No Direction Home

If you want to know about Bob Dylan there is one documentary that I think is a must. No Direction Home by Martin Scorsese is a phenomenal movie for Dylan fans to watch. Scorsese is known for his wonderful music documentaries such as The Last Waltz, the Bands farewell show, and Give Me Shelter The Rolling Stones’ performance. No Direction Home is filled with amazing interviews from Dylan’s peers and friends such as former girl friend Joan Baez. It has amazing footage of Dylan performing in the New Port Folk Festival as well as the historic 1966 rock revival shows that Dylan put on in England. The documentary also includes some of Dylan’s amazingly entertaining interviews over the years. The movie takes covers Dylan’s beginnings as a folk singer passing the hat in Greenwich Village to the rock star that he is known as today. Some of my favorite parts of the documentary is him being called Judas by some of the English fans who preferred his more humble folk roots compared to his new rock songs, in which Dylan yelled to his backing band known simply now as “The Band”, “Play it F***ing loud!” It shows Dylan in the light that you like to see him as, the musician who just wants to play his music. He doesn’t care if you like or think his music is topical he just wants to play and the movie shows this very well. This is something that every Dylan fan should watch if the enjoys not only Dylan’s music but his persona as well.

Dylan # 2 Immortals

Many of us know that Dylan is the greatest artist of all time, and it nice when we see him honored by his peers. On great example of this would be RollingStone magazine issue 946 from April 15, 2004. This issue counts down the top 50 what they call Immortals. On this list is everyone that you would expect to see like Elvis, The Who, Chuck Berry just to name a few. Dylan was listed as number 2, only behind the Beatles. The article was written by no other than Robbie Robertson the guitarist from Dylan’s former backing band. It was Dylan who put the Band on the map. It gives a very interesting point of view. The article talks about how Dylan uses to be sitting at the typewriter while the Band would be coming in to record. It is cool to read what Dylan has done for another great artist. He talks about breaking down the rules of music, how Dylan didn’t care if he wrote a song over 2:30 minutes or if his voice isn’t as perfect as everyone else, Jimmi Hendrix has noted this as an influence. When you really think about what is said and you relate to modern music you can see that Dylan truly did change the way people did music. The time length for music can range anywhere from a couple of minutes to songs like Dark Star and in da gadda da vida that seem like they just go on forever. If it weren’t for Dylan, who knows what music would be like now. It is a great passage and all 50 articles are interesting and are good reads. I’m sure that it might be hard to go find that issue, but luckily it is online so if you want to read it you can find it here, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939214/the_immortals_the_first_fifty

My website

Not only do I write on this blog but I also have my own website that is devoted to Bob Dylan. If you have been finding my blog interesting than I think that my website will fit you as well. Although it is currently not as filled as I would like I plan to be expanding it much further. This includes some very interesting readings about Dylan at a more in-depth level than I currently have in this blog. I already have a link to the full article that I wrote about Hot to become a Dylan fan. I am soon going to have more articles for your reading pleasure. I hope that my information that I present on my website will be just as interesting as what you have read so far on my blog. My website can be found at

http://www.bobbydylan.webs.com

BobDylan.com

Now if you have been reading my blog you obviously interested in Bob Dylan, but incase you truly don’t know bobdylan.com is the one stop shop for all you need to know about Bob Dylan. There you can find the most recent news about Dylan such as talks about his recent Grammy nods for Together Through Life and his Christmas album. Important for all Dylan fans is information about his upcoming tour. We all know that for a man of 68 years old it seems that he is always on the road, so it can be hard to remember when you can be expected him in your home town. On the site you can also find information on all of his albums, which include song tracks, album information, as well as fan comments on the album. If that is not enough he has on the site every lyric to his songs throughout the years under the songs tab. With a man with such large catalog music it is nice to be able to have all of this at your hand especially from the horses mouth. It doesn’t stop there because they also have pictures and some video performances including his revolutionary music video for subterranean homesick blues. Besides that you also have links to the Bob Dylan store in which you can get anything you want Bob Dylan related. Obviously a site about Bob Dylan is going to contain this much information but this is one of the best websites that I have seen devoted to a artist in a long time, so if you haven’t checked it out I highly suggest you check BobDylan.com.

Every Bob Dylan Song

There is a great blog available http://everybobdylansong.blogspot.com/. This is a blog in which the author has been attempting to write a blog about every Bob Dylan song. Right now he, as done almost 200 blogs and has blogged about 160 songs. The reason why this has peeked my interest because this author has been writing consentingly since 2008. The bogs are very in-depth and a very interesting and although I haven't been able to read all of them the ones that I have read keep me coming back. He dissects every song that he talks about very well whether he is analyzing lyrics, or Dylan’s reasons for even writing the songs. I recommend this blog if you seem to have questions about certain songs that you just can’t seem to figure out by yourself. Although I may not agree with everything that is said on this blog I do seem to agree with the majority of it and if nothing else I respect what the blogs say. I like that the does not always seem to know the answer and come on with a man like Dylan not even Bob himself seems to know all the answers and reasons for these songs. The man is a mystery and his songs are a part of it but this blog does its best to try to make sense of what Dylan means through his words. Just reading lyrics don’t always seem to get you the answers that you want so it is nice to see what some other think on issues. I always like to see if people have the same thoughts that I have and http://everybobdylansong.blogspot.com/ is a great way to look into that.

Modern TImes

For those who are Dylan fans, but are the type who doesn’t think that he still has the good then I highly suggest you check out one of his more recent albums. They have been pretty good lately, but I prefer the Grammy winning Modern Times. This is a great album and has a great 10-song track list. I’m not going to lie to you and say that it his best album because what he has done for music just truly can not be explained, but it is a great album and worth listening to if not a purchase. The album starts with a great upbeat “thunder on the mountain” and then goes into a calm “spirit on the water” a seven plus song that seems to sooth the soul. Not to mention it features a line that is to all the people who doubt Dylan and he can't compete any more “You think I'm over the hill/ You think I'm past my prime
/ Let me see what you got/
We can have a whoppin' good time. Like Dylan is can sing about anything whether it’s a woman he wants to get out of his life but feels he can’t like “someday baby” or a woman he would do anything for like in “Nettie Moore”. Dylan also what he can do best a sing about topical issues like he does in “workingman blues 2” where it almost eerily seems like he was foreseeing the horrible unemployment problem that he we have today. And those are just my highlights of the ten track album in which I enjoy every song on there and even got to seem him perform them live. So if you don’t think that Dylan can still rock out take a listen, you will be surprise. For an album that made Dylan the only mad over 65 to win a Grammy and debut at number 1 at the time and his first number one album since 1976’s Desire it is a definite listen.

Dylan's Top Love Songs

In the sprit of Valentine Day I thought I would count down my top three Dylan love songs. Although two of the three songs may have more to do with lust than love they are all great songs with relationships being the topic at hand. Not saying that your going to sing these songs to your girlfriend and she'll madly fall in love with you, but hey if she’s a Dylan fan it might work

3. If Not For You”

This Song off of New Morning is a great song. Not only do I like it as a love song but also it’s just a great song in general. It is a song in which it talks about how some people just feel so completed by their significant other that they cant even function without them. Just the opening line in which is say “if not for you babe I couldn’t even find the door” and the song is full of words that tell your loved one that if they weren’t in your life not only would you be sad but life just wouldn’t be the same.

2.”I Want You”

This song from Blonde on Blonde is more about lust than love, but it works nonetheless. The song is rumored to be about Brian Jones’ of the Rolling Stones girlfriend because there are a couple lines that hint to him, such as the fact the Jones was known for wearing Chinese suits. This song is more for the girl that you cant have, the one that you are trying to get from another. So although not the most romantic song everyone knows that you want what you can’t have.

