Bob Dylan: "Good As I Been To You" Song-By-Song Discussion

This seems logical, and their versions certainly have a lot in common!

 

Track 8 - "Step It Up & Go"

Another one that Dylan has never performed live.

The song has a fairly long set of antecedents (mostly as "Bottle Up & Go") before it arrived as "Step It Up & Go" in 1940.

Blind Boy Fuller's 1940 recording appears to be a likely influence for Dylan's version:



The 1961 rocked-up Everly Brothers' version is definitely not Dylan's inspiration, but it makes for an interesting listen, as "two old maids" find their way into the lyrics.

Step It Up and Go (Remastered Version)

On an album full of murder, death, life's troubles, and woe in general, "Step It Up & Go" is a breath of upbeat fresh air, including some uncharacteristic exclamations from the usually stoic middle-aged Dylan.

 

Hard Times became very popular around the UK and Irish folk scene in the 1980s. Mary Black had it on an album in 1984, and The Red Clay Ramblers in 1981. Mary got most of her material of this type from her brother Shay, who lived in Liverpool at the time, and was part of the folk scene there. After that, it was "done to death" around the UK scene, so by the time that Emmylou and Dylan did it, it was a bit "old hat" for us UK acoustic music fans.

 

This is my favourite thing on GAIBTY. I had heard a version on a cassette box set I had focused on American roots music I had picked up along my travels. That version was nothing like the Blind Boy Fuller version or Bob's subsequent version. It was way poppier but I can't recall the artist. I just love the sound of Bob's version and especially his "aah" spoken over the guitar (or is it "ow"?) It's virtually rock n roll before we knew the term. I always thought it should have been worked up on the NET and used as an opening song.

 

I really like this performance as well, although I'm not sure how well it would have worked in a band setting.

The Wikipedia entry for the song suggests it had an influence on "Too Much Monkey Business" (which in turn, of course, had an influence on "Subterranean Homesick Blues"), but I think that may be a stretch.

 

Maybe the acoustic configuration of the Sexton/Campbell band circa 2000-2002 that opened shows with (usually) bluegrass covers would have made it work. That's what I had in mind. I once saw that band nail "Roving Gambler" as an opening song.

 

Also my favorite from this record. It is the song I hear in my head when I think about it.
Dylan’s froggy growl has never worked better for me than on this track.
I also especially like the sound of the guitar. At the time I picked this up, I wasn’t listening to much solo acoustic guitar and tended to think of it as (for lack of a better term) thin sounding.

 

Great Idea for a thread and quite simply to me GAIBTY is the inspired, creative, long-standing, and still kicking reboot genesis of 25 years of (perhaps? hyperbolically speaking ) 'Dylan could do no wrong' studio releases (that includes Christmas In The Heart people ) that have since followed, although I admit I haven't really heard Triplicate yet as I'm still living in the afterglow of the throes of its previous relation, Duplicate .

 

It just sounds like he had a really good time laying this song down.

I could hear Andy Taylor pulling out his guitar on the front porch after Sunday dinner and playing this one for Opie and Aunt Bea.

 

Track 9 - "Tomorrow Night"

A 1993 live performance:



"Tomorrow Night" held down the opening spot of the acoustic set for most of the first half of 1993, and then again for a brief spell in 1994. It made a one-off reappearance in 1998 and hasn't been heard from since.

Without a doubt the youngest of the "GAIBTY" tracks (dating from 1939), and one where the authorship is quite clear and the copyright is still intact (despite the original CD claiming it was from the public domain).

I first heard this song via the Elvis Sun Sessions version.

Elvis Presley - Tomorrow Night

There are at least 3 versions of the song that have charted, among them Lonnie Johnson's:

Tomorrow Night LONNIE JOHNSON, Guitar Hero Legend Of Blues

Finally, a 1994 duet with Trisha Yearwood from TV: Bob Dylan Tomorrow Night with Tricia Yearwood LA 23.3.1994

 

And off on a tangent that has nothing to do with Dylan ...

I'm fascinated by "Tomorrow Night"'s (probably coincidental) relationship to The Beatles' "The Night Before". Everything the singer fears in "Tomorrow Night" comes to pass in "The Night Before" - she doesn't feel the same way with the light of day. It's possible, I guess, that McCartney was familiar with "Tomorrow Night" (although Elvis' version, a usual suspect in Beatle influences, was still languishing in the vaults in 1965), or this is simply a ripe topic for songwriting, be it 1939 or 1965.

 

I like “ Tomorrow Night” well enough. It’s a type of song people might not associate with Bob Dylan and while I tend to be more attracted to Bob’s grittier song choices, I can still appreciate his way with a romantic ballad. His radio show and the Sinatra covers showed how deep Bob’s appreciation is for a wide variety of types of songs, in particular, pre-rock n roll ballads.

 

"Tomorrow Night" was a little window into the future crooner, wasn't it?

 

Track 10 - "Arthur McBride"

My favorite "GAIBTY" track (although not Dylan's apparently, as he's never performed the song in concert).

In a scenario similar to "Jim Jones", Dylan was originally given an arranger credit, but this was later amended. Although the lyrics are over 200 years old, the arrangement (and perhaps the tune, period) comes from Paul Brady. Dylan sticks very closely to Brady's lyrics.

