As previously announced, I have put up tabs to the songs performed in Shadow Kingdom. In the fourth issue of Dylanology, I take that as a point of departure for a discussion of the show as a whole. The conclusion – which was a surprise to me – is that it is the most fascinating work of music he has produced in a long time, not primarily because of the arrangements or the performances, but because of what happens between the songs, in the “Kingdom of the Shadowy in-between”.

Jakob Brønnum dissects the seeminly light-weight nonsense verse You Ain’t Going Nowhere from the Basement Tapes (1967), and finds in it a carefully crafted programme for the good life. As a prelude to a series of articles about Mr Tambourine Man, Brønnum also presents this classic, written during the time when Dylan left the political folk movement, as Dylan’s Ars poetica.

Dylanology is subscription-based. The link goes to a free preview of the issue, where one text is included in full: my reflection upon the Dylanological project as a whole: what is it and why do we do it? I take my answer from a Swedish children’s movie.

 

As some of you have pointed out, there ought to be a page for Shadow Kingdom here. And of course there is. I haven’t advertised it yet, because I’m not quite done with the tabs yet, but there is a link way down in the sidebar.

Also, Shadow Kingdom is the main topic of my contribution to Dylanology #4 which comes out 16 Aug.

Today is the 56th anniversary of the first recording session, on a rainy summer afternoon in 1965, for what later became Highway 61 Revisited. It is possibly Dylan’s greatest album, but how good is it? And why is it so great?

I celebrate the anniversary with a thorough revisit of the album, in Dylanology, the newsletter I’m writing together with Jakob Brønnum.

In addition to “Highway 61 Revisited” Revisited, the issue also contains discussions of Most of the Time and In the Summertime, as well as the second part of my discussion of “Too Late”/”Foot of Pride” from the first issue.

It is a subscription-based newsletter, but here’s a preview of the issue

Our member Tim has suggested that not only was 2019 an exceptionally interesting year, but it may also be the end of the Never-Ending Tour (and, god forbid, perhaps even his last tour?), so it is worth some special attention.

I think it’s a good idea, especially since the song versions are mostly not just rearrangements of the songs, but also rewrites, frequently with new lyrics and quite consistently with entirely new chord structures. 

I’ve therefore started working my way through the versions from the Palo Alto show towards the end of the tour (14 Oct 2019). So far Not Dark Yet, Simple Twist of Fate, When I Paint My Masterpiece, Lenny Bruce, Beyond Here Lies Nothin’, It Ain’t Me, Babe, and Tryin’ To Get To Heaven are in place. More to come.

I’d also include the two very different 2017 versions of Tangled Up in Blue in the list.

Since I’m working on a piece about HWY61 for Dylanology, there are some updates of the songs from that album. A serious omission was the acoustic version of Tombstone Blues from Newport, 1965. Hereby remedied.

The page with harp keys is back again! It can be found under Help in the menu, or directly here

I added a new set of lyrics to Caribbean Wind, and revised the existing lyrics.