1. “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”

From John Wesely Harding this song has a country feel to it, a feel that would continue onto Dylan’s next Album Nashville Skyline. It is a warm song that I think is a little less romantic than one might originally think. When listening to the song it is not so much a love song as it is a song about trying to get a woman take the relationship to the next step, but it sounds sweet and romantic and it is song that I can listen to any day of the week so that’s why it gets the top spot.

Dylan Song to be Children's Book

Dylan’s song “Man Gave Names to All The Animals” off his Christian Rock album Slow Train Coming, his first since becoming a born again Christian will be converted into a children’s book. I have always found the song pretty catchy, but I never really thought of it in that light. I must say out of all the Dylan songs out their it are one of the last I thought that would be used to create a book. The song will work out pretty well though I must say. I’m not quite sure just about how the author Jim Arnosky will exactly go about making the book, but I don’t really think it will be too much work. The song is set up in a way that I feel that you would just be able to take the lyrics of the song copy them word for word and add a couple of pictures and you would have a perfectly acceptable book for children. The song in its current state has six animals if you include that connotation that the last animal will be a snake. The others are the Bear, Cow, Bull, Pig and Sheep, so I wonder if this will be enough animals or if the artist will add a couple more to the story line. Also the song is a Christian song with the man in the story obviously referring to Adam and the naming of the animals form the Genesis 2:19-20, this is why Dylan most likely does not name the snake, because it was the snake that led Adam and Eve into sin. The book is due to hit stores in September so I guess will have to wait until then to see if Arnosky adds more animals and if he keeps with the Religious meaning.

How to be a Dylan Fan

Recently on my website I wrote an article on how to go about becoming a Bob Dylan fan. Know this is only for people who really don't know much about Dylan but want to learn. This is how I did and I'm sure other people have their own recommendations but anyway here were go.

Step One: Go buy a greatest hits CD. There are plenty out their and before you can get to know Dylan it is s a good idea to have a overall understanding of his music through out his carrier.

Step Two: Find the albums with the songs that you like on them and buy them. Try to get a couple different songs from a couple different stages of his carrier, like his early folk music, his rock revival in 66' or his more recent blues/jazz work.

Step Three: Watch some of the movies and documentary out their about Dylan. The movie I'm Not Their is a unique way to tell a biography, but then again Dylan is a very unique individual. A great watch is the Scorsese documentary No Direction Home. It gives a great overview of what Dylan was going through from his early days to his hiatus from music following his motorcycle crash.

Step Four: Read a book about the man. Their are plenty, I would recommend the Chronicles by Dylan himself or the Essential Interviews by James Cott, which has over 31 amazing Bob Dylan interviews over the course of his carrier.

Step Five: Seen the man in concert. Some say he lost his voice but as someone who has seen him in the last three years I can tell you it is an experience that cannot be missed.

Step Six: Repeat steps two through five. A carrier that spans five decades has a lot to be heard. It can't be done in a day or a month it is something that will take you years. I have been doing this for ten years and I'm still learning more. So for the person that wants to understand the life of Dylan, well that is impossible the man is a mystery, but here is a start.

-a link to the full article at my website-

Dylan in Concert

I have seen Dylan in concert twice in my life. The first time I saw him I was only 15. I could not fully appreciate it for a couple reasons. The first being that I just did not a lot of his music yet. I was still just listing to the hits, and had not bought any of his recent albums. When in fact he was playing a lot of his newer music at the time. My cousin and me ended up leaving early, partly because we were both a little to drunk. About five years later I got the chance to see him again. He was playing at the local arena in my college town. This was a much better experience with for me. By now I had gotten to understand Dylan much better. He had just come out with his new album Modern Times and I absolutely loved it. He played just about the whole album. My friends I was with were not as excited because they had not heard the new CD. He also played some of my favorite of his hits. Tangled up in blue, it aint me babe, don’t think twice its alright babe, and his encore was master of war. Now while most of my friends knew the majority of those songs they still did not fully enjoy the concert. The one thing I can say is that Dylan’s voice had improved since I had last seen him and he sounded much clearer. Seeing him was a great experience I would see him again if the chance were brought to me again. He maybe is closing in on 70 years old hes still got it.