In Anticipation of Shadow Kingdom!

This week, in anticipation of Bob Dylan’s virtual concert experience, Shadow Kingdom, Laura and Robert are thinking about past instances in which we got to enjoy Dylan onstage from the comfort of our homes: we’re talking Dylan’s live album!

Join us on Patreon tonight after Shadow Kingdom airs, where Robert and I will do a live stream to discuss our impressions with you! I’ll be sharing the link over there as soon as Shadow Kingdom finishes (since we don’t know the exact duration).

A few notes: I meant to mention that Columbia also recorded Dylan’s concert at Carnegie Hall on 26 October 1963, but it got shelved until six songs from Dylan’s set that night were released as an EP in 2005.

We forgot to answer these burning questions in the episode, but “Watching the River Flow” was last played live as “recently” as 2014, and no, Dylan didn’t perform “Lay Lady Lay” on the Johnny Cash Show.

Oh, and apparently the new Definitely Dylan rule is that “Girl From the North Country” gets either played or mentioned in every episode!!

Playlist:

1. Lay Lady Lay (Before The Flood)

2. Girl From The North Country (Real Live)

3. Is Your Love In Vain? (Live at Budokan)

4. Slow Train (Dylan and the Dead)

What's Your Perfect Bob Dylan Album?

Hi! Definitely Dylan is back with a silly question: if you were to put together your perfect Bob Dylan album by assembling ten tracks out of his entire discography - with the only condition being that the track number needs to correspond to its placement on the original album (so for example choose “Like A Rolling Stone” as an opener, followed by “Simple Twist Of Fate”, etc.) - what would your album look like? Or do you think Bob Dylan already has a perfect album?

Laura and Robert discuss their choices as well as the pitfalls involved in this challenge. It’s a fun and chaotic hour with some slightly random music choices!

Tell us your choices in the comments!

Get your tickets for Shadow Kingdom here.

And don’t forget that if you like, you can support Definitely Dylan on Patreon.

Playlist:

1. Diamond Joe

2. Wiggle Wiggle

3. Covenant Woman

4. A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall

5. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

Tangled Up in Joni Mitchell

This week’s episode is inspired by the 50th anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s iconic album Blue! To celebrate the occasion, Laura and Robert talk about the relationship between Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Are these two legendary songwriters friends or are they foes? Is there a feud or just a case of fake news??

Over the course of the hour, we talk about what Mitchell and Dylan have said about one another and, more importantly, how they have influenced each other’s songs.

Here is the episode on the Emotional World of Blood On The Tracks.

If you’re looking to celebrate the album Blue some more, I really recommend this interactive piece in the NYTimes.

If you’re interested in reading more quotes from Joni Mitchell about Bob Dylan, you can find a very comprehensive list (including the full interview from which we share audio clips) here.

Playlist:

1. Girl From The North Country - Joni Mitchell & Johnny Cash

2. A Case Of You (demo) - Joni Mitchell

3. Tangled Up In Blue (New York sessions)

4. Big Yellow Taxi - Bob Dylan

5. It’s All Over Now Baby Blue - Joni Mitchell

Episode #100 - We're Taking Your Requests!

Huzzah, it’s Definitely Dylan’s 100th radio episode! That’s 100 hours of us playing and enthusiastically discussing Bob Dylan’s songs: the lyrics, the themes, and of course the music and performance!

To celebrate, I asked our lovely listeners to tell us what songs they’d like to hear, and we received many, many fantastic requests, out of which we’ve chosen a few for this hour.

If you enjoy this, and you have a particular song or performance you’d like to hear on the show, tell us in the comments, maybe we can play it in an upcoming episode.

A few notes on this week’s programme: if you’d like to listen to the very early episode in which I talk about the evolution of several Dylan songs on the stage (including “One Too Many Mornings”), you can find that here. I also thought I’d share the bootleg recording of the slightly earlier 1976 performance of the song that I mention in the episode. This version comes from 1 May, so it is almost a month before the Hard Rain version (I incorrectly remembered it only being a few days earlier). This is a stunning version, but I think you’ll agree with me that the version on Hard Rain is a much more confident vocal performance.

Also, “Too Much Of Nothing” was covered by Peter, Paul & Mary. Mary Travers does a terrific job on lead vocal and the song features, as you might expect, some wonderful harmonies. For better or worse, their version also rid the song of pretty much all of its chaotic energy.

If you like, you can support Definitely Dylan on Patreon.

Playlist:

1. One Too Many Mornings (Hard Rain)

2. When He Returns (Live in Toronto, Canada, 18 April, 1980)

3. Too Much Of Nothing

4. Born In Time (live in Newark, NJ, 1 February, 1998)

5. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Take 1)

6. It Takes A Lot To Laugh It' Takes A Train To Cry (Newport Folk Festival, 25 July 1965)

7. Girl from the North Country feat Johnny Cash (with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)

Happy 80th Birthday Bob Dylan! - Introspection and Life Lessons in Dylan songs Through the Decades

Please join us in wishing Bob Dylan’s a very happy milestone birthday!

As the man himself is turning 80 years young, we’re celebrating by playing one introspective song from each decade of his prolific career to see how they reflect Dylan’s outlook on life and creativity at that moment in time.

If you’d like to support the show, you can become a member on Patreon!

Playlist:

1. I Contain Multitudes

2. Restless Farewell

3. When The Deal Goes Down

4. Not Dark Yet

5. Every Grain Of Sand

6. Forever Young (recording demo 6/73)