BOB DYLAN was awarded a lifetime achievement award at the 33rd annual Grammy’ Awardsn today 35 years ago, on 20 February 1991. A starstruck Jack Nicholson
introduced a purple-suited, fedoraed Dylan who said:
“You know, it’s possible to become so defiled in this world that your own mother
and father will abandon you, and if that happens, God will always believe in your
own ability to mend your own ways. Thank you!”
One of my all time fav songs from my all time
fav songsmith And a fantatsic video clip yoo.
Living, 84-year-old, singer-songwriter icon BOB DYLAN released one of his
best longplayers in his illustrious career, with DESIRE, on 5 January 1976,
today 50 years ago.
Seven of the songs were co-written with Jacques Levy.
It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart for five weeks, becoming
one of his best-selling LPs, and was certified double Platinum. It reached
No. 3 in the UK.
It’s one of Dylan‘s most collaborative efforts, featuring the same caravan of
musicians as the acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tours the previous year.
Back sleeve
Rolling Stone said: “Love songs aren’t the focus of Desire, which is one of the things
that differentiates it from Dylan‘s other post-rock work. On the best songs, he returns
to the fantastic images, weird characters and absurdist landscapes of the Sixties.”
A song about the imprisonment of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (1937–2014).
It describes acts of racism and profiling against Carter, which led to a flawed trial
and a murder conviction that was eventually overturned.
It topped the Canadian charts, peaked at #7 in the US and #8 in the UK.
LYRICS
You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin’
You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that’s winnin’
You say I let you down, ya know its not like that
If you’re so hurt, why then don’t you show it?
You say you’ve lost your faith, but that’s not where its at
You have no faith to lose, and ya know it
I know the reason, that you talked behind my back
I used to be among the crowd you’re in with
Do you take me for such a fool, to think I’d make contact
With the one who tries to hide what he don’t know to begin with?
You see me on the street, you always act surprised
You say “how are you?”, “good luck”, but ya don’t mean it
When you know as well as me, you’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once and scream it
No, I do not feel that good when I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief perhaps I’d rob them
And tho I know you’re dissatisfied with your position and your place
Don’t you understand, its not my problem?
I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is to see you
Living singer-songwriter legend BOB DYLAN (my all-time fav songsmith), now aged 84, released his 6th longplayer HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED, 60 years ago on 30 August 1965.
It featured his best known song/hit Like A Rolling Stone(#2 in the US, #4 in the UK).
It peaked at #3 in the US and #4 in the UK.
Dylan about the album’s title: “I wanted to call that album Highway 61 Revisited. Nobody understood it. I had to go up the fucking ladder until finally the word came down and said:
Let him call it what he wants to call it’.”
Rolling Stone Magazine said: “The strangest, funniest, most baffling and most perfect album. It arrived just five months after his previous masterpiece, Bringing It All Back Home, but this was a different guy making a different album, a folk rogue embracing the weirdness and spook of electric rock & roll.”
Dylan: “The songs on this specific record are not so
much songs but rather exercises in tonal breath control.”
Singer/songwriter BOB DYLAN released his best known
and first big hit single with LIKE A ROLLING STONE on
20 July 1965, today 60 years ago. It went to #2 in the US
and #4 in the UK.
Its confrontational lyrics originated in an extended piece of verse that Dylan wrote in June 1965, when he returned exhausted from a grueling
tour of England.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone
A year later he went on a worldwide tour to promote the LP.
Now, 4 years later, Dylan is still flying/playing around. This fall
he’ll land in the UK and Ireland.
It reached the top of the UK Singles Chart on 26 June 1965,
this day 60 years ago. It also topped the US, South African
and Irish charts, and was a Top-10 single everywhere else.
“Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you”
Pitchfork said: “Six decades into his career, Bob Dylan delivers a gorgeous and meticulous record. It is the rare Dylan album that asks to be understood and comes down to meet its audience.”
Pitchfork: “After 46 years, Neil Young unearths a lost but highly consequential album, a collection of humble, stripped-back love songs he began writing at what was arguably the artistic zenith of his career. It’s a reminder of the qualities that make him such an excellent songwriter, and also, in some ways, an icon of 1970s, post-hippie masculinity.”
On 12 May 1963, today 62 years ago BOB DYLAN walked out of rehearsals for his planned performance on the legendary American TV program The Ed Sullivan Show after being told he couldn’t perform his song Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues due to it mocking the US military and segregation.
CBS (his record label) officials asked Dylan to substitute it for another song, but he reportedly said: ‘No, this is what I want to do. If I can’t play my song, I’d rather not appear
on the show’.
LYRICS
This is called talkin’ John Birch Blues
And there ain’t nothing wrong with this song
Well, I was feelin’ sad and kinda blue
I didn’t know what I was gonna do
The communists was a-comin’ around
They was in the air
They was on the ground
They was all over
So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
I went back home to the yard
Started looking on the sidewalk
Under the hedges
Well, I got up in the mornin’ I looked under my bed
I was lookin’ every places for them gol-darned Reds
Looked behind the sink, and under the floor
Looked in the glove compartment of my car
Couldn’t find any
Look behind the cloths, behind the chair
Lookin’ for them Reds everywhere
I looked way up my chimney hole
Even looked deep inside my toilet bowl
They got away
I heard some footsteps by the front porch door
I grabbed my shotgun from the floor
Snuck around the house with a huff and a hiss
“Saying hands up you communist”
It was the mail man, he punched me out
Well, I was sittin’ home an’ started to sweat
I figured they was in my T.V. set
I peeked behind the picture frame
Got a shock from my feet, right up in the brain
Them reds did it
Hooting in the television
Well, I quit my job, so I could work alone
Got a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered red stripes on the American flag
Betty Ross
Now Eisenhower, he’s a Russian spy
Lincoln, and Jefferson and then Roosevelt guy
To my knowledge, there’s just one man
That’s really and truly an American
That’s George Lincoln Rockwell
I know for a fact he hates Commies
‘Cause he picketed the movie Exodus
Well, I finally started thinkin’ straight
When I run outta things to investigate
I couldn’t imagine nothin’ else
So now I’m home investigatin’ myself
Hope I don’t find out too much, good God
