Tag Archives: lyrics

Exclusive! Bob Dylan’s Handwritten Lyrics For ‘New Basement Tapes’ Song, ‘Liberty Street’

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Page one of Bob Dylan’s 1967 lyrics to “Liberty Street.”

Yesterday I got access to a copy of Bob Dylan’s two pages of handwritten lyrics for “Liberty Street,” a song completed by Taylor Goldsmith of the band Dawes for the album Lost On the River: The New Basement Tapes (produced by T Bone Burnett).

I like what Dawes has done with the song, creating a piano ballad along the lines of “Dear Landlord.” Dawes’ voice is too smooth for me, and I’d love to hear Dylan sing this one (and bring his distinctive, bluesy approach to the piano part).

Dawes took quite a few liberties with Dylan’s words, only using a portion of the original lyrics, and by leaving out some key lines, turns it into a very different song, which is fine. I’m sure Dylan would dig that. Still, it’s worth noting a few of the missing lines. Dawes used some lines from these verses, as you’ll see:

In one verse, Dylan writes:
“6 months in Kansas City, can’t find no room and board,
6 months in Kansas City, what can’t lead to what kind of reward,
All my friends in jail lost out,
Some who ain’t got no bail bust out, but then find the tracks did make you come back,
Down on your knees, ain’t it a pity, not even a breeze,
6 months in Kansas City, make a man ready to do anything.”

And the one that follows:
“6 months in Kansas City! Woe! Can’t be begging for no last meal,
Things sure don’t look too pretty! Cause a man to rob and steal
All my friends confounded, indeed
Some lost and some drown and some turn to greed.”

Elvis Costello also took a shot at this one, and I do prefer his version, which he calls “Six Months In Kansas City (Liberty Street),” but that may be because I’m a big Elvis fan. Soon enough you’ll be able to decide for yourself, as the album will be out on November 10.

Goldsmith starts the song with Dylan’s second line, “He came from the old religion, but possessed no magic skill, Descending from machinery, he left nothing in his will.”

He also uses Dylan’s next two lines — “The crops are failing, the women wailing” — before rewriting Dylan’s first line — “I see by the papers that” — to complete the verse with “it’s in the paper at your feet.”

Although Dylan wrote a couple of possible choruses, Goldsmith made his own using Dylan’s title for the song which appears to have been “Liberty Street (Six Months In Kansas City).”

Goldsmith’s chorus: “Six months in Kansas City, down on Liberty Street.”

The strangest thing Goldsmith does is leave out what to me is a really key pair of lines: “Thank you for not helping me out, for not treating me like a fool.”

Instead, for his next verse Goldsmith jumps to the bottom of the first page and slightly changes Dylan’s lyric to: “It was sad to see it, that little lady goin’ in, arrested for arson, once they’d asked her where she’d been.”

The second page of Dylan’s “Liberty Street” lyrics.

Then he grabs a line from later in the song — “Down on your knees, ain’t it a pity, not even a breeze — and turns it into: “Down on her knees, not even a breeze, another victim of the heat.”

And back to the chorus: “Six months in Kansas City, down on Liberty Street.”

For his final verse, Goldsmith goes to Dylan’s final verse for the lines “Things sure don’t look too pretty, cause a man to rob and steal, I got [unintelligible word] six more months out here, can’t be begging for my meals.”

And turns some lines from the first page — “Now look here Baby Snooks, don’t matter how many books, you got underneath your thumb” — into “Now look here Baby Snooks, doesn’t matter what books, you got underneath your seat,” before ending with “Six months in Kansas City, down on Liberty Street.”

About the song, Goldsmith says in a press release:

“Liberty Street” was one of the last songs I put together for the record. We didn’t see the lyrics for this song until we got into the studio. Bob Dylan has a way of saying lines like ‘Six months in Kansas City down on Liberty Street’ and it having an immediate, yet sometimes ineffable, power. When I started putting these words to music, the structure of the words dictated the way the chords rolled out so it came together really fast. And the recording of it was our first take.”

“Liberty Street”:

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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Exclusive: Bob Dylan’s Handwritten Lyrics For ‘New Basement Tapes’ Song ‘Spanish Mary’ – Check Them Out!

