by Andy Gill
For most fans, however, the truly revealing lines came in the second middle-eight section, where Dylan claimed he wasn’t “runnin’ any race”—as clear an admission as any that he had ceased to be concerned about the things which used to exercise his imagination, and was now settled into a simpler lifestyle. As if in corroboration, the tricky syntactical gift which had once served to machine-gun elaborate, evocative phrases into cramped spaces in songs like ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ was now being used simply to list pie-fillings: “Blueberry, apple, cherry, pumpkin and plum.” To many, this seemed a poor exchange—particularly since, at the end of the song, we are none the wiser as to Dylan’s preferred flavors.
TONIGHT I’LL BE STAYING HERE WITH YOU
Another of Dylan’s personal favorites from the album, ‘Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You’ has a grace and apparent sincerity which is largely denied to the rest of Nashville Skyline. It is one of the few tracks on the album on which he sounds completely at ease with the country-music mode, and where it doesn’t sound like he’s merely running through genre exercises or pastiches.
Riding a groove whose rolling piano and flowing pedal steel guitar were punctuated by some terse country picking (probably by Charlie Daniels), Dylan’s lyric found him—after years of songs in which trains offered the enticing prospect of freedom or a ticket to the future—turning his back on departure and deliberately missing his train in order to stay with his beloved. For Dylan, such a denial of his instinctive wanderlust is surely the greatest possible tribute that he can pay to the woman whose love keeps him here.
In the penultimate verse, a random act of kindness—offering his seat if there’s “a poor boy on the street” who might want it—drew an analogy with Dylan’s own situation. After almost a decade as the involuntary spokesman for a generation, he has decided he doesn’t want to travel that line any more, and if there’s any young singer who wants to take up that mantle, well, they are more than welcome to all the hassle that goes with it.
A succession of putative “new Dylans” appeared over the next few years, the best of whom—Loudon Wainwright, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen—eventually developed personalities of their own. But as the scene which he had revolutionized several times over in the Sixties continued, through the rise of country-rock, to respond to his pioneering work, Dylan remained an elusive, enigmatic figure, perennially out of step with changing musical fashions, a soul alone.
Dylan would go on to record worse albums than Nashville Skyline, and a handful which could rank alongside the best of his Sixties work, but he would never again define the zeitgeist the way he did in that decade. Nor, for that matter, would anybody else.
BOB DYLAN 1960S DISCOGRAPHY
All compositions by Bob Dylan, except where noted.
ALBUMS
BOB DYLAN
RECORDED: NOVEMBER 1961
RELEASED: MARCH 1962
You’re No Good (Jesse Fuller)/Talkin’ New York/In My Time Of Dyin’ (trad. arr. Dylan)/Man Of Constant Sorrow (trad. arr. Dylan)/Fixin’ To Die (Bukka White)/Pretty Peggy-O (trad. arr. Dylan)/Highway 51 (Curtis Jones)/Gospel Plow (trad. arr. Dylan)/Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (Rev. Gary Davis)/House Of The Risin’ Sun (trad. arr. Van Ronk)/Freight Train Blues(Roy Acuff)/Song To Woody/See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (Blind Lemon Jefferson)
THE FREEWHEELIN’ BOB DYLAN
RECORDED: JULY 1962–APRIL 1963
RELEASED: MAY 1963
Blowin’ In The Wind/Girl From The North Country/Masters Of War/Down The Highway/Bob Dylan’s Blues/A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall/Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right/Bob Dylan’s Dream/Oxford Town/Talking World War III Blues/Corrina, Corrina (trad. arr. Dylan)/Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance (Henry Thomas)/I Shall Be Free
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
RECORDED: AUGUST–OCTOBER 1963
RELEASED: JANUARY 1964
The Times They Are A-Changin’/Ballad Of Hollis Brown/With God On Our Side/One Too Many Mornings/North Country Blues/Only A Pawn In Their Game/Boots Of Spanish Leather/When The Ship Comes In/The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll/Restless Farewell
ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN
RECORDED: JUNE 1964
RELEASED: AUGUST 1964
All I Really Want To Do/Black Crow Blues/Spanish Harlem Incident/ Chimes Of Freedom/ I Shall Be Free No.10/To Ramona/ Motorpsycho Nitemare/My Back Pages/I Don’t Believe You/ Ballad In Plain D/It Ain’t Me Babe
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME
RECORDED: JANUARY 1965
RELEASED: MARCH 1965
