By 1989, Michael Bolton hit a peak with his 1989 album Soul Provider and hits “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You” and “How Can We Be Lovers?” A year later, Bolton started working on his seventh album, Time, Love & Tenderness, which delivered more hits with his No. 1 cover of Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” along with the title track, “Love Is a Wonderful Thing,” and “Missing You Now.”
On the album, Bolton co-wrote songs with Warren, Walter Afanasieff, and Desmond Child and closed everything on a track he co-wrote with Bob Dylan. At the time, Dylan was still working with the Traveling Wilburys and had released his 1990 album Under the Red Sky, featuring David Crosby, Elton John, Jimmie Vaughan, and Slash.
“I thought, ‘How am I going to work with this guy?’” recalled Bolton on writing with Dylan. “‘What if I don’t like one of his lyrics? What if I don’t like an idea he comes up with? What am I going to say? No, Bob, that’s not good enough’? I didn’t know how I was going to write with him.”
Released as the final single from Time, Love & Tenderness, their collaboration was the only song Bolton ever wrote with Dylan.
Videos by American Songwriter
[RELATED: The 1989 Kiss Power Ballad Hit Written by Paul Stanley and Michael Bolton]
“Steel Bars” (1991)
When Dylan‘s publisher called Bolton in 1990, asking him if he’d like to collaborate with Dylan, he thought Diane Warren had set up a practical joke on him. Warren and Bolton had recently scheduled a meeting to work on material for his seventh album, Time, Love & Tenderness, but once Bolton realized that the call was legit, he called off his writing sessions with Warren and with songwriting legends Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and headed over to Dylan’s compound in Malibu, California, to write.
“It wasn’t difficult to get out of those sessions,” said Bolton. “Anybody in their right mind would stop whatever they were doing and would have driven to Malibu.”
Within the first few moments of meeting Dylan, Bolton says he didn’t hear anything he was saying because all he could think was “Oh my God, it’s Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is talking to me.” After half an hour of chatting, they started working. Bolton started playing some chords and humming some melodies he had prepped before meeting Dylan.
“And he said ‘Oh yeah, steel bars … steel bars, wrapped all around me,’” recalled Bolton. ‘I said to myself ‘Well, that’s not what I was singing, but that’s so Dylan. … “It was just an out-of-body, great experience.”
After two sessions together and working out some chords, the two wrote “Steel Bars,” a song about obsession.
In the night, I hear you speak
Turn around, you’re in my sleep
Feel your hands inside my soul
You’re holding on, and you won’t let go
I’ve tried running, but there’s no escape
Can’t bend them, and I just can’t break these
Steel bars, wrapped all around me
I’ve been your prisoner since the day you found me
I’m bound forever, till the end of time
Steel bars wrapped around this heart of mine
Trying hard to recognize
See the face behind the eyes
Feel your haunting ways like chains
‘Round my heart, they still remain
“Steel Bars” was the closing track of Bolton’s Time, Love & Tenderness, which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Like a Rolling Stone” (1999)
Within the next two decades, Bolton went on to record two more Dylan covers. Nearly a decade after writing “Steel Bars” with Dylan, Bolton covered “Like a Rolling Stone” on his covers album Timeless: The Classics Vol. 2 from 1999. The album also includes covers of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” the Temptations’ “My Girl,” and Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale.” Bolton put his own pop and R&B touch on each, including the 1965 Dylan classic.
“Make You Feel My Love,” with Helene Fischer (2011)
In 2011, Bolton collaborated with German singer Helene Fischer for her album Für einen Tag (For One Day). While most tracks on the album were more uptempo pop songs, in German, the bonus track, a duet with Bolton on Dylan’s Time Out of Mind classic “Make You Feel My Love,” was in English. Bolton also released their Dylan duet on his 2011 album Gems: The Duets Collection.
Photo: Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.