30 Days of Dylan #28: The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar

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...

The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar (1981)

Notable for two things; firstly that even on one of Bob’s most under-praised records (‘Shot Of Love’) there can be hiding something truly great and secondly, this song was probably the full stop on the Christianity phase. Not just because here was Bob rocking with an abandon and slight aggression that general assumption dictated the religious concerns had erased. Also there’s the apocalyptic imagery of the lyrics, the groom waiting in church for the rising of a new religious age; he’s stated his case but nothing’s happening so he’s about to turn a new page on life rather than stand forever waiting. Don’t forget though, even in 2000 he observed that “if the Bible is right the world will explode” so clearly the biblical concerns still played on his mind years later. Of course you could also take this song literally and conclude that underneath it all Bob just wanted to find another wife.

30 Days of Dylan #27: High Water (For Charley Patton)

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...

High Water (For Charley Patton) (2001)

Because ‘Love And Theft’ might just be Bob Dylan’s best album. If not, it certainly is the one Dylan album you can play to people who haven’t liked him before, but are open to giving him a chance. This album is clinically tried and tested on these types, but remains far from watered down Dylan, if anything it’s his most fully realised LP long statement ever. ‘Love And Theft’.

30 Days of Dylan #26: Tweeter And The Monkey Man

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...

Tweeter And The Monkey Man (1988)

With the best will in the world, it’s hard to convince anyone that Bob didn’t go off the boil a bit in the middle of the 80s. I think the problem was partly that he thought he could still compete in the pop market and have another hit. You could look at the songs he inexplicably left off ‘Infidels’, pondered in the last post here, and conclude that at least two may have echoed the Blues too much to be compatible with these speculated mainstream ambitions. But then two other tracks were pretty radio friendly in sound and style so that theory isn’t exactly watertight. Still, the excursions into some of the eras electro production techniques clearly wasn’t a comfortable match and you’d be hard pushed to compile a single great Dylan album from the material offered up between 1984 and 1988. As Bobs autobiography ‘Chronicles’ recounts, it took Daniel Lanois and the vague concept for how the ‘Never Ending Tour’ could pan out to help him relocate a direct route towards the more consistent unlocking of that genius muse; and it also took the Traveling Wilburys. If nothing more than providing a forum for scratching that mainstream itch he’d been irritated by for the past few years, the Wilburys brought Bob some fresh impetus. The other positive knock on effect being that standing shoulder to shoulder with two legends (George Harrison and Roy Orbison in case you weren’t sure) ensured that any new material Bob threw into the mix was anything but sub standard. And so ‘Tweeter And The Monkey Man’ stood out as a highlight of that first Wilburys record, and quietly became one of the often over-looked gems in Bob’s expansive back catalogue.

30 Days of Dylan #25: Lord Protect My Child

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...

Lord Protect My Child (1983)

In 1983 Bob Dylan released the ‘Infidels’ album, the pre-release anticipation positively heightened by news that he’d moved away from Christian based material and sessions went down with, the then still on the rise, Mark Knopfler. Then on arrival reaction was underwhelming. The album had a handful of decent songs; ‘I And I’ was a clear stand-out and ‘Jokerman’ a decent stab at a commercial sounding opener. But weaker material appeared too and it became instantly clear that this would not be a record to re-establish Dylan as a creative force in his third recording decade. It lead to a pattern of anticipation and increasingly pronounced frustration on deliverance of each new album in the 80s; a mould only broken in 1989 when ‘Oh Mercy’, with Daniel Lanois’ fairy dust, brought something to legitimately get excited about. Then in 1991 the first of the ‘Bootleg Series’ hit the shops and with it came perhaps the most unfathomable revelation of Bob Dylan’s entire recording career. Four songs had been left off of ‘Infidels’ that, at a stroke, would have made it one of the albums of his career. Better than ‘Oh Mercy’, better than ‘Desire’, better than ‘Nashville Skyline’, it genuinely would have been acclaimed, over time, as one of the top five. The songs were ‘Foot Of Pride’, already heard in our ’30 Days’ journey covered by Lou Reed; ‘Tell Me’, one of Dylan’s lushest moments melodically and a track that just rains down like sweet honey; ‘Blind Willie McTell’, head-and-shoulders above any other Dylan Blues track with a spot-on vocal; and finally ‘Lord Protect My Child’ which, as songs on the subject of parenthood go, is even better than the celebrated ‘Forever Young. It’s in the ache of Bob’s singing, the anguish and anxiety knotted up in a beautiful, soulful song that captures the essence that those with children often struggle to explain. Here is an incredible accapella version by Maria Muldaur, filmed during the making of ‘No Direction Home’.

