever, as is the case with Rick Danko and Richard
Manuel of the Band. And there’ll be no more poems
or lyrical analysis from Allen Ginsberg, no more
movie parts for David Blue. No more movies for
Howard Alk and no more concerts for Barry Imhoff.
But, thanks to multi-track magnetic tape, we
have this record of those amazing performances in
the fall of 1975. After the tour was over and I was
hounding Dylan for one last interview, I reached him
at his uptown hotel. During our talk, I read him some
comments that a contemporary songwriter had
made about him in the then-current issue of
Newsweek. “Dylan comparisons make me emotion-
al,” this recording artist said. “There’s hardly a
point of comparison except we’re the same age. He
ALBUMS 1
writes a lot of words. I write few words. He single- ALBUMS 2
handedly took the folkie emphasis on words and ALBUMS 3
made it the predominant style of music in the SONGS
seventies. But what he spawned is boring…. When I
listen to Dylan I think, ‘Oh no, not the same three or
four-chord melody again.…’”
“Hey lookit, Ratso,” Bob interrupted. “You can
play a song with one chord.”
I continued to read the Newsweek piece. “The
staple of American popular music is all three or
four-chord, country or rock-oriented now,” the
songwriter said. “There’s nothing that goes back to
the richest, most original form of American popular
music—Broadway and Tin Pan Alley—in which
sophisticated lyrics are matched with sophisticated
melodies.…”
“Hey, Ratso,” Bob again. “You can play a song
with one note.”
“Well, he’s not the only one,” I argue. “There
are lots of people who say that you’re a great
lyricist but you just don’t understand music.”
“Oh, really,” Dylan spit. “Well, I don’t under-
stand music, you know. I understand Lightning
Hopkins, I understand Leadbelly, John Lee Hooker,
Woody Guthrie, Kinky Friedman. I never claimed to
understand music, Ratso, if you ever heard me play
the guitar you’d know that.” The singer laughed.
 “I’m an artist,” he added.
Taking the bait, I went into a spirited defense of
his musicianship but he interrupted me again.
“You’ve seen the show, Ratso, how many times?
Thirty? Forty? Have I ever let you down onstage?”
I didn’t even have to think. “Never, man, never.”
“OK, so why don’t you tell them that,” Dylan urged.
“I will, man, I will,” I promised.
He never let me down onstage. In fact, he never
failed to elevate me. It’s easy to get blasé on a tour
after the first few days and hang out in backstage
hospitality suites during the show, but whenever it
was time for Dylan to go onstage, there was a mass
107 ALBUMS 1
influx into the hall of fellow performers, film crew, ALBUMS 2
techies and roadies, hangers-on and groupies—all ALBUMS 3
anxious not to miss a single note. Dylan never let SONGS

anybody down. And now, thanks to this two-CD set

you have in your possession, he’ll never let you
down either.

