First Listen Of Bob Dylan's Debut Album (part 4)

[@w.geoffreyspaulding6588]

Syed….It just really hit me, watching you listening to that last, old, country blues song….that here you are…almost a century after that song was written…a different time, a different country, a different background, a different culture……and it still speaks to you. That’s the power of music in general…but it’s also a testament to those old black blues songs…and WHY they resonated with, and influenced the young British musicians growing up hearing them in the late 50’s and early 60’s, who drew such inspiration from them: They speak so powerfully of the human condition.

[@a2zme]

Young Bob Dylan visited Woody Guthrie in his final yrs in hospital in NJ.. always loved 'Song To Woody' .. passing of the torch moment in Folk music.

[@MagicianCamille]

Song To Woody is one of my favorite Dylan tracks, so simple and sweet and yet on its surface yet so much more to it. Intensely personal and grandiose at the same time.

[@RalphDavis-qk2xy]

And that reminds me of "Lenny Bruce is Dead".

[@jnagarya519]

"Song to Woody" is actually a summation of Guthrie's substance. Whatever "techniques" he's using he learned from others, especially Guthrie.

[@dyl-annfan6]

Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie is an amazing poem .. only performed the once live and is on Bootleg 1-3

[@flippinpages6550]

Back in the 1960's I won a stereo while playing bingo and the first album I ever bought was a Bob Dylan. I played it over and over, I think my family got sick of hearing it. I loved folk music.

[@ruthmitchell1513]

My family definitely got tired 🥱 of it. That didn’t stop me😊

[@buddyneher9359]

It's fine not to love something on first listening. I salute you for stretching your envelope and listening to stuff that is so far outside your own personal musical taste. Along the way you are acquiring new flavours 🙂🎶

[@jnagarya519]

Hell, I rarely listened to Dylan's first. But now I hear it with fresh ears, and I've grown sufficiently to appreciate it. And note that the songs tend to be air-play length -- under three minutes. There was an all night program on an AM radio station on which the DJ played a Dylan and Baez or two, and a skit from British "Goon" comedy before I heard of anything outside that of any of them. The sme DJ began playing "The Beatles" "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in November 1963, and then, in response to increasing requests for that, began playing "I Saw Her Standing There". I can still hear him describe them as "the latest big thing in England" and predicting "they will never go anywhere".

[@w.geoffreyspaulding6588]

Well said. I wish more people were that open….INCLUDING members of my boomer generation to the music that Syed loves. I cannot claim that I am, although I do try to sample current music…some of which is actually excellent.

[@FrankD33577]

Thanks for reacting to the complete 1st album by Bob Dylan. I have this on CD, but have not listened to it for awhile. While there are only two originals, there are also some great covers. These cover songs represent the roots of Bob Dylan. In the early 1990's Bob returned to his roots and released two cover albums-Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong, which he recorded in his home garage studio. Returning to his roots helped inspire him to find his muse again and go on to start what is called his never-ending tour, which continues to this day. Thanks again. Take care. ☮

[@NearlyNormalSteve]

Nice. And it’s a good way to approach the work. Buckle up, the next 5 albums are magnificent.

[@dylanthompson8511]

His artistic growth from this album to his next is legendary.

[@jamesscanlan6240]

Dylan visited with Woody Guthrie before achieving any fame, hitchhiking to where Guthrie was laid up and incapacitated by Huntington's disease. He said listening to Woody's songs you could learn how to live.

[@zenhaelcero8481]

Great video! Thanks for doing the full album. Was really looking forward hearing you react to Song to Woody, and you didn't disappoint. While watching this video series, you helped me gain a new respect for this album, whereas before I pretty much dismissed most of it. 4:35 "Last Thoughts on Woody" would be a good one to react to! There's a lot in it to hear.

[@gustafcederborg9744]

Song to Woody has always been one of the best and my fave by Dylan

[@bobmessier5215]

Taken in the context of the times in 1962 (Pre-Beatlemania), rock music was dying. Americana folk, C&W, and blues had a revival. The 'surf music' style of The Beach Boys had only just begun in America. It was setting the stage for the great change in music and politics that began in 1964, with the British Invasion and a younger, more liberal America, that occurred after JFK's assassination.

[@Lexwell_Lavers]

Bluegrass, Country, and Western music are subgenres of Hillbilly music. Hillbilly isn't an offensive term unless it's meant in a disparaging way. My grandmother was a Hillbilly from Mississippi born in 1900 and she babysat me and sang Hillbilly, Bluegrass and Gospel songs to me so I love these songs.

