It Ain't Me You're Looking For - Bob Dylan At 80

Episodes

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01One: Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)20210517

Marking his birthday on May 24th, Radio 4 broadcasts 'It Ain't Me You're Looking For: Bob Dylan at 80'. Presented by Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa, and editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', this five-part series looks at the songs and draws on the vast Bob Dylan Archive, exploring the life, work and influence of a great and elusive artist.

It argues that Dylan is a remarkable storyteller, impossible to ascribe to any genre or movement, steadfastly developing skills that rightly earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Each episode focuses on a theme from a different period, encompassing his career.
• Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)
• Bleeding Genius (1964-1966)
• Vanishing Acts (1966-1979)
• This Train (1979-1993)
• High Water Everywhere (1993-2021)

One: Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)
In his Nobel acceptance speech, Dylan embeds himself in a tradition of performative storytelling extending from Homer. Odysseus is, Dylan says, `always being warned of things to come. Touching things he's told not to." Latham looks at 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall', about a young man committing himself to experiencing the joys and terrors of the world, then wrestling a story from them. Sixty years later, that still drives his creative life.

Early on Dylan made up stories about himself. He became a political songwriter by mixing his fictional autobiography with folk and blues to create stories of liberation. 'Blowin' in the Wind', its source in an anti-slavery song, becomes an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. Dylan finds these stories constrictive and with 'Restless Farewell,' dramatically, and angrily, announces his shift from political to personal liberation.

Producer Julian May

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan\u2019s life, music and influence

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

01One: Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)2021051720210904 (R4)

Marking his birthday on May 24th, Radio 4 broadcasts 'It Ain't Me You're Looking For: Bob Dylan at 80'. Presented by Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa, and editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', this five-part series looks at the songs and draws on the vast Bob Dylan Archive, exploring the life, work and influence of a great and elusive artist.

It argues that Dylan is a remarkable storyteller, impossible to ascribe to any genre or movement, steadfastly developing skills that rightly earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Each episode focuses on a theme from a different period, encompassing his career.
• Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)
• Bleeding Genius (1964-1966)
• Vanishing Acts (1966-1979)
• This Train (1979-1993)
• High Water Everywhere (1993-2021)

One: Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)
In his Nobel acceptance speech, Dylan embeds himself in a tradition of performative storytelling extending from Homer. Odysseus is, Dylan says, `always being warned of things to come. Touching things he's told not to." Latham looks at 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall', about a young man committing himself to experiencing the joys and terrors of the world, then wrestling a story from them. Sixty years later, that still drives his creative life.

Early on Dylan made up stories about himself. He became a political songwriter by mixing his fictional autobiography with folk and blues to create stories of liberation. 'Blowin' in the Wind', its source in an anti-slavery song, becomes an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. Dylan finds these stories constrictive and with 'Restless Farewell,' dramatically, and angrily, announces his shift from political to personal liberation.

Producer Julian May

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan\u2019s life, music and influence

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

02Two: Bleeding Genius (1964-1966)2021051820210911 (R4)In the week before the Nobel Prize-winner's birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', continues his series exploring the life, work and influence of one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

The second programme focuses on Dylan's explosive rise to fame, then his combative relationship with his stardom. This leads to the 'cool' persona of the mid-sixties, with Dylan rejuvenating rock by transforming the joyfulness of the Fab Four into the anger and alienation that still grounds the genre. Latham considers the infamous decision to 'go electric' at the Newport Folk Festival. Drawing on archives and bootlegs he reveals how Dylan built 'Like A Rolling Stone' on the page and in the studio, looking at the song's musical structure, its poetic ambiguities and, especially, the line 'how does it feel?` In this refrain Dylan realises stardom is a straitjacket; he yearns for a new kind of freedom. In the Dylan Archive there are thousands of fan letters from 1966 - still unopened.

The building anger, irony, and rejection of the kind of political storytelling that propelled his earlier songs are illustrated by the apocalyptic 'Highway 61 Revisited', his furious rewriting of 'A Hard Rain' into the agonised 'It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)'. Excerpts from combative press interviews and his 1966 masterpiece, 'Visions of Johanna' reveal a shattered interior world. There's the chaos, booing, and amphetamine-driven fury of the 1966 tour with Dylan and his band locked in a battle with their audience - then rumours of Bob Dylan's death following his motorcycle accident in the Catskill mountains.

Producer: Julian May

After his rise to fame, Bob Dylan yearns for a new kind of freedom and 'goes electric'.

