1984 I'D RATHER BE LUCKY THAN BE RICH - REHEARSALS & EUROPEAN TOUR
(Pink Panther Records)
Co-produced by Detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau, President Vladimir Putin,
Mr/The/Maybe President Donald Trump & newcomer Boris Johnson.
Mastered at Lubyanka Sound Studios, KGB Headquarters, Moscow.
Another absolutely brilliant production from Jacques, Vladimir, The Donald, Boris
and the death metal specialists at Lubyanka.
***
You have got to give Bob an A+ for getting hold of quality musicians.
Here we get John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers (1969 version) alumini Mick Taylor & Colin Allen,
(with Mick Taylor having added to his CV being an ex-member of The Rolling Stones in the interim);
Faces legendary keyboard player Ian "MacHooligan" MacLagan;
Latin fusion guitarist Carlos Santana; & a relatively obscure American bass player named Greg Sutton.
So what happens when you put Bob together with blues purists & latin fusion - the shambolic 84 European Tour of course.
There was also a half-hearted attempt to integrate Joan Baez into the mess, but after a couple of failed attempts, she packed up & went home.
However, there is plenty of good music to keep you interested here & it is much better than the official Real Live album
mainly culled from the final two concerts in Wembley, London & Slane Castle, Ireland.
There are two very good sounding tapes from the circulating rehearsals in LA & Verona.
The concerts are more variable in performance & sound quality - when Mick Taylor is great he is really great,
but when he is off - oh well. Ian MacLagen's keyboards are usually low in the sound mix, but not always -
there is some great electric piano to be heard here when the sound engineer turns him up.
& then there is Carlos Santana - if you think Mick Taylor is erratic, wait until you hear Carlos.
The setlists have a lot of surprises - while the shows have a large number of core songs,
this does not stop Bob from performing a lot of songs only occasionally.
There is also a lot of improvisation here - core songs get different treatments night after night - so the music is never boring.
Best concerts - Brussels, Goteborg, Offenbach & Nantes.
This tour is far better than many give it credit for - just stay away from the London & Slane "superstar" concerts.
***
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH (Bob Dylan)
Performed occasionally during the 1984 European Tour, always with a different set of lyrics.
Transcribed by Eyolf Østrem
*
Barcelona, 28 June 1984
Hands off your feet, baby,
listen to this
This is what I can't be
Often it hurt me honey,
I'm looking at you but
You're looking at me too.
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby
Tell 'em enough is enough.
Face on the gutter baby,
which is which but
I'D RATHER BE LUCKY THAN BE RICH
Off with the money honey
that is true, but I'm
Satisfied with you.
'cause a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby
Tell 'em enough is enough.
All cities, honey, hard, is soakin' wet,
but there's no more gold you can get
I'm facin' the wall, but
baby you took it all.
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
You tell 'em baby,
That enough is enough.
Got a gold mining fever, baby, but, ah
which is which, but
I'd rather be lucky than be rich
[...]
that is true, but
I'm satisfied with you
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby
Tell 'em enough is enough.
Got a gold mining fever baby, which is which but
I'd rather be lucky than be rich
Go off with the money honey, that is true, but
I'm satisfied with you.
*
Paris, 1 July 1984
Well, I don't mind eating funny honey,
sleep down in the ditch, but
I'd rather be lucky than be rich
[well, all the time I'm]
soakin' wet, but
you got all the gold that you gonna get
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby
Tell 'em enough is enough.
[Fall through the sugar, I
Fall through the glue], but
I'm satisfied with you
[oh, Moneypenny,
I should let it go, so
I just wanna know our show]
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby
Tell 'em enough is enough.
[......show]
Go back as far as you can go
I don't mind honey, 'bout
Sleepin' in the ditch, tell 'em you'd
rather be lucky than be rich
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby
Tell 'em enough is enough.
*
London, 7 July 1984
Hold your seat, honey,
back in the ditch, cause
I'd rather be lucky than be rich
Oh, yeah, [...
...]
I love you, and that is all.
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby,
tell 'em enough is enough.
[...] motor, honey,
up and down the line,
you tell them that you are mine
[if they heard of you I must obey,]
you tell them you belong to me
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys play rough
Go all the way back, baby,
tell 'em enough is enough.
She's from love, honey,
back against the wall, but
you all had it done, got it all.
Oh, pretty honey, I
tell her you're sick but
I wish you'd do it mighty quick
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys sure play rough
Go all the way back, baby,
tell 'em enough is enough.
Oh let me see if the
face is soaking wet,
you already got what you gonna get
If they ever ask you to
sleep in the ditch, you tell 'em
you'd rather be lucky than be rich.
Because a dollar is a dollar
And the downtown boys sure play rough
Now, go all the way back, baby,
tell 'em enough is enough.
***
FLAC from best available sound sources.
***
Statistics for this compilation (yes, lies, damn lies & statistics masquerading as facts)
104 ball-tearing, sensational tracks
49 different songs
21 concerts & 2 rehearsals are represented here (from the total of 27 concerts & 2 rehearsals)
8 hours & 30 minutes of music
1 bob
***
All songs played on the tour leg and rehearsals are represented here.
Sound quality is, for the most part, very good to excellent.
***
11 songs were played 25 times or more.
15 songs were played 20 times or more.
21 songs were played 15 times or more.
25 songs were played 10 times or more.
33 songs were played 5 times or more.
1 song was played 4 times.
5 songs were played 3 times.
1 song was played twice.
11 songs were played once.
***
4 songs were played 29 times:
All Along The Watchtower
Ballad Of A Thin Man
I & I
Just Like A Woman
*
4 songs were played 28 times:
Highway 61 Revisited
License To Kill
Maggie's Farm
Masters Of War
*
2 songs were played 27 times:
Every Grain Of Sand
Jokerman
*
1 song was played 26 times:
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
*
1 song was played 24 times:
Tombstone Blues
*
1 song was played 23 times:
It Ain't Me, Babe
*
1 song was played 22 times:
Blowin' In The Wind
*
1 song was played 20 times:
Simple Twist Of Fate
*
1 song was played 18 times:
Tangled Up In Blue
*
3 song were played 17 times:
Forever Young
Mr Tambourine Man
The Times They Are A-Changin'
*
1 song was played 16 times:
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
*
1 song was played 15 times:
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
*
2 songs were played 13 times:
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
*
1 song was played 12 times:
When You Gonna Wake Up?
*
1 song was played 11 times:
Enough Is Enough
*
1 song was played nine times:
Why Do I Have To Choose?
*
1 song was played seven times:
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
*
4 songs were played six times:
Angel Of Rain (Almost Done)
Love Minus Zero / No Limit
Man Of Peace
Shelter From The Storm
*
2 songs were played five times:
I Shall Be Released
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
*
1 song was played four times:
To Ramona
*
3 songs were played three times:
Heart Of Mine
Like A Rolling Stone
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
*
1 song was played twice:
Forever Young
*
11 songs were played only once:
Always On My Mind
Around And Around
Desolation Row
Dirty Lies
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Lay, Lady, Lay
To Each His Own
Tupelo Honey
Watered-Down Love
With God On Our Side
***
Clinton Heylin
In the years 1974 to 1984, Dylan continued his pre-accident practice of debuting songs in concert
that he had already recorded but not released; or not even yet recorded, but felt like trying out live.
Less than 12 months after the end of his European 1984 tour, though, he was telling Musician's Bill Flanagan,
“When I'm making a record, I'll need some songs and I'll start digging through my pockets and drawers trying to find these songs.
But regardless of what happens, when I do it in the studio it's the first time I've ever done it.”
This new credo he has stuck to ever since.
In the past 25 years, he has simply stopped performing any original songs in concert not already released.
But in May 1984, prepping for a six-week tour of Europe, he was still working on a number of unrecorded originals.
And though he only ended up performing one of them – Enough Is Enough – he clearly intended to do more.
At the Verona press conference, the day after the opening show (cum dress-rehearsal),
journalists were given a set list for the tour which included three new song titles:
the aforementioned Enough Is Enough, Dirty Lie and something called Angel Of Rain.
As evocative titles for unknown Dylan songs go, Angel Of Rain is right up there. But no song containing such a line ever revealed itself.
Even the emergence of two pre-tour rehearsal tapes – one from Los Angeles six days before the press conference,
the other from Verona itself – failed to yield forth such fruit. Unless, that is, she is wearing a disguise, as I suspect she is.
What can be found on these two invaluable recordings are a number of attempts at a rather beautiful original song,
which on the evidence of multiple versions from the Verona rehearsal has the repeated refrain, "Almost Done".
Four days earlier, in Los Angeles, it began life as a snatch of melody and a few half-strangled phrases about how “the dawn in gonna shine”,
and a snatched chorus of “Almost done, you're still the one”.
Even on the first Verona rehearsal – which is largely devoted to working on all three new songs (and a couple of country covers) –
the words are a lot less developed than the melody or the rat-a-tat arrangement. Almost done? Maybe not.
Again, Dylan seems to enjoy a real rapport with Mick Taylor, who still remembered that Sweetheart Like You began this way.
Though there is no shortage of dummy lyrics, the focus of the song remains: “Trust in me, I'll trust in you.”
In all likelihood, he continued to work on the lyric over the next couple of days.
This would fit former patterns, the song resolving itself around another Rose of Sharon-like figure.
By then, though, band rehearsals had transferred to the stages of Europe and, as he quickly discovered,
stadium and arena audiences were notoriously reluctant to stand and listen to some slow, semi-defined song they had never heard before.
The slot one imagines this song would have filled he instead devoted to a Willie Nelson cover of a similar hue, Why Do I Have To Choose?
By the time Dylan returned to New York, the second week in July 1984,
he had already decided that all three songs rehearsed in Verona were surplus to requirements.