—Larry “Ratso” Sloman

New York City, September 2002

Larry “Ratso” Sloman’s first book was On The Road

With Bob Dylan, his award-winning account of the
Rolling Thunder tour which was just reissued by Three
Rivers Press. Ratso is best known as Howard Stern’s
collaborator on Private Parts and Miss America. He
collaborated with the magician/mystifier David Blaine
on his recent book, Mysterious Stranger. Portions of
this essay appeared in a different form in On The Road
With Bob Dylan, Three Rivers Press, 2002.
 The Times
They Are A-Changin’
Spanish Harlem Incident
Talkin’ John
Birch Paranoid Blues
To Ramona
Who Killed Davey Moore?
Gates Of Eden
If You Gotta Go, Go Now
108
The Bootleg
BOB DYLAN LIVE 1964
C O N C E R T AT   P H I L H A R M O N I C H A L L
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6
Bob Dylan Live 1964:
Concert At Philharmonic Hall
Produced by Jeff Rosen and Steve Berkowitz
March 30, 2004
It’s Alright, Ma
(I’m Only Bleeding)
I Don’t Believe You
(She Acts Like
We Never Have Met)
Mr. Tambourine Man
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Talkin’ World War III Blues
Don’t Think
Twice, It’s All Right
Series Vo l .
The Lonesome
Death Of Hattie Carroll
Mama, You
Been On My Mind
Silver Dagger
With God On Our Side
It Ain’t Me, Babe
All I Really Want To Do
This famous concert, recorded Halloween night 1964 at Philharmonic Hall, ALBUMS 1
6 ALBUMS 2
has been much bootlegged but never heard in its entirety or in such crisp and
ALBUMS 3
SONGS
present sound. This set presents Dylan on the cusp between his folky days and
his new-found land of imagist poetry, the borderline claimed and explored on
Another Side of Bob Dylan, which had just been released two months before. His
voice was strong and confident, even cocky. The program included “topical”
songs like “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” and “With God On Our Side,”
featured here in a duet with Joan Baez, who joined him for four tunes, including
a great, playful version of “Mama, You Been On My Mind.” Also showcased are
the kinds of visionary work that was about to show up on Bringing It All
Back Home – “Gates of Eden,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” and “Mr.
Tambourine Man.” Throughout he is relaxed, funny, and charming, able to switch
from self-deprecating humor to intense lyric focus on a dime. This was Dylan at
the top of his game as solo artist, a role he would play for another eight months
or so, until he upset everybody’s apple cart at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by
appearing with the electric Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
ORIGINAL
LINER NOTES
 BOOTLEG SERIES VOLUME 6 original liner notes
On Halloween night, 1964, a twenty-three-year
old Bob Dylan spellbound an adoring audience at
Philharmonic Hall in New York. Relaxed and high-
spirited, he sang seventeen songs, three of them
with his guest Joan Baez, plus one encore. Many of
the songs, although less than two years old, were so
familiar that the crowd knew every word. Others
were brand new and baffling. Dylan played his heart
109
out on these new compositions, as he did on the
older ones, but only after an introductory turn as
the mischievous tease.
This is called “A Sacrilegious Lullaby in D
Minor,” he announced, before beginning the second
public performance ever of “Gates Of Eden.”
He was the cynosure of hip, when hipness still
wore pressed slacks and light brown suede boots
(as I remember he did that night). Yet hipness was
transforming right on stage. Dylan had already moved
on, well beyond the most knowing New Yorkers in
the hall, and he was singing about what he was
finding. The concert was in part a summation of past
work and in part a summons to an explosion for
which none of us, not even he, was fully prepared.
“Because Dickens and Dostoevsky and Woody
Guthrie were telling their stories much better than
I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind”
— Bob Dylan, 1963.
The world seemed increasingly out of joint during
the weeks before the concert. The trauma of John F.
Kennedy’s assassination less than a year earlier had
barely abated. Over the summer, the murders in
Mississippi of the civil rights workers James Chaney,
Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner had
created traumas anew. President Lyndon Johnson
managed to push a Civil Rights Bill through the
Congress in July 1964; by early autumn, it seemed
as if he would trounce the arch-conservative Barry
Goldwater in the coming election. But in August,
Johnson received a congressional blank check to
escalate American involvement in the Vietnam
conflict. On a single day in mid-October, Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev was overthrown and
Communist China exploded its first atomic bomb. A
hopeful phase of the decade was quickly winding
down, and a scarier phase loomed.
Dylan’s style and his art were changing too, with
an accelerating and bewildering swiftness befitting
the times. In December 1963, Dylan had offended a
leftist New York audience by accepting a free-speech
award with some atrociously-wrought, off-the-cuff
remarks about hypocrisy, youthful alienation, and
how he saw a bit of himself in Lee Harvey Oswald.
Proclaimed by the leftists as the latest incarnation
of Woody Guthrie, a new political cult hero, Dylan
had seemed uncomfortable, pleased to be honored
but unwilling to accept the heavy mantle that all of
these old people for their own reasons, wanted to
thrust upon him; and so, ambivalent and easily
misunderstood, he thrust it back. The singer offended
even more people the following summer with the
release of Another Side of Bob Dylan—an album
devoid of the fixed moral standpoint in his earlier
protest self, and containing instead songs of
personal freedom, whimsy, and wounded love. In the
wake of the Beatles’ take-over of American top-40
radio, some members of the older Popular Front
folk establishment shook their heads in dismay at
what was becoming of their new Woody Guthrie.
One folk commissar, writing in the respected Sing
Out! magazine, would sneer at Dylan as a political
sell-out and try to force him into line, warning him
not to turn into “a different Bob Dylan than the one
we knew.” Little did he know that Dylan was not
simply becoming different; he was also listening to
the Beatles.
Dylan has since recalled how much the criticism
of Another Side stung, and how proud he was when,
out of the blue, Johnny Cash wrote a stern letter to
Sing Out! in his defense. (To this day, Dylan says, ALBUMS 1
he’s held on to his copy of the magazine with Cash’s ALBUMS 2
letter in it.) But at the time, he outwardly betrayed ALBUMS 3
SONGS
no injured feelings and kept on writing and perform-
ing in his new vein. The great majority of his fans,
especially his younger fans, seemed to approve. At
the Newport Folk Festival in July, two weeks before
Another Side appeared, he stuck almost entirely to
playing new material, along with one as-yet-
unrecorded song that he introduced to an afternoon
workshop session as “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,
Play A Song For Me.” The response was rapturous.
Dylan was still the great folk-music star, a phenom-
enon like no other, no matter what he sang.
For most of the loyalists, the shifts in Dylan’s
style (unlike in the rest of the world) were not
disturbing. Amid the English Rock Invasion, Dylan
still stood there on stage alone, singing and playing
with nothing more than his guitar and his rack-
clamped harmonica. When he wasn’t alone, he sang,
at Newport and elsewhere, with Joan Baez, whose
presence and endorsement of Dylan’s new songs
eased our own transition. Dylan’s politics actually
hadn’t disappeared, but had only become less
preachy and much funnier, as in the joke-saga,
“Motorpsycho Nitemare,” on Another Side. Dylan
had always sung intensely personal songs. His most
powerful earlier political material often involved
 human-sized stories, like “The Lonesome Death of
Hattie Carroll.” And amid the disorientation of late
1963 and 1964, who was to say that a turn to
introspection was out of place?
The Beatles, with their odd chords and joyful
harmonies, were great, but what was “She Loves
You” compared to the long-stemmed word images
in “Chimes Of Freedom”? Who else but Dylan would
be brainy enough and with-it enough to toss off
allusions in his songs to Fellini films and Cassius
Clay? To his fans, he may have been evolving, but so
were we; and the Bob Dylan we now heard and saw
seemed basically the same as the Bob Dylan we
110
knew, only better. Looking back on it, we probably
had no more of a clue about where he was headed
than the Sing Out! writer did. But at the time, for
those of us who wanted to be as close to the blade’s
edge of the avant-garde as possible—or as close as
we dared—Dylan could do no wrong.
“I don’t want to fake you out,
Take or shake or forsake you out,
I ain’t lookin’ for you to feel like me,
See like me or be like me”
— Bob Dylan, 1964.
That Dylan’s management booked Philharmonic
Hall for its star’s biggest New York show of the
year was testimony to his allure. Opened only two
years earlier as the first showcase of the neighbor-
hood-killer Robert Moses’ new Lincoln Center for
the Performing Arts, Philharmonic Hall (now Avery
Fisher Hall) was, with its imperial grandeur and
bad acoustics, the most prestigious auditorium in
Manhattan—or for that matter in the entire country.
Within two years of releasing his first album, Dylan’s
New York venues had shot ever upward in cachet
(and further uptown), from Town Hall to Carnegie
Hall and now to the sparkling new home of Leonard
Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. When the
expectant audience streamed out of the grungy
old—mosaic-tiled IRT stop at 66th Street, and then
crammed into the cavernous gilded theater, it must
have looked to the uptowners (and the ushers) like
a bizarre invasion of the hipster beatnik young.
As if to make sure that we knew our place,
a man appeared on stage at show time to warn us
that there would be no picture-taking or smoking
allowed in the house. Then, like Bernstein striding
to his podium, Dylan walked out of the wings, no
announcement necessary, a fanfare of applause
proclaiming who he was. He started the concert,
as he normally did, with “The Times They Are A-
Changin’.” Here we all were, the self-consciously
sensitive and discerning, settling in—at a Dylan
show like any other, whatever the plush surroundings.
Two hours later, we would leave the premises
and head back underground to the IRT, exhilarated,
entertained, and ratified, but also confused about
the snatches of lines we’d gleaned from the strange
new songs. What was that weird lullaby in D minor?
What in God’s name is a perfumed gull (or did he sing
“curfewed gal”)? Had Dylan really written a ballad
based on Arthur Koestler’s Darkness At Noon?
The melodies were strong; and the playing on the
“darkness” song had been ominous and overpower-
ing, but it had all moved so fast that comprehension
was impossible. It had turned into a Dylan show
unlike any we’d ever heard.
Thanks to an excellent tape, presented here for
the first time in its entirety, it is now possible to
appreciate what happened that night—not just in
what Dylan sang, but in what he said, and in the
amazing audible rapport he had with his audience.
The show was divided in two, with a fifteen-
minute intermission. The first half was for innovation
as well as some glances at where Dylan had already
been. The two most pointedly political older songs,
interestingly, had never been issued on record, but
the audience knew them anyway, and responded
enthusiastically.
Back in May 1963, Dylan had been booked on
the Ed Sullivan Show, the premier Sunday night
television variety program, where Elvis Presley had
made three breakthrough appearances seven years
earlier and had agreed, on the final show, to be
shown performing only from the waist up. The
downtown Irish traditional folk group the Clancy
Brothers and Tommy Makem had appeared on
Sullivan twice, vastly enlarging their following. (They
played the Philharmonic Hall a year before Dylan
did.) The Limelighters, the Lettermen, the Belafonte
Folk Singers, and other folk acts had also performed
on the Sullivan program; in March 1963, Sullivan
hosted the popular Chad Mitchell Trio. For Dylan, an
ALBUMS 1
edgy topical singer, playing the Sullivan program ALBUMS 2
would mean huge exposure. He chose as his number ALBUMS 3
the satirical “Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues.” SONGS
(For those too young to remember: the John Birch
Society, which still exists, was notorious as a hard-
right political group that saw Communist conspira-
cies everywhere. The Mitchell Trio had enjoyed a
minor hit with its own mocking song, “The John
Birch Society,” in 1962.)
Upon hearing Dylan’s selection at the rehearsal,
just before airtime, a CBS executive turned cold
and, over Sullivan’s objections, ordered him to sing
something less controversial. Unlike Presley, Dylan
would not be censored and he refused to appear.
Word of his principled walk-out burnished Dylan’s
reputation among his established fans, old and
young. Little did we know that the song had also
been dropped, along with three others, from the
original version of Freewheelin’. Dylan included the
banned number on his 1964 Halloween program,
introducing it, with a mixture of defiance and good
humor, as “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”—a
title that now seemed to cover the craven mainstream
media as well as the right-wing extremists who were
currently thumping their tubs for their favorite,
Senator Goldwater. It was a thrilling moment for us
in the audience, getting to hear what CBS had
forbidden the nation to hear while also exulting in
 our own political righteousness against the forces
of fear and blacklisting.
“Who Killed Davey Moore?,” the other older
political song, was about the death of a young feath-
erweight boxer who, after losing a title bout to
Sugar Ramos in 1963, fell into a coma and died. The
incident sparked public debate about whether
boxing should be banned in the United States. It also
inspired the political songwriter (and Dylan’s rival)
Phil Ochs to compose a long narrative song,
describing in detail the flying fists and pouring
sweat inside the ring and the “money-chasing
vultures” and blood-lusting fans outside it. Dylan’s
111
musical take on the episode was at once simpler—
a reworking of the ancient “Who Killed Cock
Robin?” theme—and more complex, pointing out
the many people who bore responsibility for Moore’s
death and reciting their lame excuses.
On the concert tape, the audience’s instant
adulatory reaction stands out most of all. As soon as
Dylan sings “Who killed…,” the cheering starts.
Although Dylan had not recorded the song, he had
been performing it in concert as early as his Town
Hall show in April 1963, less than three weeks after
Davey Moore died. It was a time, one now remem-
bers, when a folk singer, at least this one, could
have a song of his achieve wide currency without
even putting it on a record, let alone getting it
played on the radio.
Another response to “Davey Moore” also stands
out on the tape, when Dylan comes to the line about
boxing no longer being permitted in Fidel Castro’s
Cuba. Listen closely, and you will hear some scattered
applause endorsing the sentiment. Maybe some of
the Sing Out! old guard was in the audience —
momentarily, but just momentarily, encouraged.
Certainly there were younger people there,
the red-diaper babies and other politicals, who still
wanted to hold onto Dylan as the troubadour of
the Revolution.
Dylan, however, would not be type-cast as
anything, and even his rendering of “Davey Moore”
tugged in other directions. “This is a song about a
boxer,” he said before he began to sing it. “It’s got
nothing to do with boxing, it’s just a song about a
boxer really. And, Uh, its not even having to do with
a boxer really. It’s got nothing to do with nothing.
But I fit all these words together, that’s all.” The
irreverent introduction undercut solemnity, even
though some people wanted and expected solemnity.
(Others in the audience did not, and made that clear
in their impromptu badinage with the singer.)
Dylan’s laughter in the middle of his introduction
even sounded a little intoxicated. Was he aglow
from drinking Beaujolais— we all knew Dylan drank
Beaujolais—or maybe, even cooler, had Dylan been
smoking pot? Perhaps he was intoxicated in a
different way, giddy from the hall and the affection-
ate crowd and the joy of being back in his adopted
hometown after weeks of playing the college circuit.
No matter: his mellow, at times merry mood was
infectious, and it had nothing to
do with sermonizing.
It did have something to do with sex. Nobody in
the audience had yet heard “If You Gotta Go, Go
Now (Or Else You Got To Stay All Night)” and its sly,
rollicking account of an, it’s-now-or never seduc-
tion sent everybody into stitches. Coming after
“Gates Of Eden,” it was a bit of comic relief, but hip
comic relief. In the song, the singer knows very well
that the object of his affections is no virgin. Casual
sex is no longer taboo; the repression surrounding
this part of life has lifted. What Presley had done
with his pelvis, Dylan was doing with his words—
coy, conversational, and comical, feeding the youth
conspiracy of sons and daughters who were (or
wanted to be) beyond their parents’ command.
Sometimes, the audience knew Dylan’s words
better than he did. Nearing the end of the show’s
first half, Dylan strummed his guitar but completely
forgot the next song’s opening line. As if he were
performing at the Gaslight down in Greenwich
Village and not in Philharmonic Hall, Dylan asked
the audience to help him out, and it did. On the tape,
two voices, unmistakably New York voices, carry
above all the others, one rapidly following the other
with the cue: “I can’t understand...” The song, “I
Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have
Met)” had appeared on Another Side less than three
months earlier, but his fans knew it so well that it
might as well have been “Pretty Peggy-O.” (It may
have even have been more familiar to most of the
audience than “Pretty Peggy-O.”) Dylan, a master of
timing, did not miss a beat, picked up the line, and
then sang the song flawlessly.
ALBUMS 1
Between these funny moments, Dylan introduced ALBUMS 2
his new masterpieces, “Gates Of Eden” and “It’s ALBUMS 3
Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” calling the latter, SONGS
“It’s All Right Ma, It’s Life And Life Only.” These
songs have become such iconic pieces over the
intervening decades, their twisting images so much
a part of a generation’s sub-conscious, that it is
difficult to recall what they sounded like when heard
for the first time, and in concert. Dylan knew that
they were special, and that they would fly over his
listeners’ heads the first time around. He even joked
about that on stage. (On the tape, some laughter
greets Dylan’s announcement of “It’s All Right, Ma”
as if the song is a put-on; and he pipes up, “Yes, it’s
a very funny song.”) During these performances, the
audience was utterly silent, trying at first to catch
the words, but finally bowled over by the intensity of
both the lyrics and Dylan’s playing, even though he
muffed a line. We would not get the chance to figure
the songs out for another five months, when they
appeared on Bringing It All Back Home—and even
then it would take repeated listenings for any of it
to make sense. At the time, it just sounded like
demanding poetry, epic poetry (each went on for
what seemed like Homeric length), proving once
again that Bob Dylan was leading us into new places,
the whereabouts unknown but deeply tempting.
The evening’s second half of the show brought
 us back to familiar ground: songs from Freewheelin’
and The Times They Are A-Changin’, and three duets
with Joan Baez. (Baez also sang “Silver Dagger,”
accompanied by Dylan on the harmonica.) Dylan and
Baez—the king and queen of the folk movement,
known to be lovers—had been performing together
off and on for well over a year. Baez had brought
Dylan to the stage during several of her concerts,
including one at Forest Hills in August, and now
Dylan was returning the compliment. They sang of
desire, rejected desire, and American history, their
harmonizing ragged in places, but with an ease
between them that further mellowed the mood even
112
as it upped the star wattage on stage. Plenty has
been made since about Dylan and Baez’s relation-
ship in these years, some of it unflattering to one or
the other or both of them. Much as the Kennedys’
Camelot would have its debunkers, so the magical
kingdom we conjured up around Bob Dylan and Joan
Baez would come crashing down. Nearly forgotten,
however—but captured on the Philharmonic tape,
even in that night’s laid-back, knockabout perfor-
mances—have been the rich fruits of their singing
collaborations. Joan always seemed, on stage, the
earnest, worshipful one, overly so, in the presence
of the Boy Genius; and Bob would sometimes gently
mock that earnestness, as he does between songs
here. But when singing together, they were quite a
pair, his nasal harshness mingling wonderfully with
her silken coloratura, their harmony lines adding
depth to the melodies, their sheer pleasure in each
other’s company showing in their voices.
Listening to the tape, my favorite duet from the
Philharmonic show is “Mama, You Been On My
Mind.” Baez sings “Daddy” instead of “Mama.”
Then, during one of the brief instrumental inter-
ludes, Baez interjects “shooka-shooka-shooka,
shook-shooka”—nothing one might expect from the
Folk Queen, something more pop or even rock ‘n’
roll than folk music. Was our Joan listening to the
Beatles, too? I don’t recall hearing this at the time,
but now it sounds like another little portent of things
to come.
Dylan closed, solo, with his encore. The singer
and audience were by now as one; shouted requests
filled the air, for “Chimes Of Freedom,” for anything,
even for “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” “God, did I record
that?” Dylan joked back, basking in the revelry. “Is
that a protest song?” He chose “All I Really Want To
Do,” another crowd-pleaser from Another Side. Was
this a secret sweet envoi to Joan Baez? Was it a
gentle envoi to us, or the part of us that wanted to
make of Dylan, in our own way, something more than
he could possibly be?
During the first half of the concert, after singing
“Gates Of Eden,” Dylan got into a little riff about
how the song shouldn’t scare anybody, that it was
only Halloween, and that he had his Bob Dylan mask
on. “I’m masquerading!” he joked, elongating the
second word into a laugh. The joke was serious. Bob
Dylan, né Zimmerman, brilliantly cultivated his
celebrity, but he was really an entertainer, a man
behind a mask, a great entertainer, maybe, but
basically just that—someone who threw words
together, astounding as they were. The burden of
being something else—a guru, a political theorist,
“the voice of a generation,” as he facetiously put it
in an interview a few years ago—was too much to
ask of anyone. We in the audience were asking him
to be all of that and more, but Dylan was slipping the
yoke. All he really wanted to do was to be a friend, if
possible, and an artist writing and singing his songs.
He was telling us so, though we didn’t want to
believe it, and wouldn’t let him leave it at that. We
wanted more.
“Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parking meters”
— Bob Dylan, 1965.
Less than three months after the Philharmonic Hall
concert, Bob Dylan showed up at Columbia Records’
Studio A in Manhattan for the second session of
recording Bringing It All Back Home—and he
brought with him three guitarists, two bassists, a
drummer and a piano player. One of the first songs
they recorded was “Subterranean Homesick Blues,”
a Chuck Berryish rock number, less sung than
recited, about lures, snares, chaos, and not
following leaders. That spring, Dylan would tour
England and return to his acoustic playlist, but the
film made of that tour, Don’t Look Back, shows him
obviously bored with the material. The new half-
ALBUMS 1
electric album appeared in March; by mid-summer, ALBUMS 2
“Like A Rolling Stone” was all over the radio; and in ALBUMS 3
late July came the famous all-electric set at SONGS
Newport that sparked a civil war among Dylan’s
fans. He was no longer standing alone with his
guitar and harmonica. The pleasant joker now wore
sinister black leather boots and a shiny jacket to
match. No more Joan Baez. A bit of the old rapport
reappeared when Dylan was coaxed back onstage to
play some of his old acoustic material. “Does
anybody have an E harmonica, an E harmonica,
anybody?” he asked—and E harmonicas came
raining out from the crowd and thumped onstage.
But now the envoi was unmistakable, as Dylan
serenaded the folkies with “It’s All Over Now, Baby
Blue,” as well as “Mr. Tambourine Man.” A year after
that—with the Vietnam war tearing the country
apart, urban ghettos beset by arson and riots,
and conservative backlash coming on strong—
Dylan would suffer his famous motorcycle crack-up,
concluding the wild period when he pushed his
innovations to the limit with Blonde On Blonde and
with his astonishing concerts with the Hawks—not
least the “Judas” show in Manchester, England, re-
captured now on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966.
Live 1964 brings back a Bob Dylan on the cusp
of that turmoil. It brings back a time between his
scuffling sets at the downtown clubs and his arena-
 rock tours of the 1970s and after. It brings back a
long gone era of intimacy between performer and
audience, and the last strains of a self-aware New
York bohemia before bohemia became diluted and
mass marketed. It brings back a Dylan moment just
before something that Pete Hamill (on the liner
notes to Blood On The Tracks) called “the plague”
infected so many hopes, and destroyed an older
America sung of by Guthrie and, in prose, by Jack
Kerouac—and by Dylan as well, who somehow
survived. Above all, it brings back a great concert
by an artist performing at the peak of his powers—
one who would climb many more peaks to come.
113 ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
— Sean Wilentz, Princeton, December 2003. ALBUMS 3
SONGS

