Informed Speculation

Continuing with my semi-regular tradition of posting music clips on the weekends (and no, it’s not Michael Jackson – you can go to approximately 3 zillion other websites for that), I’m posting today on one of the true greats.  Though he either can’t sing anymore or has just quite trying, few would deny that Bob Dylan has written more great songs than any other artist (great as Sinatra is, he was a vocal stylist, not a songwriter, and Lennon-McCartney and Jagger-Richards, along with Bruce Springsteen, are perhaps the only other artists who even merit mention in the same breath).

In 1967, D.A. Pennebaker released the excellent Don’t Look Back, a documentary covering Dylan’s 1965 tour of England.  The song itself is from my own personal favorite Dylan album (and that’s saying something), Bringing It All Back Home, also from 1965.  This is Dylan at his peak, lyrically, and a fine performance to boot.  The song?  The brilliant “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding”.  (On a personal note, I’ve seen Dylan live on six or so occasions.  He can be very good or very bad.  The best show, by far, was the September 8, 1990 show at the very cool Sunken Garden Theater in San Antonio – we viewed the show from the cliff above the theater, dodging security all night as this was a no-no for safety reasons.  The setlist speaks for itself – and when he broke out “It’s Alright, Ma”, it was the single best Dylan performance I’ve ever personally witnessed).