Charles P. Pierce, writing about Dylan’s calling up the Nobel foundation and saying he’d try to accept the prize in person, said, “Once, when he accepted an honorary degree, we got a great song out of it. We can only hope.” He was referring to “Day of the Locusts” from the New Morning album - I’m old enough that I played that album a lot back in high school, so I had it running through my mind at my own HS graduation - but when I went to Songs | The Official Bob Dylan Site, which keeps track of such things, I found out that Dylan had never performed it in concert.
I confess I was a bit surprised by this. He’s covered Jimi Hendrix’ “All Along the Watchtower” 2257 times as of this writing, according to that page, but he’s performed “Locusts” zero times.
One of the cool things about Songs | The Official Bob Dylan Site is that you can sort the songs a few different ways, and one of them is by the number of performances he’s done of them. And there are quite a number of songs he’s written that he’s never performed, including, for instance, most of the New Morning album. (And a somewhat smaller group that he’s performed exactly once, but even that’s a large enough set to have a parallel discussion about here, IMHO, as the thread title indicates.)
Hence the musical questions in the thread title: what’s the best Dylan song that he’s never performed? And what’s the best song he’s performed only once?
Zero times: “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” which I can understand why he’s never played in concert. It takes up one whole side of an LP on Blonde on Blonde.
One time: “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts” from Blood on the Tracks. In my mind, this has always been the other great song on that album, in addition to the obvious choice, “Tangled Up In Blue.” Dylan’s played “Tangled Up In Blue” over 1500 times, and “Jack of Hearts” just once, so I guess he doesn’t see it quite the same way I do. Well, they’re his songs.
Feel free to talk about which is the best song he’s performed exactly twice, three times, whatever, but you’ll notice the selection gets thinner.
I’m trying to find the Wilburys songs on that list, but I’m not finding them when I alphabetize the list. Where’s “Tweeter and the Monkeyman” or “Dirty World”? My instinct would be to include them if they’re listed on that page and he was the lead vocalist on the album.
Isn’t it cool? I’d been to that page any number of times; if an artist has his own lyrics page, I’m gonna give him the page views rather than AZLyrics or MetroLyrics or wherever. But I’d never noticed it was sortable more ways than alphabetically until just the other day.
Good choices. I’m not a big fan of the Street Legal album; especially coming after Blood on the Tracks and Desire, it was a bit of a comedown. But I’ve always liked “No Time To Think.”
I bought Street Legal the day it came out and I was pissed. I thought it was garbage.
But I knew I couldn’t ignore it. I listened to it repeatedly - as I did with so many new releases in those days - and damned if it didn’t grow on me. I’m very fond of it now.
mmm
Some of the songs on Street Legal are great but some are a bit of a drag. My favourite is Is Your Love In Vain? which he’s only played 31 times - all in 1978 and never since.
He’s only played Hurricane 33 times. The last time being in 1976.
There seems to be quite a few big songs that he hasn’t played much. He hasn’t played Idiot Wind since 1992 and only 55 times in total.
On the thread topic - he’s never played Tempest which (I think) is the best song on that album.
I have to agree with both of these choices, although I was debating between “Cross the Green Mountain” and “Angelina” before I noticed that “Sad-Eyed Lady” was on the never-played list.
The greatest song that Dylan not only never played live, but never even made a proper, finished recording of, is “She’s Your Lover Now.” If the best take hadn’t broken down during the last verse, it could have been a standout track on Blonde on Blonde.
I’m surprised to see that “Sweetheart Like You” was never played live. Not that it’s one of his greatest songs, but it was his first charting single in a long time and was even given a video treatment that got Bob on MTV. But then Dylan has never been particularly concerned with playing his hits.
I’d love to hear the one show where he pulled out “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window”!
For whatever reason Bob doesn’t play many of his songs in any recognizeable way, one has to struggle to determine just what it is he’s playing, usually by the lyrics, and those are usually way different in terms of inflection and phrasing. Granted playing it exactly like a studio album would be boring after a few thousand iterations. A lot of his earlier work was played in alternate tunings. “Oxford Town” for example is just two chords, tuned to open D/E w/ a capo. It’s very distinctive, but I doubt he ever played it that way in concert, ever. “Don’t Think Twice”; there’s some controversy whether that’s him playing on the album. He performed it in concert, but only strumming, never fingerstyle. Bruce Langhorne played on the album but was not credited with playing the guitar on that track. He’s a bit evasive on the issue and says he doesn’t remember. Anyway what I’m getting at, if one doesn’t know Bob doesn’t play his songs like the album, if that’s what the listener expects they would likely be fairly disappointed at his concerts. His voice is completely trashed as well “Like he gargled with broken glass, and a Draino chaser.”
Zero: Wallflower, Never Say Goodbye
Once: Lay Down Your Weary Tune, Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
Even though there are more than a few tunes from the Basement Tapes listed on the site that on the album were sung by Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, or Levon Helm, it looks like the majority that are obviously Bob songs he’s never perfomed live. Despite the fact that in their original form they’re mostly not very exciting or energetic, given the reality he never performs his songs like the record anyway, I was surprised to see this.
I get what you’re saying, and now that you say it, I have to agree. Dylan in concert does mimic Hendrix’s arrangement of AATW. That’s an interesting question - is “cover” really a legitimate term for such a thing, where a musician plays his own song, but imitates the arrangement of it that was played by someone else?
But was it the Highway 61 Band version or the Band version which was the single. I’ve got a real bootleg of the former version, and it is much better than the one they released on Biograph. Great song.
“All Along the Watchtower” 2257 times as of this writing, according to that page, but he’s performed “Locusts” zero times.