I just uploaded my favorite version of Mr Tambourine Man. It's a very bad quality recording, but still amazing. He changes up the melody a bit, and leaves out a verse, but it's awesome. Here it is.

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I like it RB.
It must be hard for an artist to repeatedly perform a song year after year over the years at every concert just to placate the audience . Some artists seem to tolerate it better than others. A good example is Paul McCartney. He still finds inspiration in the original arrangements and feeds off the audience.

Dylan's repeated renditions of his iconic songs are almost always unpredictable both in terms of the melody and rhythm as well as lyrics. I like that, but at the same time I have this imprint of the song as I first heard it and fell in love with it that is always begging to be heard.
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Thanks Roger. I have a copy of that version from the many bootlegs of the Never Ending Tour that I own. I agree with you - Dylan taps into the magic of the song here. It's like he's reconnecting with an old friend. Jim, I love the unpredictably of a Dylan concert - melody, arrangements and sometimes even lyrics, of songs are completely different. 'Tangled Up in Blue' for example is almost completely rewritten. The Real Live version from the '84 tour is a good example and becomes a completely different work of beauty for the listener to behold. Dylan is always changing.

I've got no problem with McCartney sticking to the original arrangements of his songs. It's always been a no-brainer that he is the greatest melodist of them all. How does he do it? For me, 'Here, There and Everywhere' is the pinnacle of songmaking.

Bruce was asked if ever got tired of playing "Born to Run." He said the song made him what he was and gave him everything he had. "No," he said, "I don't get tired of playing that song."

What you say about Dylan can be said of any music. The first exposure is usually the strongest. It wears a groove in the mind, and any deviation feels like a mistake. It's the same for a symphony or a sonata.

But how about the harmonica solo on "Desolation Row," the world's greatest harmonica solo (8'35" to 11'18") on what may be the greatest poem since William Blake. And how about that blues piano running through "Blind Willie McTell," climaxing in some chords so good they make you glad to be alive. How can so much talent be crammed into a skinny kid from nowhere? It's like Shakespeare springing from the head of Zeus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUvcWXTIjcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uf5gi3E_rQ

I once had a glass of whiskey at the St. James Hotel, in Red Wing, MN.

Ain't that the truth, Tim. That harmonica solo from 'Desolation Row' is an act of hypnotism. I often wonder if 'Desolation Row' and 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' are Dylan's most ambitious works.

And 'Blind Willie McTell'. How was that masterpiece ever left off Infidels? Between 1981-83, Dylan hit a purple patch i.e. Every Grain of Sand, Angelina, Caribeean Wind, Jokerman, Foot of Pride, etc. but mucked up by leaving a lot of his best songs of the released albums.

Is that the same St. James Hotel of the song? I always imagined a place in the South with that lyric. Although Redwing makes me think of another Dylan song.

Yeah, those two songs are monumental, but it would be hard to leave out "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Highway 61," "Visions of Johanna," and maybe a few dozen others. The guy was tapped in at the source.

I don't know if it's the same St. James Hotel. There's probably a lot of them. I did drive by "The Walls of Red Wing," a reformatory still in operation. The walls are high and imposing.

Tim, you might like this cover of DR. I sure do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1AHpkH4jC0

Nice take with the whole ensemble, Roger. This is a group approach to "Death is Not the End," by Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue, Shane MacGowan, and others. I couldn't get it out of my head. For one thing, it's more dynamic than the original, which seems--please forgive me, Bob--too feeble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJXN5VPkyH8

Some interesting covers, folks, and a couple of Australians at that. I never did warm to that song either Tim - a feeble effort indeed, I was surprised it was ever released. But it suits Nick Cave's Murder Ballads album just fine.

A change of tact, here's a few funny/amusing Dylan lines that spring to mind. Can you add any?


They asked me for some collateral / And I pulled down my pants (Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream)

Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues / You can tell by the way she smiles (Visions of Johanna)

As the leading actor hurried by in the costume of a monk (Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts)

The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter (Brownsville Girl)

I met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues (Dignity)

Gonna find me a janitor to sweep me off my feet (Million Miles)

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Puttin’ her in a wheelbarrow and wheelin’ her down the street (Things Have Changed)

Samantha Brown lived in my house for about four or five months.
Don’t know how it looked to other people, I never slept with her even once (Lonesome Day Blues)

What can I say about Claudette? Ain't seen her since January,
She could be respectably married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires (The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar)

If we start quoting our favorite lines, this thread will be as long as the Never Ending Tour.