Bob Dylan All the Songs
Page 84
Production
“Not Dark Yet” was demoed (unreleased to this day) at El Teatro Studios in Oxnard, California, during the fall of 1996. In an interview with the Irish Times in October 1997, Daniel Lanois revealed that “‘Not Dark Yet’ had a radically different feel in the demo we did, which I loved and still miss. It was quicker and more stripped down and then, in the studio, he changed it into a Civil War ballad.”157
The major feature of “Not Dark Yet” lies in its hypnotic atmosphere. As always, Lanois uses multiple instruments to fuel a sonic vision that he alone has the talent and skill to create. All the musicians contribute to this sound: Augie Meyers’s organ is scored; the two drummers provide a heavy, haunting tempo; and Tony Garnier on bass moves in the depths of the sound spectrum. The guitars confer a rock-music atmosphere on the piece, but also contribute to its dreamlike ambience. Dylan delivers one of his best vocal performances on the album, touched with sincerity and resignation. This time few effects were added to his voice, and the sound is relatively pure. Note the presence of percussion, even if it is not credited on the album.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Outside of Time Out of Mind, “Not Dark Yet” was released on CD in two formats: a four-track disc (with live versions of “Tombstone Blues,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” and “Boots of Spanish Leather”) and a two-track disc (with the live version of “Tombstone Blues”).
Cold Irons Bound
Bob Dylan / 7:16
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Daniel Lanois: guitar
Robert Britt: guitar
“Bucky” Baxter: pedal steel guitar
Augie Meyers: organ
Tony Garnier: bass
David Kemper: drums
Recording Studio
Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions)
Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
Genesis and Lyrics
“Cold Irons Bound” may have been inspired by “Rosie,” an African-American work song sung by inmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm. The tale is about a better life symbolized by a beautiful woman named Rosie. Many years earlier, Dylan had recorded a similar song for his album Self Portrait, titled “Take a Message to Mary,” written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.
In “Cold Irons Bound,” the narrator is sentenced to prison. He says he is “Twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound / The walls of pride are high and wide,” and under “clouds of blood.” This is most likely a metaphor, indicating that he is experiencing a love that is “taking such a long time to die”; he is a prisoner of memories of the joys he shared with his beloved.
Production
“Cold Irons Bound” is a small production masterpiece by Daniel Lanois. The song opens with Tony Garnier’s massive and poignant riff bass sound on which David Kemper has grafted his half-ethnic and half-rockabilly drums. The orchestration is heavy with increasing tension. The two guitars confer a rather aggressive blues-rock atmosphere, accompanied by Augie Meyers’s excellent organ part. While far from Dylan’s usual sound, the result is dazzling. The Lanois-Dylan collaberation works perfectly. Dylan’s vocal is brilliant, as if it comes straight from the depths of the Delta, reminiscent of the Excello Records recordings of Slim Harpo and Lightnin’ Slim. “Cold Irons Bound” is one of the successes of the album. Unfortunately, Dylan has said that he did not really achieve his goals in writing this song.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
“Cold Irons Bound” won the 1998 Grammy Award for the Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
Make You Feel My Love
Bob Dylan / 3:33
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, piano
Daniel Lanois: guitar
Augie Meyers: organ
Tony Garnier: bass
Recording Studio
Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions)
Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
Genesis and Lyrics
The lyrics of “Make You Feel My Love” are antithetical to those of the other songs on Time Out of Mind. The song is not about heartbreak, betrayal, or the wreckage of old age. “Make You Feel My Love” is a love song without any hidden meanings. On the contrary, the narrator expresses his feelings in very revealing poetry: “I could offer you a warm embrace” and “I could hold you for a million years.” Everything is summed up in the title: the singer gives his beloved all the love he feels for her.
“Make You Feel My Love” was recorded in January 1997 at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami. Before the public heard Dylan’s version, they already knew the sweet melody as covered by Billy Joel under the title “To Make You Feel My Love,” on his album Greatest Hits Volume III, released on August 19, 1997. Joel’s single predated Time Out of Mind by just a month and a half and reached number 9 on the Adult Contemporary charts and number 5 in the Billboard Top 100.
Production
In “Make You Feel My Love,” Dylan is back at the keyboard of his piano. It is the simplest song on the album. There is no particular effect, no dark or dreamlike atmosphere. Dylan sings a declaration of love, backed by organ and bass. The echo on his vocal strengthens the emotional interpretation. It is interesting to compare his voice intonation at this stage of his career with his intonation in songs like “Girl from the North Country” (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan) at his debut. His voice now is worn, rougher, but the same feeling of disillusionment and lucidity shines through. Despite the years, his feelings reassuringly remain the same. “Make You Feel My Love” is a beautiful ballad. It is probably the only piece on the album where Lanois’s influence is understated. It seems that he played acoustic guitar, but his part is completely buried in the mix.
