Expecting Rain

When did you leave heaven?
How could they let you go?
How's every thing in heaven?
I'd like to know.

Why did you trade heaven?
For all these earthly things?
Where on earth you hide halo?
Where did you lose your wings?

Have they missed you?
Can you get back in?
If I kiss you would it be a sin?
I am only human but you are so divine.
When did you leave heaven angel mine?

Originally a hit for Guy Lombardo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgnel_dEUz0
& Louis Armstrong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kJzFXfex3w
Bob must have grown up with this song,
but not until he heard Big Bill Broonzy's incredible version
would he even consider this a song for himself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuM_wimHj6c

Unfortunately, what comes to us on Down In The Groove falls far short of any version before it IMO. It's heartbreakingly bad...
That said, I LOVE his version from 1990 at Toad's Place, one of my all-time favorite Dylan shows. Coming at the very end of the night, Bob sounds tired, the band sounds exhausted, and IMO BECAUSE of this obvious mood, this song is performed beautifully and brilliantly...

New Haven CT
January 12 1990
http://www.sendspace.com/file/md8vxz

Does anyone like any of Bob's versions of this song? Does anyone like this song at all???

I like it. As you know, there's not a lot I don't like by Bob. Thanks for the inspiration to dig this out and give it another run. I may report back.

Not much to discuss here, one of the weaker tracks on the mediocre "Down in the Groove" album.

I actually kind of like it, too. Very, very 80s, of course, and quite liable to inspire the Self Portrait effect (i.e., "what is this shit?") at a significantly higher incidence than the bulk of his catalogue. I don't and wouldn't listen to it often. But like SHENANDOAH on the same album (and much of Self Portrait, for that matter) there's somehow an unlikely charm in its loose, seemingly off-the-cuff approach to a timeless song that would sound nothing like this if being played by anyone but the strange man we know as Bob Dylan.

Great version by Little Jimmy Scott:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRYJbaxwJ20

it has a certain bumblefuck charm, the weird rhythm guitar. Nothing wrong with the song itself. Obviously a very long slide down from previous summits but after KoL anything was possible. Hearing Pretty Boy Floyd not long after this travesty was mind boggling: it's all still there but he won't let it escape!)

"The Self Portrait Effect" classic!

thanks for jarring the memory about the toad's performance, haven't listened to it in years, good stuff.