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Bob Dylan’s notebook page where he wrote the lyrics to “Spanish Mary.”

During the summer of 1967, up in Woodstock, New York, Bob Dylan wrote a batch of song lyrics that he didn’t set music to and didn’t record.

Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is an album of those songs produced by T Bone Burnett due out November 10, 2014. Elvis Costello, Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Marcus Mumford are the artists that came together to record the songs.

Today, one of those songs, “Spanish Mary,” was released and I was able to get a copy of Bob Dylan’s notebook page, on which he wrote the lyrics to the song.

For this one, Rhiannon Giddens wrote the music and her performance on the recording is very powerful.

She stays true to the lyrics as Dylan wrote them.

In examining Dylan’s notebook page, there are a couple of lines he crossed out.

In the second verse, the second line, “Upon their ship quite scary” was crossed out and replaced by “no longer could they tarry.”

Dylan crossed out the beginning of the third line, “it was to see them,” leaving only the end of that line, “Swoon and Swerve.”

Off to the side Dylan tried out some alternatives, writing “Some sing like,” and then right under it, “Song sing like a canary.”

In the third verse, “In Kingsport town was changed to “In Kingston Town,” and minor changes in the line that follows were made.

Minor – one or two word – changes were made in the third, fourth and fifth verses.

Check out the video:

In a press release, Giddens, who wrote the music for the song and sings the lead vocal, says of the track:

“Out of all the lyrics I looked through for the New Basement Tapes project, the one for ‘Spanish Mary’ attracted me first – here was a ballad, and I know ballads! It’s also set in the Caribbean, so I felt the deep African sound of the minstrel style banjo (circa 1856) was appropriate. It was an absolute thrill to get to set music to Dylan’s lyrics, what an opportunity! This project is marked with utter generosity from everyone involved.”

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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Audio: Hear Bob Dylan’s ‘New Basement Tapes’ Song, ‘Spanish Mary,’ Sung By Rhiannon Giddens

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Here is “Spanish Mary,” the latest song off Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes to be made available prior to the album release on November 10, 2014.

In a press release, Giddens, who wrote the music for the song and sings the lead vocal, says of the track:

“Out of all the lyrics I looked through for the New Basement Tapes project, the one for ‘Spanish Mary’ attracted me first – here was a ballad, and I know ballads! It’s also set in the Caribbean, so I felt the deep African sound of the minstrel style banjo (circa 1856) was appropriate. It was an absolute thrill to get to set music to Dylan’s lyrics, what an opportunity! This project is marked with utter generosity from everyone involved.”

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[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in a recent issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Complete Bob Dylan Song Lyrics Book Due Oct. 28; Dylan Sings ‘Do Re Mi’ With Ry Cooder, Van Dyke Parks

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The book in all its glory.

On October 28, 2014 the first complete book of Bob Dylan’s lyrics will be published in a limited edition of 3500 copies. Priced at $200 for the 960 page, 13.3 pound book, Amazon is currently taking advance orders for the book at a discounted price of $126.74.

The New York Times can a story today, which said, in part:

The songs are presented chronologically, including alternative versions released as part of Mr. Dylan’s archival “Bootleg Series.” The album covers, front and back, are reproduced.

The way the songs are laid out is meant “to help the eye see what the ear hears,” Mr. Ricks said. “If you print the songs flush left,” he added, “it doesn’t represent, visually, the audible experience.” So refrains, choruses and bridges are indented. And where Mr. Dylan intended a line, however long, to be unbroken, it sprawls across the 13-inch-wide page.

How did the editors know which lines were meant to be unbroken? Did Mr. Dylan provide feedback or comments? Mr. Karp said he had heard that Mr. Dylan provided notebooks and manuscripts. Mr. Ricks refused to elaborate.

“I think the right thing for us,” he said, “is not to go into the question of the particular kinds of help and assistance and advice that we were in a position to receive.”

From Amazon.com:

“The Lyrics: Since 1962” (Hardcover – October 28, 2014)

by Bob Dylan (Author), Christopher Ricks (Editor), Lisa Nemrow (Editor), Julie Nemrow (Editor)

Hardcover: 960 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 28, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1476797706
ISBN-13: 978-1476797700
Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 12.4 x 2.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.3 pounds

A major publishing event—a beautiful, comprehensive collection of the lyrics of Bob Dylan with artwork from thirty-three albums, edited and with an introduction by Christopher Ricks.