Sean Wilentz, the distinguished historian and writer,

is the author of several books, including Chants
Democratic, as well as, forthcoming, The Rise Of
American Democracy, and a book about American
ballads, co-edited with Greil Marcus. He has dim
boyhood memories of Bob Dylan in and around the old
Folklore Center on MacDougal Street in Greenwich
Village, not far from his family’s bookstore on 8th
Street. At 13, he attended the Halloween 1964 concert
at Philharmonic Hall, his first Dylan show. He also
writes regularly for The New Republic, The New York
Times, and other publications.
 When I Got Troubles (1959) I Was Young When I Left A Hard Rain’s She Belongs To Me Just Like Tom Thumb’s Stuck Inside Of Mobile
Rambler, Gambler Home (Home Recording) A-Gonna Fall (Live) (Alternate Take) Blues (Alternate Take) With The Memphis Blues
(Home Recording) Sally Gal (Alternate Take) When The Ship Maggie’s Farm (Live) Desolation Row Again (Alternate Take)
This Land Is Your Land Don’t Think Twice, Comes In (Live) It Takes A Lot To Laugh, (Alternate Take) Visions Of Johanna
(Live) It’s All Right (Demo) Mr. Tambourine Man It Takes A Train To Cry Highway 61 Revisited (Alternate Take)
Song To Woody Man Of Constant Sorrow (Alternate Take) (Alternate Take) (Alternate Take) Ballad Of A Thin Man (Live)
Dink’s Song Blowin’ In The Wind (Live) Chimes Of Freedom (Live) Tombstone Blues Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat Like A Rolling Stone (Live)
(Home Recording) Masters Of War (Live) It’s All Over Now, Baby (Alternate Take) (Alternate Take)
Blue (Alternate Take)

114 The Bootleg Series Volume 7 collects extremely rare, and in most cases ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
previously unheard, performances from the period covered by Martin Scorsese’s ALBUMS 3
SONGS
landmark Dylan documentary No Direction Home, which ends with Dylan’s 1966
motorcycle accident. The first half of the set presents Dylan alone with his
guitar and harmonica, beginning with a 1959 home recording of a Dylan
A MARTIN SCORSESE PICTURE original, “When I Got Troubles.” We hear early live and home recordings that
already show an extraordinary sensitivity to nuance (listen, for just one example,
to the touching “Rambler, Gambler”), and watch him become a powerfully original
songwriter and performer in live versions and alternate takes of “Blowin’ In The
Wind,” “Masters of War,” “When The Ship Comes In,” and “Mr. Tambourine
Man.” The high point of these acoustic performances may well be the galvanic
“Chimes Of Freedom” from the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, in which Dylan’s
involvement is so intense he seems almost to be writing the song on the spot.
The second half presents Dylan as he begins to fuse his deep knowledge of
folk music with the edge and attitude – and instrumentation – of rock and roll.
There are fascinating alternate takes of five songs from the seminal album
Highway 61 Revisited, three from Blonde On Blonde, and two flame-throwing
performances from his historic European tour of 1966. Taken all together,
Bootleg 7 is a stunning vision of the development of Dylan’s art in the time of its
THE BOOTLEG SERIES Vol. 7 most staggering growth and change.