A live performance from Brady:



A short film set to Brady's studio version: Tiernan McBride's film of Paul Brady's 'Arthur McBride'.mpg The film tones down the violence that is inherent in the song. (Although Arthur and his cousin don't kill the soldiers in the song, they do leave them "for dead". The drummer boy is left unscathed.)

Dylan's got the early-mid 90s nasal pinch going full blast on this song, and it doesn't bother me a bit. This is a captivating story with a memorable (dare I say "catchy"?) tune, and Dylan's vocal cuts to the heart of the proceedings. There is tension, confrontation, and a bit of black humor. This one has John Lennon's "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" beat six ways to Sunday.

 

This is one of my favorite tracks on the album too. Yet for various reasons -- Dylan's nasal vocal style being just one of them -- I've never really paid attention to the lyrics or the story. Your post inspired me to read them online, and I'm glad I did -- it will surely increase my appreciation of the recording.

Alas, I'm not holding out much hope that this thread, interesting though it's been, will similarly enrich my appreciation of the album's final track, when we finally get to that.

 

I have made a discovery of a lyric I've gotten wrong for 25 years in most of these songs.

For "Arthur McBride", it was "We were the lads who would give them hard clouts". I always thought Dylan sings "We were the lads who would give them our cloaks". As in they mockingly offer the two soldiers their jackets after they shred their uniforms during the beat down. But yeah, I guess they gave them serious hard clouts.

 

I just listened, and it does sound very much like "our cloaks."

I confess that I had to look up the definition of "clouts" when I read the lyrics earlier. It does change the meaning of the verse quite a bit if Bob and Arthur are doling out punches rather than outerwear.

 

I've given "Arthur McBride" a couple of listens and it takes me back to 1992 and 1993 and how incredibly nasal Bob was during that era. This thread actually got me to read the lyrics and follow the story. Bob loves a lot of songs that represent a way of life that has largely faded. I remember hearing Bob sing some songs live like "Wagoner's Lad", "Two Soldiers" and "Barbara Allen" (and I know @RayS has as well). I think that's what sets Bob apart from someone like Bruce Springsteen. Bob knows a lot of songs and not just songs from his own lifetime. He's connected to some pretty deep roots. That's one of my takeaways from listening to GAIBTY.

 

When GAIBTY came out, I thought about Bob's voice (which seemed to be in decline), the lack of original material (which I mistakenly attributed to failing inspiration, especially in the wake of Under The Red Sky) and the return to the musical format and themes of his debut album 30 years earlier, and I said to myself, "Wouldn't this be a damn fine way for Bob to end his years as a recording artist--with a great album that circles back to the beginning of his career?"

Little did I realize that not only did Dylan have a similar, and similarly great, album in store for us soon, but that there were some outright masterpieces on the horizon....

 

There's something that runs through my favorite of these songs - "Jim Jones", "Arthur McBride", "Wagoner's Lad" - Dylan's rebellious spirit occupying the body of these three outsiders. While '65-'66 Dylan was the musical equivalent of James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause" or Marlon Brando in "The Wild One", Dylan the middle-aged interpreter of traditionals had the very same bite - "They'll yet regret they sent Jim Jones in chains to Botany Bay", "We take great delight in our company", "My horses ain't hungry, they don't need your hay" and best of all, "Her parents were against me, and now she is the same, If I writ on your book, love, you just blot out my name".

 

"Arthur McBride" is also my favorite track on the album (at least it is right now that I'm listening to it--right up there with "Jim Jones" and "Hard Times"). It's a towering song, and Dylan does a wonderful job with it, although I do think that Paul Brady pretty much owns it (whether or not he wrote the melody that he and Dylan use). His performances of the song are peerless.

L.

 

Another great outlaw anthem Bob sang twice (0nce in 1992 and again in 1998) was “Newry Highwayman” or “Roving Blade”. They put the 1998 version on the official website and it is masterful in my view. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it on YouTube though it has been there. The 1992 version is there.

 

Thanks for this post! I bought this cd when it first came out, and it took me almost 20 years to finally "hear" it. I did everything I could to get into Dylan until I read his autobiography and realized he was a huge fan of of American Songbook and then all of his music made sense.

 

Yes, another guy on the outside on whatever side there was (in the cradle he should have died!)

 

Track 11 - "You're Gonna Quit Me"



While searching for a link to a live performance of "You're Gonna Quit Me" I came across this 1999-2002 NET compilation that seemed like a logical inclusion in this thread. It's got the 2000 performance of "Roving Blade" (a song discussed a few entries back) as well as one of the 3 1999 performances of "You're Gonna Quit Me". Back in 1993, "You're Gonna Quit Me" took over the show-opening slot from "Hard Times". Apart from the brief 1999 comeback, it has not been performed since. Personally, I missed the boat on "Hard Times", but I got to see a number of performances of "You're Gonna Quit Me" during the summer of '93.

Dylan's source for the song certainly appears to be Blind Blake's 1927 performance: 'You Gonna Quit Me Blues' BLIND BLAKE (1927) Ragtime Blues Guitar Legend

Just my opinion, but this is one of the lesser songs on "GAIBTY". Dylan gives it his all, but this is just a fairly generic blues song (IMO).