In this song, as he sometimes does, Bob Dylan returns to his childhood in Minnesota. He talks about his “precious father,” his “loving mother,” and his “lonely years.” He recalls how “precious sacred scenes unfold,” a reference to his own gospel music sound. “Precious Memories,” indeed, is a traditional gospel hymn composed in 1925 by J.B.F. Wright and, before and after Dylan, performed by many artists, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris. Dylan sang the song onstage for the first time in New York City on October 13, 1989.
With “Precious Memories,” Dylan leads us to the sound of the steel drums of the islands. This is a different style than the usual gospel or country arrangements, but it does have its own charm, especially with Dylan’s vocal combined with the excellent backup vocalists. Besides three steel drum players, Larry Meyers played mandolin.
Maybe Someday
Bob Dylan / 3:20
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Mike Campbell: guitar; Steve Douglas: saxophone; Steve Madaio: trumpet; Howie Epstein: bass; Don Heffington: drums; Carolyn Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Annette May Thomas, Elisecia Wright, Queen Esther Marrow, and Peggi Blu: backup vocals / Recording Studio: Topanga Skyline Studio, Topanga, California: May 14, 1986 (Overdubs May 16, 21–22, 1986) / Producer: Sundog Productions / Sound Engineer: Britt Bacon
Genesis and Production
Bob Dylan comes back to the theme that, with “Like a Rolling Stone,” elevated him to the rank of excellence. In a monologue, the narrator draws conclusions from the mistakes of the heroine. Who is she? The one with whom he shared his life? A line of the first verse is a perfect illustration: “When you’re through running over things like you’re walking ’cross the tracks / Maybe you’ll beg me to take you back.” Even more, “Maybe someday you’ll have nowhere to turn” looks suspiciously like Miss Lonely in “Like a Rolling Stone.” The fifth line of the second verse, “Through hostile cities and unfriendly towns” paraphrases a line from T. S. Elliot’s poem “Journey of the Magi,” “And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly.”
Dylan recorded this rock song for the first time during the sessions for Empire Burlesque at Cherokee Studios, perhaps on December 22, 1984. The song was originally called “Prince of Plunder.” He entirely reworked the tune on May 14, 1986, at Topanga Skyline Studio. “Maybe Someday” could have been a good rock song, but the piece suffers from anemic drumbeats and lack of a bass line. Yet Dylan provides a great vocal and Mike Campbell an excellent guitar part. The harmonies by the backup vocalists are excellent.
Brownsville Girl
Bob Dylan / Sam Shepard / 11:03
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Ira Ingber: guitar; Vince Melamed: keyboard; Steve Douglas: saxophone; Steve Madaio: trumpet; Carl Sealove: bass; Don Heffington: drums; Carolyn Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Elisecia Wright, Queen Esther Marrow, Muffy Hendrix, and Peggi Blu: backup vocals / Recording Studios: Cherokee Studios, Hollywood, California: December 6, 10, and 11, 1984 / Topanga Skyline Studio, Topanga, California: May 14, 1986 (Overdubs April 30, May 1–2, 16, 19–20, 1986 Producer: Sundog Productions / Sound Engineers: George Tutko (Cherokee) and Britt Bacon (Skyline)
Genesis and Production
Bob Dylan co-wrote “Brownsville Girl” with playwright Sam Shepard, whose collaboration with Dylan dates back to the Rolling Thunder Revue of the mid-1970s. “Brownsville Girl” is, without exaggeration, among Dylan’s masterpieces. With cinematic allusions, the narrator reconnects with his past. Once he loved a woman, the mysterious “Brownsville Girl” (Brownsville is a town in Texas on the border with Mexico) who is now gone. At the end of the third verse, Dylan sings, “The memory of you keeps callin’ after me like a rollin’ train,” and he fondly recalls their time together—a kind of road movie via San Antonio, the Alamo, Mexico, and the Rocky Mountains.
