Expecting Rain

have no idea how that happened , maybe the mods can remove 2 of those posts.

I no longer feel much at all listening to Dylan, other than disappointment. I do have memories of two transcendant moments--the first time I heard Like A Rolling Stone on the radio, the day of its release, and seeing Dylan play Tangled Up In Blue solo in 1975. The 1965 moment reigns supreme.

lay down your weary tune - the lyrics, the melody, and the singing together is enough to stop the world

Mine is:

"One Too Many Mornings"

the version Bob did w/ GE Smith in Oct. 1988, in New York Radio City Music Hall.

Oftentimes, I will put that song on the player, and after hearing it once or twice, I feel like there is no other music that I ever want to hear again.........

I went back and forth. Blind Willie McTell--the piano one on Bootleg Series vol.3--always comes through for me.

But I'm gonna go with Lay Down Your Weary Tune from the Carnegie Hall show in 1963. It moves me every time I hear it--his voice sounds spectacular-- and there is just something cool about Bob delivering this song that seems about the futility and ineffectiveness of man--made song to communicate the mysteries and depths of the natural universe--just as Bob Dylan was on the brink of a career attempting to do just that. It's almost as if he was saying--"here I go--I'm gonna do my best, but know that my feeble metaphors are not the real thing, and at best, only point toward a direction of the real thing. Better off listening to the sound of the ocean. But this is what I am called to do, so I'll be doing it."

Seconded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6rwnb-9_WU

"Visions of Johanna", the Manchester 66 version. I bought the boot "2 Guitars Kissing/The Contemporary Fix" when it came out and I've STILL never listened to the electric disc because anytime I notice it I pull it down and play this. Not sure what it is about it... he sort of sounds stoned, but he also remembers the lyrics flawlessly. I'm also struck by the memory of having been alive when it was brand new and hearing it when it was brand new and recognizing it as something brand new and getting swamped by the feeling that WE were doing this. the whole "M..M..My Generation" phenomenon.

There's always another generation that follows the last one, sure, that's a given. But what gets lost is that it is not very often that a generation has an actual sense of itself AS a "generation." This is not anything we get any credit for, it's not because we were smarter or anything like that. It was a lucky historical moment; a collection of various factors that caused it.

(1) The simple numbers of the so-called "baby boom" generation. Post WWII people got busy! A population explosion meant that there were unprecedented numbers of people hitting adolescence at the same time.

(2) The economic prosperity of the times. This was the period in which the modern America emerged as the leader of the free world; the center of business for the world; a center for manufacturing. This was when the infrastructure of the country was built - highways, bridges, airports, power, gas, water... etc. Right now the highest tax rate in the US is 38%, what do you think it was when Eisenhower was President (1953-1961)? G'wan... take a guess. [For the answer, see here.]

That meant that a whole generation had parents who were making good livings and showering their kids with all the stuff that they didn't have because they grew up in the Great Depression. And a generation of 15 year olds with disposable income is a..... MARKET! Record companies and movie studios began to make stuff for US like never before. Add to that....

(3) The GRAVITAS provided by the Civil Rights movement and, a bit later, the anti-war movement, and you get a generation aware of itself AS a generation.

But I digress....

The Live 66 version of that never ceases to astonish me. Those people were hearing it for the first time - there's absolutely no little burst of recognition applause at the start. What could they have thought as that song washed over them? And how can he remember all those words and be THAT high at the same time?

The pleasure in the song for me is in the tension created in each verse as you wait to find out if he can keep up the rhymes. And he's so loose within a pretty tight structure, stretching and bending lines, playing with syllable count but always keeping that 3-4-2 structure:

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

"Quiet" "deny it" "defy it" followed by "loft" "cough" "soft" "off" followed by "entwined" and "my mind." Three, four and two.

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

And so on. Even if you're not consciously counting, the rhythm sinks in and you expect it. When he drags out a line, suggesting he's going to abandon the structure, it's downright riveting.

Red River Shore

Such a beautiful song I can listen to it over and over again it echoes feelings I am sure we have all experienced.

"Million Dollar Bash" live oh five. Happiest Bob ever got on the NET, and it literally makes me laugh every time I hear it.

"Bob Dylan's Dream"
From the original album.
This song has meaning to me . It was actually first sung to me by a friend who I have not seen for 30 years . However it is always a reminder to me how when I left primary school at the age of 12 . My family moved to a new town and in the 49 years since I have not ever seen anyone associated with my school class which I had grown up with over the previous 6 years.

My 1 song has got to be 'Nettie Moore' as performed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on September 3 2008...an unbelievable performance and one I was lucky enough to be at. This version has movements, all the band moving in perfect unity as well as highlighting each individual's virtuosity with Bob pouring his very heart into every line, all building to the lyrics:
'The sun/Son is strong and I'm standing in the light.
I wish to God that it were night!'

