Regular Dylan-watchers who read the LA Times story on Bob’s performance at the New Orleans Jazz Fest must have allowed themselves a few chuckles, as I did. Written by Randy Lewis, it starts out: “It’s always tricky looking for the motivation behind a Bob Dylan set list.” Then immediately all that caution is thrown to the wind: “But there was little doubt Friday that Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath was on his mind during a towering 90-minute performance for the opening day of the annual Jazz & Heritage Festival here.”

Well, I’m sure it was on his mind. Then Lewis provides us with four examples of how Dylan tailored his set list to the occasion:

Three songs in, he pulled up “Lonesome Day Blues,” from 2001’s “Love and Theft” album, with its verse:

The road’s washed out — weather not fit for man or beast/Funny, how the things you have the hardest time parting with/Are the things you need the least.

And during the encore portion, Dylan subtly but powerfully changed the familiar verse of “Like a Rolling Stone.” So that instead of asking “How does it feel/to be on your own?” he zeroed in on the disorientation of displaced tens of thousands: How does it feel/To be without a home/With no direction home?

“Highway 61 Revisited” evoked the age-old conundrum of humanity striving vainly to understand the notion of “God’s will,” while a rare unearthing of 1970’s “Watching the River Flow” brought the consoling observation that in times when it’s impossible to understand life, it’s advisable to just stand back and watch it.

Yes, well, anyone who follows Dylan’s tours and set lists knows that none of these songs are stunning rarities, and, indeed, seeing all of them in one set list is completely unremarkable. And if I understand correctly what Lewis is trying to convey about how Dylan sang the chorus of Like a Rolling Stone, it is in fact his usual way of singing it these days (i.e., singing the two lines that end with “home” back to back).

The “rare unearthing” of Watching the River Flow is perhaps a bit less portentous when you realize Dylan performed it on 19 occasions during 2005 (according to the database at the DylanTree). And a check of Bill Pagel’s set lists for this year reveals that Dylan had already performed it 4 times on this tour before the New Orleans gig — most recently at the very gig that preceded the Jazz Fest, in Memphis, Tennessee on April 25th.

So, Randy certainly had it right with how he started out: “It’s always tricky looking for the motivation behind a Bob Dylan set list.”

The truth is, just about any Dylan set list would seem to be referencing the Katrina calamity in some way. Dylan writes songs from that spot, and he always has: A place where the walls are falling in, time is short, people are proving that they are capable of anything, and the physical world is leaving you nothing to hang on to. Back when Katrina was in motion, I remember punctuating some blog posts with quotes from A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and High Water, and I could have picked others. Floods, mayhem, fires and revolution — that’s essentially the background to a great many Dylan songs, if not all of them, in some sense. Even his songs of love, humor and romance tend to have that context hanging over them somehow — a sense of the fragility and transient nature of any good times. Forever Young:

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.

… because, you know, the “winds of changes” are going to shift. And you will need swift feet.

Trying to think of the sweetest and most peaceable Dylan song I know made me come up with Winterlude. That song’s first verse:

Winterlude, Winterlude, oh darlin’,
Winterlude by the road tonight.
Tonight there will be no quarrelin’,
Ev’rything is gonna be all right.

Tonight there will be “no quarrelin’,” — that’s really the premise of this gentle song of love, isn’t it? That is, the premise is that there usually is quarreling. But tonight, we’ll make it different — tonight, my dear, we’ll appreciate the good things we have, we’ll pause to enjoy our love — we’ll have a “winterlude.” But this too shall pass, and don’t forget it.

So, anyhow, I’m sure Dylan was thinking of the damage done by Katrina while he sang some of those songs, and the words certainly must have rung very true to many in the audience. Where I disagree with Randy of the LA Times is in thinking that this set list was somehow uniquely tuned to providing comfort to those set adrift by disaster. Dylan’s entire body of work, I think, is serving just that purpose for anyone who cares to appreciate it.

Well, God is in his heaven
And we all want what’s his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I’m gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

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