Subterranean Homesick Blues/She Belongs To Me/Maggie’s Farm/Love Minus Zero—No Limit/Outlaw Blues/On The Road Again/Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream/Mr Tambourine Man/Gates Of Eden/ It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)/ It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED
RECORDED: JUNE–AUGUST 1965
RELEASED: SEPTEMBER 1965
Like A Rolling Stone/Tombstone Blues/It TakesA Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry/From A Buick 6/Ballad Of A Thin Man/Queen Jane Approximately/Highway 61 Revisited/Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues/Desolation Row
BLONDE ON BLONDE
RECORDED: JANUARY–MARCH 1966
RELEASED: MAY 1966
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35/Pledging My Time/Visions Of Johanna/One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)/I Want You/Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again/Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat/Just Like A Woman/Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine/Temporary Like Achilles/Absolutely Sweet Marie/4th Time Around/Obviously 5 Believers/Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
THE BASEMENT TAPES
RECORDED: JUNE–OCTOBER 1967
RELEASED: JULY 1975
Odds And Ends/Orange Juice Blues (Blues For Breakfast) (Richard Manuel)/Million Dollar Bash/Yazoo Street Scandal (Robbie Robertson)/ Goin’ To Acapulco/ Katie’s Been Gone (Robbie Robertson/Richard Manuel)/Lo And Behold!/Bessie Smith (Rick Danko/Robbie Robertson)/Clothes Line Saga/ Apple Suckling Tree/Please, Mrs. Henry/Tears Of Rage (Bob Dylan/Richard Manuel)/Too Much Of Nothing/Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread/Ain’t No More Cane (trad. arr. the Band)/Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)/Ruben Remus (Robbie Robertson/Richard Manuel)/Tiny Montgomery/You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere/Don’t Ya Tell Henry/Nothing Was Delivered/Open The Door, Homer/Long Distance Operator/This Wheel’s On Fire (Bob Dylan/Rick Danko)
JOHN WESLEY HARDING
RECORDED: OCTOBER–NOVEMBER 1967
RELEASED: JANUARY 1968
John Wesley Harding/As I Went Out One Morning/I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine/All Along The Watchtower/The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest/Drifter’s Escape/Dear Landlord/I Am A Lonesome Hobo/I Pity The Poor Immigrant/The Wicked Messenger/ Down Along The Cove/I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
NASHVILLE SKYLINE
RECORDED: FEBRUARY 1969;
RELEASED: MAY 1969
Girl From The North Country/ Nashville Skyline Rag/To Be Alone With You/I Threw It All Away/Peggy Day/Lay Lady Lay/One More Night/Tell Me That It Isn’t True/Country Pie/Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
SINGLES
Mixed Up Confusion/Corrina, Corrina (March 1962)
The Times They Are A-Changin’/Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance (March 1965)
Subterranean Homesick Blues/She Belongs To Me (April 1965)
Maggie’s Farm/On The Road Again (June 1965)
Like A Rolling Stone/Gates Of Eden (August 1965)
Positively 4th Street/From A Buick 6 (October 1965)
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?/Highway 61 Revisited (January 1966)
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)/Queen Jane Approximately (April 1966)
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35/Pledging My Time (April 1966)
I Want You/Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (live) (July 1966)
Just Like A Woman/Obviously 5 Believers (September 1966)
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat/Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine (May 1967)
If You Gotta Go, Go Now/To Ramona (July 1967
)
I Threw It All Away/Drifter’s Escape (May 1969)
Lay Lady Lay/Peggy Day (August 1969)
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You/Country Pie (December 1969)
INDEX
Italic page references refer to photographs.
4th Time Around 150
Absolutely Sweet Marie 148-9
All Along The Watchtower 185, 189
All I Really Want To Do 73-6
Another Side of Bob Dylan 68-85
Apple Suckling Tree 165-6
As I Went Out One Morning 182
Baez, Joan 5, 8, 26, 39, 47-9, 58, 64, 71, 81, 83, 88, 92-3, 95-6, 98, 106, 110, 115, 121-2, 139, 141, 152, 156
The Ballad of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest 184, 187
Ballad of Hollis Brown 55-6
Ballad In Plain D 51, 58, 71, 82-4
Ballad Of A Thin Man 120-21, 132, 189
The Band 82, 128-9, 131, 134, 137-8, 150, 158, 160, 164-5, 168, 175, 178-80, 185
The Basement Tapes 154-175
The Beatles 71, 88, 110, 113, 150, 156, 179
Biograph 27, 64, 107, 118, 201-2
Black Crow Blues 74
Blonde on Blonde 130-53
Bloomfield, Mike 88, 116-23
Blowin’ In The Wind 26-30
Bob Dylan 6-19
Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream 100-1
Bob Dylan’s Blues 34-5
Bob Dylan’s Dream 40
Boots Of Spanish Leather 62-3
Bringing It All Back Home 86-107
Broadside 24, 29, 33, 43, 45, 50, 197
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? 128-9
Chimes Of Freedom 76-7
