85 today! Goodness. May the Never Ending Tour never end.
Post one of your favourite lesser known songs.
Happy Birthday, Bob
by 57 Comments
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 57 Comments
85 today! Goodness. May the Never Ending Tour never end.
Post one of your favourite lesser known songs.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar
This song was my thought when I saw the invitation.
Was played at my wedding, as I waited at the altar. Oh how we (I) laughed.
Then my wife walked down to To Make You Feel My Love. His version, not Adele’s.
Heavy Bob presence at nuptials very satisfying
Not a rare track, but this was played at one of my best friend’s funeral, we had discovered Bob together as teenagers. He was only 42. This the less well known version
Bow down to him on Sunday, salute him when his birthday comes.
I never listen to Bob casually. I either almost forget him for ages, or go for weeks listening to little else. One of the binges is just about due.
Another Bob-binger here.
Chronological or random… much prefer the random order binge.
Think I’ll start with Self Portrait and see where the mood goes
I’m a chronological Bob listener, either forwards or backwards, studio albums or bootleg series but never both at the same time. Probably should get out more.
Same – sometimes I think I’m done and then I hear something accidentally and then I play him for a week or more.
Was about to mention this momentous day.
Privileged to be on this earth same time as him. He has been with me my whole life, literally as his first album came out the month I was born. But I probably got The Times They Are a Changin’ when I was 16, simultaneously I remember one of the cool kids from my school walking through town with it tucked under his arm. Saw him live for the first time time at 19 in Birmingham, after he had found God. Someone at the show shouted “Judas”!
When Time Out of Mind came out following a health scare, it was thought he may not be with us much longer, there were apparent clues through songs like Not Dark Yet, but he’s still here nearly 30 years later.
I have only seen him live a miserable, pathetic 15 times. I feel I have wasted my life, I should have robbed banks, sold my body, slept rough just to be in his presence on many more occasions and see mesmerizing, thrilling performances like this one
Not knocking this as a comment, and I admire your allegiance to him, the Stones, Wilco and Bruce, but I am more than happy to have seen him but twice. Blackbushe was great, the Phoenix was dire and, y’know, that’s enough, as the recorded music provides a greater fix. There are very few bands or artists, if any, I need to see repeatedly, so as to confirm their greatness. Once or twice is enough. Yes, there are those I have seen way more than that, but almost by the accident of their attendance at festivals I have attended.
Well, the post was a bit tongue in cheek, but I don’t go to concerts to “confirm greatness”, I go to have a good time. The ones I see many times mainly mix up their setlists a lot (or used to), and when a really good one happens it can be truly magical and life affirming. However I also have acts I am happy to have only seen once or twice, and I don’t need to see them again
👍
My uncle who was 18 and lived with us brought the S/T first album home when I was 12. I was at the Judas* show at Manchester F.T.H. when I was 15. So I really grew up listening to him. Happy Birthday Bob, long may you run.
*I remember nothing about it but I was pumped up with with expectation/excitement at my first Bob show just over 60 years ago.
15 and remember nothing?
Not a lesser known one by any means but blast this out today in honour of the doughty old codger
I probably listen more to him now than ever. The stuff we took for granted just gets better with age. If I can’t decide then I go for the Biograph compilation. It has this on it….
Post a “lesser known” Bob song – is that even possible on this forum? Dai knows them all!
Well, on that basis, I’ll just post this:
Good choice
I mentioned this on the recent OP on Bob Dylan cover versions. I first heard it on a Joe Cocker LP I found in a bargain bin (Luxury You Can Afford, I now see having looked it up) but here’s the original …
If Rough and Rowdy Ways turns out to be his last album it’ll be up there with Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Beethoven’s late string quartets and TS Eliots Four Quartets as a wonderful late flowering by a major artist. I love Key West especially –
‘Key West is the place to be
If you’re looking for immortality
Key West is paradise divine
Key West is fine and fair
If you lost your mind, you’ll find it there
Key West is on the horizon line’
I’ve had the hump with Bob since ’98 when I saw him deliver the worst live performance I’ve seen: it was almost spitefully bad. I’ve occasionally bought albums (such as the bootleg series basement tapes) but then defiantly refused to listen to them. One day he’ll be gone and I’ll feel like a complete dick, so today I’m going to listen to some Bob as I work, and see if I can resolve our differences.