This gorgeous melody went unused, even as he set about recording four songs with nary a decent tune between them.
Also discarded, this time before he even boarded the plane for Italy, was another snatch of a song he was working on at the Los Angeles rehearsals.
I See You Round And Round, perhaps a leftover from the garage jam-sessions, amounted to little more than a riff that went around and around,
as the 90-second fragment from the Beverly Theatre attests.
***
Beverly Theater
Los Angeles, California
23 May 1984
Rehearsal before tour
01.Maggie's Farm
02.All Along The Watchtower
03.Just Like A Woman
04.When You Gonna Wake Up
05.Shelter From The Storm
06.Watered-Down Love
07.Masters Of War
08.Jokerman
09.Simple Twist Of Fate
10.Man Of Peace
11.I & I
12.Ballad Of A Thin Man
13.Heart Of Mine
14.Around And Around
15.Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
16.It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
17.Angel Of Rain (Almost Done)
18.Always On My Mind (Mark James/Johnny Christopher/Wayne Carson)
19.Every Grain Of Sand
Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, harmonica), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian McLagan (keyboards), Gregg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
LB-7910;
Angel Of Rain (Rattle Snake / RS-226);
Equipment: CD-R from source >
dBpowerAMP set to co0mpression level 6 > flac
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Unidentified Studio
Verona, Italy
27 May 1984
Rehearsal before tour
20.Highway 61 Revisited
21.Girl Of The North Country
22.License To Kill
23.When You Gonna Wake Up?
24.To Ramona
25.Angel Of Rain (Almost Done)
26.Enough Is Enough
27.Dirty Lies
28.Why Do I Have To Choose? (Willie Nelson)
29.To Each His Own (Ray Evans - Jay Livingstone)
Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, harmonica), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian McLagan (keyboards), Gregg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
1-20 Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Angel Of Rain,
Enough Is Enough,
Dirty Lies,
Why Do I Have To Choose?,
To Each His Own.
LB-6752;
Dirty Lies (Wanted Man / WMM 045-046)
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Robert Shelton
By summer 1984, Dylan was ready to surface again in Europe on an ambitious concert tour with Santana, produced by Bill Graham.
At a press conference in Verona, Italy, in early June 1984, 150 European reporters and photographers turned out,
although Dylan did not have much to say to them and it ended in a customary shambles.
But by the time he arrived in Madrid, he had some lucid views:
"I don't think I'm gonna be really understood until maybe one hundred years from now.
What I've done, what I'm doing, nobody else does or has done.
When I'm dead and gone maybe people will realize that, and then figure it out.
I don't think anything I've done has been even mildly hinted at."
From Rotterdam to Goteborg, from Berlin to Nice, from Barcelona to Newcastle to Dublin, Dylan performed to about three quarters of a million people.
Joan Baez sang on the same bill with him and Santana at Hamburg, Munich, Offenbach, Berlin, Cologne, and Nice.
But they actually sang together only at Hamburg and Munich. Joan told my journalist associate, Liz Thomson:
"I sang with Dylan at two concerts. The press have blown it up. It really isn't the coming together of two myths.
Dylan's doesn't consider the audience. I said, 'We owe it to them to sing together.'
But the more insistent I got that it was expected, the less interested he became. In order to perform together professionally, you have to be asked."
There were many other guest stars along the way who appeared either on the bill or with Dylan –
Eric Clapton, Chrissie Hynde, and Van Morrison at Wembley, and Hugues Aufray in Paris, among them.
While Dylan was not doing any preaching this time around, ironically his appearances followed European evangelizing tours of Luis Palau and Billy Graham.
Dylan still displayed antagonism toward the press.
The West German weekly Stern was said to have offered him a front-cover story in exchange for a very brief visit, but Dylan said, "Nein."
When a reporter at Verona asked about his current religious views, he was scornful.
“Why didn't people ask Billy Joel about his religious views?”, he asked, refusing to countenance how important he had made religion in his music.
When Mick Brown, this time with The (London) Sunday Times, heard him at a Madrid football stadium, among 25 thousand others,
he saw him looking like "some avenging backwoods preacher" and sounding like "an uncompromising moralist," despite the absence of Christian songs.
Dylan denies this was a nostalgia tour: "A Tale of Two Cities was written 100 years ago. Is that nostalgia? Just another label," he told Mick Brown.
Dylan recalled that the worst reaction toward the born-again Christian period (another label he could not tolerate) was in 1979
on university campuses where "the so-called intellectual students showed their true monstrous selves."
(That was when stunned listeners had called out again, "We want the old Dylan,"
until the power of the gospel performances turned it all from disaster to triumph.
That's when he had sung in Sant Monica for World Vision, an international Christian group, to raise money for Cambodia relief,
nd Dylan preached his way into songs as in black churches:
"Christ will return to set up His Kingdom in Jerusalem.
There really is a slow train coming and it is picking up speed.
Satan has been defeated by the Cross.")
Although he was not talking in those terms by 1984, he still was thinking about Apocalypse as forecast in the Book Of Revelations,
and still saw the false gods of corporate Mammon all around. He remembered the 1960s with warmth:
"America is not like that anymore. But what happened, happened so fast that people are still trying to figure it out.
The TV media wasn't so big then. Woodstock wasn't about anything, just a whole new market for tie-dyed T-shirts. It was about clothes.
All those people are in computers now. It seemed [then] there was room to be different.
I came along at just the right time, and I understood the times I was in.
If I was starting out right now, I don't know where I'd get the inspiration from,
because you need to breathe the right air to make that creative process work.
There's never been any glory in it for me.
For me, the fulfillment was always in just doing it. That's all that really matters."
***
Arena di Verona
Verona, Italy
28 May 1984
Not used.
First concert of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass),
Colin Allen (drums).
Live debuts of I & I, Man Of Peace.
First live version of Tombstone Blues since Berkeley, California, 4 December 1965.
First live version of Shelter From The Storm since Hollywood, Florida, 16 December 1978
***
Arena di Verona
Verona, Italy
29 May 1984
30.It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
Second concert of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).
LB-1781;
Taper: Fendert (FD)
Fair sound [B-].
***
St. Pauli Stadion
Hamburg, West Germany
31 May 1984
Not used.
Third concert of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
***
Press Conference, Clubhaus, St Pauli Stadion, Hamburg, 31 May 1984
Broadcast on Tele-Illustrierte on ZDF-TV in West Germany, 1 June 1984, and by Radio HR3 in West Germany, 11 June 1984
Q: Mr Dylan, you sing a lot of old songs. Do you still have the old feelings when you sing them?
Dylan: Oh absolutely.
Q: No?
Dylan: More so now.
Q: What do you want to say when you sing the old songs, or is it just a compliment for the public?
Dylan: I wanna say this what's in the songs, you know. A few of the songs I've changed lyrics too, bringing them more up to date, you know.
Q: How do you feel being on stage again with Joan Baez?
Dylan: I haven't been on the stage with Joan yet. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will be a wonderful experience.
Q: Are there any other singers you would like to sing with?
Dylan: Mmmm, sure – Elvis Presley.
Q: Will you keep the band you have now on tour, or is it just for this tour?
Dylan: Well, what – that's hard to say you know.
Q: Do you think you have been lucky to get that band?
Dylan: Oh, I'm always lucky to get any band.
Q: It is said that your '77 [sic] concert in Nuremberg was one of your most beautiful.
What do you feel – how do you feel about coming back to Germany?
Dylan: Well, we just got here today you know, so it's still hard to tell, I just woke up a little while ago.
Q: Why did you decide to make a European tour?
Dylan: No particular reason... It's just, you know doing this, you just play all over, all over the place.
Q: Do you think it's possible the two of you, you will sing with Joan Baez?
Dylan: It's possible. I'm not sure if it's likely, but it's possible.
Q: Mr Santana, I saw you in Verona playing with Bob Dylan
Carlos Santana: Yeah, the real food is when we play music, and especially with another musician like Bob.
The audience should be commended, they stayed for more than four, five hours it seems, in the cold,
and they didn't want us to go, and I didn't want to go.
But hopefully next time, we won't go, and if somebody needs to go,
they can go, and the rest of the people who want to play should play; because we have,
I feel we have a deep reservoir, you know, of inspiration.
And people who run out, they should go home, and people who do have inspiration left to play, they should stay and play.
Q: I have a question. Will you keep this formation you have now?
Carlos Santana: I beg your pardon – that was for Bob or me?
Q: To you – will you stay with this formation?
Carlos Santana: You mean with the band? Sure, I love to. I love these musicians.
They're all individuals, great individuals in their own rights, they inspire me all the time, so... ah, a great family, thank you.
Q: How did you get together with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare for the last record?
Dylan: Mmmm, it just happened.
Q: You wrote a song, I & I
Dylan: I & I !
Q: You write rastafarian music too?
Dylan: Is that? Could be.
Q: Is touring such a big thrill for you as it was in the early days?
Dylan: Oh yeah.
Q: Thrill or bore?
Dylan: Eh?
Q: A thrill or a bore?
Dylan: Oh it's a thrill.
Q: You look a bit tired.
Q: Bob Dylan, could you try to explain the stupid reactions to Slow Train Coming and Sla- uh, Saved?
That rea – the stupid reaction, we had for example here in the press?
Dylan: Ah, who's that singing (Baez can be heard in the background)?
Slow Train was a big album, yeah. I don't know what was in the press here about it, but Slow Train did all right.
I think Saved was a little light, you know. Some are big, some aren't, you know...
Q: Mr Dylan, how do you feel about the American Freeze Movement and the German Peace Movement here and in the world?
Dylan: Well, I heard about that, yeah.
Q: So what do you feel about it, I mean what do you know about it?
