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Syllabus
- The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
and Highway 61 Revisited
- Bob Dylan on Wikipedia
- The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (lyrics) and Highway 61 Revisited (lyrics) on Wikipedia (lyrics from Rap Genius)
- Some of the singles: “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”, “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Highway 61 Revisited”
- “England in 1819” by Percy Bysshe Shelly
- Electric Dylan Controversy, and an excerpt from the controversial Newport performance
- “New Morning: Indie rock’s reigning poet-prince” by Sasha Frere-Jones on The New Yorker
- Highway 61 on Wikipedia and on The Rock Map
There is indeed a version of “Girl From North Country” with both Dylan and Johnny Cash on it. They did it live on Johnny Cash’s TV show once and it was great because that is a great song and the Dylan/Cash version is fantastic. Also, it is in the movie Silver Linings Playbook and that movie has great music in it.
Anywho, I used to listen to a lot of Dylan, unsurprisingly I was in college at the time, but that sort of tapered off, although I still appreciate the music. Not as interested in the folk stuff, though. I’d have been more interested in talk of Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks, but it was likely the right call to include his early folk stuff for this conversation. Maybe it could have been served well to discuss the fact that he, like Neil Young, is still releasing music. I think he even did a Christmas album.
Also, fittingly enough, the notion of Bob Dylan being “for real” is a fairly interesting question, what with that not even being his real name and also the fact that he used to make up biographical information about himself, and there was the aura he would put on for interviews, as seen in the documentary on him called, I believe, Don’t Look Back. This notion is also sort of considered in the very good film I’m Not There.
Also, indeed the version of “Girl from the North Country” with Cash is on Nashville Skyline, which is also the “Bob Dylan stopped smoking and has a new voice” record. I think it works quite well on this song, and it counters Cash’s voice better than Dylan’s vocals in other eras would have.
Certainly from Dylan’s view hwy 61 might run southward. In very limited music-historical knowledge my first thoughts run in the opposite direction, namely viewing 61 as running from the Jim Crow south to the more urban Chicago. Fred McDowell wrote of the road from this geographical perspective.
just wanted to throw this up as it’s an amazing song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9xjUZJWHOg