To the valley below

Leave the present moment and enter the world of Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)," from Desire (1976). Here I talk about the gypsy-like town in Arizona where I happened to be staying when I first got into this album.

The concert performances of this song are not successful in my opinion. The only version that really works--and the only version where Dylan sings in the "ancient Hebrew cantillation," as Alan Ginsberg describes it on the liner notes of the album--is the original recorded version. (The sound balance on the YouTube audio is a bit off, with the percussion too loud, and the violin muted.)

- end of initial entry -

Jim N. writes:

Thanks for that link to "One More Cup Of Coffee." It brought to mind this verse from U2's heavily Dylanesque "Bullet The Blue Sky":

In the howlin' wind
Comes a stingin' rain
See it drivin' nails
Into the souls on the tree of pain.

From the firefly
A red orange glow
See the face of fear
Runnin' scared in the valley below.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 12, 2008 09:11 AM | Comment | Send