Troubled And I Dont Know Why Bob Dylan with Joan Baez Forest Hills, 17 August 1963 This three minute recording shows, better than most, I think, why the folkies loved Dylan so much from the very beginning. A song title that points to a condition we have all experienced. A simple tune that Im still singin to myself an hour after I heard it. Literate, expressive, succinct lyrics that go right to the heart of big subjects in our everyday experience, yet performed like he just thought of them, as he was rolling out of bed that morning. (And he may have!) When was the last time you heard the word squall used in a sentence; as a VERB, not a noun?! Quickly followed by a brilliant visual image: it roared and it boomed and it bounced around the room, then concluding with his biting commentary: it never said nothing at all. The recording captures the laughter of the audience, just like with the recording of his first performance of Desolation Row. And by the second line of the last verse, Dylan is cracking himself up too! History captured in 3:10 with this invaluable recording. Apparently the only known performance of the song? The Dylan website lists the song, but without the lyrics. Did it fail to get properly copyrighted? As it does not appear in either the 1973 or 1985 lyrics books. My guess is that Christopher Ricks wont miss it. And in fact the 1986 knaff production, Some Other Kinds of Songs . . . didnt miss it. [An amazing gift presented to me on 22 Apr 1997 by an old friend from rec.music.dylan, Ben Taylor. Some of you may remember him. He he] It bears repeating: History captured in 3:10 with this invaluable recording, plus 20 seconds of thunderous applause at the end. Do we have any history captured in this way from the life work of Mozart or Bach? Of course not. Pause and give silent thanks to the dedicated work of all our tapers over more than fifty years. Did they know they were doing Important Work? Yes, I think mostly, they did. It is too bad that aggressive enforcement at some venues, such as the Santa Barbara Bowl, caused some brilliant performances to not be so available. Well perhaps even those are properly preserved in Jeff Rosens vaults. And thanks to the Michael Goldberg blog for reminding us of this gem.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 21:43:01 +0000
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