30 Days of Dylan #24: Thunder On The Mountain

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...

Thunder On The Mountain (2006)

Bob Dylan in the 21^st Century has rocked and rolled like never before. He’s occasionally cracked jokes on stage, become a DJ, thrown random name checks into songs just for the fun of it (hey I’m listening to you Neil Young and Billy Joe Shaver, I’m thinking about you Alicia Keys) and developed a leg-swivel dance of his own eccentric design. He’s even recorded a great knees-up Christmas single and made a video for it wearing a long straight hair wig (for reasons that remain unclear). His records too have been by-and-large swinging barnstompers that have infected their way into your tapping toes as much as they still seap into that subconscious part of your brain. He’s become the song and dance man that he told us he was nearly fifty years ago. When he said that in the 60s everyone laughed; they’re still laughing now in a way, but at least they’re laughing with him. Keep it rolling Bob!

30 Days of Dylan #23: Gates Of Eden

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...

Gates Of Eden (1965)

You think Bob was full-on when he turned to Christianity in 1979? That was nothing compared to the way he tore religious ideals, beliefs and practices apart only 14 years earlier. Richard Dawkins could use the text of this song in one of his speeches and his atheist persuasive powers would increase tenfold! “Leaving men wholly, totally free to do anything they wish to do but die”. This is Dylan writing on a subject matter that few dare approach and executing it to a standard that even fewer could possibly attain. In a league of his own.

Free music - Gates Of Eden

30 Days of Dylan #22: The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest

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...

The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest (1967)

Here we have one of the essential Dylan story songs; told with just the right balance of narrative and poetic mystery. The dialogue between Frankie and Judas at the songs opening is fascinating enough, but then events take a stranger turn. The song concludes with two major question marks; why is the little neighbour boy who tells us “nothing is revealed” concealing such guilt? Also, is the stated moral of the story really the moral at all? It has been speculated that Judas represents the music business, with its take it now or it’s gone forever negotiating practices and baiting of gullible, dependent subjects with promises of all earthly pleasures on a plate. That could explain why Dylan feels that everything is kept under wraps by those shamefully in the know as yet another victim loses his life, soul or both. Certainly one of the more plausible theories I’ve encountered. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter; as is so often the case the pleasure is in the exquisite articulation of the tale. So skilfully executed is it that Dylan even gets away with rhymes like mouse and house!

Thea Gilmore has given Bob a major heads up by covering the whole of the songs parent album ‘John Wesley Harding’ to coincide with his three score and ten landmark. I am in no way going to question Thea’s motives, there’s nothing to suggest it’s nothing more than a totally sincere gesture. Sadly however, for me it proves that simply covering a classic album in itself does not automatically generate another classic album. The original record is one of a very few that I can play all the way through then instantly return to the first track and start again. The depth of the imagery and layers upon layers of meaning in every song, coupled with the raw urgency of the delivery make it an album that always leaves you wanting more. My initial feeling upon hearing Thea’s version is that I’d have preferred her adhering to Dylan’s recording policies as well. That is, get a small combo together, possibly on purely acoustic instruments, and get them to play the album through straight in one day without any rehearsal. As it stands this is just a bit too over-produced and it renders an exceptional set of songs a bit dull in places. I’m just not sure you’re doing ‘All Along The Watchtower’ any favours by playing it akin to ‘A Horse With No Name’. By no means a bad record obviously, and the version of todays song as featured below is a fair effort, but the genius of the original remains untouched.

Free music - The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest