Expecting Rain

What's odd about that statement is that he wouldn't make another really great record after BOTT for TWENTY FIVE YEARS and in that gap would release a slew of the worst records ever released by any major artist.

I've read that he was influenced (in the way Pet Sounds pushed Macca toward Pepper) by Joni Mitchell's "Blue" (which is her BOTT). The last song on Blue, "The Last Time I Saw Richard," is Joni writing a perfect short story; "Tangled" is Dylan answering with a novel.

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68,
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe
You laugh, he said you think you're immune, go look at your eyes
They're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realise they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies

He put a quarter in the Wurlitzer, and he pushed
Three buttons and the thing began to whirr
And a bar maid came by in fishnet stockings and a bow tie
And she said "Drink up now it's gettin' on time to close."
"Richard, you haven't really changed," I said
It's just that now you're romanticizing some pain that's in your head
You got tombs in your eyes, but the songs
You punched are dreaming
Listen, they sing of love so sweet, love so sweet
When you gonna get yourself back on your feet?
Oh and love can be so sweet, love so sweet

Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and a Coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights with the TV on
And all the house lights left up bright
I'm gonna blow this damn candle out
I don't want Nobody comin' over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days

What about Desire? SL? SOL? STC? Infidels. Desire is superb, the rest are average to good IMO


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 · John Wesley Harding · Nashville Skyline · Self Portrait · New Morning · Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid · Dylan · Planet Waves · Blood on the Tracks · The Basement Tapes · Desire · Street-Legal · Slow Train Coming · Saved · Shot of Love · Infidels · Empire Burlesque · Knocked Out Loaded · Down in the Groove · Oh Mercy · Under the Red Sky · Good as I Been to You · World Gone Wrong · Time out of Mind · Love and Theft · Modern Times · Together Through Life · Christmas in the Heart

Not my favorite on BOOT's but one of them for sure. I'm not a huge fan of the latter NET renditions of this one from years past. Others comments, posts, dates etc. MEZ

My favorite version is Rolling Thunder..... but then I love everything from that time....

This song is ridiculously good.

But yeah, I'm not such a fan of the live versions from the last twenty years. He did some great acoustic ones in '84 or so if I recall correctly.

Yeah, in Rome I think. Great rewrite!

siruso

Rome 84 = excellent version complete lyric change and in soundboard quality albeit a little overbearing at times love it.

I was once asked to name a song that exemplified why I liked Dylan. I didn't want to give it too much thought or over explain myself, I (almost instantly) replied, 'Tangled up in Blue.'

Personally, I prefer the version that appears on BOTT to the the rejected New York sessions. To me, the album version is far more 'textured', more open, airy and full of possibilities.

I try to keep negativity out of my posts and try to be polite when discussing my preferences but I have to say I'm not a big fan of the 80s rewrites of Tangled. The plodding, anecdotal literalism of the Real Live version seems to me to rob the song of a great deal of its strange, equivocal magic.

The very good poet Simon Armitage writes wonderfully about Tangled up in Blue in Do You Mr Jones, an essay all the more interesting because you get the feeling he doesn't particularly like Dylan.

Now, I'm afraid I don't believe in the NET and more importantly I don't think Dylan believes in the NET either. I think it is unhelpful to view Dylan's current live performances as part of some vast, decades long, over-arching project etc. .... but perhaps I should pursue this discussion at another time, all I mean to say is there is complex relationship between live performance/experience and records of the event.....erm... Anyway, here's a performance of Tangled up in Blue which I found moving, numinous and fulfilling witnessing it on the night in Brixton, sadly, the youtube video doesn't entirely convey all that -


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1JpRnsBshk

i especially love the versions from the larry and charlie era - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD8qcidDeis

The electric Punk-Blues version from Ft. Collins 1976:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/v4m70m

first time i've heard that, its great

The track so good they talked it twice! (TT 90)

Anyway I'll just repost what I said then.

"The book of poems is most likely La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri... What's interesting is that Dante at this time wrote almost exclusively about the love of his life, his muse Beatrice Portinari.

Through his poems (and the commentaries that accompany them) he builds an account of his life and love, beginning at his first sighting of her and ending with her death. He said that his intention was to write of her "that which has never been written of any woman".

I think that you can draw parallels between Dante and Dylan at this stage of his life... The death of his relationship with his muse, his inner torment, his fixation on songs of love and all the pain that it brings, his interest in time and our perception of it...