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

In the week before the Nobel Prize-winner's birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', continues his series exploring the life, work and influence of one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

The second programme focuses on Dylan's explosive rise to fame, then his combative relationship with his stardom. This leads to the 'cool' persona of the mid-sixties, with Dylan rejuvenating rock by transforming the joyfulness of the Fab Four into the anger and alienation that still grounds the genre. Latham considers the infamous decision to 'go electric' at the Newport Folk Festival. Drawing on archives and bootlegs he reveals how Dylan built 'Like A Rolling Stone' on the page and in the studio, looking at the song's musical structure, its poetic ambiguities and, especially, the line 'how does it feel?` In this refrain Dylan realises stardom is a straitjacket; he yearns for a new kind of freedom. In the Dylan Archive there are thousands of fan letters from 1966 - still unopened.

The building anger, irony, and rejection of the kind of political storytelling that propelled his earlier songs are illustrated by the apocalyptic 'Highway 61 Revisited', his furious rewriting of 'A Hard Rain' into the agonised 'It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)'. Excerpts from combative press interviews and his 1966 masterpiece, 'Visions of Johanna' reveal a shattered interior world. There's the chaos, booing, and amphetamine-driven fury of the 1966 tour with Dylan and his band locked in a battle with their audience - then rumours of Bob Dylan's death following his motorcycle accident in the Catskill mountains.

Producer: Julian May

After his rise to fame, Bob Dylan yearns for a new kind of freedom and 'goes electric'.

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

03Three: Vanishing Acts (1966-1979)2021051920210918 (R4)In the week before the Nobel Prize-winner's birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa and editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', continues his series exploring the life, work and influence of one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

The third episode covers the period from the motorcycle crash in 1966 through the long running Rolling Thunder Revue that ended a decade later. Latham focuses on Dylan's growing ability to create characters in song, and traces a sense of crisis that comes to a head in 1979, leading to his religious conversion

He draws heavily on never-before-seen notebooks from the Bob Dylan Archive to look closely at Dylan's creative seclusion in Woodstock, and the Basement experiment - his decision to write in collaboration with others and away from the demands of both celebrity and politics. Dylan invents new kinds of songs, laden with mystery and truth that do not cohere around a fixed sense of self or message. Dylan becomes 'Jokerman' morphing into many different characters: a country gentleman, a gunslinger, a grizzled sailor, a wandering hobo, a caring father, an anxious lover, and a Biblical prophet.

A sense of crisis pervades his masterpiece 'Blood on the Tracks' and Latham looks closely at the development and constant revision of the painterly song 'Tangled Up in Blue', in which the characters Dylan has imagined begin to collapse into chaos. He looks, too, at the strange plastic mask Dylan wore for the Rolling Thunder Revue and the account of his sudden spiritual crisis when a woman threw a cross on stage in 1979

Producer: Julian May

Bob Dylan, from his motorcycle crash in 1966 to his conversion to Christianity in 1979.

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

In the week before the Nobel Prize-winner's birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa and editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', continues his series exploring the life, work and influence of one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

The third episode covers the period from the motorcycle crash in 1966 through the long running Rolling Thunder Revue that ended a decade later. Latham focuses on Dylan's growing ability to create characters in song, and traces a sense of crisis that comes to a head in 1979, leading to his religious conversion

He draws heavily on never-before-seen notebooks from the Bob Dylan Archive to look closely at Dylan's creative seclusion in Woodstock, and the Basement experiment - his decision to write in collaboration with others and away from the demands of both celebrity and politics. Dylan invents new kinds of songs, laden with mystery and truth that do not cohere around a fixed sense of self or message. Dylan becomes 'Jokerman' morphing into many different characters: a country gentleman, a gunslinger, a grizzled sailor, a wandering hobo, a caring father, an anxious lover, and a Biblical prophet.

A sense of crisis pervades his masterpiece 'Blood on the Tracks' and Latham looks closely at the development and constant revision of the painterly song 'Tangled Up in Blue', in which the characters Dylan has imagined begin to collapse into chaos. He looks, too, at the strange plastic mask Dylan wore for the Rolling Thunder Revue and the account of his sudden spiritual crisis when a woman threw a cross on stage in 1979

Producer: Julian May

Bob Dylan, from his motorcycle crash in 1966 to his conversion to Christianity in 1979.

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

04Four: This Train (1979-1993)2021052020210925 (R4)Four: This Train (1979 -1993)

In the week before the Nobel Prize-winner's birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa and editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', explores the life, work and influence of one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

The fourth episode spans the period from Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity in 1979, after a woman threw a cross onstage, to the release in 1993 of 'World Gone Wrong', the album that revived his career.