As it was well put by Al Kooper (the man behind the organ on “Like a Rolling Stone”), “Bob is the equivalent of William Shakespeare. What Shakespeare did in his time, Bob does in his time.” Christopher Ricks, editor of T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Tennyson, and The Oxford Book of English Verse, has no argument with Mr. Kooper’s assessment, and Dylan is attended to accordingly in this authoritative edition of his lyrics.

In the words of Ricks: “For fifty years, all the world has delighted in Bob Dylan’s books of words and more than words: provocative, mysterious, touching, baffling, not-to-be-pinned-down, intriguing, and a reminder that genius is free to do as it chooses. And, again and again, these are not the words that he sings on the initially released albums.”

This edition changes things, giving us the words from officially released studio and live recordings, as well as selected variant lyrics and revisions to these, recent revisions and retrospective ones; and, from the archives, words that, till now, have not been published.

The Lyrics, edited with diligence by Christopher Ricks, Lisa Nemrow, and Julie Nemrow. As set down, as sung, and as sung again.

While you wait, here’s Dylan, Ry Cooder and Van Dyke Parks performing Woody Guthrie’s “Do Re Mi” at the Malibu Performing Arts Center in January 2009:

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” Rolling Stone has a great review of my book in the new issue. Read it here. There’s info about True Love Scars here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Exclusive: Bob Dylan’s Hand-Written Lyrics For ‘Married To My Hack’ – Check ‘Em Out Now!

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Bob Dylan’s doodles on the piece of yellow, blue-lined paper on which he wrote the lyrics to “Married To My Hack” during the summer of 1967.

Elvis Costello made only the most minor changes to Bob Dylan’s 1967 lyrics for the song “Married To My Hack” that is included on the not-yet-released album, Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes — with one exception.

Bob Dylan’s handwritten lyrics to “Married To My Hack.” Note the unfinished final line.

On the copy I got of a piece of yellow, blue-lined paper on which Dylan wrote the lyrics, the final line of the song is incomplete.

Dylan wrote, “Just gimmie a bottle and the”

That’s it.

He never finished it.

But Costello sings, “Gimmie a bottle and someone to throttle ’cause I’d rather be married to my hack.”

It’s certainly a controversial line in an otherwise humorous song in which Dylan details all the many women who apparently want him.

He wrote that he’s “got 15 women,” and later on the page, that he’s “got loose eye’d ladies who never seen a man just waiting around out back.”

The punchline is, of course, the song’s title. Dylan repeatedly tells us throughout the song that he would “rather be married to my hack.”

But the song’s best lines comes early on.

“I move like the breeze, and the birds and the bees
I’m never known to look back…”

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” There’s info about it here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Exclusive: Bob Dylan’s Hand-Written Lyrics For ‘Nothing To It’ – Check ‘Em Out Now!

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Copy of the handwritten lyrics to ‘Nothing To It.’

Last year a box of lyrics that Bob Dylan had written during the summer of 1967 for songs that he never wrote music for, or recorded, was given to producer T Bone Burnett.

Now, for the first time, we get to see what the original page on which Dylan wrote the lyrics to one of the songs that will appear on the Burnett-produced album Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes, looks like.

That song, “Nothing To It,” was released as a lyric video the other day.

Examining Dylan’s page of lyrics, we can see how Jim James rearranged the order of the verses and chorus for his version of the song.

