Today’s download is "Gravity Fails". Originally released on “Dinner at Eight” it was later released on Nonesuch as part of “This New Generation’.

In the early 80s I suddenly was having my music recorded and released, and I was sort of desperate to find titles for my tunes. Titling instrumental tunes is tricky, it's so easy to sound overly clever, pompous, trite or self conscious, and as someone who loves great songwriting, and the beautiful or clever turn of a phrase, I was a little stymied. One solution-steal lines from Bob Dylan songs!

This is apropos this week, because, along with a lot of friends and a bunch of great artists of all sorts here in Seattle we are doing “Dylan at 75” three nights of Bob Dylan at The Royal Room. 1. Highway 61 and Blood on The Tracks 2. An extravagantly talented group of women musicians playing Dylan songs from all eras. And finally 3. On Bob’s actually birthday: a celebration themed Bob Dylan and The Band; The Basement Tapes.

www.thestranger.com/events/24027782/bob-dylan-at-75

Separating the music from the words is an exercise in absurdity, and its often illusive why this music has become the soundtrack for so many people of my generation, and so many since. The line is, of course, “When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez, And it’s Eastertime too, And your gravity fails, And negativity won’t pull you through.

Why do I know exactly what he means, and yet I couldn’t possibly explain it. Dylan was influenced by dadaist tendencies, and had a taste for the nonsequitar, but almost despite himself so many of his lyrics have real, and personal, resonance. Almost like tools you can use to get through the day, or through life.

This is, of course from "Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues". And I have to admit that for all the great lines from all the great Dylan songs, this one, like "Visions of Johanna", has an embarrassment of riches. I probably could have just titled everything I have ever written from these two song alone.

The track was recorded on an eight track reel to reel with a DX-7, an RX-11 drum machine and a few friends. In those days my daughter was still an infant, and I would put her in the stroller and go up to 33rd and 3rd where I shared a little space, an apartment actually, where I could work. Nica would usually fall asleep, and on this day when she woke up crying I decided to record her before finding a bottle to give her. I guess I should be grateful child protective services didn’t come after me! Or the union for that matter.

My favorite Bob Dylan story is from my friend Marty Ehrlich. Years ago he went to pick up his son, a 3rd grader, from school. As he arrives he hears to boys talking to each other. One says, “My dad loves Bob Dylan.”. Without missing a beat the other boy replies, “Everybody’s dad loves Bob Dylan”.

I hope you enjoy the music.