[@tomdevlin9274]

Love watching you go on your journey. Enjoy the trip.

[@johnleebold8894]

Great coverage and after being a constant Dylan fan since the late sixties its nice to hear a 90s musicologist discover Dylans work. Dylan can be both simple and complex lyrically and musically , I think over the years reading many books and reviews when his new works were anticipated then critiqued many reviewers over complicate what in my view Dylan himself may have seen as works in progress especially lyrically

[@TrekBeatTK]

The next album actually was finished and ready to go to press when Dylan wrote some new songs and wanted to put them in instead. So some originals got swapped out for better ones. They were all pretty good though. There are I think some early tests pressings of version one out there that are worth quite a lot.

[@isaacgraham5727]

I have to I’m impressed you really did this whole first album of Bob’s. It is *not* an easy or accessible album to listen to and enjoy, so it’s pretty cool that you find a lot to love. One track I think you’ll come to like more is “Baby let me Follow you Down”, mostly because he did that one live with The Band quite a lot on the legendary 1966 half-electric tour, so hearing the early acoustic version is always a kick for me. Anyway, I think you will *definitely* enjoy Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan VASTLY more than this album. The development he goes through from this album to Freewheelin’ is pretty unreal. He goes from this mediocre hodgepodge of covers (with a couple OK original tracks and a couple pretty darn good standouts) to doing a single ~50 minute album that includes Masters of War, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright, Oxford Town, Girl From the North Country, and freaking Blowin’ in the Wind. All of those songs are stone-cold classics that have each been covered by hundreds of artists, and it’s just beyond mind-blowing to me that they all came from his *second* album, that he released days after his 22nd birthday. I mean, damn. And that’s not to say that the other songs I didn’t mention are bad - there isn’t a single bad track on that album. It’s just that I feel like most of those songs I mentioned are beyond superb. And Dylan would continue performing some of them live for DECADES into the future, endlessly reworking them into dozens and dozens of different genres and styles and whatnot.

[@poutine57]

love Bob Dylan. peace and love from Canada

[@jnagarya519]

Dylan was obsessed with Woody Guthrie. But Guthrie was not his only influence. Hank Williams was another.

[@edprzydatek8398]

And, maybe, Odette and Joan Baez in a way.

[@jnagarya519]

@@edprzydatek8398 I was thinking of his years in Hibbing, listening to a mishmash of country, blues, and rock and roll. I think he must first have met Joan Baez (he apparently saw her on TV) in Cambridge, as she was initially a student at Boston University, and first appeared in Boston (and then Cambridge) folk club/s, while her father was a professor at M.I.T. I don't know that she spent much time in New York, or that she ever lived there. There is a photo or two of her performing in "Club 47" in Cambridge. And there are photos of him with her in Newport. Odetta, yes -- didn't he play harmonica on a few of her recorded songs?

[@michele-33]

@@jnagarya519 Baez did play the Village coffeehouses, maybe when she wasn't touring. She first met Dylan at Gerde's Folk City. There's a recording of a Dylan TV appearance out there where Bob waves to Odetta in the audience. Joan has an amazing voice but it's too pristine and perfect for me

[@jnagarya519]

@@michele-33 I enjoy Joan Baez, and have the remaster CDs of all her Vanguard LPs, and of course "Diamonds and Rust". I'm not much, though, for old traditional folk songs, though I do like her version of "Rock Salt and Nails". She manages to make it sexy. And I love her recorded version of "Love is Just a Four Letter Word," though I don't like the background "music".

[@edprzydatek8398]

@J Nagarya OK. If I remember correctly, from his book (Cronicles Vol. 1), some girl got him to listen to Odette while he was attending the University of Minnesota and it impressed him. Joan Baez was famous before him and I guess they played some gigs together and she took him under her protective wing while he was becoming a star and then they became an item, for a while. I think one of his first influences was Little Richard as he actually started out with rock bands in high school. But he had many influences and he absorbed them all and, I'd say, he did them all proud. I've been a huge fan of his for a long time. Actually, I did his song "Fourth Time Around" at an open mic last night. OK,enough.

[@stevedahlberg8680]

I can't wait until you get to The Ballad of Hollis Brown. I can't remember which album it's on but it's early and it might well be on his second album.