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7 ORIGINAL

LINER NOTES
No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
Produced by Jeff Rosen, Steve Berkowitz,
Bruce Dickinson, and Martin Scorsese
August 30, 2005
 BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 7 original liner notes
world war 2 hovered over us, at least in late britain
where we war-babies grew up, as if that was not
enough in itself, the still of the unspoken sacrifice
our elders had made in our name begat the cloud
that cried—it was more than johnnie ray, the prince
of wails , whom with liberace , crooned and tinkled
their way into female british hearts whilst fellows
got by on skiffle king lonnie donegan , colonel bogey
115
and alec guinness’s stiff upper lip in “the bridge
over the river kwai”. and we called that.......
entertainment.
before too long we would be saved by the sneer of
elvis and the fear tear of james dean. the cloud was
both suppressive and inspiring—our peers had
withstood six years of 9/11 against the mighty kraut,
and by the mid 50’s the world was not a better place
and our parents daily let us know this. james dean
was dead , elvis was as good as and eddie cochran ,
who had inspired us with american words and
action,took three steps to heaven dying for us in an
english taxi crash that also took the life of gene
vincent’s right leg.
britain’s exhausted mentalomics at that time were
profoundly influential in shaping the cultural life of
the late 50’s and early 60’s—john osborne’s 1956
play “look back in anger” is the most celebrated
example. england tried to compete with tennessee
williams, marlon brando and the french new wave
which threw us a slew of angry young men. i was
more impressed by marlon brando in 1958’s “the
young lions” because he dared to play a drop dead
good looking blond tormented nazi; something yer
actual brit (o’toole thought he was irish) could
never do.
i was more impressed by america in general, so
were all my rock’n beat pals. america was a perfect
audio and visual image as late britain stuttered and
suppressed, americana controlled it’s lighting,
dialogue and sunsets. as elvis disapeared through
the paramount gates and into the army, tony and
burt kissed and kowtowed the “sweet smell of
success “and we studied the scheme of america. we
blanked albert finney and looked at the other side
and got ernest borgnine’s “marty”.
america gave us rhythm and hope—eddie cochran,
little richard, buddy holly, gene vincent, johnny otis,
antoine “fats” domino and young rick nelson. the
joy of italians, jews, blacks, TV stars and farmboys
performing the soundtrack to our lives. recorded
rock and celluloid cool defined our new regimen
in 1960 austerity begot affluence and that became
possible because of the birth pill. disposable income
could go to dressing up and not diaper rental and
babyfood. suddenly time was on our side and lying
abed did not have to mean settling down and some
of us still haven’t. there was time to idea up, time
not to panic, time to avoid the mundane promised
picket fenced pre-fab future. the new cold war
ended the automatic connection between being a
marxist and a member of the communist party.
distrust of structured politics created the new left
and led to the campaign for nuclear disarmament.
but britain’s new affluence had a conscience—and
this brave new world cried out for troubled
troubadours and international anthems.
i’d left school at age 16 in 1960, the last school i’d
attending stating “he may do well, but not here ”. i
agreed. i ran errands in the fashion fracas, hustled
the south of france and sought a life wherein mine
would not end up on the cutting room floor. by 1962 i
was a press agent, london’s soho and fleet street my
sidney falco beat. i scoured the melody maker and
the other weakly musical rags looking for gigs. a
journalist told me about this bob dylan being flown
in from america to appear in a BBC drama called
“madhouse on castle street”. i found out that bob
and his manager were rooming at the cumberland ALBUMS 1
hotel overlooking marble arch. i made a point of ALBUMS 2
bumping into the singer’s manager, albert grossman, ALBUMS 3
SONGS
in the lobby of the hotel. grossman was a calm
above the norm. i hustled myself for a fiver into
press-repping dylan for a week. i sat in bob’s room
with the duo getting an idea of the world before i
knew it. dylan was bob dylan already, just as he’s
bob dylan now. it wasn’t an act, even if it was. i
squired him around london, to the BBC, to max jones
at the melody maker, to dobell’s record store on
charing cross road.
the beatles were honing their chops and loins
comparatively anonymously in hamburg; the rolling
stones were still in art school, the gym, and the
richmond station hotel. “strange fruit” , miles davis
and lenny bruce protested by night ; dylan was
working at seizing the dayshift.
a strange new unspoken cameraderie joined all
these world war 2 progeny together. the beatles and
the stones handled the love and sex, until a bit later
when the fame and the drugs were not quite working
and then they decided to give peace a chance.
bobby d had pointed the way out in early1962. there
were things other than love and sex in the world to
write and sing about and that he did. by now my
 train was rollin’ , i had done PR for the beatles, met
the rolling stones, become their manager and said
ta-ta to the rest of my life.
in 1963 nat hentoff wrote the first most important
sleeve notes for “the freewheelin’ bob dylan”. for us
it said a lot, it meant a lot , it was saul bass in prose,
and showed that the liner word can and should
reflect the audio. the cover of this iconic album,
which included “blowin’ in the wind” and “don’t
think twice, it’s all right,” remains an example of
rock art influencing popular culture as a whole.
dylan would soon take over the liner notation himself
116
and between that marvel and anthony burgess you
had the birth of my own liner note style for the
rolling stones.
in england and france , better known as europe,
there was dylan before there were beatles and
stones. and just as the beatles were taking america
and the stones were standing in the wings faking it,
“freewheelin’ “was cracking the UK top 20 and dylan
already knew how many holes it took in filling the
festival hall. c’mon, cor blimey, england may have
been swinging but dylan took us over with words.
this was above cult, this was mass status, a strange
merging of the two worlds of fame allowed in europe,
but as apart in the US as two versions of the same
song by fats domino/little richard and pat boone.
so the beatles kicked in america with “i want to
hold your hand” ; a year and some change later the
stones got the job done with “satisfaction”, then mr
z. changed all that with “like a rolling stone” ...
brilliant nerve was what it was. check mate was the
name of the game. dylan made us better and our
world grew up to every competitive word.
“the men who produce works of genius are not
those who live in the most delicate atmosphere,
whose conversation is the most brilliant or culture
the most extensive “wrote marcel proust,” but
those who have had the power , ceasing suddenly to
live only for themselves, to transform their
personality into a sort of mirror”.
43 years later, dylan still moves the goalposts, sets
the game and chronicles dem bells. our lives hath
seen shakespeare again and dylan be his name.
elvis gave us movement that we seized with every
gland. the beatles held our hands and gave us
something that was ours , something to fight for ;
the rolling stones took to the streets and gave us
something to fight against. and dylan ? he gave us
the grace, the words and meaning, ripping our
blinders off , dilating us pupils with the harsh light
of the other way of looking at the looniverse.
andrew loog oldham, bogota, colombia. june MM5
<andrew loog oldham managed and produced the
rolling stones from 1963 to 1967. he is the author of
two volumes of biography, stoned and 2stoned>.
Just when I thought I had dragged up all my Dylan
memories for 2005 being extensively interviewed for
Greil Marcus’s book LIKE A ROLLING STONE, and
being interrogated thoroughly for Martin Scorsese’s
documentary on Bob, NOW I have been asked to
contribute liner notes for the film’s soundtrack album.
Two weeks ago, I got an email from a fan
reminding me that, June 16th, 2005, made it forty
years since the recording of “Like A Rolling Stone”
in New York City back in 1965. That day changed my
life forever and turned me from a guitar-owner into
a rock organist, which I have remained for the last
forty years.
ALBUMS 1
Being onsite for the recording of two historical ALBUMS 2
albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, ALBUMS 3
and being able to contribute musically to these SONGS
classics is still pretty unbelievable to me.
Most everybody knows how I scammed my way
into playing on the “Like A Rolling Stone” session. I
was then invited to remain aboard and to play on the
rest of the Highway 61 Revisited album. The cast of
backup players included Mike Bloomfield on guitar,
Paul Griffin on keyboards, Bobby Gregg on drums,
first Russ Savakus on bass, and then Harvey Goldstein
(soon to be Harvey Brooks) on bass, Bruce Langhorne
on percussion, The Chambers Brothers on backup
vocals, Al Gorgoni on guitar, Frank Owens on
keyboards, Charlie McCoy on acoustic guitar and
yours truly on keyboards and electric guitar. The
final editing eliminated Gorgoni, Owens, the
Chambers Brothers, and my guitar playing but there
are unearthly unearthings on this collection and it
seems all personnel are now up for grabs. I once
told one of the producers of the soundtrack about a
version of “Desolation Row,” cut quite early in the
ayem when most musicians had packed it in for the
night. Harvey Brooks and I stayed on and I suggested
to Bob that he try a take with the three of us playing;
Bob on acoustic guitar and harmonica, Harvey on
Fender bass, and myself on electric guitar. It
probably has never been played back again since
 that night we cut it, but Columbia found it and
thought it was good enough to include. It certainly
marries that song with the punkness of the rest of
the album. The version that was used, with Charlie
McCoy playing cool acoustic lines behind Bob is
much more wistful than punk. The included version
here would make the Sex Pistols or Talking Heads
proud. Too bad the drummer had already gone home
when we cut it.
There was an afternoon where the Chambers
Brothers, who also played electric at the infamous
‘65 Newport Folk Festival, with no crowd objection,
came by and sang backup vocals on “Tombstone
117
Blues.” I thought it was amazing that day, but never
heard it again after that.
We originally played “It Takes A Lot to Laugh,”
back when it was called “Phantom Engineer,” as an
up-tempo tune, in the style of “Maggie’s Farm.”
But when we tried it as a ballad, with Bloomfield’s
Corinna-like licks dancing around Bob’s haunting
vocal, the fast version died on the cutting room
floor. I actually resurrected that arrangement on the
Super Session album with Stephen Stills filling in for
Mike Bloomfield.
After the first complete take of “Ballad of a Thin
Man,” we all convened in the control room for a
listen. At the conclusion of the playback, Bobby
Gregg said to Dylan, “I hope that’s the take, ‘cause I
just heard all the words, and I don’t know if I can
play behind that sort of sentiment anymore.” Bob
smiled at him, and then we all cracked up at Gregg’s
attempt to put Dylan on. We did a better take on the
next try which became the keeper without any more
objections from Mr. Gregg.
In those days, I used to wear one of those
blow-into police sirens around my neck to shed
some humorous paranoia into various clandestine
drug gatherings I might find myself attending. I wore
it like a necklace and rarely took it off. When we
were recording the title song for the album, I
walked over to Bob in between takes and suggested
he forego the harmonica and put the police siren in
his harp holder. “A little variety for your album—
suits the lyric better as well,” I suggested. Sugges-
tion taken, recorded, and archived forever. The take
included here was the first time we tried the song,
before the now famous ‘police siren’ was added.
With the success of the Highway 61 album, the
pressure was on. New producer Bob Johnston
suggested that Bob record the follow-up in Nashville
with players that Johnston would handpick. Dylan
agreed to this gamble but insisted on bringing Robbie
Robertson and myself along so that he would feel
“comfortable” recording away from New York City.
The three of us, an odd-looking trio to be
walking around in redneck central, were put in the
care of Lamar Fike, one of Elvis’ most trusted and
infamous bodyguards. Lamar had to rescue both
myself and Robbie from solo journeys we took in
downtown Nashville; me in a record shop, and
Robbie in a bar. People meant to do us harm just
because of the way we looked.
In the recording studio, it was a far different
story. Robbie and I were taken in as immediate
friends and treated as equals from day one. The
cast was mighty: Charlie McCoy, ersatz leader,
played bass, trumpet, guitar and harmonica—no
mean feat on a Dylan session. Wayne Moss played
guitar, Kenny Buttrey played drums, Hargus “Pig”
Robbins played piano, Jerry Kennedy played guitar,
Joe South played guitar and bass, and Henry
Strzelecki played bass. I played organ and was
ersatz music director.
Bob was still completing many of the songs
when we arrived in Tennessee. A piano was installed
in his hotel room. During the days, I was summoned
to Bob’s room. Bob would teach me the song he was
trying to complete, and like a not-yet-invented
cassette machine, I would sit at the piano and play
the song over and over again, while he finished the
lyrics. After a day of this, I made a suggestion to him:
“Bob, why don’t you come to the session an
hour late tonight? I will get there and teach the
band this song and any others we worked on today.
That way, you can just walk in, and we will know at
least one or two songs that you won’t have to sit
through while we learn them.”
He assented; it worked out great that first night,
and became the modus operandi of the rest of the
sessions. However the reverse could and would
happen from time to time. Bob would arrive, go out
into the piano in the studio and start changing a
lyric. Sometimes he would be in there for four or
five hour stretches. The band took it in good humor
and played pool and ping pong, watched TV and
ALBUMS 1
catnapped. One night a journalist slipped in with a ALBUMS 2
friend, and was asked to come back later as Bob ALBUMS 3
was writing. He returned four hours later and Bob SONGS
appeared to be in the exact same position at the
piano as when the journalist was originally expelled.
“Man..... what is he ON???” the reporter asked
no one in particular in a loud voice.
“Columbia Records.” Albert Grossman, Bob’s
manager, replied as he showed the gentleman to
the door.
Hargus “Pig” Robbins was genial gent and
played wonderful piano. He looked like a plumber
or an electrician, except for the fact that he was
completely blind. Bob would whisper to me from
time to time and say stuff like, “Tell the piano player
to come in on the first verse and not play in the
intro.” At first I said to Bob, “Why don’t YOU tell
him? I’m sure he’d like to interact with you.” Dylan
looked at me and whispered in my ear
“You do it. I can’t call that guy ‘pig.’”
And so, for the duration, I would relay Bob’s
requests to Mr. Robbins.
To while away the hours while their talents
were not specifically called upon, manager Albert
Grossman and producer Bob Johnston would
furiously chuck quarters in the direction of the
white cork ceiling of the control room (what other
named room could these two choose to quarter in?)
 attempting to make them stick in the cork based on
the velocity of their initial thrusts. It became
minorly dangerous to walk in there when the two
were jousting, but as the week wore on, they truly
got the hang of it and the ceiling was inundated with
half-quarters sticking out. Nowadays, I would’ve
snuck in there one morning, turned on the sub-
woofers, put on a hip-hop hit, and filled a garbage
bag with currency. But back then, they were all still
stuck in there at week’s end when I departed for
New York.
Just a few credits to pass out that have been
hidden over the years. Joe South is playing the soul
118
guitar on “Stuck Inside Of Mobile.” He is also
playing the great bass line on “Visions of Johanna.”
We, of course, all learned to treasure his talents on
“Down in the Boondocks,” “I Knew You When” and
“The Games People Play.” Wayne Moss plays the
amazing 16th note guitar lick that recurs after each
chorus in “I Want You.” The first time he came up
with that, my jaw dropped—not only for the lick, but
for the effortlessness he played it with. He also had
one of my favorite lines at about 5 AM one dreary
morning as we sat in the control room waiting for
Bob to finish lyric writing in the studio:
“Ya know, that one hour of sleep I got yesterday
is startin’ to get real lonely about now...” That was
topped only by a starving Kenny Buttrey, as take
after take rolled on one particular difficult tune.
“Man, I’m so hungry...” he moaned, “....I’m
fartin’ fresh air!!”
I still use that today.
I hope this sheds some light on things for those
of you perusing these notes. I must have spent close
to a month working on those two albums, and it sure
is a month I will never forget as long as I live.
Thanks for joining me in these remembrances.
—Al Kooper—Somerville, MA July 4th, 2005
This volume of the Bootleg Series is a companion to
the two- part documentary No Direction Home
directed by Martin Scorsese which traces Bob
Dylan’s musical journey from Hibbing high school
rock’n’roll enthusiast to electric barnstormer
through Europe in 1966. Classic tracks and rarities
illuminate a trajectory which was as fast and
fraught with ramifications as a Mercury space
capsule or a Dallas bullet.
This is not a soundtrack in the traditional sense.
The film’s structure plays fast and loose with time,
using a generous helping of unearthed footage from
Dylan’s controversial 1966 tour of the British Isles
as a centerpiece. The compilers of this collection
used the songs in the film as a reference point,
finding alternate takes, rare live performances and
unreleased tracks that amplify the pivotal sequenc-
es in the film and avoid duplication with previously
released tracks.
WHEN I GOT TROUBLES was recorded in 1959 by
Bob’s High school friend Ric Kangas. It is a rare
audio snapshot and most likely the first original
song recorded by Bob Dylan.
In August of 1960, Cleve Patterson bought a new
Radio Shack tape recorder in Minneapolis. Eager to
test it out, he recorded a dozen songs by a local folk
singer and habitual truant at the nearby University.
Here, in one of those twelve songs, Dylan sings the
traditional, RAMBLER GAMBLER, a variant of the well
known folk tune “Wagoner’s Lad.”
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND finds Bob Dylan at
Carnegie Chapter Hall, a small intimate annex to the
well known concert stage. This 1961 recording,
when Dylan is still deeply under the spell of Woody
Guthrie, beautifully captures this non-anthemic
performance imbued with wistfulness.
SONG TO WOODY is a pivotal moment in
No Direction Home. In the film, Dylan says that
he had to write it because he needed to express
the sentiment. It is included here for much the
same reason.
DINK’S SONG and I WAS YOUNG WHEN I LEFT
HOME were recorded in Minneapolis three days
before Christmas by Tony Glover later of well known
folk blues revivalists Koerner, Ray and Glover. Often
bootlegged as the Minnesota Hotel Tapes, this is the
first time it has been made available directly from
Tony’s master tape. In “Dink’s Song,” we can see
how, even at this early date, Dylan was a wonderful
interpretive singer of traditional songs, a fact he
reminded us of in the early nineties with the albums
Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong.
“I Was Young When I Left Home,” like “Rambler
Gambler,” shows the young Dylan collecting floating
ALBUMS 1
lyrics from traditional songs and reshaping them ALBUMS 2
into personal statements. ALBUMS 3
Performers in the competitive Greenwich Village SONGS
club scene quickly learned an arsenal of tricks to
hold the attention of often apathetic audiences.
An exuberant romp like SALLY GAL, slated but not
used on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, was the folkie
equivalent of ending your set with “Not Fade Away.”
The locomotive percussion of the guitar playing
against the harmonica must have kept the tip
jar filled.
In his recent memoir Chronicles, Bob Dylan
describes how he would regularly go the office of
music publisher Lou Levy in the early sixties.
Lou would put him in a small room with just a tape
recorder and Dylan would perform his recent
compositions so they could be transcribed for
copyright and used as sheet music. The process
continued when Dylan signed his new music
publishing deal with Witmark Music. These songs
were then pressed onto discs and sent to performers
in the hope that they would record or ‘cover” the
songs. The “Witmark Demos” capture the young
artist in New York in a strikingly intimate setting as
heard here in the evocative reading of DONT THINK
TWICE, IT’S ALL RIGHT.
Dylan’s performance of the traditional MAN OF
CONSTANT SORROW on the 1963 television program
 Folk Songs and More Folk Songs shows how fully
formed a performer he was even at this young age.
Introduced with a left handed comment about
the song’s recent folk hit status, Dylan presents his
BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND with all the misdirection of a
master magician. After saying that the words are
the important thing, Dylan then proceeds to caress
the melody, first on harmonica and then with his
voice, until the song sounds less like a political
anthem and more like a lover’s question.
Also from his April 1963 performance at Town
Hall comes the powerful MASTERS OF WAR, a song
with tremendous resonance then and, unfortunately,
119
now. Which is probably why it is still a part of
Dylan’s touring repertoire.
The next two songs come from that same year’s
performance at Carnegie Hall. Here, Dylan introduces
A HARD RAINS A-GONNA FALL by explaining that a
hard rain means something big is going to happen,
not necessarily the Cuban Missile Crisis nuke fear
expressed by Nat Hentoff in the otherwise spot-on
Freewheelin’ liner notes.
Joan Baez tells the story of Bob Dylan, finding
it difficult to get a hotel room because of his scruffy
looks, channeling his anger into the lyrics of
WHEN THE SHIP COMES IN. The artist was able to
turn his personal experience into a grand, sweeping
statement as can be seen in No Direction Home
when Dylan and Baez perform the song at the civil
rights March on Washington on the same day as
Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech.
The performance of MR. TAMBOURINE MAN at the
Newport Folk Festival in 1964 is a high point of part
one of No Direction Home and is available almost in
its entirety as a bonus feature on the DVD. In the
interest of added value, the first complete take of
the song, from June of 1964, is included here.
Joining Dylan on this recording is fellow folk singer
and Woody Guthrie co-hort Ramblin’ Jack Elliot.
Supposedly, this is the version of the song sent to
The Byrds though no one can remember for sure.
This 1964 Newport recording of CHIMES OF
FREEDOM has the loose limbed enthusiasm of an
artist at the top of his powers. The sound of a man
with lightening in his pocket.
The first take of IT’S ALL OVER NOW BABY BLUE
features a slight but sweet melodic variant. One of
the most famous kiss-offs in popular music, it also
served, in the role of acoustic encore after the much
booed electric set at Newport, as a bittersweet
goodbye to fans who were unwilling to embrace his
forward motion.
CD 2 starts with a lovely drum-less variation of a
song originally called “Worse than Money” but now
better known as SHE BELONGS TO ME. Dylan has
always found infinite shadings in the blues and this
track with the beautifully liquid guitar of Bruce
Langhorn is no exception.
Here’s where it all changes. The first moment
from the famed three song electric set at Newport.
Peter Yarrow introduces Dylan who launches into
MAGGIE’S FARM, heard in a newly found source tape
revealing the full power of the recently co-opted
Butterfield Blues Band. This is the music that
polarized Newport inspiring a full range of responses
from cheers to boos to rumors of an ax-wielding
Pete Seeger ready to cut the power lines.
Originally called “Phantom Engineer”, IT TAKES
A LOT TO LAUGH, IT TAKES TRAIN TO CRY was still an
up-tempo shuffle here in take 8. Future legend
guitarist Mike Bloomfield continues to turn the blues
idiom upside down.
Take 9 of TOMBSTONE BLUES features more wild
Bloomfield guitar, a galloping baritone sax and what
sounds like background vocals from the band.
There exists another version of the issued take with
background vocal overdubbed by the Chambers
Brothers but the uniqueness of this version merited
it’s inclusion here.
This earlier take of JUST LIKE TOM THUMB BLUES,
like many of the alternates, features slight lyrical
changes that offer a fascinating glimpse inside the
creative process. The performance here is a bit
more focused lacking the smeared crayola bleary
sunrise sound of the issued take, wholly appropriate
for a song about a man who “started out on
burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff”.
Al Kooper discusses this version of DESOLATION
ROW in his notes but two additional things must be
pointed out. The first is Kooper’s inspired Bo
Diddley-esque riffing towards the end of the track.
And, secondly, my favorite lyrical variant on the
album as “They’re spoon-feeding Casanova to get
ALBUMS 1
him to feel more self-assured” is, in this version, ALBUMS 2
“They’re spoon-feeding Casanova the boiled guts ALBUMS 3
of birds”. SONGS
By take 6 of the title track from HIGHWAY 61
REVISITED, Mike Bloomfield has switched to slide
guitar and has nailed down the signature riff. At the
end of this take, Al Kooper takes off the siren
whistle he is wearing around his neck and gives it to
Dylan. The missing piece.
Whether electrifying “Baby Let Me Follow You
Down” in 65, blasting “Masters of War” at the
Grammy Awards in 1991, or transforming “If You
See Her Say Hello in Myrtle Beach” last night, Bob
Dylan has constantly kept his songs alive by
reshaping them, experimenting with form, rhythm,
tempo and texture as can be seen by this slow,
blues-drenched take of LEOPARD SKIN PILLBOX HAT.
There also exists a novelty version complete with
buzzers and car horns. This version, radically
different from the electrified stomp heard on Blonde
on Blonde and introduced by Dylan as a folk song in
No Direction Home, is unique for containing two
verses not heard in other versions, the second of
which is a shout-out to blues great Memphis Minnie
and her famous song “Me & My Chauffeur”
Take 5 of STUCK INSIDE OF MOBILE WITH THE
MEMPHIS BLUES AGAIN shows how quickly the
 magical Nashville sessions gelled. Already better
than most performers on their best day, this song
went through only minor changes before becoming
one of the key tracks on Blonde on Blonde.
The melancholy solo acoustic version of VISIONS
OF JOHANNA seen in No Direction Home can already
be found on Bootleg Series Volume 4, Live 1966.
Instead of repeating it here, the compilers offer an
electric attempt with Al Kooper and the Band. Except
for the missing quarter note crescendos of drummer
Mickey Jones, this is what it may have sounded like
if it had joined “I Don’t Believe You” and “One
Too Many Mornings” in the amplified portion of the
120 ALBUMS 1
European tour. ALBUMS 2
BALLAD OF A THIN MAN frames the widening ALBUMS 3
schism between Dylan and his English folk acolytes SONGS