Dylan: Ah... is there missiles here? There's miss – yeah, yeah (Sighs deeply), ah well,
I'd probably – I probably wouldn't [want] them in in my backyard either, you know.
Q: Do you consider any political activities for yourself? I mean as you were a protest singer?
Dylan: No. I might have been a protest singer, but I've always... never been, you know... into politics, whatever.
Q: In rock 'n' roll and reggae, there's a lot of politics...
Dylan: Yeah, there might be, there might be some. Well, you could make anything politic – political, you know.
You can turn a love song, you know, a love song can be political too.
Q: Do you wish your lyrics would have any effect?
Dylan: Was that to me?
Q: Yeah.
Dylan: To have effect – oh sure!
Q: Could you specify that please?
Dylan: The effect? Well, they affect “me”, so I don't know, maybe they affect somebody else (sighs deeply)
Q: Did you sleep last night?
Dylan: No. You know how it is on these tours. So much going on, it's so hard to get some sleep.
Q: I presume you two will play together with Joan Baez tonight. Has there been time to...
to practise before, would it be just like friends playing the first time together?
Carlos Santana: I'm sorry, can you repeat that question again? I thought you were asking him. This is – What did you say?
Q: Did you practice before? You are playing together, did you improvise?
Carlos Santana: All the time as much as possible. We rehearse the band enough time to get acquainted with...
I'm a believer that freedom comes from discipline, so first you gotta have discipline, consistency and regularity in your rehearsal.
Once you become acquainted with each other, then you can do anything you want to, because you have confidence -- ...
in what you're there for, and in what the musicians can do. So yeah, I rehearsed enough to...
when I come here I can maintain a standard as a professional, yeah.
Q: The question was, whether or not you rehearsed with Joan Baez before you played with her today?
Carlos Santana: No, I never. But it was fun, I was delighted.
Q: Is it fun to play with Bob Dylan too?
Carlos Santana: Oh, it's a deep honor to play with Bob Dylan. Mmmm, I mean, I'm looking forward to making it even more fun.
At least for my part, for him you know, and for the rest of the audience, you know.
That's all we can do, is really to serve, and enhance, and make people happy, and touch 'em the way that you people touch us,
with your convictions, and our beliefs.
Q: Mr Dylan, how many songs does it take you to wake up on stage?
Dylan: Oh, maybe six.
Q: How many do you play, five?
Dylan: (LAUGHS)
Q: Mr Dylan, do you have any aims?
Dylan: Who? – oh-oh...
Q: Mr Santana, why are you wearing a hat like that?
Carlos Santana: For the same reason you're wearing a dress like that, or a ... pants like that.
It's ... they're neat, nice colors, keep my head warm.
Q: That's all?
Carlos Santana: So far.
Dylan: Okay? Is there any more questions?
Q: I didn't get my answer.
Q: Do you listen to any contemporary rock music now? What kind of music do you listen to?
Dylan: Let's see, listen – is that for Carlos or me?
Q: For you, Mr Dylan.
Dylan: Oh. What music do I listen to?
Q: Yeah.
Dylan: Oh, I listen to just about anything.
Q: There's been happening a lot, say, for the last five years in rock music.
What do you think about it, are you part of the new...?
Dylan: Yeah, well... (applause as Joan Baez arrives)
Dylan: This woman can really talk, so all...
Q: Why can't you?
Dylan: I don't know. I've never, uh, practised it.
Q: What means pleasure to you?
Dylan: Huh?
Joan Baez (TO DYLAN): What do you want to do?
Dylan: What do ... like to do? Oh ... I like to dance and I like to sing.
Joan Baez: This an open press conference? Can anybody ask anybody what they want?
Q: Bob's a bit sleepy.
Joan Baez: How long has it been going on?
Q: Twenty minutes.
Joan Baez: Really?
Q: Did you like the Hamburg audience?
Joan Baez: They're superb.
Q: And in comparison to the Italian audience, what's the difference?
Joan Baez: To the which?
Q: Italians.
Joan Baez: They're a little less hysterical, but they're certainly as bright.
Q: Did you expect more young people in the audience?
Joan Baez: My German audiences are, like, young. Mine is a young audience, for me, you have to remember, young for Bob too.
Dylan: Well, I am young!
Joan Baez: Happy Birthday Bob!
Q: How do you come along together, the two of you?
Joan Baez: Pardon?
Q: How do you get along with each other?
Joan Baez: I don't know, I haven't seen him in two years, and before that, I hadn't seen him in five years.
We probably don't get along too well if we see each other more (laughs). How do we get along, Bob?
Dylan: Oh, fabulous.
Q: A question to all three of you whoever wants to answer. Do you think you will get the next generation of audience and public?
You are looking into the audience, maybe it's the 30s or 40s, no?
Joan Baez: It's not. I would assume that it would be, and I would think it would be for Bob, and I would think it might be for Carlos.
But you better look again. There's some of course our age...
Dylan: There's a lot of people our age.
Q: Yeah.
Joan Baez: But in the audience, there's a lot of very young people.
Q: But it's difficult for them to find a babysitter when you're going to a festival?
Dylan: That's true, that's right.
Q: Miss Baez, would you comment on the American Freeze movement? I asked that question before.
Joan Baez: I think the American Freeze movement is the only movement big enough to call an actual movement,
and I think that's the useful thing about it. See ya, Bob! The useful thing about it is that it, uhmmmm,
helps some people who are very frightened of talking about disarmament in any way that sounds like unilateral.
So it introduced middle class... middle class America to talking about disarmament.
People who are too terrified to talk about it before... The thing about that isn't... that I'm not quite comfortable with is that it isn't enough.
Now, it doesn't really – If you can do it from your living room, it's probably not gonna stop World War III.
Q: What you just said is that more knowledge or awareness of nuclear threat is needed?
Joan Baez: Yeah, and that's useful. Definitely.
Q: But that's something you can do from your living room?
Joan Baez: Yes, and then the problem is that it's not just...
We could dismantle everything magically in a period of six months, but if we didn't change our basic assumptions that we all work on,
which is that it's okay to kill each other, then we could build them all up again in... a year, or however long it takes.
Q: Bob, which period in your career are you most satisfied with?
Dylan: Mmmm, this one right now.
Q: You make music for so long a time, is it not the moment to give it up? What's the end to your career?
Dylan: Huh? I hope it's not...
Q: Bob, are you Christian or Jewish?
Dylan: Well, that's hard to say.
Q: Some more?
Dylan: It's a long story.
Q: I'd like to know it.
Dylan: It'd take too long to tell you.
Q: Mr Dylan, you wrote – rumor has it that you wrote some songs for The Clash and The Psychedelic Furs, is that true?
Why did you choose those people as, er – to write a song for?
Dylan: Is that a question? Was that a question?
Q: It is, yes.
Dylan: Do I like The Psychedelic Furs?
Joan Baez: Why did you write songs for them? Did you write songs for them?
Q: The Psychedelic Furs told in an interview that you sent them a song?
Dylan: (after some further prompting from Joan Baez): Oh, I can't remember.
Joan Baez: If anybody is interested in a serious press conference, I'd be happy to stay for ten minutes, okay?
Dylan: Joan's gonna stay and answer some more questions.
Joan Baez: That's right, whichever you like.
Q: Joan Baez, you know him for a really long time, why is it so difficult to have some answers?
Joan Baez: I've known Bob for a long time, and I've never tried to understand him...
and I've never shared a press conference with him (laughing).
Q: You'll never do it again?
Joan Baez: No, I'll never do it again (laughing).
Q: Is he like that in private life?
Joan Baez: I don't know that either. Literally, I never see him.
Q: Carlos Santana, have you played together with Joan Baez, or is it the first time now in Hamburg?
Carlos Santana: We played before. She took the time to invite me to perform for some prisoners in Soledad, and, oh, we had a lot of fun.
I enjoy being and playing and offering and receiving from Joan Baez.
Q: Do you have the same sort of political engagements as Joan Baez?
Carlos Santana: No.
Q: Same spiritual?
Carlos Santana: Same spiritual, uh. We have different ways of doing it, but I'd rather change the world by being an example,
rather than by opening my mouth and just pointing out fingers and stuff like that.
Joan Baez: I open my mouth a lot, he's right!
Q: Joan Baez, what do you think about Jackson, the candidate?
Joan Baez: Jesse Jackson?
Q: Yeah.
Joan Baez: Well, I started off when Jesse started to run. I didn't like Jesse, because I knew him years ago and I didn't trust him.
But he started to say things, I liked almost everything he said.
He was refreshing, he wasn't lying, he even admitted when he made a mess, you know, which is very rare.
***
St. Pauli Stadion
Hamburg, West Germany
31 May 1984
31.Blowin' In The Wind
Third concert of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Joan Baez (vocal & guitar), Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Blowin' In The Wind.
Blowin' In Thw Wind partly broadcast ZDF-TV, West Germany, 1 June 1984,
in the program “Tele-Illustrierte”.
BobTalk
Carlos is gonna come back on now, remember?
Joan Baez is coming back on too. I like to introduce Joan. Joan Baez. Joan gave me my first start.
I think she put me on my first stage, I don't know. She sure is a wonderful lady, give her a hand.
(before Blowin' In The Wind)
LB-0881;
Taper: Christian Behren (CB)
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
St. Jakob Stadion
Basel, Switzerland
2 June 1984
Not used.
Concert #4 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Live debut of Why Do I Have To Choose?.
***
Olympia Stadion
Munich, West Germany
3 June 1984
32.I Shall Be Released
33.Forever Young
Concert #5 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Joan Baez (shared vocal & guitar) On I Shall Be Released.
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
I Shall Be Released,
Forever Young.
LB-6753;
The Jokerman Has Just Left The Stadium (Sound Bites / SB001-2)
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Sportpaleis Ahoy
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
4 June 1984
Not used.
