30 Days of Dylan #8: Foot Of Pride

May 2011 sees the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan. To celebrate, we're taking you on a journey through the lesser celebrated avenues of his back catalogue. A journey down Highway 61 that won't stop off at 'Blowin' In The Wind', 'All Along The Watchtower' or 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' but will call by...

Foot Of Pride (1983)

I wonder what happened between Lou Reed and Bob Dylan? On paper they’re a songwriting marriage of supreme compatibility, both fuelled by the limitless potential for bringing literacy into Rock music and both in their own way courting public controversy for work that was ahead of its time in the sixties. Previously unheard Velvet Undergound releases in the 1990s would uncover Lou Reed as a Dylan disciple every bit as much as all singer-songwriters of the era and both, unconventional vocalists that they are, would go on to compose songs with the Velvets chanteuse Nico in mind. But that’s where the early connections start to fade; Dylan was seen at Andy Warhol’s, and Velvet Underground bolthole, The Factory but was reportedly muted and un-cooperative. Then in the 1970’s, rather than be heard to pledge allegiance to or acknowledgement of the vision shared by the pair, Lou Reed would speak dismissively of Dylan in interviews, one quote reportedly expressing boredom at all those words!

And so they continued in their own parallel music worlds when suddenly, in the mid-1980’s Bob reeled Lou in, singling the man out for privileged mention in the sleevenotes to 1985’s ‘Biograph’ box as one of the few artists he deemed worthy of his ears. There’s even a story that Dylan leant over to Lou’s wife as Reed performed ‘Doing The Things That We Want To’ at a show and gushed “man that’s such a great song, I wish I’d written that song”. Happily enough Lou Reed hasn’t been heard to make a negative comment about Dylan ever since although sadly no collaboration ever appears to have taken place, what a mouth watering prospect that could have been. The kudos of Bob’s approval did appear to rub off on Lou a bit though, because he went on to write and record some his greatest music; including a trio of albums between 1989 and 1992 (‘New York’, ‘Songs For Drella’ and ‘Magic And Loss’) that are the high watermarks of his entire solo career. Lou closed that golden period in October 1992 by paying Dylan the best compliment in his armoury; a hard-rockin’ version of ‘Foot Of Pride’ at Bob’s all star ‘30^th Anniversary Concert’ at Madison Square Gardens. It’s not just the raw power that scores; this performance was a stand out on the night because unlike most of the other performers, Lou took a relative obscurity from the Dylan back catalogue and effectively flew the flag for the incredible prolific depth of the man’s written work. Oh and did I mention he rocked? Luckily you can listen to that very performance below:

Free music - Foot Of Pride