Out of all of the songs recorded for The Basement Tapes, Bob Dylan’s “Million Dollar Bash” has the best cast of characters: Dylan includes the following figures: the big dumb blonde, Turtle, my counselor, Silly Nelly, and Jones. The occasion for naming all of these people is a “million dollar bash.” Where’s the location ofContinue reading “Million Dollar Bash”
Tag Archives: The Band
King of France
Scheherazade is the major female character and the storyteller in the framing narrative for One Thousand and One Nights also known as Arabian Nights, the essential collection of stories from the Middle East. As the framing story goes, the ruler of the land finds out that his wife has been unfaithful and vows revenge byContinue reading “King of France”
Kickin’ My Dog Around
In 1967 after a grueling world tour fueled by revenge, disgust, and who knows what kind of substances, Bob Dylan retreated from public life to family life in Woodstock, NY. Living out his fantasy of “a nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard” asContinue reading “Kickin’ My Dog Around”
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
In 1965, Bob Dylan recorded “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” as part of the album Highway 61 Revisited: When Dylan first featured electric instrumentation in his music with Bringing It All Back Home, the sound of the music was boisterous rock ‘n roll as if Dylan was so excited to play with other musicians thatContinue reading “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”
Idiot Wind
idiot noun id·i·ot | \ ˈi-dē-ət \ plural idiots Definition of idiot 1: a foolish or stupid person “… Idiot that I am to wear my heart on my sleeve! …” — George Bernard Shaw 2: dated, now offensive: a person affected with extreme intellectual disability As Merriam-Webster says, there are two definitions to theContinue reading “Idiot Wind”
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
John Wesley Harding was released in late 1967, the first work heard by the outside world for about 18 months since the release of Blonde on Blonde. It’s also the first Bob Dylan music heard by the general public after the motorcycle accident in which there were varying reports about the severity of Dylan’s injuries.Continue reading “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine”
Highway 61 Revisited
After Bob Dylan began utilizing electric instrumentation to accompany his songs with the album Bringing It All Back Home, some in the media created a new genre to describe the music: “folk rock.” That genre name always seemed affected, suited more to The Byrds covering Dylan as opposed to Dylan’s actual music. Because listening toContinue reading “Highway 61 Revisited”
Going, Going Gone
When I first got together with my then-girlfriend-now-wife, she introduced me to the band Son Volt. Their first album Traces has a front-loaded first half, which includes the absolute gems “Windfall,” “Live Free,” and “Tear Stained Eye.” The simple chorus of “Windfall” is a perfect match-up of words and melody that resonates with the listenerContinue reading “Going, Going Gone”
Goin’ to Acapulco
My ideal response to a song after listening is that I want to have the urge to inhabit the world of the song. Sometimes this inhabitation means living inside the world as created literally by the lyrics being sung, or to go on the same adventure or share the same experiences as depicted by theContinue reading “Goin’ to Acapulco”
Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)
Find me on a certain day and The Basement Tapes is my favorite Bob Dylan album. It has been written about extensively, most notably by Greil Marcus in The Old Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes and has been the subject of two different releases by Dylan: the first official release inContinue reading “Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)”
Recliner Notes 