Concert #6 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
First live version of Tangled Up In Blue since Hollywood, Florida, 16 December 1978.
***
Sportpaleis Ahoy
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
6 June 1984
34.Just Like A Woman
Concert #7 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Just Like A Woman.
LB-3894;
Taper: SM;
Equipment: Transferred from first generation source >
(dBpowerAMP) flac
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Stade de Schaerbeek Stadion
Brussels, Belgium
7 June 1984
35.I & I
36.License To Kill
37.It Ain't Me, Babe
38.Tangled Up In Blue
39.Girl Of The North Country
40.Tombstone Blues
Concert #8 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
It Ain't Me, Babe,
Tangled Up In Blue,
Girl Of The North Country.
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
It Ain't Me, Babe,
Tangled Up In Blue.
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Tombstone Blues.
Tangled Up In Blue broadcast in part on Belgian TV, 8 July 1984.
LB-7098;
Still Walking Towards The Sun
(Southside Butcher Production)
Good sound [B].
***
Ullevi Stadion
Gothenburg, Sweden
9 June 1984
41.Jokerman
42.All Along The Watchtower
43.License To Kill
44.Mr Tambourine Man
45.It Ain't Me, Babe
46.It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
47.It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
48.Masters Of War
49.Ballad Of A Thin Man
50.Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
51.Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Concert #9 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
Mr Tambourine Man,
It Ain't Me, Babe,
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding),
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Mr Tambourine Man,
It Ain't Me, Babe.
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Love Minus Zero / No Limit.
Mr Tambourine Man partly broadcast live by Danish TV with sound recorded from the audience.
LB-6975;
A Dying Voice Within Me (Thinman / 072-73)
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Idraetsparken
Copenhagen, Denmark
10 June 1984
Not used.
Concert #10 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Band: Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
***
Stadion Bieberer Berg
Offenbach, West Germany
11 June 1984
52.Highway 61 Revisited
53.Maggie's Farm
54.I & I
55.Ballad Of A Thin Man
56.Man Of Peace
57.Every Grain Of Sand
58.Like A Rolling Stone
59.Why Do I Have To Choose? (Willie Nelson)
Concert #11 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Carlos Santana (guitar), Armando Peraja,
Raul Rekow, Oresta Vilato (percussion) on Why Do I Have To Choose?
Maggie's Farm and I & I broadcast by HR3 Radio,
West Germany, 11 June 1984 with sound from the audience.
LB-1812
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Waldbühne
West Berlin, West Germany
13 June 1984
60.Maggie's Farm
61.Tangled Up In Blue
62.Like A Rolling Stone
63.Blowin' In The Wind
Concert #12 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
Tangled Up In Blue.
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Tangled Up In Blue
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Blowin' In The Wind.
LB-9857;
Taper: Legendary Taper D (LTD);
Transfer: JF;
Equipment: Sennheiser MKE 2002 Binaural mics >
Sony WM-TCD-5 Cassette Recorder;
JF Equipment: Cassette Masters >
Nakamichi CR-7A (manual azimuth adjustment) >
Adobe Audition > Flac
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Wiener Stadthalle-Kiba
Vienna, Austria
14 June 1984
64.Heart Of Mine
Concert #13 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Carlos Santana (guitar), Armando Peraja, Raul Rekow, Oresta Vilato (percussion) on Heart Of Mine.
LB-6301;
xref-01234;
Taper: Fendert (FD);
Additional soundmastering (ASM);
Equipment: flacs derived from LB-1829 > wav (flac frontend) >
asm (Adobe Audition 1.0) >
flac (flac frontend - align on SB option - level 6 - verify on)
Good sound [B].
***
Müngersdorfer Stadion
Cologne, West Germany
16 June 1984
65.Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Concert #14 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Carlos Santana (guitar) on Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.
LB-9797;
Compiler: Les Kokay (LK);
Equipment: my Tape > Tascam102 >
cooledit pro (normalisation, edits, fades) >
CDWave > CDR > EAC > traders little helper
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Stade De L'Ouest
Nice, France
17 June 1984
Not used.
Concert #15 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
***
Roma Palaeur
Rome, Italy
19 June 1984
66.Just Like A Woman
67.License To Kill
68.Simple Twist Of Fate
Concert #16 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Just Like A Woman
LB-2969
Excellent sound [A-].
***
Roma Palaeur
Rome, Italy
20 June 1984
Not used.
Concert #17 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
***
Roma Palaeur
Rome, Italy
21 June 1984
69.Desolation Row
70.I Shall Be Released
Concert #18 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
Desolation Row
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
I Shall Be Released.
First live version of Desolation Row since St. Louis, Missouri, 4 February 1974.
LB-10784;
Taper: Legendary Taper B (LTB);
Sony ECM 150 t > Sony D6, cassette master > DAT - clone >
(digital transfer) m-audio delta audiophile 2496 >
Wavelab > ssrc > cdwave for tracking > tlh
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Stadion San Siro
Milan, Italy
24 June 1984
71.Knockin' On Heaven's Door
72.Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Concert #19 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Knockin' On Heaven's Door,
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.
Alphonso Johnson replaces Greg Sutton on bass on:
Knockin' On Heaven's Door,
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.
LB-0362
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Estadio del Rayo Vallecano
Madrid, Spain
26 June 1984
73.Jokerman
74.License To Kill
75.Enough Is Enough
76.Mr Tambourine Man
Concert #20 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
Mr Tambourine Man.
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Mr Tambourine Man.
LB-9860;
Taper: Legendary Taper D (LTD);
Remaster: JF December 2011;
Equipment LTD: Sennheiser MKE 2002 Binaural mics >
Sony WM-TCD-5 Cassette Recorder;
Equipment JF: Cassette Masters >
Nakamichi CR-7A (manual azimuth adjustment) >
Adobe Audition > Flac
Very good sound [B+].
***
Minestadio del F.C. Barcelona
Barcelona, Spain
28 June 1984
77.I & I
78.Lay, Lady, Lay
79.Tombstone Blues
Concert #21 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Tombstone Blues.
First live version of Lay, Lady, Lay since Salt Lake City, Utah, 25 May 1976.
LB-9861;
Taper: Legendary Taper D (LTD);
Remaster: JF;
Equipment: Sennheiser MKE 2002 Binaural mics >
Sony WM-TCD-5 Cassette Recorder;
JF Equipment: Cassette Masters >
Nakamichi CR-7A (manual azimuth adjustment) >
Adobe Audition > Flac
Excellent sound [A-].
***
Stade Marcel Saupin
Nantes, France
30 June 1984
80.All Along The Watchtower
81.Just Like A Woman
82.Simple Twist Of Fate
83.Like A Rolling Stone
84.The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll
85.The Times They Are A-Changin'
86.It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Concert #22 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll.
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Just Like A Woman,
The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Treain To Cry.
First live version of It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
since Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 6 October 1978.
BobTalk
Thank you for being so kind tonight. I wanna introduce the band to you now.
On the keyboards, Ian MacLagan. On the bass guitar, Greg Sutton.
On the drums, Colin Allen. On the guitar, Mick Taylor.
I don't have to introduce to you. I know who you are. (near the end of Like A Rolling Stone)
LB-9862;
Taper: Legendary Taper D (LTD);
Transfer: JF;
LTD Equipment: Sennheiser MKE 2002 Binaural mics >
Sony WM-TCD-5 Cassette Recorder;
JF Equipment: Cassette Masters >
Nakamichi CR-7A (manual azimuth adjustment) >
Adobe Audition > Flac
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Parc de Sceaux
Paris, France
1 July 1984
87.Tangled Up In Blue
88.Simple Twist Of Fate
89.Masters Of War
90.The Times They Are A-Changin'
91.It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Concert #23 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
Tangled Up In Blue.
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Tangled Up In Blue.
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
The Times They Are A-Changin',
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.
Hughes Aufray (shared vocal & guitar) on:
The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Van Morrison (shared vocal & guitar) on:
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.
BobTalk
I wanna introduce a friend of mine, I first met when I came to Paris...,
came here in 1962. Just the other day actually. He-he.
Anyway, he's made a few records here.
I wanna introduce you to him now. Hughes Aufray. (after It Ain't Me, Babe)
Van Morrison! (after It's All Over Now, Baby Blue)
LB-9863;
Taper: Legendary Taper D (LTD);
Remaster: JF;
LTD Equipment: Sennheiser MKE 2002 Binaural mics > Sony WM-TCD-5 Cassette Recorder;
JF Equipment: Cassette Masters >
Nakamichi CR-7A (manual azimuth adjustment) > Adobe Audition > Flac
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
***
Paul Williams
Paris is my favorite show of the 1984 tour (based on the tapes).
Dylan is in front of a huge crowd (100,000 people) in a city he has always loved to perform in;
he is probably still feeling the glow from his wonderful reception in Spain earlier in the week;
in any case, his voice sounds great – rich in musical texture and full of aliveness and personality – throughout the concert.
In the first set, even such tired chestnuts as All Along The Watchtower and Maggie's Farm are exciting to listen to, at least when Dylan's singing.
I & I, always a high point at these concerts, is full of vocal fire, stepped on somewhat by insensitive accompaniment and overly long guitar solos,
but a thrilling perfor¬mance nonetheless.
Tangled Up In Blue in Paris, second song of the second set, marks perfectly that mysterious transition into work filled with spirit,
and capable of reaching deep into the soul of both performer and listener.
The version on Real Live (from London, 7 July 1984) is so similar I am not sure I can articulate what makes the two performances different;
yet the difference is as unmistakable as that between an ordinary starry night and the same night the instant after a lightning bolt has shattered the sky.
The key to the differentness may possibly be found (and in this search for the source of greatness I am also listening to the transition
from a well-sung but uninspired and uninspiring A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, opener of the acoustic set in Paris,
to this astonishing performance of Tangled Up In Blue) in the way Dylan plays the guitar.
On Real Live's Tangled Up In Blue the guitar seems to me to follow the vocal, dutifully doing its part,
whereas in Paris the guitar from the first moment seems pulled by some great unknowable relentless force.
The surprising punch in the vocal phrasing in the Paris version is, I suggest, a response to the tempo set by the guitar –
a very specific rhythm that in itself gives the song a whole new meaning, one that the phrasing must instinctively find a way to express.
Close attention to these similar-but-different concerts and individual songs forces us to notice that, in the act of performance,
there is a "click!" sometimes and then greatness happens.
To say that in this case the click may have occurred when heart and brain found a tempo with which fingers could express new and necessary feeling –
or, equally likely, that it occurred when fingers happened upon that tempo, and heart and brain responded and reinforced –
is helpful I think if it calls our attention to felt rhythm as a key to the emotions music calls forth,
both from the performer of the music and from the person listening to the performance.
We feel a rhythm, and parts of us that we have no name for respond.
And the greatness of vocal music lies very often in the relationship between the singing and the rhythmic accompaniment,
a meta-rhythm if you will (the pulse of rhythm and voice dancing together).
Whatever. This Paris performance of Tangled Up In Blue gets to me. It makes me scream.
And its impact as far as I can tell has nothing to do with the new words,
except in the not insignificant fact that the new words change the singer's relation¬ship with the song: it is new for him,
filled with the excitement of discovery, freshness, new creation.
On the other hand I do not mean to suggest that the impact of the performance stems mainly from the guitar playing.
Its impact is in Dylan's diction this particular evening, and in the sound of his voice as he tells the story.
The importance of the guitar playing is that it creates the environment in which this diction and this voice are drawn forth.
Dylan in a 1985 conversation with Bill Flanagan, included in Flanagan's collection of interviews with songwriters,
Written in My Soul, says of this version of Tangled Up In Blue: "I always wanted it to be the way I recorded it on Real Live.
The old (words) were never quite filled in. I rewrote it in a hotel room somewhere.
I wanted to sing that song so I looked at it again, and I changed it. When I sang it the next day I knew it was right.
It was right enough so that I wanted to put it down and wipe the old one out."
Fortunately, of course, new versions of already-performed songs do not wipe out the old ones;
if they did Dylan's body of great work would be much smaller.
If I had to choose, I would say the earlier lyrics are more effective at what Dylan says in this interview he wanted to do in the song,
which is "defy time, so that the story took place in the present and the past at the same time."
But it does not matter. I love the line "I could feel the heat and the pulse of her" in the 1984 version.
And I think it is ironic that if "the old one" had been wiped out, Flanagan would not have had a tide for his book
(such a perfect title, such a classic line) – that whole verse disap¬peared when Dylan did his hotel room update.
Tangled Up In Blue was followed in Paris by the single best live version of It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) that I have ever heard.
This time the transition (greatness to greatness) does not seem so strange.
It makes sense for fine performances to come in bunches, one ricocheting off another till entropy and friction have their way.
Again the flawless tempo seems at the heart of the matter (so easy to be too fast or too machine-like with this one),
but this time it is more apparent what force it is that impels those flying fingers (tongue, lips, vocal cords) forward.
It is conviction. I do not think I have heard a performance of this song since the original album version
in which the singer is so able to inhabit every phrase, see every image, feel every expressed feeling.
Nothing is thrown away, no part of the song is sung on automatic pilot. The performer is awake. The result is frightening, and beautiful. And awakening.
But these moments of breakthrough are rare. For the most part, Tour '84 adds to our understanding of Dylan's artistry by demonstrating what it is not.
It is not these huge long wonderfully entertaining shows sung in rich, emotive voice that send the crowds home fulfilled and happy.
You and I might really enjoy attending such a show, once or twice anyway – but I say this is not an example of Dylan's artistry simply because,
to my own ears, very little new ground is broken. Dylan either is choosing not to take risks,
or else is unable to take risks because of the limitations of the band he is working with.
On 30 July 1984, just after returning from this tour, Dylan told interviewer Bert Kleinman:
Dylan: I'm usually in a numb state of mind before my shows, and I have to kick in at some place along the line, usually it takes me one or two songs,
or sometimes now it takes much longer. Sometimes it takes me to the encore!
Kleinman: The band I would imagine has an effect on that.
Dylan: Oh, absolutely. I've played with some bands that have gotten in my way so much that it's just been a struggle to get through the show.
Dylan is quick to add that he thought his last band was "pretty good," but maybe he is just being polite.
So if we make a distinction between performer and performing artist – and admittedly this is a difficult, subjective, dangerous, judg¬mental activity –
I think we can say, on the evidence of the tapes, that in the spring of 1984 that artist was biding his time.
He was, let us say, allowing "the performer" to take care of business, the rather import¬ant business of reestablishing both a career
and a positive relation¬ship with an audience. Dylan's recalcitrant, unpredictable side is unusually restrained at these shows
(he did allow it to do a few press conferences).
What this suggests is how very vital Dylan's recalcitrance, his orneriness, his refusal to do what's expected of him, is to his body of work.
If he were a nicer guy, we might have nothing.
Nothing but fragments. Every Grain Of Sand recast as a rock anthem is the other major innovation at these shows
(along¬side the rewritten Tangled Up In Blue; Simple Twist Of Fate also gets a whole new rewrite, and it can be delightfully outrageous, as in Paris,
or surprisingly tender, as in Barcelona, but it is not innovative, just one more variant on a now-familiar theme –
the dummy lyrics and shifting verses add to the fun, especially if you listen to more than one concert, but this is a song Dylan plays with in 1984 –
he never gets challenged by it). The first verse of Every Grain Of Sand in Paris strikes me as a great fragment,
a moment of truly powerful singing and self-expression (the guitar playing on this song – and Paris is more restrained than many of the other concerts –
is Taylor at his most misguided). The last 20 seconds of singing on the Barcelona version (to get really picky) are also quite amazing.
***
Interview with Mick Brown, Sunday Times, 1 July 1984
Dylan: “Jesus, who's got time to keep up with the times?”
This week Bob Dylan comes to Britain. The folksinger-cum-folk hero of the 1960s has not always had a good reception here.
In 1965 purists attacked him for "going electric". In 1981 his new-found evangelism left many of his fans cold.
What should they expect this time? Last week Mick Brown had an exclusive interview.
Bob Dylan tugged at a cigarette, stroked the beginnings of an untidy beard and gazed pensively at the stream of traffic passing down the Madrid street.
"What you gotta understand," he said at length,"is that I do something because I feel like doing it.
If people can relate to it, that's great; if they can't, that's fine too. But I don't think I'm gonna be really understood until maybe 100 years from now.
What I've done, what I'm doing, nobody else does or has done."
The messianic tone grew more intense. "When I'm dead and gone maybe people will realise that, and then figure it out.
I don't think anything I've done has been evenly mildly hinted at. There's all these interpreters around,
but they're not interpreting anything except their own ideas. Nobody's come close."
But a lot of people, it seems, still want to. Bob Dylan may no longer sell records in the consistently enormous quantities he once did –
a fact to which he will allow a tinge of regret - but his capacity to hold his audience in thrall seems undiminished.
By the time Bob Dylan arrives in Britain this week for performances at St. James's Park, Newcastle, on Tuesday and Wembley Stadium on Saturday,
he will already have performed to almost half a million people throughout Europe - half a million people singing the chorus of Blowing In The Wind,
an esperanto that is as much a testament to Dylan's abiding influence and charisma as the insatiable interest of the world's press in his activities.
This interest is equalled only by Dylan's determination to keep his own counsel whenever possible.
As Bill Graham, the tour's garrulous American promoter and Dylan's closest adviser, keeps reminding you, Bob "is not your everyday folksinger."
All the German magazine Stern had wanted to do was touch base for five minutes in return for a front cover. Dylan declined.
The press conference that he had been persuaded to hold in Verona, attended by 150 excitable European journalists, had been a fiasco:
photographers barred, and the first question from the floor - "What are your religious views nowadays?" -
met by Dylan irritably brushing the table in front of him, as if to sweep aside that and all other questions to follow.
"I mean, nobody cares what Billy Joel's religious views are, right?" he tells me with a wry smile.
"what does it matter to people what Bob Dylan is? But it seems to, right? I'd honestly like to know why it's important to them."
One expects many things of Bob Dylan, but such playful ingenuousness is not one of them.
Dylan protects himself well, not with bodyguards but with a smokescreen of privacy and elusiveness of the sort that encourages speculation and myth.
Meeting him involves penetrating a frustrating maze of "perhapses" and "maybes", of cautions and briefings - suggestive of dealing with fine porcelain -
culminating in a telephone call summoning you to an anynonymous cafeteria filled with Spanish families who give not a second glance
to the figure in a hawaiian shirt and straw hat who at last comes ambling through the door.
He is surprisingly genial, youthful for his 43 years, lean, interested and alert,
who treat the business of being Bob Dylan with an engagingly aw-shucks kind of bemusement.
It was in striking contrast to the apparition Dylan had presented the previous night, on stage in front of 25,000 people in a Madrid football stadium,
his black smock coat, high boots and hawkish profile suggesting some avenging backwoods preacher.
The emphasis in his performance has shifted from the overtly evangelical songs heard in Dylan's last visit to Britain three years ago.
Now it spans every phase of his 21-year career. The themes of social protest, personal love and religious faith have never been more of a piece.
Dylan remains what he has always been, an uncompromising moralist. And to hear songs such as Masters Of War, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (about nuclear war),
and Maggie's Farm (about rebellious labour) invested with fresh nuances of meaning, not to say vitriol, is to realise that,
while the sentiments may have become unfashionable in popular music, they are no less pertinent. Nobody else is writing songs like Bob Dylan. Nobody ever did.