Many consider Dylan's conversion as an act of hypocrisy, followed by years of wasted effort to recapture the alchemy of the 1960s. Latham radically contests that idea, suggesting that with 'Gotta Serve Somebody' the endless process of rejection and reinvention that defines Dylan's early career gives ways to studious self-examination as he places his faith first in a Christian god, and then in the musical history that he begins to excavate. Dylan explores gospel music, and his attempt to measure human folly (in 'Foot of Pride') against the hope for a redeemed world.

Dylan begins by confessing his faith, but ends this era by confessing to the fact that the music he makes is steeped in a history of racist violence and exploitation. Dylan then releases two albums of folk covers, addressing his debt to musical history. Looking closely at the songs, and drawing on the Bob Dylan Archive, Latham shows how he decided to serve rather than simply remake this complex musical tradition. Like his religious conversion, this comes as an epiphany, transforming the fading rock star into the archivist and alchemist of popular music who would later win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Producer: Julian May

From Dylan's Christian conversion to 'World Gone Wrong' in 1993, that revived his career.

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

Four: This Train (1979 -1993)

In the week before the Nobel Prize-winner's birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa and editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', explores the life, work and influence of one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

The fourth episode spans the period from Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity in 1979, after a woman threw a cross onstage, to the release in 1993 of 'World Gone Wrong', the album that revived his career.

Many consider Dylan's conversion as an act of hypocrisy, followed by years of wasted effort to recapture the alchemy of the 1960s. Latham radically contests that idea, suggesting that with 'Gotta Serve Somebody' the endless process of rejection and reinvention that defines Dylan's early career gives ways to studious self-examination as he places his faith first in a Christian god, and then in the musical history that he begins to excavate. Dylan explores gospel music, and his attempt to measure human folly (in 'Foot of Pride') against the hope for a redeemed world.

Dylan begins by confessing his faith, but ends this era by confessing to the fact that the music he makes is steeped in a history of racist violence and exploitation. Dylan then releases two albums of folk covers, addressing his debt to musical history. Looking closely at the songs, and drawing on the Bob Dylan Archive, Latham shows how he decided to serve rather than simply remake this complex musical tradition. Like his religious conversion, this comes as an epiphany, transforming the fading rock star into the archivist and alchemist of popular music who would later win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Producer: Julian May

From Dylan's Christian conversion to 'World Gone Wrong' in 1993, that revived his career.

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

05Five: High Water Everywhere (1993-2021)2021052120211002 (R4)Three days before the Bob Dylan's 80th birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa, concludes his series about one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

In the final episode Sean Latham considers how stories are defined by their endings - a point Dylan makes in his Nobel speech when discussing Homer. Dylan invents a series of endings every bit as powerful as the beginnings around which he built his career in 1963. And, starting with 'Time Out of Mind', he reveals how Dylan fashions the roots music genre by becoming a musical historian, building on the past (including his own vast archive) to craft songs that are at once folk and pop, rock and poetry.

Latham examines different kinds of endings in Dylan's songs: the end of love, the end of the world (climate change), and the looming end of Dylan's own life as well. Latham concludes that over eighty years Dylan has learned his songs well and, at the end of his career, has learned to open a space for the future; his endings open the past, creating spaces for new stories and new voices that can build using the musical tools he has fashioned, as younger artists covering Dylan's songs illustrate.

Producer: Julian May

Bob Dylan's endings, as powerful as the beginnings round which he built his career in 1963

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence

Three days before the Bob Dylan's 80th birthday, Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa, concludes his series about one of the most important and elusive artists of modern times.

In the final episode Sean Latham considers how stories are defined by their endings - a point Dylan makes in his Nobel speech when discussing Homer. Dylan invents a series of endings every bit as powerful as the beginnings around which he built his career in 1963. And, starting with 'Time Out of Mind', he reveals how Dylan fashions the roots music genre by becoming a musical historian, building on the past (including his own vast archive) to craft songs that are at once folk and pop, rock and poetry.

Latham examines different kinds of endings in Dylan's songs: the end of love, the end of the world (climate change), and the looming end of Dylan's own life as well. Latham concludes that over eighty years Dylan has learned his songs well and, at the end of his career, has learned to open a space for the future; his endings open the past, creating spaces for new stories and new voices that can build using the musical tools he has fashioned, as younger artists covering Dylan's songs illustrate.

Producer: Julian May

Bob Dylan's endings, as powerful as the beginnings round which he built his career in 1963

Marking his 80th birthday, a five-part series on Bob Dylan's life, music, and influence