Being Dylan, he does not name the film: “Well, there was this movie I seen one time / About a man riding ’cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck.” It is definitely the 1950 Western The Gunfighter, directed by Henry King and starring Peck in the role of trigger-happy Jimmy Ringo, who encounters numerous obstacles as he searches for his wife and son, whom he has not seen for years. Dylan and Shepard’s genius is to blend the experience of the narrator with Ringo’s life. Both have the same quest, as if reality and fiction were one. “Brownsville Girl” may also be a reference to the 1946 film Duel in the Sun, directed by King Vidor, where two brothers, Lewt (Gregory Peck) and Jess (Joseph Cotten), fight for the love of the young Pearl Chavez, a half–Native American girl (Jennifer Jones).
“Brownsville Girl” is clearly the song on the album. Unlike the other titles, this tune did not suffer too much from the 1980s production style. Its success comes from Dylan’s vocal and the excellent, transcendent performance of the backup vocalists. Dylan started working on “Brownsville Girl” during the sessions for Empire Burlesque in December 1984. A year afterward, he and his band reworked the rhythm track at Topanga Skyline Studio. This beautiful song deserved another mix.
Got My Mind Made Up
Bob Dylan / Tom Petty / 2:56
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals; Tom Petty: guitar; Mike Campbell: guitar; Benmont Tench: keyboards; Howie Epstein: bass; Stan Lynch: drums; Philip Lyn Jones: congas; Carolyn Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Elisecia Wright, and Queen Esther Marrow: backup vocals / Recording Studio: Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, California, June 19, 1986 / Producers: Tom Petty and Bob Dylan / Sound Engineer: (?)
Genesis and Production
“Got My Mind Made Up” was written by Bob Dylan with the assistance of Tom Petty (before or at the beginning of the True Confessions Tour). Petty and his band also recorded the song during the sessions for his album Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), released in 1987. “Got My Mind Made Up” was excluded from the final track listing, but was officially released on the Petty box set Playback in 1995.
A comparison between the two versions reveals Dylan’s crucial contribution to the text. In Tom Petty’s version, the tale can be summarized as nothing more than a lovers’ quarrel. By contrast, Dylan gives this awkward couple’s relationship a more evocative dimension than a simple breakup, as the harsh comments addressed to the ex-girlfriend show: “Well, I gave you all my money / All my connections, too”; “Well, if you don’t want to see me / Look the other way.”
A demo of “Got My Mind Made Up” was cut on May 19, 1986, at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California. Exactly one month later, the final cut was made at the same facility. Dylan and Petty were accompanied by the members of the Heartbreakers, including Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Howie Epstein, and Stan Lynch. This is an excellent rock song, Bo Diddley–like, with a formidable rhythm section of bass, drums, and rhythm guitars giving full force to the song. The Delta blues riff played on bottleneck is superb, and the lead guitar with its very pronounced vibrato is irresistible. The sound of the song is one of the richest on the entire album, probably due to the absence of a prominent synthesizer and other metallic-sounding digital effects.
The first public performance of this song was at a concert in San Diego, on June 9, 1986, ten days before the recording session. Dylan was accompanied by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers!
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Bob Dylan found the inspiration for the title of the album Knocked Out Loaded in a line of the second verse of “Under Your Spell,” “I was knocked out and loaded in the naked night.”
Under Your Spell
Bob Dylan / Carole Bayer Sager / 3:56
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Dave A. Stewart: guitar; Patrick Seymour: keyboards; John McKenzie: bass; Clem Burke: drums; Muffy Hendrix, Carolyn Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Elisecia Wright, and Queen Esther Marrow: backup vocals / Recording Studios: The Church Studios, Crouch End, London: November 20–23, 1985 / Topanga Skyline Studio, Topanga, California (Overdubs May 7, 9, 12–13, 19, 20–21, 1986) / Producer: Sundog Productions / Sound Engineer: Britt Bacon (Skyline)
Genesis and Production
“Unde
r Your Spell” is another song dealing with love lost. It was co-written by Dylan and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, the wife of singer Burt Bacharach. Carol Childs, Dylan’s future girlfriend, probably suggested the collaboration. Sager wasn’t sure it worked: “[I]t was really weird… I mean it’s hard to call it a collaboration because we were never exactly doing anything together at the same time. And at the end of the day he really didn’t use a whole lot of my lyric, maybe a third, but he gave me a credit. I thought, ‘Why is he giving me a credit?’ He basically lost most of my words, but he said he wouldn’t have written it without me in the room.”138
The recording of the basic rhythm track for “Under Your Spell” took place between November 20 and 23, 1985, at the Church Studios in London, the home base of the Eurythmics. Dylan may have changed the lyrics co-written with Sager after this session. This song, like the previous track, benefits from a warmer sound than the rest of the album. Dave A. Stewart knew how to master the sounds with precision. The harmony is influenced by the band Matt Bianco’s style and the chorus by the Eurythmics. Dylan seems to be feeling his way into the production style of the time. He attained his goal with “Under Your Spell,” one of the successes of the album.
