As promised last week.
Baby Let Me Follow You Down, 1962. From Bob's first album. Lord almighty it is good to hear this again. Dylan played better guitar and harmonic in the early days. The surging, full-throated harp beats the sometimes-annoying tweets and toots of his later harmonic playing. Dylan opens by telling us that he learned this song from Rick [Eric] von Schmidt when he met him one day in "the green pastures of Harvard University." Was he thinking of Woody Guthrie's Pastures of Plenty, 1944? Dylan's effort apparently derives from von Schmidt's Baby Let Me Lay it on You.
Here is a real gem of a find: Bob Dylan Jamming with Eric von Schmidt, May, 1964. Eric von Schmidt, Envy the Thief. Back to the Dylan top ten.
Blowin' in the Wind. From the Freewheelin' album, Bob's second. His best civil rights anthem. Topical but allusive.
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. Also from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Said to have been written during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. I remember it like it was yesterday. Joan Baez's transcendently beautiful cover. Forgive me if I gush a bit. I'm enjoying a Saturday night cocktail: Tequila + Aperol. Straight up.
Positively Fourth Street. The ultimate put-down song.
With God on Our Side. From the third album.
Spanish Harlem Incident. Fourth album, We'll make do with the Byrds' cover. Not that it isn't good.
Its All Over Now, Baby Blue. Fifth album, probably my favorite. This one goes out to Charaine H., and our bittersweet relationship.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, baby blue.
It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding. Going to a Dylan concert in those days was like going to church. Absolute silence except for the man on stage standing alone singing his own songs and accompanying himself on guitar and harp. We hung on every word.
It Take a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry. From Dylan's 6th album, Highway 61 Revisited.
I Want You. Blonde on Blonde, Dylan's 7th.
All Along the Watchtower, John Wesley Harding.
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