Seven Days: Nov 25 – Dec 1, 2024

Nov 25 - Dec 1, 2024

The Week in Bob Dylan

This is Seven Days, a weekly summary of the best Bob Dylan news and links and everything new. You're seeing the free public edition.

Premium Members get an Extended Edition which includes 10-40 more links every week including lists of New Articles, Blog Posts, Reviews & Releases plus some extra videos.

All The Dylan News in Your Inbox Every Week

Tour Details

The Latest on Bob's Live Concerts

My Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour Finale Series—Updated! (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [10]
- “Grab a coffee, a comfy chair, and some headphones (there are a lot of audio samples)—you’re gonna be here awhile. Start at the beginning, or just pick the topic that most interests you and jump straight there.”
Dylan in Cincinnati: 2021 & 2023 (Shadow Chasing) [10]
- “Instead of treating the 2021 and 2023 concerts separately, I’ve decided to provide broad contexts for both and then go song by song, contrasting the different arrangements, performances, and receptions.”
Bob Dylan just finished what could be his last tour (RTE) [5]
- “If this was to be Dylan’s last ever live performance, then what does it say about him and his place in music history? Well, that he remains as vital an artist as he was in the 1960s, one who continues to reinvent himself, who continues to chase that restless, hungry feeling and who doesn’t look back, but constantly forward.”

Special Announcement

A sad RIP to David Yaffe
- Writer, Professor and Dylan fan. Author of 'Like A Complete Unknown' a great Dylan book, Reckless Daughter a definitive Joni Mitchell book, guest on our podcast, and much more.

New Articles

Stories from the press

If Bob Dylan Tells Us it’s Time for Joy, We’d Better Pay Attention (Big Issue) [3]
- “Bob Dylan becoming active on Twitter as others say they’re leaving is a Dylan challenging wherever the tide goes sort of move.”
On Witnessing Dylan’s Final Bow (Varsity) [5]
- “The songs are changing just as he is changing, and the times are changing. And it felt perfectly appropriate.”

New Blog Posts

New from fans and other writers

Gregory Peck, “Brownsville Girl” and Bob (John’s Substack) [3]
- “Bob doesn’t do what’s most convenient as a matter of practice. I don’t know that it’s artistic courage, necessarily. That’s just how he works.”
I Still Don’t Know What Bob Dylan’s ‘Jokerman’ Is About (Nick DeRiso) [5]
- “In the end, however, that very labyrinthine quality is what makes “Jokerman” so endlessly fascinating: We never find out what became of our hero’s quest for meaning in dangerous times.”
Does Dylan Have Right to a Private Life? (Untold Dylan) [8]
- “Heylin’s suggestion seems to be that by getting angry about people going through his trash, he is revealing his paranoia. Personally, I think he’s being very restrained.”
Like A Rolling Stone (1965) Pt.1 (Untold Dylan) [8]
- “…it is a confluence that almost inevitably must lead to a rhythm thing on paper all about my steady hatred, to an adolescent revenge fantasy about the downfall of a nymph who has so cruelly rejected him.”
Three Times and Out: Walls of Red Wing (Untold Dylan) [5]
- “Indeed as a song it is unusual – have many people written songs about a reform school?”
How the Bootleg Series Changed Our Understanding of Bob Dylan and the Band (Nick DeRiso) [8]
- “In many ways, though, the charm (and the relevancy) of the larger compendium could be found in this winding, open-ended quest. There were no rules, no dogma.”
Watching The River Flow Pt. 6 (Untold Dylan) [5]
- “The protagonists of songs such as “Watching The River Flow” and “When I Paint My Masterpiece” are lonely and reflective, the narrator is no longer in a hotel room with Botticelli’s niece or with a “pretty little girl Greece”, but rather all alone. Intentionally; “Gonna lock the doors and turn my back on the world for awhile”.”
Lighting Bob Dylan (Flagging Down The Double E’s) [8]
- “He doesn’t want flash and trash. He doesn’t want spots in his eyes all the time. He doesn’t want things moving around. He just wants to do his thing.”
Prophets, True and False: Bob Dylan’s Search for the Holy Grail (I Don’t Love Nobody) [5]
- “Dylan contrasts the accusations that have been flung at him with the true meaning of betrayal. Selling people into bondage is betrayal. Denying the Lord is betrayal. Artistic change is not betrayal. Artistic change is creation.”

New Releases & Reviews

News about new music or reviews

‘Fragments’: Bob Dylan’s ‘Time Out Of Mind’ Restored (Tracking Angle) [5]
- “Discs 2 and 3 have more CD grain (flat soundstage, harsh edge on Dylan’s voice, overall thick presentation) than the others, but are still acceptable.”
Our Favorite 2024 Box Sets (Rolling Stone) [5]
- #1 Bob Dylan and The Band: 1974 Complete
Inside the Empire: Empire Burlesque Review (Peter Stone Brown Archives) [5]
- “Whether these new songs represent any artistic growth is debatable, but the performance and execution are uniformly excellent. If this record doesn’t receive a lot of airplay, something is really wrong, for it contains several potential hits.”