Band Of The Hand (It’s Hell Time, Man!)
Bob Dylan / 4:38
SINGLE
DATE OF RELEASE
Band of the Hand (It’s Hell Time, Man!) (Bob Dylan) / Theme from Joe’s Death (Michel Rubini)
April 21, 1986
on MCA Records
(REFERENCE MCA-52811)
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals
Tom Petty: guitar, vocals
Mike Campbell: guitar
Benmont Tench: keyboards
Howie Epstein: bass
Stan Lynch: drums
Philip Lyn Jones: congas
Stevie Nicks, Madelyn Quebec, Elisecia Wright, Queen Esther Marrow, and Debra Byrd: backup vocals
Recording Studio
Festival Studios, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: February 8–9, 1986
Technical Team
Producer: Tom Petty
Sound Engineer: (?)
Genesis and Lyrics
Band of the Hand is a 1986 crime film directed by Paul Michael Glaser. The plot recounts the story of a group of juvenile delinquents from the poor neighborhoods of Miami’s inner city who attend a commando training course in the Everglades under the supervision of a social worker named Joe, a former Vietnam veteran and a Native American. Upon completing the course, the group returns to Miami to fight the criminal activities of a drug dealer.
Bob Dylan wrote the eponymous song based on this synopsis. He speaks of daily violence, a corrupt system, and witchcraft that transforms children into crooks and slaves. He adds, “For all of my brothers from Vietnam / And my uncles from World War II / I’ve got to say that it’s countdown time now / We’re gonna do what the law should do.”
Production
Dylan recorded “Band of the Hand (It’s Hell Time Man!)” at the beginning of the True Confessions Tour on February 8 and 9, 1986. The lyrics were laid down between two concerts, one in Auckland, New Zealand, and the other in Sydney, Australia. Dylan recorded the song at Festival Studios, a subsidiary of Festival Records in the United States, located in Sydney. Accompanied by Tom Petty, the Heartbreakers, and backup vocalists, Dylan recorded a rhythm ’n’ blues song highlighting the energetic interpretation of the vocalists, including Stevie Nicks, a member of Fleetwood Mac.
Few of the Knocked Out Loaded songs sounded as good. Tom Petty as producer worked wonders, and Dylan is backed by an outstanding, unified, and highly talented group. While he is rarely as good as he is in a blues-rock atmosphere, this record has more impact and strength than his next album, Down in the Groove, which is definitely sterile and unfocused, even if he was just following the style of his time.
The single was released under the name “Bob Dylan with the Heartbreakers,” with “Theme from Joe’s Death,” an instrumental by Michael Rubini on the soundtrack to the movie, on the B-side. The single hit number 28 on the Billboard charts.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
In addition to “Band of the Hand (It’s Hell Time Man!),” the Band of the Hand soundtrack includes “Carry Me Back Home” by Andy Summers; “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince; “Faded Flowers” by Shriekback; “All Come Together Again” by Tiger Tiger; “Waiting for You,” “Hold On,” “Mission,” and “Turn It On” by Rick Shaffer; and “Broken Wings” by John Lang and Richard Page.
Down
In The
Groove
Let’s Stick Together
When Did You Leave Heaven?
