Dylan in his mid-80s >> Dylan IN the mid-'80s (approximately)
THE UNHOLY TRINITY (1986-1988): In defense of Knocked Out Loaded, Hearts of Fire, and Down in the Groove. (c) 2025/6 Harold Lepidus
The following post, my first on this platform, was inspired by fellow Substackers Erin Callahan and Court Carney, two respected Dylan scholars, who requested I write something about Dylan’s work in the 1980s. Part of this essay was used as the basis for a presentation I gave at the 2025 World of Bob Dylan Center Symposium in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I present this here in celebration of Bob Dylan’s 85th birthday. Extra thanks to Erin for her proofreading, editing, and encouragement. Sharing excerpts is allowed, but please do not share (cut + paste) the entire essay on social media. Thanks in advance - Harold Lepidus
Dylan in his mid-80s » Dylan IN the mid-’80s (approximately).
THE UNHOLY TRINITY (1986-1988): In defense of Knocked Out Loaded, Hearts of Fire, and Down in the Groove.
Bob Dylan is an artist who appears to exist in the past, present, and future simultaneously. He’s mixing up ancient texts and songs, reinterpreting them in real time on stage, and planting musical seeds that don’t bloom for years. Dylan often leaves his followers in the dust, and while they try to catch up, he has already moved on to challenge them with something even newer and often more complex.
Because Dylan is constantly changing course, some people didn’t understand why he would “sell out” and “go electric,” retreat from the spotlight for eight years after his motorcycle accident, or explore Christianity after his first divorce. His 1975 album, Blood on the Tracks, received mixed reviews upon release, as did his controversial late ‘70s-early ‘80s “Gospel Period.” 1970’s Self Portrait album was sabotaged in the press. (The opening line of Greil Marcus’ 1970 review of the album in Rolling Stone magazine, “What is this shit?” is the most famous in all of rock criticism.) All are now generally thought of as brave artistic statements. Sometimes, it takes some distance to understand what Dylan is trying to do. However, with an artist so far ahead of his time (and audience), reevaluation is essential in Dylan studies.
While this was mostly true with his art in the ‘60s and ‘70s, this does not seem to apply to some of Dylan’s work from the mid-to-late 1980s. By then, Dylan had lost his connection with his audience, who were now mostly married adults with children, soon to be divorced. In the age of Reagan and MTV, Dylan was seen more as a relic, or worse, a has-been. Contrast that with two Dylan acolytes, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, who each released career defining albums around this time - Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. in 1984, and Simon’s Graceland in 1986.
A typical example would be his headlining appearance at the North American portion of the Live Aid concerts, the one in Philadelphia, on July 13, 1985. After a day full of televised professional acts promoting themselves across multiple continents in shiny outfits and expensive haircuts, Dylan, as usual, stood out, but not in the way he probably wanted. Flanked by two apparently inebriated members of the Rolling Stones, his pre-finale closing set, unlike almost all of the previous performers, featured three songs which addressed starving families, which is what Live Aid was supposed to be about. However, without that 80s sheen, Dylan appeared to be out of place.
The three albums I will be exploring from the 1980s, the “Unholy Trinity” as I call them, were released during this supposed low point in his career. These are 1986’s Knocked Out Loaded (“The Father”), 1988’s Down in the Groove (“The Son”), and the 1987 various artists soundtrack to the box office bomb - Hearts of Fire (“The Holy Crap”.) While albums before and after this period have been reevaluated, these three in particular continue to be dismissed, not only by the public at large, but often by Dylan’s core fanbase.
In 1988, when Springsteen inducted Dylan in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he declared, “The way Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind.” The reason I am focusing on these three unpopular albums in particular is because I hope to “free your mind” as well. I’ve always liked these albums, but in rediscovering them, I now love them. They’re fun, they’re loose. Dylan’s phrasing is extraordinary, and as we look back at this era, we can appreciate it as a side road in which he had to travel in order to get back on track and revitalize his art and his career.
One of the reasons for all the negativity towards these releases is the lack of strong, original compositions. Of the eight songs on Knocked Out Loaded, there were three cowrites, one rewrite, two originals, and two covers. Down in the Groove features six cover versions, Dylan finishing some lyrics by Robert Hunter while rehearsing with the Grateful Dead on two songs, one minor composition from the Hearts of Fire soundtrack, and a leftover from the 1983 Infidels sessions. The Hearts of Fire soundtrack only includes three Dylan tracks, which will be discussed later.
Another is that the production sounds almost like a parody of the fashionable electronic overload of the day, with a gated reverb drum track so heavy you could land a plane on it. Going electric was one thing, but going synthetic?
Also, apparently, Dylan was not happy with the effort his record label was using to promote his albums. In either a power play move, or as an act of passive aggression, or both, he apparently figured he wouldn’t put the effort in either.
During this phase, probably more so than others, Dylan does not appear to be taking things as reverently as his audience. Also, humor is one of Dylan’s most important traits, and it often goes unrecognized. Notably, every Dylan studio album released this century was produced by Dylan under the pseudonym Jack Frost, and is devoid of such eccentricities.
PLAYLIST: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkm9AUl-7W4Tk8Dn8muBVGWkwMg3zgOOB
KNOCKED OUT LOADED (1986)
I distinctly remember when I bought Knocked Out Loaded. According to Dylan’s own official website, and repeated on Wikipedia, the release date was Monday, July 14, 1986. This, however, is incorrect. I bought the LP on the day it was actually released, Tuesday, July 8th. It was the day before I went to see Dylan, Petty, the Heartbreakers, and the Queens of Rhythm, at Great Woods in Mansfield, Massachusetts. The release of the compact disc was delayed, as was often the case in those days.
Wikipedia
Although I went home and listened to Knocked Out Loaded the day I bought it, in anticipation of familiarizing myself with the songs before the following night’s concert, I had no idea Dylan had decided to still focus on 1985’s Empire Burlesque instead. Dylan abandoned promoting the album altogether on this tour after playing “Got My Mind Made Up” once on opening night as part of the encore, and one chorus of “Brownsville Girl” at the final show. Had Dylan included, say “You Wanna Ramble” as the opener, and “Got My Mind Made Up” and “Under Your Spell” into regular rotation on this tour, it may have helped fans connect to the album more easily. Without Dylan’s commitment and faith in his own art, it may have been interpreted as the work being subpar in the eyes of its creator.
Here’s another way to look at the album: What if Knocked Out Loaded was shelved, and let’s say a soundtrack live album from the HBO concert special with Petty & Co., Hard To Handle: Bob Dylan in Concert, had been released instead. If you had heard about sessions in the mid 80s that included songs written in collaboration with Tom Petty, Sam Shephard, and Carole Bayer Sager, and covers of a new Kris Kristoffersen song and the gospel classic “Precious Memories,” it would certainly pique your interest at the very least. Not to mention the all-star cast accompanying Dylan, among them Al Kooper, T-Bone Burnett, Steve Douglas, Ron Wood, Al Perkins, Steve Mateo, Dave Stewart, Blondie’s Clem Burke, the Heartbreakers, and at the time of this writing, current touring drummer Anton Fig.
If this was only available as a bootleg, while it wouldn’t be as desirable or mysterious as his unreleased material from the 1960s and ‘70s, Dylan’s baffling choices would certainly be enticing, if only for its perversity. Its forbidden content would make these recordings all the more precious, and therefore, treated with a respect not allotted to its official commercial release.
Apparently thanks to Scott Warmuth’s detective work, we know that the incredibly uninspired album artwork, the same image on the front and back, was taken from the January 1939 issue of Spicy Adventure Stories, an American pulp magazine. The lack of information on the cover may have been an effort to speed up the production of the release of the album while Dylan and Petty were busy touring the world, with the North American leg already one month old by the time Knocked Out Loaded finally hit the streets. The only way to know what songs were included was a hype sticker that was stuck on the shrink wrap with the track listing. Again, Dylan barely acknowledging the album’s existence could easily have dampened any fan’s expectations.
Columbia, Dylan’s official record label since the beginning (aside from two albums in 1974), must have found that promoting the album was quite the challenge. They’d certainly never had a legendary artist as mercurial as this one, and Dylan’s lack of interest in playing the usual record label promotional games make it that much more difficult to make this album appealing to his fans, let alone the public at large. Not to mention that there were no promotional videos for MTV (MCA even cobbled together movie clips for the video of the contemporaneous song “Band of the Hand”), and no major interviews. After some initial radio response for “Got My Mind Made Up,” interest quickly faded.
The album received some of the most scathing reviews of Dylan’s career. This was reflected in the lack of success on the charts. It peaked at No. 53 in U.S., and No. 35 in the UK.
This was in the backdrop of the Dylan/Petty True Confessions tour of North America, one of the most publicized treks of the year. It was also Dylan’s first American tour in five years. All this with no new album in the shops to promote at the start of the tour. At the first date in San Diego on June sixth, this is how Dylan introduced “Got My Mind Made Up”:
“Thank you, all right, I just recorded a new record album on Columbia Records and Tapes, should be out sometime I guess. This summer, maybe next winter. Anyway Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers helped me record a song that Tom and I wrote, it’s called “Got My Mind Made Up.” Anyway we’re gonna try it out this evening. It sounds all right.”
I’ll revisit the song in a bit.
I’m going to start by discussing the three songs on side two of Knocked Out Loaded, each featuring a songwriting collaboration with a respected artist, starting with the end and working backwards.
The actual title of the album comes from the closing song, “Under Your Spell,” written with the legendary award-winning songwriter, Carole Bayer Sager. In her 2016 memoir, They’re Playing Our Song, she recalled the collaboration.
Bayer Sager wrote that when she arrived at his place, Dylan was unkempt, as was his property. She was all dressed to impress in rock and roll drag, not her usual style. He didn’t bother prettying himself up at all. Sitting on opposing beds about five feet apart, Dylan would say a line, then Bayer Sager would come up with the next. Dylan only used a few of her suggestions, and built on some others. Bayer Sager kept feeling superfluous, but Dylan insisted that the song would not have been written if she wasn’t there. Bayer Sager later told Dylan that she felt she shouldn’t even get a writing credit. Again Dylan reiterating that it would not have been written without her presence and input. So Bayer Sager then suggested she only get half the credit on the lyrics alone, to which Dylan agreed.
A contemporaneous review in USA Today by Edna Gundersen declared “Under Your Spell” as the best song on the album.
In a 1986 review, USA Today critic Edna Gundersen highlighted “Under Your Spell” as the standout track on Bob Dylan’s album Knocked Out Loaded. While many critics then and now cite the 11-minute epic “Brownsville Girl” as the album’s masterpiece, the USA Today review specifically praised “Under Your Spell”—a collaboration with Carole Bayer Sager—as an “absolute stunner” that reaffirmed Dylan’s unique genius despite the album’s overall mixed reception.
A similarly worded review, with an “A-” rating for the album, has been preserved in The Petty Archives, written by Bill Shapiro, and apparently originally printed in the August, 1986, edition of the KC Pitch:
The record closes with a cut Dylan wrote with the highly unlikely Carol (sic) Bayer Sager. It seems that even on the weakest of Dylan’s albums there is always one extraordinary song that reaffirms his unique genius. And while there is other strong material on this LP, “Under Your Spell” is the absolute stunner, ranging as it does through ‘40s pop sensibilities to gospel and r&b (sic) and closing with yet another Dylan lyrical irony.
Also there’s this from the L.A.Times:
In the collaboration category, Dylan’s co-authorships with Carole Bayer Sager and Tom Petty fare better than the ballyhooed epic he penned with playwright Sam Shepard (the 11-minute “Brownsville Girl,” a rambling, non sequitur-filled narrative through the Southwest saved by its self-reflexive humor).
“Under Your Spell” was also rehearsed the following year with the Grateful Dead, probably at guitarist Jerry Garcia’s urging. If “Under Your Spell” had been included on an album with a better reputation, it would probably have elevated people’s perception of the song.
The song preceding “Under Your Spell” was “Got My Mind Made Up,” recorded with his Farm Aid compadres, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It had a song writing credit given jointly to Dylan and Petty. It was widely assumed that Petty and the Heartbreakers recorded their own version first, and then Dylan rewrote the lyrics. In 1995, after leaving MCA for Warner Brothers, Petty released Playback, a 6 CD box set of material from 1973 to 1993, half of which was either rare or unreleased. The last disc starts with the band’s own version of “Got My Mind Made Up,” from the band’s 1986 Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) sessions, and Petty is credited as the sole composer. It has radically different lyrics but with an identical arrangement as the one on Knocked Out Loaded. (Dylan apparently recorded over the same backing track )
“Got My Mind Made Up” was the obvious choice as the lead promotional track for the album. It was released as a single, and has an infectious, rocking, Bo Diddley beat. And of course there’s the Tom Petty connection. However, after the initial promotional push, it felt like everybody just gave up. Again, in a different context, or when Dylan had a better reputation, this song could be up there with the best of his 80s rockers.
According to an unearthed 1986 interview with Petty and guitarist Mike Campbell, conducted by Bill DeYoung and published in 2015, Petty explains that he and Dylan wrote the song together. While Campbell assumed Dylan must have come up with the line about Libya, Petty explained that he was the one who had suggested it. “Well, if the truth must be known … Bob says ‘Let’s write a song about Florida!’ And I said no. He goes (singing) ‘I’m going to Tallahassee ..’ and I said no, ‘I’m going to Libya.’ And he sings, ‘There’s a guy I gotta see/He’s been living there three years now/In an oil refinery …’ Great! And then we did another one. Writing with Bob is great, because if you throw one line he comes back with three great lines.” From the sound of this interview, Dylan was certainly inspired, encouraged by interacting with another artist, and a future Traveling Wilbury.
In addition to their “joint” Hard To Handle cable TV concert special, two other collaborations with Petty saw the light of day around this time. One was a track released on Petty’s label, MCA, possibly as part of a deal to be able to take their hit-making band on the road. It was produced by Petty, and was used as the title song for the film Band of the Hand, later augmented with a parenthetical “(It’s Hell Time, Man.)” The track features the Heartbreakers, an early version of the Queens of Rhythm, and an uncredited Stevie Nicks. The Queens of Rhythm were a revolving cast of Black, female, gospel-based singers that toured and recorded with Dylan during this period.
It was around this time that Dylan was getting inspiration from dialogue in old movies, most evident in 1985’s Empire Burlesque, and is evident here. In the 1941 film noir I Wake Up Screaming, Laird Cregar’s character, Ed Cornell, says, “One day you’ll be talking in your sleep, and when you do, I wanna be around,” a line echoed almost verbatim in “Band of the Hand.” There is even a webpage devoted to more than 60 examples of film dialogue embedded in Dylan’s compositions, reaching as far back as 1929’s Show Boat for 2001’s “Sugar Baby.” Other examples include 1966’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” which includes the line “To live outside the law you must be honest,” inspired by “When you live outside the law you have to eliminate dishonesty.” from the 1958 film, The Lineup, a reference to La Dolce Vita in 1964’s “Motorcycho Nightmare,” and as I explore below, “Brownsville Girl,” which was written with playwright Sam Shepard.
“Band of the Hand” is, in a sense, a protest song. It rails against corruption (“The system’s just too damn corrupt”), suppression (“They kill people here who stand up for their rights”), and false patriotism (“So erotic, so unpatriotic/So wrapped up in the American flag”), all framed within a dystopian landscape of the violent, exploitative underworld marketplace of the buying and selling of illegal hard drugs. The song was performed often during the 1986 tour (despite what Dylan’s official site says, which is zero times), but has not been performed live since.
Another Dylan/Petty collaboration, with lyrics written over a previously unused Campbell instrumental, “Jammin’Me,” emerged as the lead single on Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1987 album, Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough.) According to Petty in the book Conversations with Tom Petty, Dylan and Petty wrote it jointly at the Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood. It’s another protest song, this time a diatribe against media overload in the mid-’80s.
The lyrics reference everything from Apple computers to the conflicts in the Middle East. They also wanted the world to “take back” Saturday Night Live alumni Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy (was it their imitations of Frank Sinatra and “Little Richard Simmons”?) and Vanessa Redgrave, possibly for her 1978 Academy Award acceptance speech as Best Supporting Actress in the film Julia. She condemned “a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums,” and said this was her response after she said that she had been threatened for her pro-Palestine activism by the Jewish Defence League. (She later noted that she didn’t realize fighting anti-Semitism and fascism would be considered controversial. //Don’t @ me//) In concert, Petty would sometimes change the names of the celebrities mentioned, but credited Dylan as the one who came up with the original guilty parties mentioned.
Of course, the song that is the one fans use as an excuse to rationalize buying the album is the epic, 11-minute “Brownsville Girl,” co-written with playwright, actor, and Rolling Thunder Revue alumnus, Sam Shepard, that opens side two. This was a rare occurrence, giving such artistic decisions an extra sense of audience anticipation. Before these collaborations, Dylan mostly wrote alone, or updated songs in the public domain as part of the “Folk Tradition.”. Exceptions by this time included short term partnerships with George Harrison of the Beatles, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, and the latter’s collaborator, theater director Jacques Levy, among others.
In a February, 1966, interview with Playboy magazine, when asked what his songs were about, he replied, “Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve.” These epic compositions, such as 1965’s “Desolation Row” and 1966’s “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” were groundbreaking compositions cited as masterpieces. So when Dylan releases a very long composition, like 2020’s “Murder Most Foul,” or in this case, “Brownsville Girl,” expectations were quite high.
Unlike his mid-1960s masterpieces, “Brownsville Girl” is not a well structured song-poem. It has a rambling narrative, traveling back and forth in time (a favorite Dylan literary device), unencumbered by anything other than what has entered the narrator’s mind. The purposeful looseness may be what his audience find so appealing, following a story that reveals itself over time, and ultimately a somewhat fantastical autobiographical tale.
An earlier, tentative version, titled “New Danville Girl,” itself taking its title from Woody Guthrie’s “Danville Girl” (“She wore a Danville curl”), was included on the Springtime In New York volume of the Bootleg Series. While it is not specifically mentioned in the lyrics, the song references a Gregory Peck movie, which was obviously the 1950 western, The Gunfighter.
When Dylan was celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors in late 1997, Peck was one of the celebrities chosen to praise the future Nobel Prize winner. In his introductory speech, Peck mentioned buying a “new” Dylan album, unnamed but it was obviously Knocked Out Loaded. (Although I have a difficult time imagining him in line at a local Tower Records.)
Here is an excerpt:
Some time ago I bought a new Dylan album and I was listening to a song
called “Brownsville Girl” and I heard these lines:
“There was a movie I seen one time. I think I saw it through (sic)
twice. It starred Gregory Peck. He wore a gun and was shot in the
back. I just can’t get it out of my head.”
Dylan was singing about a picture that I made called The Gunfighter
about the lone man in town with people comin’ in to kill him and
everybody wants him out of town before the shooting starts.
When I met Bob, years later, I told him that meant a lot to me and the
best way I could sum *him* up is to say - Bob Dylan has never been
*about* to get out of town before the shootin’ starts. Thank you, Mr.
Dylan, for rocking the country...and the ages.”
In the film, Gregory Peck’s character, Jimmy Ringo, was known as the “fastest gun in the west.” In the music world, Dylan held a similar position, with young gunslingers - imitators stealing him blind - trying to become the dreaded “New Bob Dylan.” Fittingly, Peck was followed in the ceremony by a former “new Dylan,” Bruce Springsteen.
Side one’s opening song, “You Wanna Ramble,” is a rocking rewrite of the blues track “I Wanna Ramble,” by Herman Parker Jr, a.k.a. Little Junior Parker. Despite Dylan’s complete overhaul of the narrative, his name and publishing company are absent from the credits. In the original version, Parker brags that he can do whatever he wants in his relationship, while Dylan’s version is more of a warning to his partner that it’s a dangerous world out there, and her actions are her own responsibility. Underneath the gloppy ‘80s production is another powerful condemnation of the dystopian nightmare in while we continue to toil.
The next song is the one that is almost universally mocked, Dylan’s cover of Kris Kristoffersen’s “They Killed Him.” It features a relatively straightforward tribute to martyred icons: Mahatma Gandhi, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jesus Christ. It can be interpreted as an updated version of Dion’s “Abraham, Martin and John,” which Dylan can be seen singing years earlier with Clydie King in the documentary, Trouble No More: A Musical Film, and heard on the Springtime In New York box set. According to Dylan’s official website, he performed that song in concert 23 times between November 9, 1980 and June 30, 1981.
The importance and emotional impact of that song is expressed well here:
(“Abraham, Martin and John” ) resonate(s) with us the longest are those that tend to combine passion, poignancy, and personal reflection. All three of those elements are well represented in the song “Abraham, Martin and John.” Written by Dick Holler in the aftermath of the successive assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, the song was first recorded by Dion and released on Laurie Records in August 1968. Cover versions by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Moms Mabley, and Marvin Gaye followed a year later.
“They Killed Him” was originally recorded by Johnny Cash in 1984. Kristoffersen’s version, with slightly different lyrics that incorporates a reference to the Kennedy brothers, was released as a single and an album track a few months after Dylan’s. Kristoffersen also performed the song at the first Farm Aid benefit concert, on September 22, 1985, an event itself inspired by a comment Dylan made at Live Aid earlier that year.
Dylan’s version is so easily dismissed, as far as I can tell, for mainly two reasons, things that are not usually associated with Dylan. The first is that the lyrics are relatively simplistic and trite, and the second is the addition of a children’s chorus. If you listen to Cash’s version, also featuring a children’s chorus, it feels natural. One would not question, or be shocked or repulsed, by its inclusion. However on a Dylan album, it initially seems forced and out of character.
However, while Dylan singing songs for children is not a common occurrence, he has sprinkled them in his repertoire throughout his career, going as far back as 1961, covering Woody Guthrie’s “Car, Car.” There are also some childlike songs in The Basement Tapes from 1967 (when he was at home as a family man), 1973’s “Forever Young,” supposedly written for his young son and future Wallflower Jakob (as well as for Elvis Presley to cover, according to Rob Stoner, Dylan’s bassist from 1975 to 1978), and his 1991 version of the traditional English nursery rhyme “This Old Man” for a charity album benefitting The Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
What was not known at the time was that Dylan had once again become a father. Among the 120-plus names listed on the inner sleeve of the album were “Desiree,” daughter of Dylan and singer Carolyn Dennis, as well as “Baby Boo Boo,” the parent’s nickname for their child. Desiree was born on January 31, 1986, and the parents secretly got hitched that June. Once you know that, the song becomes an endearing, prayer-like message to his newborn baby daughter. There’s a theory among Dylan scholars that some of the songs from 1990’s under the red sky (sic) may also have begun as children’s songs or nursery rhymes, bookended by “Wiggle Wiggle” and the title track at the beginning, and “Handy Dandy” and “Cat’s in the Well” at the end.
The final three songs on side one, all credited to Dylan (although “Precious Memories” is a traditional song, “arranged” by Dylan), may appear to be rather light weight on the surface, but compared to Dylan’s contemporaries, they contain a deceptive amount of depth underneath.
“Driftin’ Too Far From Shore” gets its title from an old gospel song, recorded by, among others, Hank Williams. This composition has a confusing narrative, if I can even use that term. In addition to some misogynistic terms, it’s one of those woman-done-me wrong narratives Dylan has been exploring at least since covering Jesse Fuller’s “You’re No Good,” the first song on his first album, although this new one seems to be somewhat apocalyptic. The lack of self awareness related by the song’s narrator is telling, as he’s questioning why the object of his affections of the women in question is distant, when his action betrays a complete lack of respect, not to mention romance.
This recording features Dylan playing some sort of synth keyboard. It feels like he was amusing himself, exploring the instrumental flavor of the month. It doesn’t feel like Dylan was taking things too seriously, so that’s probably the best way for the listener to experience it. The basic track comes from the 1984 sessions for 1985’s Empire Burlesque, with overdubs from 1986.
“Precious Memories” is a traditional gospel song, here performed with a reggae feel. It’s not unusual for Dylan to long for the past, and explore different musical genres, and that’s what he does here.
“Maybe Someday” is a kiss off song, again familiar Dylan territory, from “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” to “Positively 4th Street” and beyond. It has multiple references to the bible, a reference to Chuck Berry’s “No Money Down,” and paraphrases a line from T.S. Eliot’s poem, Journey of the Magi. Dylan changes the word order of Eliot’s “And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly” to “Through cities and unfriendly towns.” Like “Drifin’ Too Far From Shore,” this is Dylan having some fun. It also includes some classic lines, like “You said you were goin’ to Frisco, stay a couple of months/I always liked San Francisco, I was there for a party once.”
All in all, Knocked Out Loaded may not be his most focused or inspired album, but in typical Dylan fashion, listeners sometimes just have to be patient and dig beneath the surface to find the hidden treasure.
HEARTS OF FIRE (1987)
The motion picture Hearts of Fire was filmed in 1986, and released the following year to zero critical acclaim. Any possible chance of U.S. screenings were abandoned after a short, failed, European run.
When the movie was announced, Dylan was reportedly expected to contribute four original songs. From everything I’ve seen and read about the film, it was something in which he had little invested, and was reportedly inebriated most of the time. Dylan played a retired rock star, Billy Parker, and ended up singing two originals and two covers. The Dylan compositions were the subversive “Night After Night,” a Latin-tinged dance number, and an early mix of “I Had A Dream About You Baby,” which later appeared with overdubs on Dylan’s next album, Down in the Groove. The covers were John Hiatt’s “The Usual,” also originally slated for his next album, and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show’s “A Couple More Years,” written by Shel Silverstein and band member Dennis Locorrire (who sadly died just last week.). The first three songs were included on the soundtrack album, along with even more bombastic tracks by co-stars Fiona and Rupert Everett. (I’m assuming, as I’ve only listened to the Dylan tracks.). The very short solo acoustic interpretation of “A Couple More Years,” probably the most accessible of the four, was not included. (A different version can be found in the Springtime In New York box set.) In his 2006 memoir, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, co-star Rupert Everett said he and Dylan were frequently plied with alcohol on set, describing his co-star as disengaged and distant.
The best way to listen to these songs is the same way one can enjoy such silly Elvis Presley movie songs as “Do the Clam” and “There’s No Room To Rhumba In A Sports Car.” The listener should understand that these songs are not supposed to be taken as heavy artistic statements, but devices to move the story along. Again, if one doesn’t take these songs so seriously - the fate of just about everything Dylan had done at last since 1966 - it may make it easier to appreciate. “Had a Dream” sounds like Dylan writing a song as Billy Parker, but it’s not particularly out of character for himself.
Dylan rarely writes songs to order, but it’s not unheard of. It’s nothing too heavy, with a kind of a late ‘50s-early ‘60s feel. It addresses young love with references to a coffee shop, and uses an antiquated phrase, “Spend my money on you honey.” Not only does he refer to her as “honey,” but she calls him “Daddy.” Additionally, the word “baby” is repeated about a dozen times.
“The Usual” was presented as Parker’s signature hit song in the movie. It chronicles, one would assume, the excessive, out of control lifestyle of a typical 1970s rock star, one which Parker no doubt inhabited. It eventually took its toll, and led him to his more subdued life out of the spotlight, a path also taken by, among others, all four Beatles, Syd Barrett (The Pink Floyd), Patti Smith, Meg White (White Stripes), and Dylan himself. (More on the song below.) “A Couple More Years,” abandoned halfway through, was a tender ballad from the older Billy to the much younger Molly, played by the singer Fiona, accentuating the age difference.
The backing track for “Night After Night” is so overwhelming that it takes some effort to even decipher the lyrics. Although it sounds like a throwaway song, it is as cynical and dark as anything else from the era. It references a broken heart, the lack of mercy, blowing up the world, and death. That apocalyptic feeling was not only echoed in “Band of the Hand” above, but in songs like “Clean Cut Kid,” included on Empire Burlesque, “Neighborhood Bully,” from 1983’s Infidels, and later, “Cat’s in the Well,” and much of his work since then.
DOWN IN THE GROOVE (1988)
If people aren’t saying Knocked Out Loaded is Dylan’s worst studio album, then its 1988 sequel, Down in the Groove, is awarded that dubious prize. Again, Dylan, like George Harrison and Neil Young around the time, was so disrespected by his record company that the initial version of the album that he handed in was reportedly rejected and returned for him so he could try and make the album more commercial.
It’s not that Columbia/Sony didn’t try at all to promote the album. They did release a promotional-only compilation CD with “Silvio” as the lead track, the rest filled with some of his more well known songs, and the song did get some radio airplay. This, however, was the age of MTV, and videos were the most obvious way to advertise an album. To quote his song,”Tight Connection to my Heart,” he was going to “go along with the charade/Until I can think my way out.” Recent attempts to make Dylan seem “hip” led to such kitschy videos as the ones for “Sweetheart Like You” and “Tight Connection” itself. Dylan could probably relate to the Beach Boy’s classic song from the 1966 album Pet Sounds, “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.”
This collection of songs was released after the world tours of 1986 and ‘87 with the Heartbreakers and the Queens of Rhythm, and the interim six date 1987 stadium tour with the Grateful Dead. Dylan’s recent releases had not, to say the least, set hearts on fire. Dylan needed to share the billing with big name acts to fill arenas and stadiums.
Down in the Groove was the end result of this “dark” period, before he would rebound with 1989’s critically acclaimed album, Oh Mercy, his first collaboration with producer Daniel Lanois, who had previously worked with, among others, U2, the Neville Brothers, and the Band’s Robbie Robertson. Again, Down in the Groove is a mishmash of covers and originals from different sessions and with different sets of musicians. Despite their pedigree, they were mostly masked and anonymous.
One of the problems with the album is in the sequencing. The Infidels outtake, “Death Is Not The End,” a last minute replacement with overdubbed vocals by the hip hop/R&B group Full Force, is the fourth song on the album, and brings the proceedings to a grinding halt. The radio friendly single, “Silvio,” a collaboration with members of the Grateful Dead, was programmed to be hidden after a song with the alienating title, “The Ugliest Girl in the World.”
“Silvio” was recorded just before the start of the 1987 tour with the Dead. Dylan had stolen a couple of Dead lyricist Robert Hunter’s lyric sheets during their joint rehearsals, and he Dylan-ized them.
(There were) two Robert Hunter lyrics that Bob Dylan grabbed from a notebook at Club Front during his mid-’80s collaboration with the Grateful Dead. From an interview (David Gans) did with Hunter in February 1988:
Robert Hunter: I brought the book - I think it had 15-17 songs - into the Dead before we made In The Dark, of which several were selected for In The Dark: “Push Comes To Shove,” “Black Muddy River” ... perhaps only those two were selected. I took about three of them for the Liberty album and Dylan took two of them for his album. Set ‘em, and sent me a tape. That’s what I call easy to work with.
David Gans: So you submitted these to Dylan, and he chose them? And there was no other communication, really?
RH: No, he just flipped through the songbook that was sitting there at Front Street, liked these tunes, put ‘em in his pocket, went off, set ‘em to music, recorded ‘em, and. . .First time I met him he said (Dylan voice): “Eh, I just recorded two of your tunes!” And I said, “Neat!” (laughs)
DG: He didn’t even ask first?
RH: Bob Dylan doesn’t have to ask a lyricist if he can do his tunes! Come on, man! I gotta just say this for the record. You got your Grammies, you got Bammies, you got your Rock ‘n’Roll Hall of Fame - as far as I’m concerned, Bob Dylan has done two of my songs, and those other things sound far away, distant, and not very interesting.
DG: And you like what he did with the tunes?
RH: Very, very much.
This was when the Dead were about to reach their commercial peak with the success of their only top ten hit single, “Touch of Gray,” later that summer. On the studio recording of “Silvio,” Grateful Dead members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Brent Mydland contributed backing vocals.
In concert, this song became a barn burner. With G.E. Smith on guitar, the arrangement took the song up to a whole new level. The basic riff echoed the Miracles’ song, “Going To A Go-Go,” and it was a setlist staple for years, especially after the death of Garcia in 1995. “Silvio” was featured on Barack Obama’s 2024 summer playlist, and the song was briefly added back to Dylan’s setlist.
Dave Alvin of the Blasters, who played on an early session, said Dylan told him that Down in the Groove would be something like Self Portrait Volume Two. (Self Portrait was the controversial double album of mostly covers released in 1970 to a mostly negative reception. See above.) It felt like Dylan’s original vision of Down in the Groove was to harken back to his days of youth and wonder in old Duluth and Hibbing, attempting to reconnect with his midwestern roots for inspiration. It makes sense as a kind of ramshackle stroll through the history of American popular music - from early jazz through to traditional folk and rhythm & blues, to a few new Dylan compositions (and an old one.) The theme, conscious or not, felt like a meditation relating to the arc of life, from young, romantic relationships (“When Did You Leave Heaven?”) to adult themes (“Let’s Stick Together,”“Rank Strangers”) to contemplating death (“Silvio”) to contemplating the great beyond (“Death is Not the End”.) The women portrayed tend to belong to one side or another of the “saint/whore” dynamic, from the virginal “When Did You Leave Heaven?” to the lustful “Sally Sue Brown,” “Ugliest Girl in the World,” and “Had a Dream About You, Baby.” It also kind of predicts the so-called “Never Ending Tour,” inspired by his recent unconventional stadium trek with the Grateful Dead. The “Never Ending Tour,” with stripped down arrangements and a rotating mix of songs culled in his own catalogue (and elsewhere), began the summer that followed this album’s release.
Six of the ten songs included on Down In The Groove were cover versions, with the four originals cocooned in the middle. To re-contextualize the track list of the released album, I’ve made a more accessible reassessment, which includes some songs initially penciled in for the official, 32-minute album, but didn’t make the final cut. There’s plenty of room for more content, especially when you compare that to Dylan’s 1976 album, Desire, which clocks in at almost an hour. Listening to songs from these sessions in this order, or any order that makes sense to the listener, gives the album a better flow, and gives the impression of a coherent narrative.
The songs appear here as if it were on a vinyl LP, cassette, or compact disc.
The first three replicate the order found on the official release. The opening cut would still be a cover of Wilbert Harrison’s 1962 hit, “Let’s Stick Together.” It has the familiar theme of Dylan’s, which is the break up of a relationship, in this case a marriage with a small child. It’s pretty faithful to the original, with Dylan replicating the original one-note harmonica solo. It may also be addressed to his dwindling fanbase, and possibly his personal life.
Next up is 1936’s “When Did You Leave Heaven?” from the film, Sing, Baby, Sing. Although sung by Tony Martin on the soundtrack, there were multiple versions released that year, all in the 1930s jazz style prevalent in Woody Allen movies. Big Bill Broonzy recorded a later version, but his was solo acoustic. Dylan’s interpretation, however, sounds nothing like any of those takes. Again, it’s Bob attempting to sound modern, although Dylan’s phrasing is spot on. This track foreshadows the three albums of standards from “The Great American Songbook” early in the next century, although those were done in a more sensitive manner.
The third song is Arthur Alexander’s “Sally Sue Brown” from 1960. Alexander’s compositions are the only ones to have been covered and officially released by the Beatles (“Anna (Go To Him),” “Soldier of Love,” “A Shot of Rhythm and Blues”), the Rolling Stones (“You Better Move On”), and Dylan. The musicians on the track include guitarist Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, and the Clash’s Paul Simonon on bass.
Backstage at a 1996 Sex Pistols concert at Great Woods in Mansfield, MA, I was able to briefly talk with guitarist Steve Jones. I said to him, “I have a Bob Dylan album that it says you play on.” Jones lit up, and while I don’t remember the complete direct quote, it went something like this:
That was the craziest fooking thing! I was asked to put a band together, so I got Paul Simonon of the Clash, Pat Benetar’s keyboard player (Kevin Savigor), and some other people.
He went on to say something like Dylan didn’t talk or say anything about what songs they were going to play, or even the key in which they were in. He would just start strumming, and the band would have to figure it out on the spot. This was during his “Hoodie” period, when Dylan would hide his face, which didn’t help, nor did hiding where his hands were placed and fingered on his guitar’s fretboard. In any case, the recording has plenty of that raw, punk rock energy.
The next song is the first alteration to the official tracklist. Dylan’s loose cover of Slim Harpo’s “I’ve Got Love If You Want It” from 1957 is one of the most fun and energetic from those sessions, and originally scheduled for inclusion on the album. Dylan only sings the first two verses, and near the end, replicates Harpo’s harmonica solo. This is Dylan harking back to the Golden Chords, his teenage band when he still lived in Hibbing, Minnesota. Not a sacred rendition, but here we have Dylan, the blues singer, which is one of the things he does best, but of which is not acknowledged nearly enough.
As previously stated, “Had A Dream About You, Baby” is Dylan probably writing in the imaginary style of Billy Parker for the movie, Hearts of Fire. This is a nice, fun little rocker, keeping that vibe on side one going.
If this was a vinyl album, the outtake cover of Gene Vincent’’s “Important Words,” circa 1956, would be the perfect way to end the first side. Dylan performs a rather faithful version of the ‘50s style love ballad, a slow one to wind things down. It features an impassioned, yearning vocal from Dylan.
Side two would start with “Silvio.” a great track and fan favorite, and a song which reached number five on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Chart. As mentioned earlier, Dylan swiped a couple of potential lyric sheets written by the Dead’s main lyricist, Robert Hunter. This was one, the other we’ll get to later. Despite that, the song is self-referential from the get-go, defining himself as someone competing with his own past, and while he can complain, he acknowledges his own good fortune. A line from the 18th century song, “The Waggoner’s Lad,” “Them that don’t like it can leave me alone,” was rephrased and included in “Silvio.” This telling line, possibly written by Hunter, expresses Dylan’s own frustration and distrust of fame. “The Waggoner’s Lad” would soon be added to Dylan’s set lists and performed a handful of times early on in the “Never Ending Tour.” The line “Pay for your ticket and don’t complain” could be aimed at critics as well as his own audience.
Next would be John Hiatt’s “The Usual,” as mentioned above, which appeared in the film Hearts of Fire. I am also placing it here as a buffer between the two Dylan-Hunter compositions.
The song originally appeared on Hiatt’s 1985 album, Warming Up To The Ice Age. The songs on that album were reportedly written during a low point in Hiatt’s life, while he was apparently under the influence of drugs and booze. The album sold poorly, and Hiatt was soon dropped from his label. This song conveys what he must have been going through at the time. Hiatt soon sobered up after the birth of his daughter, Lilly, and the suicide of his estranged wife. One wonders if Dylan chose to cover this song as a gesture of support? Maybe Dylan was experiencing something similar in his own life, to which he related in the emotions revealed in the song’s lyrics?
In an interview with the music director and soundtrack producer of Hearts of Fire, Beau Hill, he told Ray Padgett in an interview for his Flagging Down the Double E’s Substack:
He (Dylan) wasn’t angry, but he was miffed and he had to make some compromises. His idea of a compromise was, “If you don’t like any of the stuff that I’ve come up with, there’s only one person that I will record their material: John Hiatt.”
The next thing I know, Richard said, “I need you to go to Nashville and have a meeting with John Hiatt and pry a couple of songs out of him for Dylan to do.”
So I got on a plane, flew to Nashville, went to a club John Hiatt was playing that night. Tremendously nice guy and very accommodating. I got him to sign off and give me some material. I brought that back. I played it for Bob. Bob said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
In Dylan’s version of “The Usual,” he takes it all to another level, sounding totally unhinged. As is his wont, Dylan changed the closing line in the final verse, from “I’m gonna drink until I see/ what it is I want to think about” to the more effective, “I’m gonna drink until I see/(Intensely) What am I talking about?!?!?” From what I read about him at this time, Dylan could easily relate to these emotions as well. As mentioned above, the song was originally slated for this album, and it was used as the centerpiece of the Hearts of Fire film.
The other Dylan-Hunter composition, “The Ugliest Girl In The World” is politically incorrect, and often derided as one of Dylan’s worst, but the song has been misinterpreted, understandably. (I’m fully aware that what I’m going to share next is being written as a cis white male.)
First of all, let’s be clear that although it might not be to your taste, this song is so over the top that it is intended to be humorous. The object of the narrator’s affections has “a hook in her nose,” has “two flat feet,” and “snores in bed,” among other attributes. However, Dylan repeatedly sings that he is in love with this woman. And …he did this on purpose! It’s not like he didn’t know that these lyrics might be considered offensive.
This song harks back to a long gone era. (See Bo Diddley’s “Say Man” from 1958.) The Queens of Rhythm offer backing vocals as convincing and enthusiastic as those on “They Killed Him.” By placing the song here, after eight songs mostly from a bygone era, it helps place it in an historical context.
(Note: An unreleased version of the Dead rehearsing an early version of the song in December, 1986, has been posted online. It also illustrates what Dylan was given to work with before he updated the lyrics and probably completely rewrote the music.)
As we head towards the end, we are back to mirroring the track list from the officially released album. All the rocking numbers are now in the rear view mirror.
Hank Snow’s “Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street)” from 1963 is next. This is a song about forbidden love that Dylan makes completely his own. It’s about two people in other committed relationships, and realizing that their own mutual attractions can only go so far. From his earliest love songs like “Tomorrow is a Long Time,””Girl From The North Country,” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” through to oblique and impressionistic ballads like “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “Visions of Johanna,” to albums tackling adult themes on Blood on the Tracks and Street-Legal, songs that don’t “pussyfoot around nor turn a blind eye to human nature,” to quote part of Dylan’s “Best Original Song” Academy Award acceptance speech for “Things Have Changed” in 2001, these types of scenarios are not unusual for Dylan to explore.
The traditional “Shenandoah” is known by many titles. This folk song dates back to the early 19th century, and has gone through many variations over the years. Of course, Dylan is no stranger to chronicling the music in the deep history of American folklore. This version was released at the tail end of the 1980s, the decade of Reagan and Bush. Many of the ideals of the 60s, much inspired and soundtracked by Dylan, were starting to corrode. The romantic aspect of his vision of the United States was being tarnished. As he later sang nearly a decade after this recording, “ … I wonder/If everything is as hollow as it seems.”
Although the earliest known recording is from 1905 by the Minster Singers, the most popular were multiple, stark versions by Paul Robeson in the 1930s. Others who have covered it previously include Jo Stafford, Harry Belafonte, Paul Clayton, and Pete Seeger. The song’s popularity increased when it was included in two films, How the West Was Won (1962) and Shenandoah (1965).
Echoing the trajectory of much of Dylan’s art, “Shenandoah” also evolved over the decades. Originally, it was about a white trader falling in love with the daughter of the Oneida Native American Iroquois leader, most likely Chief John Skenandoa. When the trader offered money in exchange for her hand in marriage, the chief was disgusted and refused to let his daughter marry him.
The subject of the song later evolved from the Iroquois chief to the Shenandoah River. Dylan’s version is more lively than most, and based on the lyrics he chose, his version must have been modeled after the one from John and Alan Lomax’s Folk Song U.S.A. (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, Inc., 1947).
The album ends, sort of, with “Rank Strangers To Me” (A.K.A “Rank Stranger.”) It was written by Alfred E. Brumley, Jr., (“I’ll Fly Away”) in 1942, but not popularized until the Stanley Brothers recorded it in 1960, and included on their album Sacred Songs From the Hill. The song has been variously interpreted as being about an alienated soldier returning home from the Civil War, spirituality, and death. Once again, Dylan’s phrasing is impeccable. The emotion he brings to the song is just as important as the song itself. The sarcasm of the 60s has been superseded by a deep and profound sadness. It cuts through the artificial, escapist protective shells people were beginning to inhabit. It’s drenched in echo, making it seem like he was singing for some world weary place, somewhere in the distant past. A perfect closing song, summarizing the entire narrative of the album, and, in some senses, his career.
BONUS: Back in the late 1980s in particular, in order to give more value when purchasing the more expensive compact disc versions of albums and seduce customers to switch over to this new digital format), they would include an extra, exclusive “bonus track” available on CD (and usually cassette), but not vinyl. Since “Death Is Not The End” always felt out of place on Down In The Groove, it lands here, and works as a fitting coda.
(Note: This was especially true with Japan. By including a special exclusive song, potential consumers from not only Japan, would buy instead of importing lower priced imports, but it would be appealing to collectors around the world.)
Originally part of the Infidels sessions of 1983, “Death Is Not The End,” as mentioned above, was a last minute substitution when the original version was rejected by the label. This version has overdubbed vocals by Full Force, hip hop and rhythm & blues singers, songwriters and producers from Brooklyn, to possibly widen its appeal. It segues perfectly after “Rank Strangers.”
This is where “Death Is Not The End” belongs, at the end. A closing benediction of sorts. If this is the end, it is also vague. Since it’s from a completely different era, it makes sense to be included here, separated from the rest of the album. It also echoes (right or wrong) the desolation of the previous track. It has been covered by, among others, the Waterboys, Gavin Friday of the Virgin Prunes, and Nick Cave.
—----------------------
There are a lot of people who think they know what Bob Dylan should be doing more so than Dylan himself. The goal of this essay is not to second guess Dylan, or to question him, but for the audience to reassess their own preconceived notions.
Dylan rarely stays in any particular place for any length of time. People were criticizing him in 1964 for moving away from topical songs towards a more personal type of artistic expression. Every few years, Dylan was off doing something else, heading for another joint. Who could have predicted that four decades later, he would still be on the road, back to playing piano as he did back home in Hibbing, Minnesota, a Nobel laureate, with his archives housed in a building in Tulsa?
If he didn’t break away from the Greenwich Village folk scene and write “Chimes of Freedom,” it would not have led to “Like a Rolling Stone.” If he had not stayed off the road after his motorcycle accident, there would be no Blood on the Tracks. If he had not explored gospel music in the late 1970s and early 80s, he would not have reconnected with his Jewish roots. If he had not felt lost in the 1980s, it would not have led to his collaborations with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Grateful Dead, or the Traveling Wilburys. Those interactions led to the so-called “Never Ending Tour,” and a creative renaissance that continues way into the 21st century.
Everything passes, things change. Knocking down Knocked Out Loaded, Hearts of Fire, and/or Down in the Groove (you could even include Dylan & the Dead, for that matter) is just laziness. If you don’t like any particular era of Dylan’s art (or any art, or really anything in life), just ask yourself, “Why?” Don’t compare it to the highest highs, but explore it on its own terms. It’s not just a lesson in appreciating art, but in experiencing it. Life and art are forever intertwined. One can influence and enhance the other. Open your mind. You never know what might end up creeping in.
Listening to Dylan can be a passive experience, but what this means is that the richness of his art, often hidden in layers of poetic obfuscation, can go undetected. Of course, interpreting any art can lead to misinformation, slander, or worse, and you can just sit back and groove to the music, if you should choose to do so. There are certainly more pressing matters in the world today.
One of the benefits of the current Dylan fan community is that there’s a back and forth when exchanging insights, interpretations, and other forms of information, often excitedly shared on social media.
There are no rules, but people find comfort in boxing themselves in, restricting themselves, their environment, and their perceptions. If Dylan is about anything, it’s about freedom. Freedom to think, freedom to dream. Even he is a bundle of contradictions, saying one thing one day, then the exact opposite the next (or even in the same sentence!)
Early on, Dylan sang, “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.” In the 80s, he would sing, “I had a dream about you, baby.” He also told us in 1985: “Trust Yourself.” Decades later, he would later sing, “I don’t give a damn about your dreams.” So he’s basically saying that we’re on our own. Like complete unknowns. So don’t follow leaders. Think for yourself, or as the old Apple ad said, “Think different.”
However, what you have just read is not an instruction manual. It’s more like a therapy session.
Now open your mind, get your music ready, pay for your ticket, and don’t complain.
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© 2025/6 Harold Lepidus. All rights reserved. All rights wronged. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do.
Love the audacity of your vision, Harold!
I love Maybe Someday. It doesn’t stick around long eneough. And the line about being at a party once in San Francisco makes me think of the Robert Mitchum line in Out of the Past.