What do you guys think?

p.s what a fantastic song."

Hal Jones

"Didn't he also use "poet from the 15th century" in the past? Who could that be? And then there are the biblical references that replace the poet from the 1978 versions."


conal0102

"Hmmm... It seems that in an interview from 78 he said it was Plutarch but he says "is that him?" so he may mean Petrarch... That would make more sense haha"

What he said.

I think the rewriting and constant tinkering suggest that the song represents Dylan reaching the boundaries of his abilities as a songwriter.

I've read that listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue album sparked Dylan's initial burst of writing and that has always made perfect sense to me in a sort of Macca hears Pet Sounds and makes Sgt Pepper kind of way. "Tangled..." sounds, to me, like a next step beyond the closing track on Blue, "The Last Time I Saw Richard."

"Richard" is a perfect short story. And what Dylan does in "Tangled" is to write a novel.

To do it, he tries to adapt the theory he's learning in the painting classes he was taking at the time to his songwriting; this is what allows him to change the way the song approaches narrative time. By manipulating the temporal dimension of the song's narrative, to my mind, 300-400 pages of information get painted in the cracks between the words and the lines.

It may well be the best song anybody ever wrote.

NET versions pretty much ruin it for me.

I was there too! My first Dylan gig. First gig for that matter. The energy of the this performance was great, indeed for the whole night. Hattie Carol was a personal highlight I remember.

Naturally

This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic...but is that a picture of Bob fist-bumping Donnie as your avatar?

About a thousand awesome NET performances but the best, in my estimation is the Toronto, March 20, 2004 with Larry Campbell on acoustic guitar and Freddy Koella on electric guitar. Creative genious at its finest. It rocks, it rolls, and it puts a smile on every face. It is one of Bob's finest moments as a performer.

I've never heard a better performance or version.

It's a good song.

I'd agree with you, but all that would happen is that we'd both be wrong.

I differ that we would be wrong but we would be in agreement. Wouldn't that be nice?

Perhaps we could get together sometime and listen to that Toronto performance of Tangled Up in Blue and have a nice critical discussion of its merits over a cold, frosty one.

I'll provide the CD and the beer.

Talking about a poet from the thirteenth century, the other day I read this poem (yes I know, it's got nothing to do with nothing, but anyway... just a coincidence, but I love coincidences)

A thirteenth-century poet

Let us regard the arduous drafts
Of that first innominate sonnet,
The arbitrary page on which are blent
Tercets and quatrains peccant.

Slowly polishing his rigors
He pauses. Perhaps he hears
Coming from the future's holy dread
A remote rumor of nightingales.

Did he feel himself unalone,
That arcane, incredible Apollo
Had revealed an archetype to him,

An arid cystal that would catch
Whatsoever night closes or day opes:
Dædalus, labyrinth, enigma, Oedipus?

J.L. Borges

(In spanish, for Isa:

Un poeta del siglo XIII

Vuelve a mirar los arduos borradores
De aquel primer soneto innominado,
La página arbitraria en que ha mezclado
Tercetos y cuartetos pecadores.

Lima con lenta pluma sus rigores
Y se detiene. Acaso le ha llegado
Del porvenir y de su horror sagrado
Un rumor de remotos ruiseñores.

¿Habrá sentido que no estaba solo
Y que el arcano, el increíble Apolo
Le había revelado un arquetipo,

Un ávido cristal que apresaría
Cuanto la noche cierra o abre el día:
Dédalo, laberinto, enigma, Edipo?)

Meh, not a fan of this one. It always struck me as sounding like a 'generic' song he whipped up in five minutes. And he reminds me of a manic depressive when he sings it.

Yes, I know this is sacralege. Do I lose my fanboy wings yet?

That's utter nonsense... get your fact's right... the song is nearly six minutes long!

You know, I can come up with a routine in five minutes that requires two hours to execute so your point is what's ridiculous. I love you anyway though.

As I was reading your arrogant and nasty reply I was beginning to get really livid... but then I saw your ending and my heart melted and I started to blush... you ol' sweet-talker!

Hot damn! You'll reciprocate my love! Let's rendezvous at the old abandoned mill at midnight. I'll be sure to wear my strap on velvet bunny ears!

It's one of his finest - an amazing song. I probably like the BOOT version best.

He did a very nice rendition of it here in Sydney back in 07 too.