Clothes Line Saga 164
Corrina, Corrina 27, 40, 44
Country Pie 203
Crash On The Levee 169
Danko, Rick 129, 168-9, 174
Dear Landlord 188-89
Desolation Row 89
Don’t Look Back 98, 106
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right 38-9
Don’t Ya Tell Henry 170-71
Down Along The Cove 192
Down The Highway 33-4
Drake, Pete 178, 192, 196, 200
Drifter’s Escape 188
Eat The Document 177
Elliott, Ramblin’ Jack 9, 19-20, 72, 77, 101
The Freewheelin’
Bob Dylan 20-45 From A Buick 6 120
Gates of Eden103-5
Ginsberg, Allen 90, 92, 95, 99, 111, 126, 139
Girl From the North Country 31-2, 63
Goin’ To Acapulco 162
Gregg, Bobby 91, 95, 120, 129, 140
Griffin, Paul 91, 116-17, 124, 129, 141
Grossman, Albert 22, 25, 27, 31, 48-9, 66, 70, 91, 95, 98, 112, 130, 135, 146, 156, 179, 185, 187-89
Guthrie, Woody 11, 13-19, 28, 34, 49, 55, 66, 70, 79, 90, 92, 117, 177, 197-8
Hammond, John 8-13, 21, 23, 25, 27, 43, 52, 81, 197
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall 35-6
The Hawks 89, 131-4, 155, 157-8, 166, 172
Helm, Levon 131-2, 166, 171-2
Hendrix, Jimi 179, 186-7
Hester, Carolyn 8-10, 186-7
Hibbing 12, 31, 41, 60, 66, 107
Highway 61 Revisited 108-129
Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance 45
House Of The Rising Sun 12, 15, 30, 88, 127
I Am A Lonesome Hobo 190
I Don’t Believe You 81
I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine 184
I Pity The Poor Immigrant 190
I Shall Be Free 45
I Shall Be Free No. 10 77
I Threw It All Away 199
I Want You 142
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight 193
Isle Of Wight Festival 197, 201
It Ain’t Me Babe 85, 95
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry 119
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue 107-8
It’s Alright, Ma 106-7
John Wesley Harding 176-93
Jones, Brian 121, 142
Just Like A Woman 146-7, 153
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues 124
Kapralik, David 10-13, 20, 25
Kennedy, President John F. 5, 32-7, 42, 46-7, 51, 55, 61, 69, 71, 88
Kooper, Al 89, 111, 113, 116-17, 119-126, 129, 131-37, 140-1, 145, 148, 150, 153
Kramer, Daniel 27, 88, 91-2, 97
Lay Lady Lay 201
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat 144-5
Like A Rolling Stone 115-118
Lo And Behold! 162-3
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll 64-5
Long Distance Operator 174-5
Love Minus Zero/No Limit 98
Lowndes, Sara 98-99, 109, 115, 120, 140, 152-53, 178, 192-94, 200
McCoy, Charlie 126, 132-3, 137, 140, 148, 150-3, 178, 196
Madhouse on Castle Street 30-2, 87
Maggie’s Farm 98-9
Manuel, Richard 161, 166-9, 172-5
Masters Of War 32-3
Million Dollar Bash 161-2
Mixed up Confusion 26-7
Monterey Folk Festival 26, 47
Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine 148
Motorpsycho Nitemare 79
Mr Tambourine Man 70, 72, 74, 77, 83, 85, 90-91, 101-3
My Back Pages 80
Nashville Skyline 194-204
Nashville Skyline Rag 198
Neuwirth, Bob 71, 95, 97, 109-111, 113, 115, 121, 127
Newport Folk Festival 8, 9, 39, 48, 58, 97-8, 102, 111, 122
North Country Blues 59
Nothing Was Delivered 173
Obviously 5 Believers 150-1
Ochs, Phil 62, 65, 81, 113, 127, 128, 136
Odds And Ends 160-1
On The Road Again 100
One More Night 202-3
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) 140-1
One Too Many Mornings 58-9
Only A Pawn In Their Game 61-2
Open The Door, Homer 173-4
Outlaw Blues 99-100
Oxford Town 21, 41-3
Peggy Day 200-1
Peter, Paul & Mary 13, 25, 30, 38, 92. 157, 160
Please, Mrs. Henry 166-7
Pledging My Time 138
Positively 4th Street 126-9
Queen Jane Approximately 122
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 135-8
Restless Farewell 65-6
Robertson, Robbie 129, 131-3, 137-8, 140-1, 145, 151, 156-61, 165-6, 170, 172-4, 177-8
Rotolo, Suze 111, 12, 20, 31, 33, 38, 58, 62, 74, 81-3, 85
Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands 151-2
Seeger, Pete 8, 17, 18, 23, 29-30, 54, 92, 97-8, 111, 117
She Belongs To Me 95-6
Song to Woody 15–16
Spanish Harlem Incident 76
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again 143-4
Subterranean Homesick Blues 92-3
Talkin’ New York 13
Talkin’ World War III Blues 43
Tears Of Rage 167-8
Tell Me That It Isn’t True 203
Temporary Like Achilles 148-9
The Times They Are A-Changin’ 53-5
The Times They Are A Changin’ 46-67
Tiny Montgomery 170
To Be Alone With You 199-200
To Ramona 79-80
Tombstone Blues 117-8
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You 204
Too Much Of Nothing 169-70
Van Ronk, Dave 7, 9, 12, 14-15, 31, 35, 38-9, 41, 59, 81, 89, 127, 137
Visions Of Johanna 138-9
This Wheel’s On Fire 175
When The Ship Comes In 63-4
The Wicked Messenger 192
Wilson, Tom 25, 53, 73, 78, 80, 89, 91, 101, 111, 116-17
With God On Our Side 56-7
Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread 169
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere 171
Zimmerman, Abe an Beatty 60
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