Take a trip upon a magic swirling ship by clicking at right to hear Bob Dylan performing Mr. Tambourine Man in Florence, Italy a few nights ago. It’s a video shot from a great distance, so you can’t see much, but that helps the realism of the experience if you’re accustomed to sitting in the cheap seats.

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There’s a little bit of follow-up on the previous post about why Bob Dylan continues to perform songs like Masters Of War and John Brown even in this new Age Of Light. Thanks to a reader (who I think prefers being discreet) for doing some impressive research and math and coming up with this:

What was going on in Fall of 1995? (Clinton Admin) Dylan played Masters of War 26 times over only 42 shows! 62%

This contrasts with the reign of W:

And thanks to Richard who points me to a comment at the Ragged Clown site which says:

Since 10 June 2008 Bob has played 14 Tuesday concerts. All of these (including Hannover, Paris, Basel and Strasbourg this tour) have featured John Brown and Masters Of War. How many times were one of these songs played on other days of the week during this period? Zero.

Tuesday just happens to be his war day.

Well, despite the implications, I’m not for a minute even going to try to check that factoid — the notion that Dylan plays particular songs on particular days of the week. I am quite crazy enough already, thank you very much. But people who participate in the Dylan Pool might want to get busy.

My own point — if it isn’t beating a horse’s skeleton at this stage — is that when Greil Marcus and other less well-known purveyors of Dylanological wisdom have tried to ascribe a meaning and purpose, matching their own political agenda, to Dylan’s live performances of Masters Of War, they have simply been talking through their hats. He likes singing the song. Sometimes more than others, but if you check the record honestly, you cannot correlate it to the presence of war-mongering Republican presidents in the White House. It is just a particularly glaring example of the projection of a particular point of view onto Dylan and his work that litters so much of what has been written and said about him. But now I’ll cease and desist on those battered equine bones.

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