[@jnagarya519]

His next LP, "Freewheelin'," is nothing like this LP.

[@ronreynolds1610]

Right, he begins to take the Folk world into another dimension creating the mystique that will follow ....

[@jnagarya519]

@@ronreynolds1610 He began creating his "mystique" immediately after arriving in New York, if not before then. There is an interview with an important early associate in "No Direction Home," during which the person reads stuff from his diary that Dylan told him -- and then comments that if it all were true Dylan would have be decades older. Dylan was his own "best" promoter, but being inexperienced in it went much too far, and has ever since had to deal with the negative consequences. In other words: it doesn't appear he actually did any of the traveling all over the country that he described; rather, it appears he traveled from the folk scene at college (University of Michigan?) directly to New York and settled there, where he made up a ton of bullshit about his "origins" and "travels".

[@michele-33]

@@jnagarya519 Like being an orphan, traveling with a circus, working construction jobs, living in Mexico for awhile.... Wasn't the man reading the diary the proprietor of the folk music center in the Village? That was pretty funny..

[@jnagarya519]

@@michele-33 If I recall that's who it was. He was a veteran of the scene, and his store central to it.

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

@@jnagarya519 and village folkies ate it up.

[@faucethead47]

Looking forward to Freewheelin.' Dylan's real first album.

[@peterliljeholmen5703]

David Bowie wrote a song called Song for Bob Dylan. It’s an awesome track on the Honky dory album and I’m sure you’ll like it. You almost have to do a follow up reaction to that track now as you heard Song to Woody…

[@bobmessier5215]

When I hear this album, it seems like the first buds of Spring, popping through the snowy ground, from a long, hard, cold winter. It was music like this that began the Civil Rights Movement to turn the lights on, in the minds of young people and create change.

[@jasonmartin3292]

Cant wait for him to do the next albumn its definitely a big step up

[@Hartlor_Tayley]

You really brought so much insight to this album, I had not focused on this album and foolishly recommended that you start with the second album. You were right to start with this one. Thanks.

[@stevedahlberg8680]

At least in the context of American music, hillbilly is not at all questionable. In fact it is a huge part of the evolution of our music.

[@wadsworthaaron]

The rhythmic influence of a passing freight train is pervasive in American blues, country, and folk. It was the "percussion" available playing alone and became a foundation for late 19th century forms of acoustic music.

[@theguiltyundertaker]

I'm glad you're doing this, and can't wait to see where it goes on the album front.

[@petepiazza]

Great review of Dylan’s first album. An album which is more like a tribute to the men who paved the way for him than a breakout for Dylan himself. Just wait until you get to the next three acoustic albums which are almost exclusively originals, with the exception of two songs on Freewheelin. The songwriting and lyrics on those albums will knock you on your ass, especially “A Hard Rains a-gonna Fall.” It’s one of the most profound songs ever written. I think you’re going to thoroughly enjoy the style.

[@kokeshi737]

I really enjoy your Dylan reactions. I think you should try the tracks "dignity" and "abandoned love". Great examples of Dylan at his best lyrically in two tracks that didn't make the album they were recorded for. I also think it would be interesting to see your reaction to songs like "tangled up in blue" or "if you see her say hello". From the perspective of listening to the original and the alternative lyrics. I have always found it fascinating the way he changes the lyrics to a song and it has a completely different feel as far as the emotional angle it presents but is still the same core subject

[@marknpatterson]

You're in for an absolute treat with the next album - it's still stark and bare by modern standards, with just solo acoustic guitar, vocal, and harmonica, but the balance of originals to covers is reversed - two covers, the rest being devoted to quite a few of the finest songs Dylan has ever written. There are later albums I prefer musically - he "went electric" with his 5th record, and they become a lot more instrumentally and stylistically varied from that point on - but if he'd never recorded another note after his second album, he'd still be remembered as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on it! Regards, A(nother) middle-aged Dylan fanatic who's been enjoying your videos enormously. 🙂 I went on a similar journey to the one you're on, at about the same age, but in the opposite direction - I was heavily into the music of the 50s-70s in my teens, and dived hard into discovering and exploring hip-hop a little bit later. It's fun watching someone having the same experience in reverse.

