External links
- Lyrics at Bob Dylan's official site
- Chords at Dylanchords
- Amnesty International Fundraising Music
| "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Bob Dylan | |
| from the album Blood on the Tracks | |
| Released | January 1975 |
| Recorded | September 17, 1974 at A&R Recording in New York City |
| Genre | Folk rock |
| Length | 2:54 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Songwriter(s) | Bob Dylan |
| Producer(s) | Bob Dylan |
| Blood on the Tracks track listing | |
"You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" is a song by Bob Dylan. Recorded in September 1974, it appeared as the fifth track on Dylan's album Blood on the Tracks , released in January 1975.
The song's lyrics have brought forth multiple interpretations—from the idea that they are confessional, to Dylan's claims that the album was inspired by literature, to the lyrics being called Dylan's most masterfully written love poem. Many believe the song describes Dylan's relationship issues with his wife during the time when they were separated. Additionally, Ellen Bernstein, a girlfriend of Dylan's in 1974 while he was separated from his wife, claims that the song was about their relationship. [1]
However, in interviews Dylan claimed the song was inspired by literature. Rolling Stone reported that in Dylan's memoir, Chronicles: Volume One , "Dylan was assumed to be referring to Blood on the Tracks when he wrote: “I would even record an entire album based on Chekhov short stories. Critics thought it was autobiographical – that was fine”. [2]
The song was one of a few Dylan attempted to record with a full band (Eric Weissberg and Deliverance) at the album's initial September 1974 sessions in New York. Multiple versions were attempted, including a slow ballad arrangement, but ultimately Dylan opted - as he did with most of the tracks from these sessions - for a near-solo acoustic arrangement backed only by Deliverance bassist Tony Brown. The complete recording session of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" was released in 2018 on the deluxe edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks , with one outtake appearing on the 1-CD and 2-LP versions of that album. [3]
The Daily Telegraph described the song as "Dylan's most fully realised masterpiece, crammed with lyrical blood and thunder and piercing observations". According to the Telegraph, it is the album's "simplest, breeziest song – yet it remains heartbreaking in its almost carefree surrender to the inevitability of romantic pain". [4]
Rolling Stone placed the song 56th on a list of the "100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs". In an article accompanying the list, musician Jim James described the song as the "essence of love. He's describing everything so viscerally. I can almost smell the trees and different people I've known over the years, the flowers, the sunlight – the way things look when you're falling in love and how that turns in on itself when you have to leave or move on or life changes you or changes the other person. He's reflecting on it in such a beautiful way, saying that person will always be a part of him. He'll see her everywhere". [5]
In spite of the fact that Dylan has not performed the song live since 1976, he did revisit it and drastically alter the lyrics for his "Mondo Scripto" art exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery in London in 2017. According to Tom Piazza's notes in the exhibition catalogue: "In their original recorded incarnation, the lyrics to this song are luminous with the sensuality of new love, intoxicated with its immediacy and worried that it won't last. In this almost wholly reimagined version, the poet is looking back from a distance at that love, with an older eye and a cagier relation to love's ups and downs. Dylan even throws in references to English poet John Milton, country music legends the Carter Family, and in the words 'footprints in the snow', throws a wink at bluegrass music patriarch Bill Monroe for good measure". [6]
In the lines "Situations have ended sad / Relationships have all been bad / Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud", [7] the narrator compares his past relationships to the tumultuous two-year romance between French Symbolist poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. [8]
According to his official website, Dylan has performed the song only twelve times in concert. All performances took place during the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1976: the first performance took place at the Starlight Ballroom in Clearwater, Florida on April 22 and the last performance took place at Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 22. [9]
Miley Cyrus (with Johnzo West) covered the song for Amnesty International on Chimes of Freedom: Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International . [10] According to Sean Curnyn's review of the cover version, there were "an explosion of amateur performers on YouTube who have been inspired by Miley and are clearly doing their versions of her version." [11] The album debuted in the U.S at number 11 on the Billboard 200, with 22,000 copies sold. [12]
Elvis Costello covered the song on the bonus disk for his album Kojak Variety .
The song has been covered by many other artists including Madeleine Peyroux, Shawn Colvin, Raul Malo, Mary Lou Lord, Mary Lee's Corvette, Maria Muldaur, Naked Eyes, Bryan Sutton, Rhett Miller, and Ben Watt.
Saradha Koirala references the song in her novel Lonesome When You Go. [13]
"Chimes of Freedom" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Tom Wilson produced 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. The song depicts the thoughts and feelings of the singer and his companion as they shelter from a lightning storm under a doorway after sunset. The singer expresses his solidarity with the downtrodden and oppressed, believing that the thunder is tolling in sympathy for them.
"Tangled Up in Blue" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which was released as the opening track on his 15th studio album Blood on the Tracks (1975). The song was written by Dylan and produced by David Zimmerman, Dylan's brother. Released as a single, it reached No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song concerns relationships and contains different narrative perspectives. Dylan has altered the lyrics in subsequent performances, changing the point of view and details in the song.
"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song written by American musician and Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962 and recorded later that year for his second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Its lyrical structure is based on the question-and-answer refrain pattern of the traditional British ballad "Lord Randall", published by Francis Child.
Good as I Been to You is the twenty-eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on November 3, 1992, by Columbia Records. The title comes from the second line of side 2 track 4.
"Shelter from the Storm" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded on September 17, 1974, and released on his 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks, in 1975. It was later anthologized on the compilation album The Essential Bob Dylan in 2000.
"Abandoned Love" is a song written by Bob Dylan, recorded on July 31, 1975, but not released until 1985, on his compilation album Biograph. It was originally recorded for inclusion on his 1976 album Desire, but was dropped in favor of "Joey". "Abandoned Love" was written during Dylan's breakup with his then-wife Sara Lownds. A working title for the song was "Sara Part II Abandoned Love." It was also known at one point as "Saint John the Evangelist", after a line in the song lyrics.
"Idiot Wind" is a song by Bob Dylan, which appeared on his 1975 album Blood on the Tracks. He began writing it in the summer of 1974, after his comeback tour with The Band. Dylan recorded the song in September 1974 and re-recorded it in December 1974 along with other songs on his album Blood on the Tracks. Between the recordings, he often reworked the lyrics. A live version of the song was released on Dylan's 1976 album Hard Rain, and all of the studio outtakes from the September sessions were released on the deluxe edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks in 2018.
"Cold Irons Bound" is a Grammy Award-winning song written by Bob Dylan, recorded in January 1997 and released on September 30, 1997 as the eighth track on his album Time Out of Mind. The song was produced by Daniel Lanois.
"When the Deal Goes Down" is a love song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, originally released as the fourth track on his 2006 album Modern Times and anthologized on the compilation albums Dylan in 2007 and reissues of The Essential Bob Dylan beginning in 2010. As with much of Dylan's 21st-century output, he produced the song himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost.
"Girl from the North Country" is a song written by Bob Dylan. It was recorded at Columbia Recording Studios in New York City in April 1963, and released the following month as the second track on Dylan's second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Dylan re-recorded the song as a duet with Johnny Cash in February 1969. That recording became the opening track on Nashville Skyline, Dylan's ninth studio album.
"Gotta Serve Somebody" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as the opening track on his 1979 studio album Slow Train Coming. It won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Male in 1980. It was later anthologized on the compilation albums Biograph (1985), Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994), The Essential Bob Dylan (2000), The Best of Bob Dylan and Dylan (2007).
"Simple Twist of Fate", a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, was recorded on September 19, 1974, and was released in 1975 as the second song on his 15th studio album Blood on the Tracks.
"You're a Big Girl Now" is a song by Bob Dylan, released on his 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks, in 1975. It is one of five songs on the album that Dylan initially recorded in New York City in September 1974 and then re-recorded in Minneapolis in December that year. The latter recording, made on December 27, 1974, became the album track.
"If You See Her, Say Hello" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks (1975). The song is one of five on the album that Dylan initially recorded in New York City in September 1974 and then re-recorded in Minneapolis. The later recording, made on December 30, 1974, was produced by Dylan's brother David Zimmerman, who was not credited. The recording later became the album track and the B-side of the "Tangled Up in Blue" single, released in February 1975.
"Summer Days" is an uptempo twelve-bar blues/rockabilly song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan that appears as the third song on his 2001 album Love and Theft. It was anthologized on the compilation album The Best of Bob Dylan in 2005. Like most of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the song himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost.
The soundtrack album for the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There was released as a double CD on October 30, 2007. It features only one recording by Dylan himself—his previously unreleased recording of the title song "I'm Not There" recorded during The Basement Tapes' sessions in 1967—plus various other artists' recordings of songs written by Dylan. These CDs do not contain the movie sound track. Fragments from less than half of the titles are heard in the film, which features more of Dylan's own recordings. The end credits relay a complete list of music heard in the film.
"She's Your Lover Now" is a song written by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and recorded for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, but ultimately never used. It is a "dramatized scene for three players, but only one speaker – the singer – who's attempting to unravel a tangle of complicated emotions." Despite the unfinished recording, critic Greil Marcus wrote in his 1975 book Mystery Train that "thanks to a guitar note here, a piano rumble there, Dylan's bitterest lyrics, and his unforgiving vocal, it is one of the most terrifying performances ever recorded."
Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International is a charity compilation album featuring new recordings of compositions by Bob Dylan by multiple artists, released on January 24, 2012. Proceeds from the album were donated to the human rights organization Amnesty International. It debuted in the U.S at number 11 on the Billboard 200 with 22,000 copies sold while the 2-CD version available at Starbucks debuted at number 38 with more than 10,200 copies sold.
"I Contain Multitudes" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, the opening track on his 39th studio album, Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). It was released as the album's second single on April 17, 2020, through Columbia Records. The title of the song is taken from Section 51 of the poem "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman.
"Lonesome Day Blues" is a twelve-bar blues song written and performed by Bob Dylan that appears as the fifth song on his 2001 album Love and Theft. Like most of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the song himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost.