The lyrics, as written by Bob Dylan:

You don’t have to turn your pockets inside out
But I’m sure you can give me something
You don’t have to go into your bank account
but I’m sure you don’t have to give me nothing

I knew that I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
for I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it

There was no organization I wanted to join
So I stayed by myself and took out a coin

There I saw sat in with my eyes in my hand –
contemplating killing a man – for
Greed was one thing I just couldn’t stand

If I was you, I’d put back what I took
A guilty man has got a guilty look

Heads I will and tails I won’t
So the decision wouldn’t be my own

The lyrics as sung by Jim James:

Well I knew I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
‘Cause I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it

There was no organization I wanted to join
So I stayed by myself and took out a coin

There I sat with my eyes in my hand –
just contemplating killing a man – for
Greed was one thing I just couldn’t stand

If I was you, I’d put back what I took
A guilty man’s got a guilty look

Heads I will and tails I won’t
Long as the call wouldn’t be my own

Well you don’t have to turn your pockets inside out
But I’m sure you can give me something
Well you don’t have to go into your bank account
but I’m sure you can give me something

Well I knew I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
‘Cause I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it

Well I knew I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
‘Cause I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it

And I knew there was nothing to it
And I knew there was nothing to it
And I knew there was nothing to it
And I knew there was nothing to it

So the changes Jim James made amount to starting the song with the chorus, then singing what follows after the chorus, then singing what for Dylan is the first verse, and then a return to the chorus.

And there’s one other change.

As Dylan wrote it, the first verse ends with the line:

but I’m sure you don’t have to give me nothing

But James repeats the second line of the first verse instead:

but I’m sure you can give me something

Check it out:

I’m looking forward to seeing what Burnett and his crew did with the rest of the lyrics. This one is an auspicious first song.

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” I’ve got a Goodreads. book giveaway going right now. Click here and enter.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

So, Would You Want the Newport Guitar or Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ Lyrics?

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Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival performing “Like A Rolling Stone.”

In response to my post yesterday, “Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ Manuscript Sells for $2 Million But Dylan’s Secrets Remain Secret,” Mike Jones commented:

The LARS lyrics went for more than I thought they would…how are a few pieces of paper worth more than the Newport guitar? I don’t get the whole ephemera thing. I guess people like to have historical stuff, just to look at or whatever. But I would much rather have the Newport guitar, which sold for like half as much. That seems very strange to me.

I understand why some folks, especially musicians, would want the guitar Bob Dylan played at the Newport Folk Festival gig that drew the line between the old Dylan, and the new.

For me though — and I’m not saying paying $2 mil makes any kind of sense — between the guitar and the manuscript, I’d go for the manuscript.

Guitar:

Bob Dylan’s Newport guitar sold for $965,000.

Here’s why.

Certainly the guitar is an iconic object, symbolic of Dylan’s rejection of so-called ‘folk music’ for rock ‘n’ roll, but he could have played any Strat that day and made the same music, made the same impact. Dylan’s art and his creativity didn’t hinge on that particular guitar. In fact, he played many guitars over the years. It’s always been Dylan, not his instruments, that makes the difference.

But that manuscript.

That’s the artist at work. That’s the artist in the throes of the creative process.

On those pages we see the song take shape. Words crossed out and other words written in. The chorus forming before our eyes from page to page.

And those cryptic notes to the side of the lyrics. “Al Capone,” “On the Road,” “Pony Blues,” “Butcher Boy.”

From these pages and the ones for “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” we get the curtain pulled back a little on Dylan’s creative process.

And when one combines what’s on these pages, with what he reveals in “Chronicles: Volume One” and elsewhere, we do get a vague sense of the Dylan mind at work.

We’ll never get to the bottom of it, and it’s probably better that way, but still.

So Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ lyrics are very different from the Newport guitar. They’re a time machine that takes us back to that day (s) when Bob Dylan put the ideas that were in his head down on hotel stationary, and created a timeless song, a song that, nearly 50 years after he wrote it, stands tall.

But what do you think?

Would you opt for the Newport guitar, or the “Like A Rolling Stone” manuscript pages?

Manuscript:

Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ lyrics: The four pages went for half a million a page.

Or is there something else that you’d go for instead. If you had the money, and if you could afford to spend it in this way.

Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 singing “Like A Rolling Stone”:


Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone (Live… by toma-uno

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blot post —

Secrets of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ Revealed in Dylan’s Working Manuscript for the Song

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First page of “Like A Rolling Stone” manuscript.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall as Bob Dylan wrote some of his now classic songs.

Until time travel becomes possible, the closest we may get to observing Dylan the songwriter in action are the four pages from the working manuscript for “Like A Rolling Stone” that Sotheby’s will auction on June 24, 2014 in New York.

