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Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat): Bob Dylan's hushed-up classic from 1978
"I don’t know if I could name all twenty-nine of my records, but I could name some of them. I liked a bunch of albums I did in the eighties. I liked Street Legal a whole lot. I did that in the seventies."
That's what Bob Dylan says to interviewer Denise Worrell in November 1985, at home in Malibu. Partly posed, no doubt. Dylan can probably list more than "some of" his own albums. But it's telling that Street Legal is the only one he mentions.
At the time, in 1978, Street Legal was burned to the ground in his own country. It bothers him. From September through December '78, Dylan tours the United States. He performs songs from the new album, but not that much and not wholeheartedly. And when he does, he remarkably often announces them with a somewhat sour introduction, even when announcing the album’s highlight, on December 9, 1978 in Columbia, the last time Dylan will perform the
"Thank you. We’d like to do a song from the new album called Street Legal. This was a single. I know it sold about 100 copies. Anyway, I think it just sold 25, but I guess that we can play it anyway."
That’s not true. "Where Are You Tonight?" did not sell a hundred copies. Not even twenty-five. The song, one of the Very Great Songs in Dylan's oeuvre, has never been released as a single at all.
Anyway, after December 9, 1978, Dylan will never look back at this monumental song, the song that belongs in the lineup "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", "Desolation Row", "Visions Of Johanna", "Tangled Up In Blue", "Blind Willie McTell", "Not Dark Yet" and "Murder Most Foul", the songs that justify Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature.
In his eighth Dylan book, Jochen Markhorst demonstrates the power and richness of this disregarded and forgotten masterpiece - and why the song deserves a place in the canon.
That's what Bob Dylan says to interviewer Denise Worrell in November 1985, at home in Malibu. Partly posed, no doubt. Dylan can probably list more than "some of" his own albums. But it's telling that Street Legal is the only one he mentions.
At the time, in 1978, Street Legal was burned to the ground in his own country. It bothers him. From September through December '78, Dylan tours the United States. He performs songs from the new album, but not that much and not wholeheartedly. And when he does, he remarkably often announces them with a somewhat sour introduction, even when announcing the album’s highlight, on December 9, 1978 in Columbia, the last time Dylan will perform the
"Thank you. We’d like to do a song from the new album called Street Legal. This was a single. I know it sold about 100 copies. Anyway, I think it just sold 25, but I guess that we can play it anyway."
That’s not true. "Where Are You Tonight?" did not sell a hundred copies. Not even twenty-five. The song, one of the Very Great Songs in Dylan's oeuvre, has never been released as a single at all.
Anyway, after December 9, 1978, Dylan will never look back at this monumental song, the song that belongs in the lineup "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", "Desolation Row", "Visions Of Johanna", "Tangled Up In Blue", "Blind Willie McTell", "Not Dark Yet" and "Murder Most Foul", the songs that justify Dylan's Nobel Prize for Literature.
In his eighth Dylan book, Jochen Markhorst demonstrates the power and richness of this disregarded and forgotten masterpiece - and why the song deserves a place in the canon.
103 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 11, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 21, 2021
A whole book, if a short one, on one of my very favourite Dylan songs! It's not rubbish either, it's piecemeal and inconclusive but has some genuinely interesting observations in it. That makes it all the more confusing that sometimes the English is bizarre, other times sloppy; but it turns out to be a translation from the Dutch, which probably explains that.
Well worth a read. You still won't know what the song is about, or means, as a whole (not to suggest that those questions have "correct" answers), but you'll have some new thoughts and information about some of the lines, the background, and even a little about the music. It doesn't add up to much but it's good.
Well worth a read. You still won't know what the song is about, or means, as a whole (not to suggest that those questions have "correct" answers), but you'll have some new thoughts and information about some of the lines, the background, and even a little about the music. It doesn't add up to much but it's good.
April 14, 2021
Loved this short, but in-depth & intense look at one of Dylan's classic songs--Where Are You Tonight ? (Journey Through Dark Heat). Markhorst is a real Dylan enthusiast who knows his stuff and goes deep into the exegesis of this great song--one of my favorites. Actually, one of my *favorite* Dylan recordings is Street Legal, from whence this track comes. Poetry & allusions & references galore! On the surface, a song of separation--of a breaking up. But oh so much more. I look forward to reading many more of Markhorst's interpretations/parsings of great Dylan songs.
February 27, 2021
I agree, it's a great song from an underrated album, but I'm not sure Markhorst demonstrated it's one of Dylan's "most monumental songs" as it states on the back cover. Still an enjoyable read with some good insights.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews