Bob Dylan's Blues was composed spontaneously. 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." - from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. "Hard Rain [written during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962] is a desperate kind of song. Every line in it, 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." - from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. [of the song Don't Think Twice, It's All Right] A lot of people 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 themsleves. 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 older 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. - from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. [of the song Oxford Town] "It's a banjo tune I play on the guitar." - from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. I'm not one of those guys who goes around changing songs just for the sake of changing them. But I'd never heard Corrina, Corrina exactly the way it first was, so that this version is the way it came out of me. - from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. Anything I can sing, 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. - from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. my songs're written with the kettledrum in mind / a touch of any anxious color. unmentionable. obvious. an people perhaps like a soft brazilian singer ... i have given up at making any attempt at perfection - from the sleeve notes to the album Bringing It All Back Home, released March 1965 by Colombia Records. i accept chaos. i am not sure whether it accepts me - from the sleeve notes to the album Bringing It All Back Home, released March 1965 by Colombia Records. the Great books've been written. the Great sayings have all been said - from the sleeve notes to the album Bringing It All Back Home, released March 1965 by Colombia Records. my poems are written in a rhythm if unpoetic distortion / divided by pierced ears. false eyelashes / subtracted by people constantly torturing each other. with a melodic purring line of descriptive hallowness - seen at times thru 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 - from the sleeve notes to the album Bringing It All Back Home, released March 1965 by Colombia Records. |
Recent News and Updates
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Bob Dylan - Nobel Banquet Speech
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Bob Dylan - Nobel Banquet Speech
- "Is this literature?" -
Banquet speech by Bob Dylan given by the United States Ambassador to Sweden, Azita Raji, at the Nobel Banquet, 10 December 2016
Good evening, everyone. I extend my warmest greetings to the members of the Swedish Academy and to all of the other distinguished guests in attendance tonight.
I'm sorry I can't be with you in person, but please know that I am most definitely with you in spirit and honored to be receiving such a prestigious prize. Being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature is something I never could have imagined or seen coming. From an early age, I've been familiar with and reading and absorbing the ...
Posted 11 Dec 2016, 15:02 by Robert Allen Zimmerman -
Shadows in the Night. The New Album by Bob Dylan
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Shadows in the Night
New Dylan album released today
Posted 2 Feb 2015, 18:20Shadows in the Night is the title of the new album by Bob Dylan, his 36th studio album, which gets its release today. A collection of covers, Dylan describes it as 'a real privilege to make'.
"I've wanted to do something like this for a long time but was never brave enough to approach 30-piece complicated arrangements and refine them down for a 5-piece band. That's the key to all these performances. We knew these songs extremely well. It was all done live. Maybe one or two takes. No overdubbing. No vocal booths. No headphones. No separate tracking, and, for ...
Posted 14 Feb 2015, 13:44 by Robert Allen Zimmerman -
Another Self Portrait: The Bootleg Series Vol 10
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Another Self Portrait
The Never Ending Bootleg Series
posted 25 Aug 2013, 15:16This week sees the release of the eagerly anticipated Another Self Portrait, no 10 in the ever-expanding Bob Dylan Bootleg Series containing 35 rare and previously unreleased (except on bootleg presumably) recordings. The tracks that have been selected for this edition comprise mainly out-takes from the recording sessions that produced the trio of albums that include Nashville Skyline, Self-Portrait and New Morning.
Self Portrait was Dylan's tenth studio album. Released in June 1970 by Columbia Records it consists mostly of covers with a few live recordings thrown in. Largely derided by critics at the time of its release (one of whom ...
Posted 14 Feb 2015, 14:27 by Robert Allen Zimmerman -
Like a Rolling Stone
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Like a Rolling Stone
posted 27 May 2013, 06:12I been all over these United States, but I ain't never yet found Fennario.
An interesting and indeed, most welcome tribute was paid to Bob Dylan, on the occasion of his 72 birthday, which was also, apparently, the 50th anniversary of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (you didn't know that, did you?).
An interactive map, charting "every street, town, and city Dylan has ever sung about", has been prepared and made public, courtesy of Slate.com. The map claims to present "entries for every place-name in a song written by Dylan and released on some kind of album (including the official Greatest Hits and Bootleg series)." Mind ...
Posted 14 Feb 2015, 13:58 by Robert Allen Zimmerman -
Tour Dates Announced for April, 2013
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Upcoming Tour Dates and Venues
posted 27 Feb 2013, 16:28From the horse's mouth (namely, the official Bob Dylan website):
Bob Dylan and his Band will perform U.S. concert dates in April. Ticket sales begin this weekend. Visit the Upcoming Dates page at bobdylan.com regularly for dates and ticket information.
Good news for Dylan's North American fans. The rest will have to wait their turn but it's a good bet that he'll get around eventually. By all accounts the guy likes touring and the day he stops touring will be the day he drops dead - and who wants to think about that dreadful day.
Posted 14 Feb 2015, 14:26 by Robert Allen Zimmerman -
Times they are a'changin over at Muscatine
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Workingmens' Blues
posted 24 Feb 2013, 14:28It would indeed appear to be sundown on the Union.
Bob Dylan Lays Off 2,000 Workers From Songwriting Factory
Posted 14 Feb 2015, 14:05 by Robert Allen Zimmerman
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