IN YOUR HEADPHONES
There is a noise at 1:22 in the back of the studio, and if you listen carefully you can hear Dylan breathing between 2:09 and 2:15.
Covers
In addition to Billy Joel, other performers, including Bryan Ferry and Trisha Yearwood, have included “Make You Feel My Love” in their repertoire. Garth Brooks’s cover reached number 1 on the US Billboard Hot Country charts in 1998, and Adele’s number 26 in the United Kingdom in 2008.
Can’t Wait
Bob Dylan / 5:47
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Daniel Lanois: guitar
Duke Robillard: guitar
Augie Meyers: organ
Jim Dickinson: keyboards
Tony Garnier: bass
Brian Blade and Jim Keltner: drums
Tony Mangurian: percussion
Recording Studio
Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions)
Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
Genesis and Lyrics
Once again, Dylan evokes the twilight of romance in the lyrics of “Can’t Wait.” The narrator says that he cannot live without the woman he loves, even if “your loveliness has wounded [him].” He continues his journey, strolling “night or day,” hoping his path will cross hers. The verdict, however, seems clear: he is doomed to love her: “[Y]ou’re still the one / While I’m strolling through the lonely graveyard of my mind.”
Production
After the interlude of “Make You Feel My Love,” Dylan reconnects with his roots in the blues embedded in the deep, muddy Mississippi Delta. “Can’t Wait” might have resulted from a jam session in the fall of 1996. There are several versions, including three released on album. The one on Time Out of Mind reflects the true tone of the LP, a nonchalant interpretation. Once again the song is a success. The calm, rhythmic groove is almost reggae in style. There is a communion between the musicians, all
of whom are excellent.
The two alternative versions were officially released on The Bootleg Series Volume 8. The first, with Dylan on piano, is gospel in style (similar to “Dirge” on Planet Waves); the second is on organ (similar to “Under Your Spell” on Knocked Out Loaded). Mark Howard recalls the session: “We’re all ready to do computer-based stuff, and one day Bob comes in, sits at the piano, and plays this song, ‘Can’t Wait.’ And this is a gospel version. Tony starts playing this real sexy groove with him, and Bob is hammering out this gospel piano and really singing. The hair on my arms went up. It was stunning.”158 Daniel Lanois also retains a clear memory of this session, when Dylan was playing his Steinway, Lanois a Gibson Les Paul, and Pretty Tony on drums. Unfortunately, this version was not considered for the album because shortly afterward Dylan decided to end the recording sessions in Miami. Lanois comments, “I was sad to abandon that version, ’cause I think it has a lot of rock ’n’ roll in it.”150 But the version released on Time Out of Mind is a worthy effort. Dylan, the rest of the musicians, and the production all contributed to create an extraordinary result.
Highlands
Bob Dylan / 16:32
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Daniel Lanois: guitar
Augie Meyers: organ
Jim Dickinson: keyboards
Tony Garnier: bass
Tony Mangurian: percussion, drums (?)
Recording Studio
Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions)
Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
Genesis and Lyrics
The lyrics of “Highlands” were inspired by “My Heart’s in the Highlands” by Robert Burns, an eighteenth-century Scottish poet who was famous for, among other things, having collected the folk songs of his homeland. Dylan adapted and rewrote the text. Like Burns’s poem, Dylan’s song is about death, specifically about what comes after death. The narrator’s soul seems to wander in a kind of void as if carried by a mysterious wind: “The wind, it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme.” Dylan sings, “Every day is the same thing out the door.” Which door is it? The door of freedom from “a world of mystery”? In this case, the “highlands” could be the symbol of the Garden of Eden from Genesis.
Production
The closing track of the album, “Highlands” is the longest song recorded by Dylan to date. Robert Burns might have been the inspiration for his long poem, but the guitar riff was borrowed from the father of the Delta blues, Charley Patton. In 1997, Dylan told Robert Hillburn, “I had the guitar run off an old Charley Patton record for years and always wanted to do something with that… with that sound in my mind and the dichotomy of the highlands with that seemed to be a path worth pursuing.”20 The sixteen-minute-long song is a standard twelve-bar blues. The two main guitars are played by Dylan and Lanois; Garnier is on bass, Meyers on organ, Dickinson on Wurlitzer, and Mangurian on drums. The song is carried by itself. It is actually a sixteen-minute loop. “Highlands” is probably the least surprising title on the album. Lanois did create long loops during the preproduction in New York City, as he said, “Those long blues numbers have those preparations in their spine.”150 But the instrumental parts only support the text and do not develop them. Thus the music creates an hypnotic effect, allowing the songwriter to easily superimpose his vocal part.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
“My Heart’s in the Highlands” is an adaptation by Robert Burns of an earlier Scottish song, known as “The Strong Walls of Derry,” part of a collection of poetry and Scottish songs by Allan Ramsay titled The Tea-Table Miscellany. In his introduction, Ramsay explained that these verses were composed in “time out of mind.”