Sally Sue Brown
Death Is Not The End
Had A Dream About You, Baby
Ugliest Girl In The World
Silvio
Ninety Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street)
Shenandoah
Rank Strangers To Me
THE OUTTAKES
Street People
Side Walks
Sugaree
My Prayer
Wood In Steel
Heaven
Shake Your Money
Chain Gang
If You Need Me
Branded Man
Making Believe
Darkness Before Dawn
Just When I Needed You Most
Important Words
Willie And The Hand Jive
Twist And Shout
Almost Endless Sleep
Bare Foot In
Listen To Me
You Can’t Judge A Book By Looking At The Cover
Tioga Pass
DATE OF RELEASE
May 19, 1988 (May 30 or 31, according to some sources)
on Columbia Records
(REFERENCE COLUMBIA OC 40957 [LP] / COLUMBIA CK 40957 [CD])
Down in the Groove:
The Album of Doubts
The Album
Upon entering the Hollywood Sunset Sound Studios in early March 1987, Bob Dylan intended to make a sequel to Self Portrait, released seventeen years earlier. He also wanted to record the second double album of his career. Columbia may have vetoed the double album, so he focused on cover songs.
Dylan’s twenty-fifth studio album, Down in the Groove, released on May 19, 1988 (May 30 or 31, according to some sources), is a single LP of ten songs. Five of them are covers, one an American traditional, two are Dylan’s composition, and two are Co-written with lyricist Robert Hunter.
Listening to this album and its predecessor, Dylan appears to be going through a crisis of inspiration. It is hard to find the genius writer of the 1960s or even the one from the 1970s. Dylan seems like a spectator to the evolution of music, more than a participant. This led him to venture into new areas—techno-pop, in this case—that were not suited to his compositional, much less his poetic, sensibilities.
Like Knocked Out Loaded, Down in the Groove is a series of songs recorded in several studios, some of which had been left off the track listings of previous albums. This is particularly revealing of the songwriter’s indecisiveness: “Got Love If You Want It” and “Important Words” (written by Slim Harpo and Gene Vincent, respectively) were included on the original track listing, removed in favor of “The Usual” (a song by John Hiatt on the soundtrack of Hearts of Fire, a film directed by Richard Marquand), then, after that was taken off, “Death Is Not the End” and “Had a Dream about You, Baby” were added.
Prestigious Collaborations
What distinguishes Dylan’s twenty-fifth album is his collaborative efforts, both in songwriting and music. What saves the album is his work with Robert Hunter, a top figure in psychedelic counterculture and a poet and lyricist for the Grateful Dead (the superb “Truckin’,” “Ripple,” and “Dark Star”). With Hunter, Dylan wrote the extravagant “Ugliest Girl in the World,” in which a man is so attached to his wife, “the ugliest girl in the world,” that he goes half crazy when she calls his name and will go totally i
nsane if he ever loses her. “Silvio,” written by Hunter, also reflected their collaboration with a very different atmosphere from the previous song. The lyrics of “Silvio” are dark, almost desperate, poetry (“Silver and gold / Won’t buy back the beat of a heart grown cold”).
Musically, Dylan was surrounded by a veritable Who’s Who of the rock scene. Mark Knopfler was co-producer and guitarist on “Death Is Not the End.” Eric Clapton and Ron Wood accompanied Dylan for “Had a Dream about You, Baby,” and Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Brent Mydland of the Grateful Dead provided backup vocals for “Silvio.” Jack Sherman, guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, participated in the recording of “When Did You Leave Heaven?” Most surprising, perhaps, was the participation of the ex–Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and the ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon next to Bob Dylan for “Sally Sue Brown.”
The decision not to release another double album was probably a wise one. What stands out about the ten songs on the album Down in the Groove? They are not bad. However, compared to his previous two albums, this album had real potential. Today the songs appear more consistent because they make fewer concessions to the sound of the 1980s. Dylan probably wanted to reconnect with the musical language that had propelled him to success: rock, folk, and gospel. Unfortunately, the album is too scattered, full of uncertainties, and, above all, clearly lacking magic and inspiration.
All these weaknesses were cited by the critics. Nevertheless, Down in the Groove reached number 61 on the US Billboard charts and number 32 in the United Kingdom. The promotional tour, which began on June 7, 1988, in Concord, California, helped prevent the boat from sinking.
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 73