"For me, none of the songs I've written has really dated," he says. "They capture something I've never been able to improve on, whatever their statement is.
A song like "Maggie's Farm" - I could feel like that just the other day, and I could feel the same tomorrow.
People say they're 'nostalgia', but I don't know what that means really. A Tale of Two Cities was written 100 years ago; is that nostalgia?
This term 'nostalgia', it's just another way people have of dealing with you and putting you some place they think they understand. It's just another label."
Labels exercise Bob Dylan greatly. People have been trying to put them on him since he started, he says, "and not one of them has ever made any sense."
The furore about his religious beliefs puzzled him most of all, "like I was running for pope or something."
When the word first spread that he had eschewed Judaism and embraced Christianity, and he toured America in 1979 singing overtly religious songs,
the most hostile reception came not from rock audiences but when he played university campuses,
"and the so-called intellectual students showed their true monstrous selves."
"Born-again christians" is just another label, he says. He had attended bible school in California for three months,
and the book was never far from his side, but the idea that faith was a matter of passing through one swing door and back out another struck him as ridiculous.
"I live by a strict disciplinary code, you know, but I don't know how moral that is or even where it comes from really. These things just become part of your skin after a while; you get to know what line not to step over - usually because you stepped over it before and were lucky to get back."
Was he an ascetic? Dylan lit another cigarette and asked what the word meant.
"I don't think so. I still have desires, you know, that lead me around once in a while. I don't do things in excess, but everybody goes through those times.
They either kill you, or make you a better person."
By this time in the conversation it did not seem awkward to ask: did he believe in evil?
"Sure I believe in it. I believe that ever since Adam and Eve got thrown out of the garden that the whole nature of the planet has been heading in one direction
- towards apocalypse. It's all there in the Book of Revelations, but it's difficult talking about these things to most people
because most people don't know what you're talking about, or don't want to listen.
"What it comes down to is that there's a lot of different gods in the world against the god - that's what it's about.
There's a lot of different gods that people are subjects of. There's the god of mammon. Corporations are gods. Governments?
No, governments don't have much to do with it anymore, I don't think. Politics is a hoax. The politicians don't have any real power.
They feed you all this stuff in the newspapers about what's going on, but that's not what's really going on.
"But then again, I don't think that makes me a pessimistic person. I'm a realist. Or maybe a surrealist. But you can't beat your head against the wall forever."
He had never, he said, been a utopian: that was always a foreign term to him, something to do with moving to the country, living communally,
and growing rice and beans. "I mean, I wanted to grow my own rice and beans - still do - but I never felt part of that movement."
But he could still look back on the 1960s with something approaching affection. "I mean, the Kennedys were great-looking people, man, they had style," he smiles.
"America is not like that anymore. But what happened, happened so fast that people are still trying to figure it out. The tv media wasn't so big then.
It's like the only thing people knew was what they knew; then suddenly people were being told what to think, how to behave, there's too much information.
"It just got suffocated. Like Woodstock – that wasn't about anything. It was just a whole new market for tie-dyed t-shirts. It was about clothes.
All those people are in computers now."
This was beyond him. He had never been good with numbers, and had no desire to stare at a screen.
"I don't feel obliged to keep up with the times. I'm not going to be here that long anyway. So I keep up with these times, then I gotta keep up with the 1990s.
Jesus, who's got time to keep up with the times?"
It is at moments such as this that Dylan – once, misleadingly perhaps, characterised as a radical - reveals himselfas much of a traditionalist;
an adherent of biblical truths; a firm believer in the family and the institution of marriage - despite his own divorce from his wife, Sara;
a man disenchanted with many of the totems and values of modern life, mass communications, the vulgarity of popular culture, the "sameness" of everything.
Personally he had been reading Cicero, Machiavelli and John Stuart Mill. Contemporary literature?
"Oh yeah, I read a detective story, but I can't remember what it was called."
"At least in the 1960s it seemed there was room to be different. For me, my particular scene, I came along at just the right time,
and I understood the times I was in. If I was starting out right now I don't know where I'd get the inspiration from,
because you need to breathe the right air to make the creative process work. I don't worry about it so much for me; I've done it; I can't complain.
But the people coming up, the artists and writers, what are they gonna do, because these are the people who change the world."
Nowadays, he admits, he finds writing harder than ever. A song like "Masters of War" he would despatch in 15 minutes,
and move onto the next one without a second thought. "If I wrote a song like that now I wouldn't feel I'd have to write another one for two weeks.
There's still things I want to write about, but the process is harder.
The old records I used to make, by the time they came out I wouldn't even want them released because I was already so far beyond them."
Much of his time nowadays is spent travelling. He was in Jerusalem last autumn for his son Jesse's bar-mitzvah -
"his grandmother's idea", he smiles. Israel interests him from " a biblical point of view", but he had never felt that atavistic Jewish sense of homecoming.
In fact he lives principally on his farm in Minnesota, not far from the town of Hibbing where he spent his adolescence.
Then there is the domed house in Malibu, California, originally built to accomodate his five children – good schools nearby, he says –
but which he has seldom used since his divorce, and a 63 foot sailing boat with which he cruises the Caribbean "when I can't think of anything else to do."
He had never contemplated retirement: the need to make money was not a factor – he is a wealthy man – but the impulse to continue writing was.
"There's never really been any glory in it for me," he says. "Being seen in the places and having everybody put their arms around you,
I never cared about any of that. I don't care what people think. For me, the fulfilment was always in just doing it. That's all that really matters."
As the conversation had progressed, more and more people had realised who the man in the straw hat was.
A steady stream had made their way to his table, scraps of paper in hand.
Dylan had signed them all, with a surprisingly careful deliberation – almost as if he was practising –
but his discomfort at being on view was becoming more apparent. As peremptorily as he arrived, Dylan made his excuses and left.
***
Grenoble Alpexpo
Grenoble, France
3 July 1984
92.Ballad Of A Thin Man
93.When You Gonna Wake Up
94.Girl Of The North Country
95.Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
Concert #24 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
Girl Of The North Country.
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
LB-12141;
Taper: Net Taper B (NTB);
Equipment: Sennheiser MKE-2002 Binaural Microphones >
Uher CR 240 AV Autoreverse > Maxell UD XL II Cassettes >
FLAC 0.6663 (22 files) > HungerCity 2010-02-14 by momo
Good sound [B].
except When You Gonna Wake Up?
LB-6759;
Real Live Outtakes 1984 (Yellow Cat / YC-022)
Fair sound [B-]
***
St. James' Park
Newcastle, England
5 July 1984
96.Mr Tambourine Man
Concert #25 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
Mr Tambourine Man.
Bob Dylan (harmonica) on:
Mr Tambourine Man.
***
Wembley Stadium
London, England
7 July 1984
97.Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)
Concert #26 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Carlos Santana (guitar), Eric Clapton (guitar) on:
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power).
LB-6759;
Real Live Outtakes 1984 (Yellow Cat / YC-022)
Fair sound [B-].
***
Robert Shelton
What was remarkable about Dylan's 1984 visit to London, in contrast with 1981, was the absence of much preconcert buildup in the press,
but still a turnout of one hundred thousand at Wembley Stadium. Only The Times seemed to be regarding Dylan's visit as vital.
The five pop weeklies were not even publishing, because of industrial action.
The audience I observed was made up of, say, 20 percent older people, "the wrinklies."
The bulk of those within my sight, and I moved around, seemed to be 17 to 23 year-olds.
And they were responsive to any intro that signaled a familiar song.
With such a huge turnout paying eleven pounds for tickets,
Dylan may have been making as much as ten thousand pounds a song as he went through a retrospective of his songwriting career,
with nothing more religious than Knockin’ On Heaven's Door.
But he had already turned his back on more fortunes than most of us can ever hope to see in a lifetime.
The age of the audience proved that nothing he had done could shatter himself as an idol and prevent vast numbers of fans in Europe
from revering him and what he stood for. That still another generation had tuned in on him was visible in Europe in 1984.
When Alan Franks, The Times journalist who had written an appreciation of Dylan a few weeks earlier,
was later invited to talk about him to a sixth-form college (students from sixteen to eighteen),
he concluded that youth interest in Dylan may have become less frenzied, but that it was still keen.
***
Johnathan Cott, Rolling Stone Magazine, 16 August 1984.
It was his biggest concert in England since the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival, and Dylan, appearing before 72,000 people at London's open-air Wembley Stadium
on the evening of 7 July 1984, turned it into one of the highlights of his performing career.
The show was Dylan's next-to-last appearance on a 25-date European tour, and as he sat backstage before the concert,
he seemed positively relaxed, cheerfully greeting such old friends and musical colleagues
as Mick Jagger, Mark Knopfler, Chrissie Hynde, Steve Winwood, Van Morrison and Eric Clapton.
But when Dylan bounded out onstage later that evening, wearing a black frock coat and sporting a shock of wild, curly hair,
he looked, from a distance, like nothing less than a holy man possessed.
And from the moment he and his band (ex-Faces' keyboard player Ian McLagan, ex-Stone The Crows drummer Colin Allen, bassist Greg Sutton
and ex-Rolling Stone Mick Taylor) broke into an electrifying Chuck Berryish version of Highway 61 Revisited,
it was clear that Dylan was once again a devoted rock ‘n’ roller.
Moreover, his voice – full of passionate declamations and dramatic vocal leaps,
and displaying an emotional palette that ranged from proud anger to unabashed tenderness –
immediately brought his audience back to the days of Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde.
During his two-and-a-half-hour performance, Dylan sang 25 songs.
The first part of the concert included excellent renditions of three tracks from his recent Infidels album: Jokerman, I & I and License To Kill.