in No Direction Home. The sound quality leaves

something to be desired. The passion of the
performance doesn’t. What were those people
complaining about?
Finally, the famous “Judas” version of LIKE A
ROLLING STONE has previously appeared on the
Bootleg Series Volume 4, Live 1966 release, but as
the song frames No Direction Home as well as
providing its title, it seemed sacrilege to exclude it.
One of the most exciting performances ever
captured, it’s a great surprise to discover in the
documentary’s final moments that footage actually
exists of Dylan dressing down his most famous
heckler before turning to the juggernaut that is his
band and imploring them roll across the nay-sayers.
Play it loud.

— Eddie Gorodetsky, Los Feliz, California

 Blowin’ In The Wind All Along The Watchtower Gotta Serve Somebody
The Times Lay, Lady, Lay Jokerman
They Are A-Changin’ Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door Not Dark Yet
Mr. Tambourine Man Tangled Up In Blue Things Have Changed
Like A Rolling Stone Hurricane Summer Days
Rainy Day Forever Young
Women # 12 & 35

121 ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

The Best Of Bob Dylan

November 15, 2005
 Thunder on the Mountain Workingman’s Blues #2 Musicians: Bob Dylan – vocals,
guitar, harmonica, piano; Tony Garnier
Spirit on the Water Beyond the Horizon – bass, cello; George G. Receli –
drums, percussion; Stu Kimball –
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Nettie Moore guitar; Denny Freeman – guitar;
When the Deal Goes Down The Levee’s Gonna Break Donnie Herron – steel guitar, violin,
viola, mandolin.
Someday Baby Ain’t Talkin’

122 ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
SONGS

Modern Times
Produced by Jack Frost
August 29, 2006
 1. I Was Young When I Left Home
( Traditional)
Arranged by Bob Dylan
Recorded 1961 - Released 2001
From: Bonus disc for “Love and Theft”,
Columbia 86076
10.
Produced by Jack Frost
2. Wade In The Water
(Traditional)
Arranged by Bob Dylan
Recorded 1961 - Released 1994
11.
From: “The Minnesota Hotel Tape.”
Previously released on Bakhalls Litterara
Roster (The Ambush’s Literary Voices)
compilation CD given away with an issue of the
123 Swedish literary magazine Bakhall.
3. Handsome Molly (Live)
12.
(Traditional)
Arranged by Bob Dylan
Recorded 1962 - Released 2005
From: Bob Dylan Live At The Gaslight 1962
4. Baby, Please Don’t Go
( Joe Williams)
13.
Recorded 1962 - Released 2005
Recorded during the sessions for
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
Previously available as iTunes bonus track for
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home.
Produced by John Hammond
5. The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Live)
( Bob Dylan)
14.
Recorded 1963 - Released 2005
From: The promo CD Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie
Columbia Legacy CSK 17254
6. Ballad Of Hollis Brown (Live)

(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1963 - Released 2005
15.
From: The promo CD Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie
Columbia Legacy CSK 17254
7. Boots Of Spanish Leather (Live)
( Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1963 - Released 2005
From: The promo CD Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie
16.
Columbia Legacy CSK 17254
Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Live)
Rare Tracks From The Vaults 8.
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1963 - Released 2005
From: The promo CD Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie
Hall 1963, Columbia Legacy CSK 17254
9. North Country Blues (Live)
( Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1963 - Released 2005
From: The promo CD Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie
Hall 1963, Columbia Legacy CSK 17254
With God On Our Side (Live)
( Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1963 - Released 2005
From: The promo CD Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie
Hall 1963, Columbia Legacy CSK 17254
Mr. Tambourine Man (Live)
( Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1964, live at The Newport Folk
Festival - Released 2005. Previously available
as iTunes bonus track for The Bootleg Series
ALBUMS 1
Vol. 7: No Direction Home.
ALBUMS 2
To Ramona (Live) ALBUMS 3
( Bob Dylan) SONGS
Recorded 1965, live at The Oval, City Hall,
Sheffield, England - Released 2000
From: DVD release of D. A. Pennebaker’s
1965 film Don’t Look Back.
Outlaw Blues (Acoustic Version)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1965 - Released 2005
Recorded during the sessions for Bringing
It All Back Home. Previously available as
iTunes bonus track for The Bootleg Series
Vol. 7: No Direction Home.
Produced by Tom Wilson
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
( Bob Dylan)
Recorded in Liverpool, England, May 1966.
From: Non-LP B-side of Columbia
single # 43683 “I Want You”
Produced by Bob Johnston
I Ain’t Got No Home
( Woody Guthrie)
Recorded 1968 - Released 1972
From: Tribute To Woody Guthrie
Columbia 31171
Produced by Harold Leventhal
The Grand Coulee Dam
(Woody Guthrie)
Recorded 1968 - Released 1972
From: Tribute To Woody Guthrie
Columbia 31171
Produced by Harold Leventhal RAR E TRA C K S 2
 17. Went To See The Gypsy
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1970 - Released 2004
Recorded during the sessions for
New Morning. Previously available
as iTunes download single.
Produced by Bob Johnston
18. George Jackson (Acoustic Version)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1971 - Released 1971
From: Columbia Single #45516
Produced by Bob Dylan
19. George Jackson (Big Band Version)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1971 - Released 1971
124 From: Columbia Single #45516
Produced by Bob Dylan
20. People Get Ready
(Curtis Mayfield)
Recorded 1975 - Released 1978
From: Columbia Promo EP 4 Songs From
Renaldo & Clara, Columbia AS 422
21. Never Let Me Go (Live)
(Joseph Wade Scott)
Recorded 1975 - Released 1978
From: Columbia Promo EP 4 Songs From
Renaldo & Clara, Columbia AS 422
22. Rita May
(Bob Dylan-Jacques Levy)
Recorded 1976 - Released 1977
From: Non-LP B-side of Columbia
Single # 10454, “Stuck Inside Of Mobile
With The Memphis Blues Again”
Produced by Don Devito & Bob Dylan
23. Dead Man, Dead Man (Live)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1981, Live in New
Orleans - Released 1989
From: Non LP B-side of “Everything
Is Broken,” Columbia single
24. I And I (Reggae Mix)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1981 - Released 2004
From: Is It Rolling Bob,
Sanctuary/RAS 06078-89914-2
Produced by Bob Dylan & Mark Knopfler.
Remixed by Doctor Dread
25. Night After Night
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1986 - Released 1987
From: Soundtrack to the film
Hearts Of Fire, Columbia 40870
Produced by Beau Hill
26. Pretty Boy Floyd
(Woody Guthrie)
Recorded 1987 - Released 1988
From: Soundtrack to Folkways: A Vision
Shared-Tribute To Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly,
Columbia 44034
27. Cold Irons Bound (Live)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1997, live at the El Rey Theater,
Los Angeles, CA. - Released 1998
From: B-side of various European CBS
“Love Sick” singles. Also released as a
bonus track included with the Australian
Time Out Of Mind, limited tour edition.
28. Born In Time (Live)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1998, live at the New Jersey
Center For The Performing Arts, Newark, NJ –
Released 1998
From: B-side of various European CBS
“Love Sick” singles. Also released as a
bonus track included with the Australian
Time Out Of Mind, limited tour edition.
29. Somebody Touched Me (Live)
(Traditional)
Arranged by Bob Dylan
Recorded 2000, live in Portsmouth,
England. Previously unreleased in the U.S.
Available on Bob Dylan Live, 1961-2000,
Thirty-Nine Years Of Great Concert
Performances, Sony Japan SRCS 2438
30. Country Pie (Live)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 2000, live in Portsmouth, England
Previously unreleased in the U.S. Available
on Bob Dylan Live, 1961-2000, Thirty-Nine
Years Of Great Concert Performances,
Sony Japan SRCS 2438
31. Things Have Changed (Live)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 2000, live in Portsmouth, England
Previously unreleased in the U.S. Available
on Bob Dylan Live, 1961-2000, Thirty-Nine
Years Of Great Concert Performances,
Sony Japan SRCS 2438
32. Return To Me 39.
(Daniel Di Minno-Carmen Lombardo)
Released 2001
From: The Sopranos, Columbia/Sony Music
Soundtrax, C2S 85453
33. Waitin’ For You
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 2002 - Released 2002 40.
From: Music From The Motion Picture: Divine
Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, DMZ Records/
Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax 86534
Produced by T Bone Burnett
34. Man Of Peace (With The Grateful Dead)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1987 - Released 2002 41.
From: The Grateful Dead, Postcards Of
The Hanging: The Grateful Dead Perform
The Songs Of Bob Dylan, BMG/Arista
4069/7822-14069-2
35. ‘Cross The Green Mountain
(Bob Dylan) 42.
Recorded 2002 - Released 2003
From: Gods and Generals Original
Motion Picture Soundtrack, Limited Edition
Version, Sony Classical/Sony Music
Soundtrax SK 87891
A Jack Frost Production
36. Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking
(Duet Version) Performed by Bob Dylan
& Mavis Staples
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 2002 - Released 2003
From: Gotta Serve Somebody –
The Gospel Songs Of Bob Dylan
Columbia/Legacy CK 89015
Executive Producer: Jeff Gaskill
37. Down In The Flood (Live)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 2002 - Released 2003
From: Masked And Anonymous, Music From
The Motion Picture, Columbia/Sony Music
Soundtrax CK 90536, live soundstage recording.
Produced by Jeff Rosen
38. Diamond Joe (Live)
(Traditional)
Recorded 2002 - Released 2003
From: Masked And Anonymous, Music From
The Motion Picture, Columbia/Sony Music
Soundtrax CK 90536, live soundstage recording.
Produced by Jeff Rosen
Dixie (Live)
(Traditional) (arranged by Bob Dylan)
Recorded 2002 - Released 2003
From: Masked And Anonymous, Music From
The Motion Picture, Columbia/Sony Music
Soundtrax CK 90536, live soundstage recording.
Produced by Jeff Rosen
Cold Irons Bound (Live)
(Bob Dylan) ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
Recorded 2002 - Released 2003
ALBUMS 3
From: Masked And Anonymous, Music From
SONGS
The Motion Picture, Columbia/Sony Music
Soundtrax CK 90536, live soundstage recording.
Produced by Jeff Rosen
Love Sick (Remix)
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 1997 - Released 2004
From: Lovesick, Victoria’s Secret
exclusive promo CD Sony A72812
Produced by Daniel Lanois
Tell ‘Ol Bill
(Bob Dylan)
Recorded 2005 - Released 2005
From: North Country, Music From The
Motion Picture, Sony Music Soundtrax/
Columbia CK 97777
RAR E TRA C K S 1
125 THE SONGS
‘Cross The Green Mountain (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  8:15
10,000 Men (Under The Red Sky)  4:21
2 X 2 (Under The Red Sky)  3:36
4th Time Around (Blonde On Blonde)  4:33
4th Time Around (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  5:37
A Fool Such As I (Dylan)  2:41
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  6:52
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  5:16
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  7:44
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  7:46
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  6:50
A Satisfied Mind (Saved)  1:57
Abandoned Love [July 1975] (Biograph)  4:27
Absolutely Sweet Marie (Blonde On Blonde)  4:54
Ain’t No More Cane (The Basement Tapes)  3:56
Ain’t Talkin’ (Modern Times)  8:48
Alberta #1 (Self Portrait)  2:55
Alberta #2 (Self Portrait)  3:11
All Along The Watchtower (Before The Flood)  2:58
All Along The Watchtower (Biograph)  3:02
All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  3:20
All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  2:31
All Along The Watchtower (Dylan & The Dead)  6:17
ALBUMS 1
ALBUMS 2
ALBUMS 3
SONGS
All Along The Watchtower (John Wesley Harding)  2:32
All Along The Watchtower (MTV Unplugged)  3:36
All Along The Watchtower (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  2:32
All Along The Watchtower (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:31
All I Really Want To Do (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  4:02
All I Really Want To Do (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  3:37
All I Really Want To Do (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  4:05
All I Really Want To Do (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  4:02
All The Tired Horses (Self Portrait)  3:09
Angelina [5/4/81] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  6:57
Apple Suckling Tree (The Basement Tapes)  2:48
Are You Ready? (Saved)  4:41
Arthur Mcbride (Good As I Been To You)  6:22
As I Went Out One Morning (John Wesley Harding)  2:50
Baby, I’m In The Mood For You [7/9/62] (Biograph)  2:55
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Biograph)  2:33
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  4:07
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Bob Dylan)2:33
Baby, Please Don’t Go (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  1:57
Baby, Stop Crying (Street-Legal)  5:19
Ballad In Plain D (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  8:16
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Before The Flood)  3:29
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:47
 Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  8:00 Call Letter Blues [9/16/74] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:27
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  7:45 Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? (Biograph)  3:33
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Highway 61 Revisited)  5:56 Canadee-I-O (Good As I Been To You)  4:23
Ballad Of A Thin Man (Real Live)  4:05 Can’t Help Falling In Love (Dylan)  4:17
Ballad Of Hollis Brown (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  5:03 Can’t Wait (Time Out Of Mind)  5:46
Ballad Of Hollis Brown [Live Carnegie Hall 1963] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  6:02 Cantina Theme (Workin’ For The Law) (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  2:54
Belle Isle (Self Portrait)  2:27 Caribbean Wind [4/7/81] (Biograph)  5:52
Bessie Smith (The Basement Tapes)  4:17 Catfish [7/28/75] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:48
Beyond the Horizon (Modern Times)  5:36 Cat’s In The Well (Under The Red Sky)  3:20
Big Yellow Taxi (Dylan)  2:12 Changing Of The Guards (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  6:36
Billy 1 (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  3:53 Changing Of The Guards (Street-Legal)  7:03
Billy 4 (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  4:59 Chimes Of Freedom (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  7:09
Billy 7 (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  2:08 Chimes Of Freedom (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  8:02
126 ALBUMS 1
Black Crow Blues (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  3:12 Clean-Cut Kid (Empire Burlesque)  4:14 ALBUMS 2
Black Diamond Bay (Desire)  7:28 Clothes Line Saga (The Basement Tapes)  2:56 ALBUMS 3
Blackjack Davey (Good As I Been To You)  5:49 Cold Irons Bound (Time Out Of Mind)  7:14 SONGS

Blind Willie McTell [5/5/83] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:52 Cold Irons Bound [Live El Ray Theater 1997] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  6:49
Blood In My Eyes (World Gone Wrong)  5:04 Cold Irons Bound (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:43
Blowin’ In The Wind (Before The Flood)  3:46 Copper Kettle (Self Portrait)  3:32
Blowin’ In The Wind (Biograph)  2:47 Corrina, Corrina (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  2:42
Blowin’ In The Wind (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:25 Country Pie (Nashville Skyline)  1:37
Blowin’ In The Wind (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  2:46 Country Pie [Live Portsmouth 2000] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:47
Blowin’ In The Wind (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  2:43 Covenant Woman (Saved)  6:02
Blowin’ In The Wind (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  4:03 Cry A While (“Love And Theft”)  5:05
Blowin’ In The Wind (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  2:47
Blowin’ In The Wind (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  2:47 Dark Eyes (Empire Burlesque)  5:04
Blowin’ In The Wind (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:46 Day Of The Locusts (New Morning)  3:58
Blue Moon (Self Portrait)  2:27 Days Of 49 (Self Portrait)  5:25
Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream (Bringing It All Back Home)  6:31 Dead Man, Dead Man (Shot Of Love)  3:58
Bob Dylan’s Blues (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  2:21 Dead Man, Dead Man [Live New Orleans 1981] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  3:56
Bob Dylan’s Dream (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  5:01 Dear Landlord (Biograph)  3:15
Boots Of Spanish Leather (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  4:37 Dear Landlord (John Wesley Harding)  3:15
Boots Of Spanish Leather [Live Carnegie Hall 1963] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:38 Death Is Not The End (Down In The Groove)  5:10
Born In Time (Under The Red Sky)  3:38 Delia (World Gone Wrong)  5:45
Born In Time [Live NJ 1998] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:19 Desolation Row (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  12:11
Broke Down Engine (World Gone Wrong)  3:20 Desolation Row (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  11:44
Brownsville Girl (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  11:03 Desolation Row (Highway 61 Revisited)  11:20
Brownsville Girl (Knocked Out Loaded)  11:00 Desolation Row (MTV Unplugged)  8:22
Buckets Of Rain (Blood On The Tracks)  3:24 Diamond Joe [Masked and Anonymous Soundtrack] (Good As I Been To You)  3:17
Bunkhouse Theme (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  2:13 Diamond Joe (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:33
Bye And Bye (“Love And Theft”)  3:16 Dignity (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  5:57
 Dignity (MTV Unplugged)  6:30
Dink’s Song (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  4:37
Dirge (Planet Waves)  5:34
Dirt Road Blues (Time Out Of Mind)  3:35
Disease Of Conceit (Oh Mercy)  3:43
Dixie (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:13
Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others) (Slow Train Coming)  3:52
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:37
Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight (Infidels)  5:54
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Before The Flood)  3:34
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:55
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:37
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  4:03
127
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:35
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  3:39
Don’t Ya Tell Henry (The Basement Tapes)  3:12
Down Along The Cove (John Wesley Harding)  2:22
Down In The Flood (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  2:49
Down In The Flood (The Basement Tapes)  2:03
Down In The Flood [Masked and Anonymous Soundtrack]
(Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  3:36
Down The Highway (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  3:24
Drifter’s Escape (John Wesley Harding)  2:47
Driftin’ Too Far From Shore (Knocked Out Loaded)  3:39
Early Mornin’ Rain (Self Portrait)  3:32
Emotionally Yours (Empire Burlesque)  4:36
Endless Highway (Before The Flood)  4:45
Eternal Circle [10/24/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:37
Every Grain Of Sand (Biograph)  6:14
Every Grain Of Sand [9/23/80] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:37
Every Grain Of Sand (Shot Of Love)  6:12
Everything Is Broken (Oh Mercy)  3:13
Everything Is Broken (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:13
Farewell Angelina [1/13/65] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:26
Father Of Night (New Morning)  1:28
Final Theme (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  5:21
Fixin’ To Die (Bob Dylan)2:18
Floater (Too Much To Ask) (“Love And Theft”)  5:00
Foot Of Pride [4/25/83] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:56
Forever Young [June 1973] (Biograph)  2:02
Forever Young (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  5:38
Forever Young (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  4:56
Forever Young (Planet Waves)  2:48
Forever Young (Planet Waves)  4:55
Forever Young (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  4:55
Forever Young (The Essential Bob Dylan)  4:56
Frankie & Albert (Good As I Been To You)  3:50
Freight Train Blues (Bob Dylan)2:16
Froggie Went A Courtin’ (Good As I Been To You)  6:23
From A Buick 6 (Highway 61 Revisited)  3:15
Gates Of Eden (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  8:37
ALBUMS 1
Gates Of Eden (Bringing It All Back Home)  5:41 ALBUMS 2
George Jackson [Acoustic Version] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  3:37 ALBUMS 3
George Jackson [Big Band Version] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:34 SONGS
Girl From The North Country (Real Live)  4:25
Girl From The North Country (The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration)  5:12
Girl From The North Country (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  3:20
Girl From The North Country [with Johnny Cash] (Nashville Skyline)  3:41
God Knows (Under The Red Sky)  3:02
Goin’ To Acapulco (The Basement Tapes)  5:26
Going, Going, Gone (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:22
Going, Going, Gone (Planet Waves)  3:26
Golden Loom [7/30/75] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:26
Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking (Slow Train Coming)  5:27
Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking [Duet with Mavis Staples] 
(Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:13
Gospel Plow (Bob Dylan)  1:43
Got My Mind Made Up (Knocked Out Loaded)  2:53
Gotta Serve Somebody (Biograph)  5:24
Gotta Serve Somebody (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  5:24
Gotta Serve Somebody (Dylan & The Dead)  5:42
Gotta Serve Somebody (Slow Train Coming)  5:23
Gotta Serve Somebody (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  5:23
Gotta Serve Somebody (The Essential Bob Dylan)  5:24
Gotta Travel On (Self Portrait)  3:06
Had A Dream About You, Baby (Down In The Groove)  2:51
Handsome Molly [Live] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:47
Handy Dandy (Under The Red Sky)  4:01
 Hard Times (Good As I Been To You)  4:34 I Pity The Poor Immigrant (John Wesley Harding)  4:13
Hard Times In New York Town [12/22/61] I Shall Be Free (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)4:47
(Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:17 I Shall Be Free No. 10 (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  4:46
Hazel (Planet Waves)  2:48 I Shall Be Released (Biograph)  3:02
He Was A Friend Of Mine [11/20/61] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:02 I Shall Be Released (Before The Flood)  3:19
Heart Of Mine [Live August 1981] (Biograph)  3:42 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:12
Heart Of Mine (Shot Of Love)  4:29 I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:02
High Water (For Charley Patton) (“Love And Theft”)  4:05 I Shall Be Released [Fall 1967] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:54
Highlands (Time Out Of Mind)  16:32 I Shall Be Released (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:32
Highway 51 Blues(Bob Dylan)  2:49 I Shall Be Released (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:02
Highway 61 Revisited (Before The Flood)  4:05 I Threw It All Away (Hard Rain)  3:18
Highway 61 Revisited (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:38 I Threw It All Away (Nashville Skyline)  2:23
Highway 61 Revisited (Highway 61 Revisited)  3:25 I Wanna Be Your Lover [October 1965] (Biograph)  3:25
128 ALBUMS 1
Highway 61 Revisited (Real Live)  5:07 I Want You (Biograph)  3:05 ALBUMS 2
Honest With Me (“Love And Theft”)  5:49 I Want You (Blonde On Blonde)  3:05 ALBUMS 3
Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  1:58 I Want You (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  2:34 SONGS