Time Out of Mind Outtakes
Out of the fifteen songs recorded for Time Out of Mind, four were left off the album because of lack of space. “Mississippi” was rerecorded for the following album, Love and Theft, released in 2001. “Red River Shore,” “Dreamin’ of You,” and “Marchin’ to the City” officially appear on The Bootleg Series Volume 8, released in 2008.
Red River Shore
Bob Dylan / 7:34
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Daniel Lanois: guitar; Robert Britt: guitar (?); Duke Robillard: guitar (?); Cindy Cashdollar: slide guitar; “Bucky” Baxter: pedal steel guitar (?); Augie Meyers: organ, accordion; Jim Dickinson: keyboards; Tony Garnier: bass; Brian Blade and Jim Keltner: drums; Tony Mangurian: percussion / Recording Studio: Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997 / Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions) / Sound Engineer: Mark Howard Set Box: The Bootleg Series Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare & Unreleased 1989–2006 (CD 1) / Date of Release: October 6, 2008
“Red River Shore” is a emotional ballad about a quest for love. The narrator loves a woman who captivated him at first glance, the memories of which are dreamlike. In the third verse, Dylan sings, “Well, the dream dried up a long time ago,” adding later, “Well, we’re living in the shadows of a fading past.” The girl from the Red River shore—is she a fantasy or the expression of perfect love? Dylan lets listeners use their own imagination. And from time to time, it seems he takes pleasure in rearranging the pieces of the puzzle. Thus, in the last verse, “I heard of a guy who lived a long time ago” who “knew how to bring ’em on back to life”—obviously a Christlike character.
According to Chris Shaw, who mixed the album, there were four takes of “Red River Shore,” dating back at least to the sessions at El Teatro Studios in Oxnard, California. Two takes were indeed recorded in January 1997 at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami, and they appear on The Bootleg Series Volume 8. Keyboard player Jim Dickinson confirmed in Uncut, “‘Girl from the Red River Shore’ I personally felt was the best thing we recorded. But as we walked in to hear the playback, Dylan was in front of me, and he said, ‘Well, we’ve done everything on that one except call the symphony orchestra.’ Which indicated to me they’d tried to cut it before. If it had been my session, I would have got on the phone at that point and called the fucking symphony orchestra. But the cut was amazing. You couldn’t even identify what instruments were playing what parts. It sounded like ghost instruments.”159
In listening to “Red River Shore,” the quality of the song and production make us wonder why Dylan excluded it from Time Out of Mind. This Tex-Mex-colored ballad is a great success, and thankfully “Red River Shore” was finally released after stay languishing too long in the shadows.
Marchin’ To The City
Bob Dylan / 6:32
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, piano; Daniel Lanois: guitar; Robert Britt: guitar; Duke Robillard: guitar; Augie Meyers: organ; Tony Garnier: bass; Jim Keltner: drums / Recording Studio: Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997 Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions) / Sound Engineer: Mark Howard / Set Box: The Bootleg Series Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare & Unreleased 1989–2006 (CD 1) / Date of Release: October 6, 2008
The narrator of this song is sitting in a church in an old wooden chair and talking about his past. Yesterday, “I had a pretty gal, did me wrong.” Today, “I’m marching to the city, and the road ain’t long.” “Marchin’ to the City” (also called “Doing Alright”) starts as a gospel song, and Dylan performs on piano before developing the melody into a blues song. Two versions were released on The Bootleg Series Volume 8, both with equally bluesy sensuality. They were excluded from Time Out of Mind for the simple reason that “Marchin’ to the City” was quickly transformed into “’Til I Fell in Love with You.”
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
“Dreamin’ of You” was the subject of a music video starring Harry Dean Stanton (Paris, Texas). He is seen entering a warehouse where pirated discs and cassettes of Dylan’s songs are stored. An absolute fan of the songwriter, the character played by Stanton collects for years all possible information about Dylan’s
career and has various materials in his possession used for the production of The Bootleg Series Volume 8!
Dreamin’ Of You
Bob Dylan / 5:50
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Daniel Lanois: organ; Tony Garnier: bass; Tony Mangurian: drums, piano Recording Studio: Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997 / Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions) / Sound Engineer: Mark Howard / Set Box: The Bootleg Series Volume 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare & Unreleased 1989–2006 (CD 1) / Date of Release: October 6, 2008
Bob Dylan again sings about love as if it were a dream that might end at any time. He interweaves his dream with reality when he sings, “For years they had me locked in a cage / Then they threw me onto stage.”
This is another excellent song incomprehensibly left off the official track listing. The band is reduced to a few musicians, unlike the big orchestration for the other sessions of Time Out of Mind, and each player plays his part well. Dylan is brilliant vocally and on guitar. Also note Tony Mangurian’s extraordinary performance on drums. He also plays the recurring riff on piano. Before the release of The Bootleg Series Volume 8, the songwriter’s fans could download “Dreamin’ of You” for free from Dylan’s website.