On the pages, along with many of the lines that ended up in what some believe is Dylan’s greatest song, a song that certainly changed people’s ideas of what rock ‘n’ roll could be upon it’s release in July of 1965, are lyrics that Dylan clearly was considering for inclusion, but which didn’t make the cut.

The chorus, for instance, didn’t fully come together until page four of the manuscript. On page one there is a version of the chorus that reads:

“How does it feel
How does it feel
To be (or not to be) on your own
Direction (road back home)
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.”

Right below the second “How does it feel,” Dylan has added “Is it ain’t quite real.”

And at the side of the page it says “Al Capone” with a line drawn to the word “direction” in the chorus.

Page two.

On the second page of the manuscript is a version of the chorus with “path unknown” as one of the lines.

At the top of page three is written: “How does it feel/ Behind the wheel.”

At the bottom of page three the chorus is again a work in progress:

How does it feel to be on your own
It feels real (dog-bone)
Does it feel real.”

Then he wrote “New direction home” but put a line through “new” and wrote “no” under it.

Then: “When the winds have (unreadable word that could be “flown”)
“Shut up and deal like a rolling stone
Raw deal
Get down and kneel.”

Page three.

By page four this is the chorus:

“How does it feel, how does it feel
To be on your own
Like a dog without a bone
Now you’re unknown
Forever complete unknown
New direction home
No direction home
Like a rolling stone.”

“If you look at these four pages, you can see that at this stage there are rhyme schemes that he didn’t pursue, and I suppose the chorus is the biggest surprise,” Richard Austin, Sotheby’s manuscript expert, told the New York Times. “Here you have a chorus that is such an iconic piece of history, but it clearly didn’t arrive fully formed. And you wonder, if he chose another rhyme, would it have had the same impact?”

Dylan has written names of songs and books on the pages, which may or may not relate to the song itself: “Pony Blues,” a song by Charley Patton; “Midnight Special” (and above it “Mavis”); “On the Road”; and “Butcher Boy,” which likely refers to “The Butcher Boy,” an old folk song that the Clancy Brothers recorded.

“It was ten pages long,” Dylan once said of the manuscript for “Like A Rolling Stone.” “It wasn’t called anything, just a rhythm thing on paper all about my steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. In the end it wasn’t hatred, it was telling someone something they didn’t know, telling them they were lucky.”

Page four.

There’s also a mostly discarded verse that reads:

“You never listened to the man who could (illegible) jive and wail
Never believed ‘m when he told you he had love for sale
You said you’d never compromise/ now he looks into your eyes
and says do you want make a deal.”

And what ended up being the third verse reads like this in part:

“You never turned around
To see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns
When they all came down
And did tricks for you to shake the money tree.”

There’s a line drawn through that entire last line.

The four manuscript pages for “Like A Rolling Stone” could sell for as much as $2 million.

Get the back story from the New York Times and Rolling Stone.

Dylan singing “Like A Rolling Stone”:

– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Listen: New Cool Track from Lykke Li, ‘Gunshot’

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Lykke Li’s “Gunshot” is off her upcoming album, I Never Learn,” out May 5, 2014.

This is a very cool song. Can’t wait for the album.

Here are the lyrics:

Listen here

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –

Springsteen’s Handwritten “Born To Run” Lyrics Reveal Song Revisions

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A notebook page on which Bruce Springsteen worked on his trademark song, “Born To Run,” is going up for auction at Sotheby’s and is valued between $70,000 and $100,000.

The page reveals that the song didn’t come fully formed onto the page. Rather, much of the original lyric was reworked.

Early version of “Born To Run.”

Check out a larger version of the notebook page here.

Here’s a line that didn’t make it:

They live in fury chasin’ the bad kind of fools glory down a killer’s highway into mainlined [scribbled word] of the sun.

Here are some lines that in revamped form did:

I looked out cross my hood + saw the highway buckle neath the wheels of a gold Chevy 6.

I was headin for the place were good girls die in the arms of wild angels in one last kiss.

There’s also this alternative version of that last line:

I was headin for the place where wild angels die in an everlasting or neverending kiss.

If this is of interest, there’s an article in the New York Times to check out.

Here’s the released version:

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —