Dylan in concert in 1984. Photo: Xavier Badosa Creative Commons.
Bob up and down, part one: Steve Day listen to chimes of freedom flashing
‘Whatever light you live by, Dylan has coloured your vision.’
Sometimes the easiest entry point into a huge edifice is to go to the back door rather than taking in all the grandeur and bright lights of the foyer’s vaulted ceilings. At the end of the 1970s, Bob Dylan began recording and touring biblical material. All the huge abstracted masterpieces on which his reputation had been built were left blowin’ in the wind. Then, in 1985, there came a change in the weather pattern. Empire Burlesque contained big catchy harmony choruses and jive drummers. But there was also a postscript in the form of a plain, dimly lit corridor leading to a back-door goods yard, and one solo song, ‘Dark Eyes’, played on a scratched acoustic guitar. It’s a sparse compassionate portrait of a ‘street woman’; no religious references, no prayers, just this poor young woman without saviours, only brutal customers.