But Dylan and the band were most impressive in the way they gave new life to his older songs, turning Just Like A Woman into a rollicking waltz,
Simple Twist Of Fate into a sensual rock samba, Every Grain Of Sand into a haunted Basement Tapes meditation and Maggie's Farm –
with the rhythmic riff of Obviously Five Believers – into a sardonic and fierce protest song
(lately the unofficial anthem of "Maggie" Thatcher's opposition, the British Labour party).
Dylan also performed three acoustic numbers: a gentle version of A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,
a folk-and bluegrass-tinged rendition of Tangled Up In Blue and a searing reinterpretation of It's Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).
With only his guitar and harmonica, Dylan somehow made the vast spaces of Wembley Stadium shrink into what seemed like an intimate circle around a campfire,
as the crowd accompanied him in the refrains to each of these songs.
The audience continued to sing along when Dylan brought the band back to conclude the first part of the concert with an ecstatic version of Like A Rolling Stone.
For his encore, Dylan did three more acoustic numbers: Mr Tambourine Man, Girl Of the North Country and It Ain't Me, Babe.
Then, from out of the wings, the band reemerged, along with Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana and Chrissie Hynde,
and the entire entourage proceeded to give an amazing performance of Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.
As if that were not enough, Van Morrison joined everyone onstage and sang a soulful, unsurpassable version of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue,
with Chrissie Hynde and Dylan providing backup vocals.
After receiving a tremendous ovation, Morrison left the stage, and the remaining musicians launched into high-powered performances of Tombstone Blues,
Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power), The Times They Are A-Changin' and, finally, Blowin' In The Wind.
Thousands of people danced, and matches were lit. A half moon appeared, then one nearby star.
***
Slane Castle
Slane, Ireland
8 July 1984
98.A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
99.To Ramona
100.It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
101.Shelter From The Storm
102.With God On Our Side
103.Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison)
104.Blowin' In The Wind
Concert #27 of the 1984 Europe Tour.
Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar), Mick Taylor (guitar),
Ian MacLagan (keyboards), Greg Sutton (bass), Colin Allen (drums).
Bob Dylan solo (vocal & guitar) on:
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,
To Ramona,
It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding),
With God On Our Side
Carlos Santana (guitar) on:
Tupelo Honey,
Blowin' In The Wind.
Van Morrison (shared vocal & guitar) on:
Tupelo Honey.
Bono & Leslie Dowdell (shared vocal) on Blowin' In The Wind.
Live debut of Tupelo Honey.
First live version of With God On Our Side
since the Sunday Peace Rally in Pasadena, California, 6 June 1982
and before that, Providence, Rhode Island, 4 November 1975.
LB-2573;
Complete soundboard;
Incomplete concert
Very good to excellent sound [B+].
except Shelter From The Storm
LB-6759;
Real Live Outtakes 1984 (Yellow Cat / YC-022)
Fair sound [B-].
***
Interview with Bono Vox, Slane Castle, Dublin, 8 July 1984
Bono: You have been to Ireland before, haven't you?
Dylan: Yeah, I was in Belfast and in Dublin, and we travelled around a little bit too.
Bono: Have you ever spent any time here? Have you ever been here on holiday?
Dylan: Yeah, well, when I was here, we travelled by car, so we stayed in different places –
but Irish music has always been a great part of my life because I used to hang out with The Clancy Brothers.
They influenced me tremendously.
Bono: Yeah, they have so much balls as a sound, you know, when they sing, it's like punk rock.
Dylan: Yeah, they were playing clubs as big as this room right here and the place –
you couldn't put a pin in it, it would be so packed with people.
Bono: You could smell their breath?
Dylan: Yeah!
Bono: I bet you could. They blow you over with their lungs. God, I'd love to sing like that.
Dylan: Yeah, I spent years with them running around, 61, 62, 63.
Bono: Greenwich Village?
Dylan: All over the place, I played on the same bill with them once.
Bono: Get their autographs? (laughs)
Dylan: No, I didn't get their autograph. But you know one of the things I recall from that time is how great they all were –
I mean there is no question, but that they were great. But Liam Clancy was always my favorite singer, as a ballad singer.
I just never heard anyone as good, and that includes Barbara Streisand and Pearl Bailey.
Bono: You got to be careful here!
Dylan: He's just a phenomenal ballad singer.
Bono: Yeah, you know what I envy of you is that my music, and the music of U2 is like, it's in space somewhere.
There is no particular musical roots or heritage that we plug into. In Ireland there is a tradition, but I've never plugged into it.
It's like as if we're caught in space. There's a few groups now who are caught in space.
Dylan: Well, you have to reach back.
Bono: We never did play a 12 bar.
Dylan: You have to reach! There's another group I used to listen to called The McPeake Family. I don't know if you ever heard of them?
Bono: The McPeake Family! I'd love to have heard of them, with a name like that.
Dylan: They are great. Paddy Clancy recorded them. He had a label called Tradition Records, and he used to bring back these records;
they recorded for Prestige at the time, and Tradition Records, his company. They were called The McPeake family.
They were even more rural than the Clancy Brothers. The Clancy Brothers had always that touch of commerciality to them -
you didn't mind it, but it was still there, whereas the McPeake Family sang with harps.
The old man, he played the harp - and it was that (gestures) big - and the drums.
Bono: Were they a real family?
Dylan: Yeah, they were a real family; if you go to a record store and as for a McPeake Family record, I Don't know,
I'm sure you could still get them in a lot of places.
Bono: Have you heard of an Irish group that are working now in this middle ground between traditional and contemporary music called Clannad?
Clannad is Gaelic for family, and they've made some very powerful pieces of music, including a song called "Theme From Harry's Game",
it's from a film, and it knocked over everyone in Europe. It didn't get played in the US.
It's just vocal and they used some low bass frequencies in it as well - it's just beautiful.
They're a family, they come from Donegal, and have worked from that same base of traditional music.
Dylan: There's a group you have here, what's it called, Plankston?
Bono: Planxty.
Dylan: They're great!
Bono: Another rock'n'roll band!
Dylan: Yeah, but when I think of what's happening – I think they're great.
Bono: There's another group called De Dannan. The name De Dannan has something to do with with the lost tribes of Dan.
You heard of the disappearing tribe of Dan? They say they came from Ireland.
Dylan: Yeah, I've heard that, I've heard that.
Bono: I'm not a musicologist or expert in this area, but it would appear that this is true.
Also, you know they say the Irish musical scale has no roots in Europe whatsoever, rather it comes from Africa and India.
The Cartesian people, the Egyptian people, what gave them supremacy in the Middle East was the sail they developed.
I forget what they call it, I forget the name of the sail, but this sail allowed them to become successful sea farers and traders
and they dominated as a result of their reading, and that same sail which was used on those boats, is used on the West of Ireland.
Dylan: Is that right?
Bono: Bob Quinn made a film called Atlanteans in which this theory was elaborated. H
e suggests that the book of Kells, which is a manuscript, part of it has it's roots in Coptic script, not in Europe.
It's not a European thing at all - it's linked from Africa, Spain, Brittany and Ireland, because that was a sea route.
I'm not an expert. I shouldn't be talking about it really. But it's of interest when you think of it.
Dylan: Sure it is.
Bono: I might be able to send you over some tapes of that actually.
Dylan: I'd like to have them. You know Planxty? I also like Paul Brady a lot.
Bono: Yeah, he's great. He's a real song writer. Tell me - have you ever approached a microphone, not with words, but just to sing?
I had to do this as a necessity once when some lyrics of mine were stolen -
and I learnt to sing on the microphone just singing and working the words into it later. I find when I put a pen in my hand it gets in the way!
Do you have words first?
Dylan: I do at certain times.
Bono: In Portland, Oregon a number of years ago two pretty girls walked in the dressing room, smiled and walked out with some of our songs, in a brief case.
Dylan: I used to have that happen to me all the time, except they used to take clothes!
Bono: Is that right?
Dylan: They used to take all my best clothes, but never took my songs.
Bono: After that we had to go in to record our second LP, October, without any songs -
there was a lot of pressure having to sing under that stress without any words, I found out a lot of things about myself that I didn't even know were there.
I'd wondered, had some of the things that have come out of you ever been a surprise to you?
Dylan: That usually happens at concerts or shows I'm doing, more than recording studios,
Also, I never sit around, I usually play ... I'll play my guitar, rather than just have something to say, to express myself.
I can express it better with my guitar.
Bono: I wondered had the songs that you were writing ever frightened you in some way?
Dylan: Oh yeah, I've written some songs that that did that. The songs that I wrote for the 'Slow Train' album did that. I wrote those songs.
I didn't plan to write them, but I wrote them anyway. I didn't like writing them, I didn't want to write them.
I didn't figure ... I just didn't want to write them songs at that period of time.
But I found myself writing these songs and after I had a certain amount of them, I thought I didn't want to sing them,
so I had a girl sing them for me at the time, and what I wanted to do was .... she's a great singer ....
Bono: Who is this?
Dylan: A girl I was singing with at the time, Carolyn Dennis her name was. I gave them all to her and had her record them, and not even put my name on them.
But I wanted the songs out; I wanted them out, but *I* didn't want to do it because I knew that it wouldn't be perceived in that way.
It would just mean more pressure. I just did not want that at that time.
Bono: But are you a trouble maker? Is there something in you that wants trouble that an album like 'Slow Train' stirs up? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna box!?
Dylan: I don't know! I mean, I wanna piss people off once in a while, but boxing or fighting - it would be an exercise to do it.
You know, I love to do it, but not with anything at stake.
Bono: Chess, do you play chess?
Dylan: Yeah, I play chess. Are you a chess player?
Bono: I am a chess player.
Dylan: I'm not that good actually.