Sounds like a plan. 😉 But, working on a Bank Holiday weekend?
Double time and you get to take the paid holiday again. That’s how it was for me.
No bank holiday in Brisbane!
Listening update: I listened to Time Out of Mind and my assessment remains unchanged from ~30 years ago: too many generic, swampy 12 bar blues and not enough actual songs.
A bit too samey for a long LP.
It’s a double album on vinyl (almost 73 minutes long), for me best listened to that way
This is classic live Bob. Shame on the audience members for having “no idea” what it is. We’d all have recognised it.
Most excellent!!
Yikes…
Mind you, if we’re allowed to post covers…
Yeah that was a cracker. Good ole Lou to bring one out of left field.
Allegedly a 39 CD copyright dump is coming for 1976 recordings:
https://expectingrain.com/discussions/viewtopic.php?t=109816
Always had a soft spot for Street Legal
We had to wait nigh on twenty years for the next good Bob album…
What about Oh Mercy? That was only 11 years later. I love that album. And the show he played at Hammersmith Apollo that year (one of a run of at least 5 that Q raved about – was that written by Mark Ellen or maybe Adrian Deevoy?) was the best show I’ve ever seen by Bob.
Oh Mercy is magnificent
I was at one of those Hammersmith shows and got quoted in a Q feature – they printed a few overheard audience remarks. I had piped up to my pal
“I can’t believe I’m in the same room as Bob Dylan!”
(I was very young and impressionable and overexcited)
Even if you don’t like the message Slow Train is a v good record. Infidels is pretty good too. And the acoustic folk ones are also good.
Each to his own it seems, I am not Wrong. I saw Bob three times in those twenty years, two concerts were simply awful, one was triumphantly magnificent.
I had a Bob friend say to me that his daughter had been listening to STC and that he had never played the whole record. My view shared with him and now here is that it is a great sounding record and he wants to communicate. But I find I cannot ignore the sheer rubbish that he speaks. This is not to do with the religion but his complete misunderstanding of it – possibly at its worst on the title track which I once found a complete joy to listen to – so much energy. HIs taking up of apocalyptic poetry as theology cannot be reconciled for me anymore. I prefer Under the Red Sky as a more successful expression of his very peculiar world view.
I really like Slow Train Coming, yes the lyrics on Slow Train are a bit problematic, but I think it is a very fine album, makes my top 10.
And it was recorded in 4 days!
Me too. Knopler’s production got slated at the time but it’s a killer band and still sounds great. Barry Beckett’s keys are worth the price of admission alone. I’ll spin the vinyl later and try to remember to cough over “Zimmy”.
Knopfler didn’t produce, that was Beckett/Wexler, Knopfler plays on it though, as does Pick Withers.
There are so many lesser known songs it’s hard to know which one to pick. But I love this one so here it is.
Would have loved to have seen this tour.
Wouldn’t we all. I’m enthusiastic enough to have bought the CD box with all the surviving recordings from it and they’re joyful to hear. What a band! What performances!
In honour of the great man, I have just bought tickets for David Ford’s Desire show, featuring himself, withRob Stoner and Scarlett Rivera, each whom played on the original album. Hare and Hounds, Drum, for less than £30. Tour includes London and Mancs.
I would have gone to Bury but I’m in York that night to see Olivia Chaney.
Opinions vary on the authorship of this gem but I know who I think did the heavy lifting.
“The undercover cop was found face down in a field
The monkey man was on the river bridge using Tweeter as a shield
Jan said to the Monkey Man “I’m not fooled by Tweeter’s curl
I knew him long before he ever became a Jersey girl””
File the Wilburys under “Why, oh why oh why?”
They’re filed under “Bit of fun lots of people like”.
You’re living up to your name again.
I am here but to serve – you know I’m Right
Vol 1 Essential
Vol 3 Not essential
Agreed.
An extraordinary version of a great song from Oh Mercy.