Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder’s Reviews > The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait > Status Update
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 390 of 512
Mavis was fascinated to see her old friend scribbling new verses in the studio. He would write a line and show it to her, write a few more and ask her what she thought. "Bobby, you write so little," she said, struggling to read the words. "He said he couldn't help it. When a person writes like that," Staples remarked, "they're humble." When she told him that, he said he'd never heard such a thing before.
— Nov 01, 2025 04:57PM
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Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again)’s Previous Updates
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 422 of 512
He liked to visit his grandson's kindergarten class in Calabasas and play for the children. In May 2007 some of the youngsters told their parents "a weird man" had come to class and played "scary songs," and the story made the newspapers.
— Nov 03, 2025 03:40PM
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 350 of 512
And at that point, Bob Dylan lost his cool.
"Tony," he asked his bass player "how many times you heard me sing?"
And Tony shrugged and said he didn't know.
"Well? You heard me sing a thousand times?"
"Yeah."
"You heard me sing two thousand times?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"You ever heard me sing it the same way twice?"
There was dead silence in the room.
[When asked by Daniel Lanois to repeat a song the same way.]
— Nov 01, 2025 04:31PM
"Tony," he asked his bass player "how many times you heard me sing?"
And Tony shrugged and said he didn't know.
"Well? You heard me sing a thousand times?"
"Yeah."
"You heard me sing two thousand times?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"You ever heard me sing it the same way twice?"
There was dead silence in the room.
[When asked by Daniel Lanois to repeat a song the same way.]
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 313 of 512
Understanding Bob Dylan's life and work since the 1990s depends mostly upon knowledge of his conduct on the road and in the studio with other musicians. This is in part because the mature man in his sixth decade succeeded in his struggle to keep his private life secluded, and largely because he has organized his affairs around his intense touring, writing, and recording schedule.
— Nov 01, 2025 04:23PM
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 186 of 512
The Basement Tapes, as they have come to be called, are a precious record of Dylan’s creative process—his antecedents and influences, as well as the improvisational, spontaneous shaping of the lyrics in the rhythm of the moment, so what begins as a howl, mumbling, or gibberish gradually takes shape as articulate language.
— Oct 29, 2025 09:21AM
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 155 of 512
“I’ll tell you what I think,” says Pennebaker, as if he were puzzling over a problem of particle physics. “I’ve talked to Eric [Andersen] about it. What was Dylan like when I first knew him? It was like the first time you saw a black hole, you thought, what is that? And you keep thinking, I will figure it out. I will watch it and I will figure it out, and you never do.”
— Oct 28, 2025 08:47AM
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 116 of 512
His timing was supernatural. He wrote “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” a month and a half before Kennedy’s death (just as he had composed “Hard Rain” a month and a half before the Cuban Missile Crisis). In Washington on December 14 we were probably the third concert audience ever to hear that anthem of the 1960s student revolution, “The Times They Are A-Changin’.
— Oct 28, 2025 02:17AM
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 109 of 512
“Hard Rain” is unlike any song that had ever been written. The poet’s study of Brecht, Civil War newspapers, Rimbaud, Picasso’s Guernica, and the ballad tradition had culminated in an artsong, a cri de coeur that effaced the durable stanza and chorus structures like a great river flooding the countryside. It is three times as long as most contemporary songs and rhymes erratically.
— Oct 28, 2025 02:01AM
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 104 of 512
The spirit of Suze Rotolo herself worked the miracle in those years. She believed in his gifts, and in loving her he found everything in life more precious. He began writing love songs and songs of protest against injustice at about the same time, in the spring of 1962.
— Oct 25, 2025 09:37AM
Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder
is on page 99 of 512
Carolyn Hester was a dark-haired, delicate-featured singer-guitarist from Texas. Impressed by Dylan’s harmonica playing, Hester invited him to work with her on the album she was making for Columbia Records. ... The young harmonica player served up a virtuoso accompaniment to “Come Back Baby” that nearly stole the show ...
[Come Back Baby on Spotify]
— Oct 25, 2025 09:35AM
[Come Back Baby on Spotify]