Bono: I'll challenge you to a game of chess.
Dylan: I don't have it right now actually, I just don't have one on me, but the next time you see me!
Bono: Oh, you can get these little ones you know, that you can carry around.
Dylan: Yeah, I take them on tour all the time, but nobody in the band will play me.
Bono: Really?
Dylan: Yeah, they say it's an ego trip. They say I want to win, I don't want to win, I just like to play.
Bono: When you put out a record that causes trouble - is it part of an overall plan, or do you just do it?
Dylan: No, I don't ever put out a record to cause trouble - if it causes trouble, it causes trouble, that's apart from me.
If it causes trouble, that's other people's problem. It's not my problem.
I'm just not going to put out a record that I just feel - you know, if I feel like I'm inspired to make a statement, I'll make that statement.
But what happens after I do it, I don't care about that.
Bono: What's your opening game?
Dylan: My opening game, you mean king's pawn up two - and all that? I don't know.
Bono: You just takes it as it comes.
Dylan: Yeah. I don't really play that seriously.
Bono: Well, I thought I did until I played Adam's brother Sebastian - he was only about 13 years old and he beat me!
Dylan: Somebody may have a chess game here.
Bono: I'd love to play.
searching for a chess board ... enter Van Morrison
Bono: You haven't used any synthesizers on your records so far?
Dylan: No, I've never used those machines.
Bono: The Fairlight Music Computer - have you heard of that?
Dylan: Fairlight?
Bono: Van, what do you think of electronic music?
Morrison: I like the music Brian Eno plays.
Bono: He speaks very highly of you. He's producing our record right now.
Morrison: Say hello.
Bono: (to Bob) Do you know Brian Eno?
Dylan: Brian Eno? I don't know Brian Eno, but I know some of his work.
Bono: When you're working with a producer, do you give him the lee-way to challenge you?
Dylan: Yeah, if he feels like it. But usually we just go into the studio and sing a song, and play the music, and have, you know ...
Bono: Have you had somebody in the last five years who said "That's crap, Bob"?
Dylan: Oh, they say that all the time!
Bono: Mark Knopfler, did he say that?
Dylan: I don't know, they spend time getting their various songs right, but with me, I just take a song into the studio and try to rehearse it,
and then record it, and then do it. It's a little harder now though to make a good record - even if you've got a good song and a good band.
Even if you go in and record it live, it's not gonna sound like it used to sound, because the studios now are so modern,
and overly developed, that you can take anything good and you can press it and squeeze it and squash it, and constipate it and suffocate it.
You do a great performance in the studio and you listen back to it because the speakers are all so good, but, ah, no!
Bono: All technology does is - you go into a dead room with dead instruments and you use technology to give it life that it doesn't have,
and then it comes out of the speakers and you believe it. What I've been trying to do is find a room that has life in itself.
Dylan: Yeah.
Bono: A “living” room.
Dylan: The machines though, can even take the life out of that room, I've found. You can record in St Peter's Cathedral, you know,
and they still make it sound like, eh, ...
Bono: Somebody's backyard.
Dylan: Yeah.
Dylan: That's a good idea. I'd love to record in a cathedral.
Dylan: You know the studios in the old days were all much better, and the equipment so much better, there's no question about it in my mind.
You just walked into a studio, they were just big rooms, you just sang, you know, you just made records; and they sounded like the way they sounded there.
That stopped happening in the late Sixties, for me anyway. I noticed the big change.
You go into a studio now and they got rugs on the floor, settees and pinball machines and videos and sandwiches coming every ten minutes.
It's a big expensive party and you're lucky if you come out with anything that sounds decent.
Bono: Yeah, records haven't got better, have they?
Dylan: No, you go in now, you got your producer, you got your engineer, you got your assistant engineer, usually your assistant producer,
you got a guy carrying the tapes around. I mean, you know, there's a million people go into recording just an acoustic song on your guitar.
The boys turn the machines on and it's a great undertaking.
Bono: There's a system called Effanel which Mick Fleetwood from Fleetwood Mac brought to Africa.
It was built for him because he wanted to get some real African drummin', for Tusk. We've used that system.
It comes in a light suitcase, very small, no bullshit studio, and it just arrives, you can literally bring it to your living room.
Morrison: I think all the same they'll go back to 2-track eventually.
Bono: There's a guy called Conny Plank, who lives in Germany. He's a producer I think.
He produced Makem and Clancy and some Irish traditional bands, also orchestral and funnily enough a lot of the new electronic groups,
DAF, Ultravox, and so on. He used to record orchestras by just finding a position in the room where they were already balanced
and he applies this in his thinking, in recording modern music: he finds a place in the room where it's already mixed.
Morrison: I don't know, when I started we didn't think about that! You didn't even think about recording ... (laughs)
Bono: You didn't even think!
Morrison: You didn't even know what was on the cards. One day you were in the room, they turned the tape on.
After about eight hours or so, they'd say, 'OK, tea break, it's over'.
Dylan: Yeah, next song, next song!
Morrison: And that was that - it was an album.
Dylan: Yeah, you'd make an album on three days or four days and it was over - if that many! It's that long now ... it takes four days to get a drum sound.
Bono: Do you know the Monty Python team, they're comedians, British comedians, Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
They have a sketch that reminds me of you guys - sitting back talking of days gone by:
"You tell that to the young people of today and they'd never believe you".
But you can't go backwards, you must go forward. You try to bring the values that were back there, you know, the strength,
and if you see something that was lost, you got to find a new way to capture that same strength.
Have you any idea of how to do that? I think you've done it by the way ... I think Shot Of Love, that opening track has that.
Dylan: I think so too, You're one of the few people to say that to me about that record, to mention that record to me.
Bono: That has “that” feeling.
Dylan: It's a great record, it suits just about everybody.
Bono: The sound from that record makes me feel like I'm in the same room as the other musicians. I don't feel like they're over *there*.
Some of our records, I feel like they're over there because we got into this cinema type sound, not bland like FM sound, but we got into this very broad sound.
Now we're trying to focus more of a punch, and that's what we are after, this intimacy .... I've never interviewed anybody before, by the way.
I hate being interviewed myself.
Morrison: You're doing a good job!
Bono: Is this OK?. Good! What records do you listen to?
Dylan: What records do I listen to? New records? I don't know, just the old records really. Robert Johnson.
I still listen to those records that I listened to when I was growing up - they really changed my life. They still change my life.
They still hold up, you know. The Louvain Brothers, Hank Williams, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Charlie Patton, I always liked to listen to him.
Bono: I just bought Woody Guthrie's Bound For Glory. I'm just a beginner when it comes to America. I mean, it's changed me.
When you go the US, coming from this country, it's more than a different continent ....
Morrison: It's shell shock.
Bono: Yeah, coming from troubled Ireland, it's the real shell shock!
I'm just getting acquainted with American music and literature. Do you still see Allen Ginsberg?
Dylan: I run across Allen from time to time, yeah, Gregory Corsos's back now, he's doing some readings, I think he's just published a new book.
Bono: I've just been reading this book Howl.
Dylan: Oh, that's very powerful. That's another book that changed me. Howl, On The Road, Dharma Bums.
Morrison: (to Bono) Have you read On The Road?
Bono: Yes I have, I'm just starting that. You have a reference in one of your songs to John Donne, Rave On John Donne. Have you read his poetry?
Morrison: I was reading it at the time.
Dylan: (to Bono) You heard the songs - Brendan Behan's songs?
Bono: Yeah.
Dylan: Royal Canal, you know the Royal Canal?
Morrison: His brother wrote it. His name is Dominic.
Dylan: Oh, Dominic wrote Royal Canal?
Bono: You know Brendan's son hang out around here in Dublin. He's a good guy, I believe.
Dylan: I know the solo lyrics to the Royal Canal. I used to sing it all the time.
Bono: How does it go?
Dylan: (sings) “The hungry feeling came over me stealing, as the mice were squalling in my prison cell”.
Bono: That's right, yeah!
Dylan: (continues) “That old triangle went jingle jangle, all along the banks of the Royal Canal”.
Bono: That's right, when did you read that?
Dylan: (there's no way stopping him now) “In the female prison there's seventy women. It's all over there that I want to dwell.
And that old triangle goes jingle jangle, all along the banks of the Royal Canal”.
Bono: Have you been to the Royal Canal?
Dylan: No I used to sing that song though. Every night.
Bono: Our music - as I was saying earlier - it doesn't have those roots.
Morrison: Yeah, there was a break in the lineage. I sussed that out when I went to see Thin Lizzy years ago,
the first night in L.A. and I was watching at the back of the stage and I realized that the music was a complete cut
in the connection between the end of the Sixties and the middle of the Seventies - a severing of the traditional lineage of groups.
Bono: I like to know more about roots music. I'm hungry for a past.
Morrison: You know you should listen to some of that stuff.
Bono: I will. I've been listening to some gospel music, you know, like the Swan Silvertones, and stuff like that.
Dylan: That's US stuff though.
Morrison: US stuff, but the British stuff you should listen to, you know, like some of the old stuff, like The Yardbirds.
Bono: Yeah, I've got some of their tapes recently, some real good tapes.
Dylan: You can still hear the McPeakes. The next generation may not be able to though. Who knows? I would hate to think that.
Listen we're gonna have to get ready to play. Are you gonna stay for the show?
Bono: Certainly, that's what I'm here for actually.
Dylan: To record it, HA!
Conducted at the Slane Castle, Dublin, Ireland prior to Dylan's show.
Both Bono and Van Morrison were later guests at the show, Van Morrison doing his usual It's All Over Now, Baby Blue and Bono joining Dylan on Blowin' In The Wind.
***
Rock on, Bob!
XXX
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These nellie comps of different parts of Dylan's NET are so great - thank you for this!
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