Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat – Bob Dylan from The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert
A particularly rockin'
blues from the “what the audience doesn't want” segment of the
show. Also notable for a rather terrible guitar solo (Is that Bob?,
it can't be Robbie. There's a song with a terrible Bob solo on Blonde
in Blonde which I thought laid to rest any expectation the he would
ever play lead again, but, then again, this came first) The song
itself is distinguished by being in an otherwise standard
twelve-bar-blues form, but having its lyrics organized into four-line
stanzas (he fourth line occupying the usually vacant bars eleven and
twelve). Dylan didn't like to waste space in songs. The performance
of She Belongs to Me and in another couple of spots on the solo first
disc of this set has measures dropped here and there between lyrics.
Stuck Between Stations – The Hold Steady, from Boys and Girls in America
Love this song, usually
gets me pumped-up and air drumming, singing or at least mouthing the
words, volume cranked. I heard it this morning stuck in the back
corner of the 71 bus and had to do
this all internally. The archetypal Hold Steady song, for me at least
- probably as it's one of the first I knew. Kerouac and Berryman are
invoked here. The line between Springsteen and Strummer is walked.
(h/t @FakeCraigFinn)
