In February 1966, producer Bob Johnston urged Bob Dylan to come to Nashville. The folk singer had been recording in New York City but was looking for a new direction. Nashville provided just that. The plan wasn’t to “go country” as much as to add inspiration. The result was Blonde on Blonde. There are elements of all different genres represented in that album. Just as Dylan had gone electric the year before, he was looking for new ways to express himself. Bringing new musicians into the equation added new layers to Dylan’s recordings. Let’s look at 5 Country songs by Bob Dylan.
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1. “Lay Lady Lay” from Nashville Skyline
Lay, lady, lay
Lay across my big brass bed
Lay, lady, lay
Lay across my big brass bed
Whatever colors you have in your mind
I’ll show them to you, and you’ll see them shine
Bob Dylan told Tony Glover in a 1971 interview that he wrote the song for Barbra Streisand. Session drummer Kenny Buttery didn’t know exactly what drum part to play. He asked Dylan, who suggested bongos. Buttery wasn’t expecting that, as he was talking more about what kind of beat to play. He asked producer Bob Johnston the same question, who suggested the cowbell. Buttery then came up with a beat involving bongos and cowbell which were held by the studio janitor, Kris Kristofferson. The microphone was moved to capture the bongos and cowbell, so when Buttrey goes back to the drum set on the chorus, you hear more of the room’s sound. The first take of the song was used on the album. It was one of Buttery’s favorite performances.
2. “Country Pie” from Nashville Skyline
Just like old Saxophone Joe
When he’s got the hogshead up on his toe
Oh me, oh my
Love that country pie
This song may be the most country Dylan ever went. From the instrumentation to the lyrical content, it lopes along, driven equally by the guitar and piano parts. The band just jams from start to finish.
3. “If Not For You” from New Morning
If not for you
Babe, I couldn’t find the door
Couldn’t even see the floor
I’d be sad and blue
If not for you
The early recording of this song has a real country feel, featuring Lloyd Green on pedal steel guitar and Dylan on piano. This take from the Self Portrait sessions remained unreleased until 2015. The song was rerecorded and appeared on New Morning in 1970. Shortly after, George Harrison included the song on his first solo album, All Things Must Pass. Olivia Newton-John had a hit with it on her first single.
4. “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” from Blood On the Tracks
I’ve seen love go by my door
It’s never been this close before
Never been so easy or so slow
I been shootin’ in the dark too long
When something’s not right, it’s wrong
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go
Dylan wrote in his 2004 Chronicles: Volume 1, “I would even record an entire album based on Chekhov short stories. Critics thought it was autobiographical – that was fine”
5. “The Man In the Long Black Coat” from Oh Mercy
There are no mistakes in life. Some people say
It’s true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don’t live or die. People just float
She went with the man in the long black coat
Dylan wrote in Chronicles: Volume 1,” The lyrics try to tell you about someone whose body doesn’t belong to him… someone who loved life but cannot live, and it rankles his should that others should be able to live.”
In his 2016 Nobel Lecture, Dylan said, “Somebody — somebody I’d never seen before — handed me a Leadbelly record with the song ‘Cotton Fields’ on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I’d never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I’d been walking in darkness, and all of a sudden, the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me… I wanted to learn this music and meet the people who played it. Eventually, I did leave, and I did learn to play those songs. They were different than the radio songs that I’d been listening to all along. They were more vibrant and truthful to life. With radio songs, a performer might get a hit with a roll of the dice or a fall of the cards, but that didn’t matter in the folk world.
Everything was a Hit
All you had to do was be well-versed and able to play the melody. Some of these songs were easy, some not. I had a natural feeling for the ancient ballads and country blues, but everything else I had to learn from scratch… You sing it in the ragtime blues, work songs, Georgia sea shanties, Appalachian ballads, and cowboy songs… I had principles and sensibilities and an informed view of the world. And I had had that for a while. Learned it all in grammar school. Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Tale of Two Cities, all the rest – typical grammar school reading that gave you a way of looking at life, an understanding of human nature, and a standard to measure things by. I took all that with me when I started composing lyrics.”
There have been many songs that could appear on this list, including “I Threw It All Away,” “Million Dollar Bash,” “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” “Open the Door, Homer,” “Buckets Of Rain,” Mama, You Been On My Mind,” “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” “Ring Of Fire,” “Girl From the North Country,” “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You,” and “To Be Alone With You.”
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for AFI)