House Carpenter [3/19/62] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:07 I Want You (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  3:09
House Of The Risin’ Sun (Bob Dylan)  5:16 I Want You (Dylan & The Dead)  3:59
Hurricane (Desire)  8 :32 I Was Young When I Left Home (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  5:19
Hurricane (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  8:33 I Was Young When I Left Home [1961] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:23
Hurricane (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  8:15 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:39
Hurricane (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  8:32 Idiot Wind (Blood On The Tracks)  7:49
Hurricane (The Essential Bob Dylan)  8:33 Idiot Wind [9/19/74] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  8:52
Idiot Wind (Hard Rain)  10:12
I Ain’t Got No Home (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  3:45 If Dogs Run Free (New Morning)  3:37
I Am A Lonesome Hobo (John Wesley Harding)  3:21 If Not For You (Biograph)  2:41
I And I (Infidels)  5:12 If Not For You (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  2:40
I And I (Real Live)  6:00 If Not For You [5/1/70] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:32
I And I [Reggae Mix] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:35 If Not For You (New Morning)  2:39
I Believe In You (Biograph)  5:09 If Not For You (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:40
I Believe In You (Slow Train Coming)  5:08 If You Gotta Go, Go Now [1/15/65] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:54
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)  If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  4:06
(Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  4:22 If You See Her, Say Hello (Blood On The Tracks)  4:49
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)  If You See Her, Say Hello [9/16/74] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:44
[Live 5/6/66] (Biograph)  5:18 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (Biograph)  2:45
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)  I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  2:39
(Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  6:10 I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (John Wesley Harding)  2:38
I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)  I’ll Keep It With Mine [1/4/65] (Biograph)  3:44
(Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  5:19 I’ll Keep It With Mine [1/27/66] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:38
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine (John Wesley Harding)  3:54 I’ll Remember You (Empire Burlesque)  4:12
I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know (Self Portrait)  2:21 In My Time Of Dyin’ (Bob Dylan)  2:37
 In Search Of Little Sadie (Self Portrait)  2:26
In The Garden (Saved)  5:58
In The Summertime (Shot Of Love)  3:34
Is Your Love In Vain? (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:02
Is Your Love In Vain? (Street-Legal)  4:32
Isis [Live 12/4/75] (Biograph)  5:20
Isis (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  5:11
Isis (Desire)  6 :58
It Ain’t Me, Babe (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:32
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  3:33
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Before The Flood)  3:15
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Biograph)  3:33
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  3:32
129
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  5:25
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  5:11
It Ain’t Me, Babe (Real Live)  5:17
It Hurts Me Too (Self Portrait)  3:13
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry [6/15/65]
(Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:20
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry  Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Highway 61 Revisited)  5:27
(Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  3:12
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry  Katie’s Been Gone (The Basement Tapes)  2:43
(Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:33
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry (Highway 61 Revisited)  4:04
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (The Essential Bob Dylan)  4:14
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  4:14
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue [Live 5/17/66] (Biograph)  5:39
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  6:35
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:33
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:33
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bringing It All Back Home)  4:14
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (Before The Flood)  5:12
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  6:04
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  10:08
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (Bringing It All Back Home)  7:31
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration)  6:21
Jack-A-Roe (World Gone Wrong)  4:59
Jet Pilot [October 1965] (Biograph)  0:49
Jim Jones (Good As I Been To You)  3:55
Joey (Desire)  11:04
Joey (Dylan & The Dead)  9:10
John Brown (MTV Unplugged)  5:22
John Wesley Harding (John Wesley Harding)  2:57
Jokerman (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  6:15
Jokerman (Infidels)  6:15
Jokerman (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  6:15
Jokerman (The Essential Bob Dylan)  6:15
Just Like A Woman (Before The Flood)  4:46
Just Like A Woman (Biograph)  4:54
Just Like A Woman (Blonde On Blonde)  4:50
Just Like A Woman (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  5:03
Just Like A Woman (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  4:50
Just Like A Woman (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  6:32
ALBUMS 1
Just Like A Woman (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:31 ALBUMS 2
Just Like A Woman (The Essential Bob Dylan)  4:50 ALBUMS 3
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:37 SONGS
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  5:28
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  6:17
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  5:42
Kingsport Town [11/14/62] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:28
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Before The Flood)  3:30
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Biograph)  2:32
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:00
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  2:30
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:21
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Dylan & The Dead)  6:35
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (MTV Unplugged)  5:30
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  2:30
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration)  5:38
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  2:30
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:30
Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie [4/12/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  7:08
Lay Down Your Weary Tune [10/24/63] (Biograph)  4:35
Lay Down Your Weary Tune [Live Carnegie Hall 1963] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:02
Lay, Lady, Lay (Before The Flood)  3:00
Lay, Lady, Lay (Biograph)  3:17
Lay, Lady, Lay (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:17
 Lay, Lady, Lay (Hard Rain)  4:47
Lay, Lady, Lay (Nashville Skyline)  3:18
Lay, Lady, Lay (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  3:18
Lay, Lady, Lay (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:17
Lenny Bruce (Shot Of Love)  4:32
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Blonde On Blonde)  3:56
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  4:01
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  6:23
Let It Be Me (Self Portrait)  2:59
Let Me Die In My Footsteps [4/25/62] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:32
Let’s Stick Together (Down In The Groove)  3:09
License To Kill (Infidels)  3:33
License To Kill (Real Live)  3:26
130
Like A Rolling Stone (Before The Flood)  6:06
Like A Rolling Stone (Biograph)  6:08
Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  6:31
Maggie’s Farm (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:51
Maggie’s Farm (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  5:06
Maggie’s Farm (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:51
Maggie’s Farm (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  5:53
Maggie’s Farm (Bringing It All Back Home)  3:55
Maggie’s Farm (Hard Rain)  5:23
Maggie’s Farm (Real Live)  4:54
Main Title Theme (Billy) (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  6:03
Make You Feel My Love (Time Out Of Mind)  3:31
Mama, You Been On My Mind [6/9/64] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:55
Mama, You Been On My Mind (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  3:11
Mama, You Been On My Mind (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  3:36
Man Gave Names To All The Animals (Slow Train Coming)  4:25
ALBUMS 1
Man In The Long Black Coat (Oh Mercy)  4:33 ALBUMS 2
Man Of Constant Sorrow (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:03 ALBUMS 3
Man Of Constant Sorrow (Bob Dylan)  3:05 SONGS

Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  6:07 Man Of Peace (Infidels)  6:30
Like A Rolling Stone [6/15/65] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  1:34 Man Of Peace [with The Grateful Dead] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  4:20
Like A Rolling Stone (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  8:12 Man On The Street [11/22/61] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  1:55
Like A Rolling Stone (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  8:12 Mary Ann (Dylan)  2:40
Like A Rolling Stone (Highway 61 Revisited)  6:09 Masters Of War (Biograph)  4:31
Like A Rolling Stone (MTV Unplugged)  9:09 Masters Of War (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  4:41
Like A Rolling Stone (Self Portrait)  5:15 Masters Of War (Real Live)  6:35
Like A Rolling Stone (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  6:09 Masters Of War (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  4:32
Like A Rolling Stone (The Essential Bob Dylan)  6:07 Maybe Someday (Knocked Out Loaded)  3:17
Lily Of The West (Dylan)  3:44 Meet Me In The Morning (Blood On The Tracks)  4:21
Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts (Blood On The Tracks)  8:51 Million Dollar Bash (Biograph)  2:32
Little Maggie (Good As I Been To You)  4:30 Million Dollar Bash (The Basement Tapes)  2:31
Little Sadie (Self Portrait)  1:58 Million Miles (Time Out Of Mind)  5:52
Living The Blues (Self Portrait)  2:40 Minstrel Boy (Self Portrait)  3:30
Lo And Behold! (The Basement Tapes)  2:45 Mississippi (“Love And Theft”)  5:21
Lone Pilgrim (World Gone Wrong)  2:39 Mixed Up Confusion (Biograph)  2:28
Lonesome Day Blues (“Love And Theft”)  6:05 Moonlight (“Love And Theft”)  3:23
Long Distance Operator (The Basement Tapes)  3:38 Moonshiner [8/12/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:05
Lord Protect My Child [5/3/83] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:57 Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine (Biograph)  3:27
Love Henry (World Gone Wrong)  4:23 Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine (Before The Flood)  3:16
Love Minus Zero/No Limit (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  3:52 Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine (Blonde On Blonde)  3:27
Love Minus Zero/No Limit (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  3:13 Most Of The Time (Oh Mercy)  5:03
Love Minus Zero/No Limit (Bringing It All Back Home)  2:49 Motorpsycho Nitemare (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  4:32
Love Sick (Time Out Of Mind)  5:20 Mozambique (Desire)  3 :00
Love Sick [Remix] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:25 Mr. Bojangles (Dylan)  5:31
 Mr. Tambourine Man (Biograph)  5:28
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:54
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  5:26
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  8:52
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  5:39
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  6:34
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  6:42
Mr. Tambourine Man (Bringing It All Back Home)  5:25
Mr. Tambourine Man (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  5:25
Mr. Tambourine Man (The Essential Bob Dylan)  5:26
Mr. Tambourine Man [Newport Folk Festival 1964] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  7:22
My Back Pages (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  4:22
My Back Pages (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  4:23
131
My Back Pages (The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration)  4:40
Nashville Skyline Rag (Nashville Skyline)  3 :11
Need A Woman [5/4/81] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:42
Neighborhood Bully (Infidels)  4:35
Nettie Moore  (Modern Times)  6:52
Never Gonna Be The Same Again (Empire Burlesque)  3:06
Never Let Me Go [Live] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:49
Never Say Goodbye (Planet Waves)  2:51
New Morning (New Morning)  3:58
New Pony (Street-Legal)  4:39
Night After Night (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:50
Ninety Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street) (Down In The Groove)  2:55
No More Auction Block [Late 1962] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:02
No Time To Think (Street-Legal)  8:22
Nobody ‘Cept You [11/2/73] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:40
North Country Blues (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  4:31
North Country Blues [Live Carnegie Hall 1963] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  4:15
Not Dark Yet (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  6:28
Not Dark Yet (The Essential Bob Dylan)  6:28
Not Dark Yet (Time Out Of Mind)  6:28
Nothing Was Delivered (The Basement Tapes)  4:22
Obviously 5 Believers (Blonde On Blonde)  3:33
Odds And Ends (The Basement Tapes)  1:46
Oh, Sister (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:44
Oh, Sister (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:04
Oh, Sister (Desire)  4:01
Oh, Sister (Hard Rain)  5:08
On A Night Like This (Biograph)  2:57
On A Night Like This (Planet Waves)  2:57
On The Road Again (Bringing It All Back Home)  2:35
One More Cup Of Coffee (Desire)  3:44
One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below) (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  3:19
One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below) (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:14
One More Night (Nashville Skyline)  2:22
One More Weekend (New Morning)  3:08
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) (Blonde On Blonde)  4:52
One Too Many Mornings (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  4:08
One Too Many Mornings (Hard Rain)  3:47
One Too Many Mornings (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  2:37
ALBUMS 1
Only A Hobo [8/12/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:28 ALBUMS 2
Only A Pawn In Their Game (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  3:30 ALBUMS 3
Open The Door, Homer (The Basement Tapes)  2:49 SONGS
Orange Juice Blues (The Basement Tapes)  3:37
Outlaw Blues (Bringing It All Back Home)  3:02
Outlaw Blues [Acoustic Version] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:16
Oxford Town (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  1:48
Paths Of Victory [8/12/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:17
Peggy Day (Nashville Skyline)  2:00
People Get Ready (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:50
Percy’s Song [10/23/63] (Biograph)  7:40
Please, Mrs. Henry (The Basement Tapes)  2:31
Pledging My Time (Blonde On Blonde)  3:48
Po’ Boy (“Love And Theft”)  3:06
Political World (Oh Mercy)  3:48
Positively 4th Street (Biograph)  3:52
Positively 4th Street (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  3:53
Positively 4th Street (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:53
Precious Angel (Slow Train Coming)  6:29
Precious Memories (Knocked Out Loaded)  3:13
Pressing On (Saved)  5:11
Pretty Boy Floyd (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  4:24
Pretty Peggy-O (Bob Dylan)  3:21
Property Of Jesus (Shot Of Love)  4:33
Queen Jane Approximately (Dylan & The Dead)  6:30
Queen Jane Approximately (Highway 61 Revisited)  5:27
 Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) [July 1967] (Biograph)  2:18
Quit Your Low Down Ways [7/9/62] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:39
Ragged & Dirty (World Gone Wrong)  4:07
Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  4:34
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Before The Flood)  3:09
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Blonde On Blonde)4.34
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  4:34
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (MTV Unplugged)  3:31
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (The Essential Bob Dylan)  4:34
Rambler, Gambler (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  2:16
Rambling, Gambling Willie [4/24/62] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:12
Rank Strangers To Me (Down In The Groove)  2:57
132
Restless Farewell (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  5:33
Return To Me (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:20
Ring Them Bells (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  3:01
Ring Them Bells (Oh Mercy)  3:00
Rita May (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  3:09
River Theme (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  1:26
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ (Modern Times)  6:01
Romance In Durango [Live 12/4/75] (Biograph)  4:38
Romance In Durango (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  5:22
Romance In Durango (Desire)  5:44
Ruben Remus (The Basement Tapes)  3:13
Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands (Blonde On Blonde)  11:19
Sally Gal (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  2:37
Sally Sue Brown (Down In The Groove)  2:28
Santa Fe [Fall 1967] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:08
Sara (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:29
Sara (Desire)  5:30
Sarah Jane (Dylan)  2:43
Saved (Saved)  4:00
Saving Grace (Saved)  5:01
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (Bob Dylan)2;40
Seeing The Real You At Last (Empire Burlesque)  4:18
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power) (Biograph)  5:40
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power) (Street-Legal)  5:42
Series Of Dreams (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  5:53
Series Of Dreams [3/23/89] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:52
Seven Curses [8/6/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:47
Seven Days [4/21/76] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:59
She Belongs To Me (Self Portrait)  2:41
She Belongs To Me (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  2:49
She Belongs To Me (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  4:07
She Belongs To Me (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:18
She Belongs To Me (Bringing It All Back Home)  2:46
Shelter From The Storm (Blood On The Tracks)  5:02
Shelter From The Storm (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:30
Shelter From The Storm (Hard Rain)  5:29
Shelter From The Storm (The Essential Bob Dylan)  5:02
Shenandoah (Down In The Groove)  3:38
She’s Your Lover Now [1/21/66] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  6:08
Shooting Star (MTV Unplugged)  4:06
ALBUMS 1
Shooting Star (Oh Mercy)  3:11 ALBUMS 2
Shot Of Love (Shot Of Love)  4:18 ALBUMS 3
Sign On The Window (New Morning)  3:45 SONGS
Silver Dagger (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  3:47
Silvio (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  3:06
Silvio (Down In The Groove)  3:06
Silvio (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:06
Simple Twist Of Fate (Blood On The Tracks)  4:17
Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  4:15
Simple Twist Of Fate (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:16
Sittin’ On Top Of The World (Good As I Been To You)  4:30
Sitting On A Barbed-Wire Fence [6/15/65] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:52
Slow Train (Dylan & The Dead)  4:54
Slow Train (Slow Train Coming)  5:56
Solid Rock (Biograph)  3:56
Solid Rock (Saved)  3:55
Somebody Touched Me [Live] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:42
Someday Baby (Modern Times)  4:55
Someone’s Got A Hold Of My Heart [4/25/83] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:32
Something There Is About You (Planet Waves)  4:42
Something’s Burning, Baby (Empire Burlesque)  4:57
Song To Woody (Bob Dylan)  2:41
Song To Woody (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  2:41
Spanish Harlem Incident (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  2:25
Spanish Harlem Incident (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  2:51
Spanish Is The Loving Tongue (Dylan)  4:13
Spirit on the Water (Modern Times)  7:42
Stack A Lee (World Gone Wrong)  3:51
 Stage Fright (Before The Flood)  4:22
Standing In The Doorway (Time Out Of Mind)  7:42
Step It Up And Go (Good As I Been To You)  2:57
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again  Tell Me, Momma (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  5:39
(Blonde On Blonde)  7:04
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again  The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest (John Wesley Harding)  5:33
(Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  7:08
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again  The Boxer (Self Portrait)  2:45
(Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  5:44
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again (Hard Rain)  6:01
Subterranean Homesick Blues (Biograph)  2:19
Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  2:17
Subterranean Homesick Blues [1/13/65] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:17
133
Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bringing It All Back Home)  2:18
Subterranean Homesick Blues (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:17
Sugar Baby (“Love And Theft”)  6:41
Summer Days (“Love And Theft”)  4:53
Summer Days (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  4:53
Suze (The Cough Song) [10/24/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  1:57
Sweetheart Like You (Infidels)  4:33
T.V. Talkin’ Song (Under The Red Sky)  3:01
Take A Message To Mary (Self Portrait)  2:45
Take Me As I Am (Self Portrait)  3:01
Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues [4/25/62]
(Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:44
Talkin’ Hava Negeilah Blues [4/25/62] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  0:51
Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues [10/26/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:25
Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  4:22
Talkin’ New York (Bob Dylan)  3:17
Talkin’ World War III Blues (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  5:53
Talkin’ World War III Blues (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)  6:25
Tangled Up In Blue (Blood On The Tracks)  5:42
Tangled Up In Blue [9/16/74] Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  6:50
Tangled Up In Blue (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  5:41
Tangled Up In Blue (Biograph)  5:44
Tangled Up In Blue (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  4:41
Tangled Up In Blue (Real Live)  6:54
Tangled Up In Blue (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  5:42
Tangled Up In Blue (The Essential Bob Dylan)  5:41
Tears Of Rage (The Basement Tapes)  4:11
Tell ‘Ol Bill (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:09
Tell Me [4/21/83] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:24
Tell Me That It Isn’t True (Nashville Skyline)  2:40
Temporary Like Achilles (Blonde On Blonde)  5:00
The Ballad Of Ira Hayes (Dylan)  5:08
The Grand Coulee Dam (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:56
The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar (Biograph)  4:03
The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  4:03
The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar (Shot Of Love)  4:02
The Levee’s Gonna Break (Modern Times)  5:43
ALBUMS 1
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (Biograph)  5:45 ALBUMS 2
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  5:25 ALBUMS 3
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  7:29 SONGS
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  5:44
The Man In Me (New Morning)  3:05
The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo) (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  2:47
The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo) (Self Portrait)  2:45
The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo) (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:18
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Before The Flood)  4:05
The Shape I’m In (Before The Flood)  3:33
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Biograph)  3:13
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Bob Dylan At Budokan)  5:31
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits)  3:11
The Times They Are A-Changin’ [1963] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:58
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  3:30
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (MTV Unplugged)  5:48
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  3:11
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  3:11
The Times They Are A-Changin’ (The Essential Bob Dylan)  3:11
The Times They Are A-Changin’ [Live Carnegie Hall 1963] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  4:03
The Water Is Wide (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  5:16
The Weight (Before The Flood)  4:20
The Wicked Messenger (John Wesley Harding)  2:03
They Killed Him (Knocked Out Loaded)  4:00
Things Have Changed (The Best Of Bob Dylan)  5:08
Things Have Changed (The Essential Bob Dylan)  5:08
Things Have Changed [Live Portsmouth 2000] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  5:52
This Land Is Your Land (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  5:57
 This Wheel’s On Fire (The Basement Tapes)  3:45
Three Angels (New Morning)  2:05
Thunder on the Mountain (Modern Times)  5:55
Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love) (Empire Burlesque)  5:19
Til I Fell In Love With You (Time Out Of Mind)  5:15
Time Passes Slowly (Biograph)  2:35
Time Passes Slowly (New Morning)  2:35
Tiny Montgomery (The Basement Tapes)  2:45
To Be Alone With You (Nashville Skyline)  2:08
To Ramona (Another Side Of Bob Dylan)  3:51
To Ramona (Biograph)  3:52
To Ramona (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  6:02
To Ramona [Live Sheffield England 1965] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  4:28
134
Tombstone Blues (Biograph)  5:56
Tombstone Blues (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:34
Tombstone Blues (Highway 61 Revisited)  5:55
Tombstone Blues (MTV Unplugged)  4:54
Tombstone Blues (Real Live)  4:32
Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:03
Tomorrow Night (Good As I Been To You)  3:43
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:24
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You (Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Live 1975)  3:55
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You (Nashville Skyline)  3:22
Too Much Of Nothing (The Basement Tapes)  3:01
Tough Mama (Planet Waves)  4:14
Trouble (Shot Of Love)  4:32
True Love Tends To Forget (Street-Legal)  4:14
Trust Yourself (Empire Burlesque)  3:26
Tryin’ To Get To Heaven (Time Out Of Mind)  5:21
Turkey Chase (Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid)  3:30
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (“Love And Theft”)  4:46
Two Soldiers (World Gone Wrong)  5:44
Ugliest Girl In The World (Down In The Groove)  3:31
Unbelievable (Under The Red Sky)  4:05
Under The Red Sky (Under The Red Sky)  4:08
Under The Red Sky (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3)  4:09
Under Your Spell (Knocked Out Loaded)  4:55
Union Sundown (Infidels)  5:22
Up On Cripple Creek (Before The Flood)  4:57
Up To Me [9/25/74] (Biograph)  6:18
Visions Of Johanna [Live 5/26/66] (Biograph)  7:31
Visions Of Johanna (Blonde On Blonde)  7:31
Visions Of Johanna (Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966)  8:48
Visions Of Johanna (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  6:36
Wade In The Water (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  2:59
Waiting For You (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  3:36
Walkin’ Down The Line [1963] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:52
Wallflower [11/4/71] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:48
Walls Of Red Wing [4/24/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:03
Watching The River Flow (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:36
Watered Down Love (Shot Of Love)  4:10
We Better Talk This Over (Street-Legal)  4:03
ALBUMS 1
Wedding Song (Planet Waves)  4:41 ALBUMS 2
Went To See The Gypsy (New Morning)  2:47 ALBUMS 3
Went To See The Gypsy [1970 New Morning Sessions] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  3:32 SONGS
What Can I Do For You? (Saved)  5:54
What Good Am I? (Oh Mercy)  4:44
What Was It You Wanted (Oh Mercy)  5:02
When Did You Leave Heaven? (Down In The Groove)  2:15
When He Returns (Slow Train Coming)  4:30
When I Got Troubles (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  1:28
When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  3:21
When the Deal Goes Down (Modern Times)  5:04
When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky [2/19/85]
(Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:37
When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky (Empire Burlesque)  7:18
When The Ship Comes In [1962] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:54
When The Ship Comes In (Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home)  3:05
When The Ship Comes In (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  3:15
When You Awake (Before The Flood)  2:54
When You Gonna Wake Up? (Slow Train Coming)  5:28
Where Are You Tonight? (Street-Legal)  6:15
Where Teardrops Fall (Oh Mercy)  2:32
Who Killed Davey Moore? [10/26/63] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  3:08
Who Killed Davey Moore?  (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  4:42
Wiggle Wiggle (Under The Red Sky)  2:09
Wigwam (Self Portrait)  3:07
Winterlude (New Morning)  2:22
With God On Our Side (Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Live 1964)  6:18
With God On Our Side (MTV Unplugged)  7:16
 With God On Our Side (The Times They Are A-Changin’)  7:05 CREDITS:

With God On Our Side [Live Carnegie Hall 1963] (Rare Tracks From The Vaults)  6:50 Executive Producer: Jeff Rosen
Product Manager: Lisa Buckler
Woogie Boogie (Self Portrait)  2:05
Digital book design: Chika Azuma
Workingman’s Blues #2 (Modern Times)  6:07
Liner Notes: Tom Piazza
World Gone Wrong (World Gone Wrong)  3:53
Special Thanks:
Worried Blues [7/9/62] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  2:38 Steve Berkowitz, Robert Bower,
Stacey Boyle, Lisa Buckler, Ralph Capasso,
Bruce Dickinson, Jimmy Dixon, Adam Farber,
Yazoo Street Scandal (The Basement Tapes)  3:27 Carlos Fernandez, Glenn Frese, Sam Gomez,
Jeff Jones, Diane Lapson, Adrienne Lalla,
Ye Shall Be Changed [5/27/79] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  4:07 Greg Linn, Patti Matheny, Paul Oswald,
Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread (The Basement Tapes)  2:13 Zak Profera, Lynne Sheridan, Gary Stewart,
Debbie Sweeney, Marc Zbyszynski
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (The Essential Bob Dylan)  2:44
Cover photo: Danny Clinch
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)  2:44
Original album photography:
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (The Basement Tapes)  2:42 Howard Alk, Joel Bernstein,
135 Al Clayton, Danny Clinch, John Cohen, ALBUMS 1
You Angel You (Biograph)  2:52 Barry Feinstein, David Gahr, Don Hunstein, ALBUMS 2
You Angel You (Planet Waves)  2:52 Art Kane, Dan Kramer, Kevin Mazur, ALBUMS 3
Reid Miles, Morgan Renard, Arthur Rosato,
You Changed My Life [4/23/81] (Bootleg Series 1-3: Rare and Unreleased)  5:13 Jerry Schatzberg, Mark Seliger, Sandy Speiser,
SONGS

You Wanna Ramble (Knocked Out Loaded)  3:14 Randee St. Nicholas, Susie-Q

You’re A Big Girl Now [9/25/74] (Biograph)  4:21

You’re A Big Girl Now (Blood On The Tracks)  4:31 l
© 2006 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT
You’re A Big Girl Now (Hard Rain)  7:01
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Blood On The Tracks)  2:53
You’re Gonna Quit Me (Good As I Been To You)  2:48
You’re No Good (Bob Dylan)  1:36