"Beyond Here Lies Nothin' " is a song written by American singer-songwriter

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

(with

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...

lyricist Robert Hunter) and performed by Dylan as the opening track on his 2009 studio album ''

Together Through Life ''Together Through Life'' is the 33rd studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on April 28, 2009, by Columbia Records. The release of the album, which reached number 1 in multiple countries, was unexpected and surprised fans. Dylan ...

''. The title is a quote from the ancient Roman poet

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

. The track was available as a free download on Dylan's official website from March 30 to March 31, 2009, and a photo montage set to the song premiered on Amazon on April 21. It has been anthologized on every reissue of ''

The Essential Bob Dylan ''The Essential Bob Dylan'' is a compilation by Bob Dylan, released in 2000 as the inaugural entry in Sony Music's "The Essential" double-disc compilation series. ''The Essential Bob Dylan'' spans from 1963's "Blowin' in the Wind" (from ''The Fr ...

'' since 2010. Like much of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the song himself using the pseudonym

Jack Frost Jack Frost is a personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold. He is a variant of Old Man Winter who is held responsible for frosty weather, nipping the fingers and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, ...

Composition and recording

In their book ''Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track'', authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon describe the song as one in which Dylan and co-writer Robert Hunter have "created a beautiful love story set as a

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...

, with abandoned cars lining the boulevards and light from only a few stars and the moon". They note that, musically, it "sounds quite different from anything Dylan has written so far. It has the sound of the modern blues of the 1950s, the

Chicago blues Chicago blues is a form of blues music developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth cent ...

, enriched by

David Hidalgo David Kent Hidalgo (born October 6, 1954, in Los Angeles.) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Los Lobos. Hidalgo frequently plays musical instruments such as accordion, violin, 6-string banjo, cello, requin ...

's accordion and Donnie Herron's trumpet". They also claim that the song bears a resemblance to

Otis Rush Otis Rush Jr. (April 29, 1934 – September 29, 2018) was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter. His distinctive guitar style featured a slow-burning sound and long bent notes. With qualities similar to the styles of other 1950s art ...

's 1958 song "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" with a lead guitar part that is similar to

Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band, formed in London in 1967. Fleetwood Mac were founded by guitarist Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer, before bassist John McVie joined the line-up for their epony ...

's 1968 single "

Black Magic Woman "Black Magic Woman" is a song written by British musician Peter Green, which first appeared as a single for his band Fleetwood Mac in 1968. Subsequently, the song appeared on the 1969 Fleetwood Mac compilation albums '' English Rose'' (US) and ...

". The song is performed in the key of

A minor A minor is a minor scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has no flats and no sharps. Its relative major is C major and its parallel major is A major. The A natural minor scale is: : Changes ...

Reception and legacy

Jon Dolan, writing in ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'', which placed the song 16th on a list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century", praised its atmospheric musicianship: "With Mike Campbell’s guitar lashing against rumbling drums, and the forlorn feel of Donnie Herron’s trumpet and

’s accordion, the song has a mysterious noir feel". ''Spectrum Culture'' included the song on a list of Dylan's "20 Best Songs of the '00s". In an article accompanying the list, critic Tyler Dunston noted that the lyrics seemed to be a deliberate reversal of the

exile poem that gave Dylan's song its title: ''

Ultimate Classic Rock Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wit ...

'' listed it as one off the "Top 10 Rock and Roll Accordion Songs" in 2013, a sentiment shared by Chaospin in 2021. ''Ultimate Classic Rock'' critic Matthew Wilkening ratedit as the 4th best song Dylan recorded between 1992 and 2011. A 2021 ''Guardian'' article included it on a list of "80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know". The song peaked at #10 on ''Billboard'''s

Adult Alternative Songs Adult Alternative Airplay (also known as Triple A or Triple A Airplay, and formerly Adult Alternative Songs and Triple A Songs) is a record chart currently published by ''Billboard'' that ranks the most popular songs on adult album alternative radi ...

chart in June 2009. The following year it was nominated at the

52nd Grammy Awards The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards took place on January 31, 2010, at Staples Center in Los Angeles honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009. Neil Young was honored as the 2010 MusiCares Pe ...

for

Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo The Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works (songs or albums) containing qua ...

In popular culture

The song was used in the trailer for the second season of

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

's ''

True Blood ''True Blood'' is an American fantasy horror drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball. It is based on ''The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', a series of novels by Charlaine Harris. A reboot is currently in development. The serie ...

'', and was again featured in the final episode of the second season of the program, " Beyond Here Lies Nothin'", which takes its title from the song. Blue-Tongue Films created a music video for the song directed by

Nash Edgerton Nash Edgerton (born 19 January 1973) is an Australian film director, actor and stuntman, and a principal member of the movie-making collective Blue-Tongue Films. Early life Edgerton was born in Blacktown, New South Wales and grew up in Dural ...

, a filmmaker and stuntman, that features

Joel Stoffer Joel Stoffer is an American actor. He is known for his role as Enoch on the television show ''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'' (2017–2020), and has also appeared in films such as ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' (2008) a ...

and Amanda Aardsma in an extreme marital spat. It was the first of four official music videos Edgerton would direct for Dylan and the only one in which Dylan himself did not appear. The video provoked divisive reactions upon release because of its depiction of extreme violence. As Edgerton himself noted in an interview with ''Pitchfork'', "it seems people either really love it or really fucking hate it. There's no in between. I'm all for things getting a reaction, whether it's good or bad. Not that I set out to upset anyone, but I think some people don't get the irony in things that I make". The song plays over the closing credits of

Olivier Dahan Olivier Dahan (born 26 June 1967) is a French film director and screenwriter. His third directed film, ''La Vie en rose'', was one of the only French cinema films to win two Academy Awards, including the first acting Oscar in the French language. ...

Renée Zellweger Renée Kathleen Zellweger (; born April 25, 1969) is an American actress. The recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards, she was one of the world's highest-paid ...

-starring film ''

My Own Love Song ''My Own Love Song'' is a 2010 road movie directed and written by Olivier Dahan and starring Renée Zellweger, Forest Whitaker, Madeline Zima and Nick Nolte. It premiered in Dahan's native France on April 7, 2010 and in the United States at the Tri ...

''.

Live performances

Between 2009 and 2019 Dylan performed the song 460 times in concert. This makes it the most frequently performed song from ''

'' by a considerable margin. The live debut occurred at

Fifth Third Field Fifth Third Field is the name or former name of several minor league ballparks. *Fifth Third Field (Toledo, Ohio), a minor league baseball stadium *Fifth Third Field (Dayton, Ohio), now known as Day Air Ballpark See also * Fifth Third Park, a futu ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...

on July 10, 2009 and the last performance (to date) took place at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

Ames, Iowa Ames () is a city in Story County, Iowa, United States, located approximately north of Des Moines in central Iowa. It is best known as the home of Iowa State University (ISU), with leading agriculture, design, engineering, and veterinary medici ...

on October 23, 2019.

References

External links

*
Lyrics
at Bob Dylan's official site
Chords
at Dylanchords {{authority control 2009 songs Bob Dylan songs Songs written by Bob Dylan Songs with lyrics by Robert Hunter (lyricist) 2009 singles Song recordings produced by Bob Dylan Columbia Records singles