"Bob Dylan's Dream" is a song written by

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 ...

in 1963. It was recorded by Dylan on April 24, 1963, and was released by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

a month later on the album ''

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on May 27, 1963 by Columbia Records. Whereas his self-titled debut album ''Bob Dylan'' had contained only two original songs, this album r ...

''. The song was also recorded as a

demo Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to: Music and film *Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release * ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes * ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...

for Dylan's publishing company, M. Witmark & Sons. The demo version, taped the day before the album track, was officially released on '' The Bootleg Series Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964'' in October 2010. A May 10, 1963 live version of the song was also released that month on ''

In Concert – Brandeis University 1963 ''In Concert – Brandeis University 1963'' is an album from a concert performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan at the Brandeis Folk Festival at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on May 10, 1963. A tape of the concert w ...

''. An April 12, 1963 concert performance was included on ''Live 1962–1966: Rare Performances From The Copyright Collections'', released in 2018.

Background

Various accounts have been proposed regarding the song's inspiration, none of them being conclusive. In one, "Bob Dylan's Dream" recalls the times Dylan had spent in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

with comedian Hugh Romney and their friends during the early 1960s. Romney, later to become

Wavy Gravy Hugh Nanton Romney Jr. (born May 15, 1936), known as Wavy Gravy, is an American entertainer and peace activism, activist best known for his role at Woodstock, as well as for his hippie persona and counterculture of the 1960s, countercultural be ...

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

and

Merry Pranksters The Merry Pranksters were comrades and followers of American author Ken Kesey in 1964. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally at Kesey's homes in California and Oregon, and are noted for the sociological significance of a lengthy roa ...

fame, lived above

The Gaslight Cafe The Gaslight Cafe was a coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Also known as The Village Gaslight, it opened in 1958 and became notable as a venue for folk music and other musical acts.Al AronowitzThe Gaslight, ...

MacDougal Street MacDougal Street is a one-way street in the Greenwich Village and SoHo neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York City. The street is bounded on the south by Prince Street and on the north by West 8th Street; its numbering begins in the south. Betw ...

, where he worked as entertainment director.Sounes, ''Down the Highway'', pp. 92–93 The two first met at the Gaslight in the spring of 1961. Dylan approached Romney about the possibility of performing and began appearing regularly at the Gaslight's

hootenannies A hootenanny is a party involving music in the United States. It is particularly associated with folk music. Etymology Placeholder Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in the early twentieth century U.S. as a placeholder name ...

. Within a few months, he debuted at the Gaslight as a featured act. Dylan frequently hung out upstairs in Romney's apartment and wrote one of his most significant songs there, "

A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song written by American musician and Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962 and recorded later that year for his second album, ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' (1963). Its lyrical structure is modeled after ...

", in August 1962 . The next winter, in late January or early February 1963, he wrote "Bob Dylan's Dream" possibly as a nostalgic remembrance of his early days in the Village when his life was less complex. A differing account, by biographer and critic Robert Shelton, posits that the song concerns the lost innocence of Dylan's adolescence in

Hibbing Hibbing is a city in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 16,214 at the 2020 census. The city was built on mining the rich iron ore of the Mesabi Iron Range and still relies on that industrial activity today. At th ...

, Minnesota.Shelton, ''No Direction Home'', p. 156 John Bucklen, one of Dylan's closest friends in Hibbing in the mid-1950s, told Shelton he and Dylan used to venture out to his sister's house, where they would play guitar and sing verses. "When I heard the song 'Bob Dylan's Dream'," he said, "I couldn't help but think that some of the sessions we had at my sister's house were part of that 'Dream.'"Heylin, ''Revolution in the Air'', p. 124

The song's origins

According to Shelton, Dylan credited the melody of "Bob Dylan's Dream" to the

traditional A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

broadside ballad A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the ...

"Lord Franklin" (also known as "

Lady Franklin's Lament "Lady Franklin's Lament" (also known as "Lord Franklin" and "The Sailor's Dream") is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws (Laws K09) and Steve Roud (Roud 487). The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Frank ...

" and "The Sailor's Dream"), which he learned from British folksinger

Martin Carthy Martin Carthy MBE (born 21 May 1941) is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as ...

, while visiting London in late December 1962. However, Dylan may have learned the song even earlier from his Village friend Paul Clayton, who had recorded it in 1957 for his album ''Whaling and Sailing Songs: From the Days of Moby Dick'' on Folkways. In either case, within a couple weeks after returning from London in January 1963, Dylan began playing "Bob Dylan's Dream" for

Gil Turner Gil Turner (born Gilbert Strunk; May 6, 1933 – September 23, 1974) was an American folk singer-songwriter, magazine editor, Shakespearean actor, political activist, and for a time, a lay Baptist preacher. Turner was a prominent figure in the G ...

during after-hours sessions at

Gerde's Folk City Gerdes Folk City, sometimes spelled Gerde's Folk City, was a music venue in the West Village, part of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in New York City. Initially opened by owner Mike Porco as a restaurant called Gerdes, it eventually began to presen ...

, where Turner was emcee. Besides the melody, Dylan's song also shares lyrical similarities with "Lady Franklin's Lament", as in the song's closing lines: "Lady Franklin's Lament" concludes on a similar note: Within a short time, Dylan made the song a regular part of his repertoire, performing it for his first major New York concert at

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

on April 12, 1963. Less than two weeks later, on April 24, he recorded two takes of the song at Columbia's Studio A, one of which was selected for the album ''Freewheelin' Bob Dylan''.

Notable cover versions

Peter, Paul, and Mary Peter, Paul and Mary was an American Contemporary folk music, folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Traver ...

on '' Album 1700'', 1967 *

Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ec ...

on ''Judy Sings Dylan...Just Like a Woman'', 1993 *

Phil Carmen Phil Carmen (born ''Herbert Hofmann'', February 14, 1953 in Lucerne, Switzerland) is a Swiss musician and producer of Canadian heritage. Early career Carmen grew up in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and in Lucerne, Switzerland. In Lucerne, he wen ...

on ''Bob Dylan's Dream'', 1996 *

Kinky Friedman Richard Samet "Kinky" Friedman (born November 1, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician, and former columnist for ''Texas Monthly'' who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and ...

on ''Classic Snatches from Europe'', 2003 *

Bryan Ferry Bryan Ferry Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter. His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style: according to ' ...

on '' Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International'', 2012

Notes

References

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External links

Lyrics
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, on

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...