[@johnsalquist5750]

A lot of Memento Mori on Dylan's first record. I find it interesting that he gravitated towards death at a young age. It's almost like he contemplated his mortality early (maybe reflected in Woody Guthrie whom he visited in the hospital around that time) and that made him more free as an artist moving forward. You have a great journey ahead of you going through Dylan chronologically, I did that in my early 20s and it is quite the ride.

[@mattjohn4731]

This album is so intense to me. I've been listening to very hard bands like Napalm Death, Negative Approach, and OFF!, and I swear this Dylan album fits the hard vibe. I am a huge Dylan fan, and this hardness is rather unique to his debut album I think. And I recommend the book 61 Highways Revisited by my uncle Bob Shiel in Chicago. It combines eccentric confidence with deep knowledge and experience of Dylan's concerts and albums

[@harpermcalpineblack8573]

"I was so much older then..." Dylan started by pretending to be an old man singing death and dying songs. As his career started up he gradually got younger. He's an old man on this album. He's a young punk on Highway 61. The spark on his first LP was 'House of the Rising Sun'. I think it was John Hammond who noted how, even this early, Dylan brought a rock energy to folk songs.

[@kensilverstone1656]

Wonderful reaction. Dylan actually sang the "Woodie" song to Guthrie in his hospital room.

[@thejoelrooganexplosion2400]

I bloody loved this dude. I'll chuck you 20 when I've got some money. Fuck yes to a Dylan Deep Dive. Fuck yes

[@eirikrdberg1161]

Me too. This is the only guy on KZbin I am actually thinking of sending some money to. I am gonna do it this year to show my gratitude. Syed is obviously a very intelligent and likeable young man. I’m 51. Dylan was ‘old’ when I got into him in the mid 90s.

[@GreggOliverBass]

He loved Woody so much... he was so grateful

[@sirslice7531]

When I hear Song to Woody I immediately think of one person... Woody Guthrie (lyrics et al).

[@grahamhobbs3501]

I've been a Dylan fan for nearly 50 years, but I've never listened to this album - thanks for playing it!

[@edkeen9378]

Besutiful brother. Beautiful. ❤

[@lawrencesmith6536]

Really looking forward to your assessment of his next album "Freewheelin Bob Dylan". Alot more original songs. And Masters of War is probably the very best antiwar song ever written

[@abrahambraverman1854]

Continue the beatles saga please

[@MrKeychange]

Right? I thought we were in the middle of something. lol.

[@jasonremy1627]

In "Freight Train Blues" Dylan is mimicking the old time country singer Jimmie Rodgers "Blue Yodel" style.

[@eirikrdberg1161]

Have you done: A hard rains gonna fall, maggies farm, changing of the guards, All I really wanna do, Gotta serve someone to name five big ones. I would love it if you did all his solo albums. Every damn one. I’ll be watching.

[@TrekBeatTK]

Yeah, Freight Train Blues is a filler track but Dylan holding that not so long is pretty funny.

[@georgecoventry8441]

A lot of those old acoustic blues songs were very dark, because they came out of a poverty-stricken class of people. And they usually had a lot of connections with old time Christian religion too. "See That my Grave is Kept Clean" is pretty typical of that. Bob had steeped himself in his late teens with the music of the acoustic blues as well as the acoustic folk material of Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Cisco Houston, Odetta, and other great folk and Blues performers of the 1930's, 40's and 50's, and you can see those influences all through the material he chose for his debut LP. This was material he'd really mastered well in the coffeehouses, and so he used it for his first record...kind of testing the waters before moving fully into his own original songs from the 2nd album on. Song to Woody is a beautiful tribute to the dying Woody Guthrie, whom Bob visited many times in hospital. A lot of people have dreams...but Bob had the courage and determination to go out and make his dreams come true! That's rare.

[@gastrickbunsen1957]

A ground breaking album.

[@BensSoZen]

Nah Hillbilly is just a word over here

[@keithdf2001]

It is a very different album from what would come just a few months later and beyond

[@eirikrdberg1161]

Dylan began the same time Bond first 007 movie came out. Dylan has been around forever. I mean bands with long careers began a decade after Dylan started. Had a 30 year run and have been gone 20 years now. Dylan and Joni still alive and kicking is against all medical and logical odds.

[@cazgerald9471]

Sounds like a Guthrie song

[@HelterSkelter07]

Great reaction well done. Did you manage to look at that Phil Ochs song? I have received your email but couldn’t spot it in the recent videos.

[@MrKeychange]

Does anyone know if he mentioned quitting the Beatles journey in a previous video?

[@michele-33]

He hasn't quit the Beatles journey.. just took a detour ↗️↘️

[@MrKeychange]

@@michele-33 Did he say that and if so, what's the reasoning?

[@rachelpsmith3129]

Some Appalachian people might be offended at the term hillbilly applied by an outsider but they call themselves that a lot. Thing is, hillbilly music was a genre for decades. It's also known as old-timey music and string band or old time country. What Robert Johnson is to later blues, that's what old time is to later country.

[@markpelton9884]

When youre ready to hit Woody, I'd suggest Pastures of Plenty.

[@longtablebringelly]

Have ago at Robert Johnson mate!

[@ZionForman]

Song to Woody is the best song on the album.

[@williamcorkery5461]

Listen mate I'm 61 and am only just appreciating Bob Dylan, you r younger then me coming from a completely different genre.

[@dougca7086]

React to Joan Baez pronounced(By as) Diamonds and Rust a song about her relationship with Bob Dylan, she was actually responsible for Bob Dylan's first concert in front of a sizable audience!

[@mikepiccione886]

Last thoughts on Woody Guthrie❤

[@bobguitarlearner8007]

Beatles time please

[@hugoparotte]

hey i really appreciate your videos. i am writing to give you an idea to react to a musician you probably never heard. it is mac demarco. he is recent, and has such a unique style. to begin, i would love to hear your opinion about the song "ode to viceroy".

[@jvblhc]

I love Bob's song about Woody Guthrie. And so typical of Bob to use a Guthrie song and just change the lyrics.

[@Rassskle]

Freight Train blues would have yodeling rather than vocalisation of the steam whistle. Folk singers like Woody Guthrie were often itinerant travellers who lived on the road singing for food...... they were cowboys, hillbillies, vagrants, hobos, failed businessmen and failed city folk...... and sometimes simply their chosen profession of a minstrel. The cowboy songs were often full of yodelling and sometimes nothing but yodelling...... the main reason why country singers hate to be classified with “ western” ( cowboy) singing.

[@eirikrdberg1161]

Sounds like Woodie Guthrie.

[@lordbyron6293]

Sure doesn't sound like a 20 year old.

[@mattmurdoch5575]

Hi Saeed, You might be interested in this song as a pleasant interlude. This is a live song by Joan Baez. She was another folk singer of the time with an amazing voice. This song is her memory of Bob Dylan. She was his girlfriend for awhile and she was in love with him. It's called diamonds and Rust. I live track as I say; entirely acoustic. I don't like the recorded version really. This captures the song in a much more realistic way. You will like it I am sure. She recorded some great tracks but I feel many of her tracks did not reach the best of her vocal talent. Might fit between this album and your next reaction. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXiweYaYmMmSp6s

[@theguiltyundertaker]

I love the way you try and analyse his songs, but after years of listening to Bob, I know that he almost always turns the song on its head in the last few lines. Some of your theories are fantastic, and I know you can't wait till the end of the song to come up with them, but just know that by the time you get to the last line you're probably wrong! This is not a critique on what you're doing, just an observation.

[@olibertosoto5470]

The first one is not one to go by! That train bit is hard to like.

[@thejoelrooganexplosion2400]

xxxx

[@whimsofmim]

Several of the lines in "Song to Woody" are direct lines lifted, or references to, actual Woody Guthrie lyrics/songs. This is essentially the genesis of what Dylan would master as far as being a songwriter goes. Dylan is a collector and weird curator or nuggets of truth from the dusty, forgotten sounds and soul of a lost America. His songs are full of obscure references to even more unknown folk/blues songs. A great irony is that when Dylan would visit Woody in hospital, Guthrie remarked Dylan wasn't much of a writer but he sure could sing. Kinda the opposite of what many people thought of him once he became famous. P.S. Note that some of the guitar picking from "See that my grave is kept clean" is carried over to parts of "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding"

[@ruthmitchell1513]

Well, now that you’ve taken bits & pieces from unknown sources to disparage Bob Dylan are you proud of yourself? Tell me and folksinger and folkie fan doknow.long held system of taking bits and pieces of old folk songs tweeking, altered system, he learned from it. Simon & Garfunkel used an old folk song to write Scarborough Fair after they heard Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country”

[@valueofnothing2487]

Most of this stuff seems so fake. I mean, he is a child prodigy on this stuff, but you realize why he stopped this after a while.