Throughout, the band moves in this other-worldly sound and rhythm that is both frightening and gorgeous all at once...creating a whole new expressive verse of this amazing song.

Personally, I've never heard the song quite as perfect in every way as this one...it finally reached its pinnacle...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/sw8wnf

One song and perhaps an alternate or one that's a close 2nd is acceptable (to me). Otherwise, you should start a thread entitled The Many Songs That Have Meaning For Me.

Outstanding post, LJ. I feel exactly the same way about the song and the performance. It's a frozen moment in time, a genius level writer and a genius level performance.

How old was the kid who was writing that stuff?

Yes, I think so: "Visions of Johanna" Manchester 66

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvyms_aD0zQ

3:30, please.

Rev, I really like your song choice and the way you describe the contrast between the two versions, and why this version "does it" for you. It's a very sexy version, indeed.

I choose "Lay Down Your Weary Tune". It always puts me on the tranquil level between the heights and depths that it encompasses, and I can't think of another song that can do that. It's not an ecstasy, but a peaceful balance that's better to me than ecstasy (although I do love it when music puts me in that ecstatic state of mind like in that scene in the film). It makes me simultaneously aware of The Moment, and of the future after I'm gone, and of the passing of people I loved (namely my grandfather, may he rest in peace). It's the beauty of music, and death, and life, and nature, all folded into one. I'm amazed that such a young person could write and sing such lyrics (or be so powerfully influenced by the kind of music that inspired them), and with such honesty and humility in his voice.

I do try not to listen to it often, because it's such a rare treasure to me.

Hate to be unoriginal, but I have to say Tangled Up In Blue as well.

Particularly this verse:

"
She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a
pipe
"i thought you’d never say hello," she
said
"you look like the silent type."
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an italian poet
From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin’ coal
Pourin’ off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue.
"


Such a wonderful moment, and its the way Dylan delivers it too. Its probably the thing I came across by him that really sealed the deal for me.

the flaw with LJ's pick is that the 66 version is just druggy, draggy and unmelodious, while the ultimate version from Dublin 2005 is gorgeous and poignant and bob actually does some very sweet and nimble things with his voice. especially during the second and third verse, which always slays me. all this while the band plays like it's a funeral for their best friend.

great song from a great period and one of the very few Baez performances that
doesn't make me want to leap out of my treehouse.

He did the same thing with "Lay Lady Lay," took a pretty romantic song and sleazed it up. I always like it when he rewrites something and changes the intention, even if I love the original.
Another example that comes to mind is an alternate version of the sublime "If You See Her, Say Hello" he played in 2004, demolishing a beautiful love song:

If she's passing back this way
And I sure hope she don't
Tell her she can look me up
I'll be here or I won't.

I was a 21 year old father & university student, scraping by on food stamps & $3.25 an hour when a friend of mine loaned me his copy of Biograph.

"Here's a song about marriage, this is called Isis."

I already knew Dylan, or thought I did, but this was something altogether new. The swirling rhythms, crazily random guitar solos, and that violin surging through it all -- it knocked me out and still does. But above all, Bob's phrasing on this version of this song absolutely kills. I've suffered through a million bad Dylan imitations and snide "he's a great songwriter, but he can't sing" comments. But the truth is, NOBODY can sing like this. He's channeling some kind of other-worldly voice/shout/whine that shouldn't work, but does. His voice seems on the verge of breaking at the end of nearly every verse, leading into the controlled chaos of each instrumental break. A couple of years later, when I bought a copy of Desire, I was shocked to find out that my beloved Isis had descended from the dirge-like version on the album. Total reinvention, Dylan's specialty.

I have several other versions from Rolling Thunder, and they're all great, but for me the one captured on Biograph is that transcendent moment when it all comes together.

"She said you gonna stay, I said if ya want me to, YES!!!"

I love "Can't Wait" from Tell Tale Signs

I love the way his voice sounds on this song, very sexy and kinda desperate, and so are the lyrics.

I prefer it to the other version.

It'all over now live 65:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73-K7UFHqSU

Much as I love LJ's writing (and it's seldom better) I, too, prefer Dublin 2005. That and the Blonde on Blonde version. Check it out, LJ. like you will



Damn, Marker - you and I really seem to agree on matters of Dylan performances (one of us must have good taste). This is top-drawer.

Can I cheat a little and come up with two entries ? The first is Watching The River Flows because it was the first Dylan song I ever heard and thank God I liked it otherwise who knows what musical path I would have gone down - and at what a cost ! My second is the demo version of Every Grain Of Sand because that is sheer beauty and one of the greatest songs anyone ever wrote.

There are times I think you're actually my doppleganger and we'll one day meet at a concert and look exactly alike...

And yes, this was an amazing show with a gorgeous 'Beyond The Horizon' as well. Almost as good a show as the one at State College a few weeks ago...I'm still reeling from that one:)