I Shall Be Released
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"I Shall Be Released" is a 1967 song written by Bob Dylan.
The Band played it on their debut album, Music from Big Pink (1968), with Richard Manuel singing lead vocals, and Rick Danko and Levon Helm harmonizing in the chorus. The song was performed near the end of The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, in which all the night's performers (with the exception of Muddy Waters) plus Ringo Starr and Ronnie Wood appeared on the same stage.
Dylan recorded two primary versions. The first is the Basement Tapes initial recording, recorded in 1967 and released on Bootleg Series 1-3 in 1991. Of the initial demo, Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner had said, "Curiously enough the music in this song and the high pleading sound of Dylan's voice reminds one of the Bee Gees."[1] Dylan recorded the song a second time in 1971, releasing this new recording on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II.
In 1969, the Jamaican harmony group The Heptones covered "I Shall Be Released" as a Reggae tune in 1969 for Studio One and then later on in 1976 at Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark studio and label for the album Party Time.
Style and content
The song is influenced by Gospel music, combining imagery of religious redemption, or release from sin, with implied literal release from prison. David Yaffe describes it as a song about "redeemed prisoners".[2] The singer describes life behind a wall reflecting on every man "who put me here" and a man "who swears he's not to blame" who is "crying out that he was framed". He repeats that "any day now" he will be released. Mike Marqusee says that "the first person narrator speaks from a prison cell. Prison - and more broadly the cruelty of the justice system - is a leitmotif in Dylan's work", but that Dylan broadens the idea of imprisonment to link social issues with a seemingly ancient urge for freedom.[3] Clinton Heylin writes in his book "Revolution In The Air":[4]
Prisons of the body and the mind seem to have preyed on Dylan’s mind throughout his time spent with the boys on retainer. Among the songs recorded at early basement sessions were covers of “Folsom Prison Blues” and “The Banks of the Royal Canal” (the latter is particularly affecting), both songs written—metaphorically—from inside prison walls. Dylan then takes a leaf from Johnny Cash and Brendan Behan (brother of Dominic Behan), authors of those earlier songs, by writing his own prison song, “I Shall Be Released.” He is characteristically careful not to confuse simplicity of construction with a commensurate simplicity of meaning. The release that he is singing about—and that Richard Manuel echoes—is not from mere prison bars but rather from the cage of physical existence, the same cage that corrodes on Visions of Johanna.
Like a number of Dylan’s greatest songs—including that other reluctant rabble-rouser, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”—its solipsistic self would be turned inside out by simpletons (after The Band, that is) as this highly personal song was made a communal anthem by organizations like Amnesty International, for which it was always a song with one meaning alone.
Other versions
"I Shall Be Released" has been covered many times by many different artists. It has been recorded by The Youngbloods, The Earl Scruggs Revue, The Marmalade, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, Joe Cocker, Tremeloes, Bette Midler, The Box Tops, The Byrds, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, Ricky Nelson, Melissa Etheridge, Coheed and Cambria, Tom Robinson Band, Nina Simone, The Slackers, Paul Weller, Jerry Garcia Band, Sting, The Deftones, The Hollies, Pearls Before Swine, OK Go, Beth Rowley, Ken Lazarus, Big Mama Thornton, Chatham County Line, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Jack Johnson, Martin Harley, Kiosk, Maroon 5 and South Africa's Miriam Makeba, Boz and Mahotella Queens.
The song has been performed live by, amongst others, The Allman Brothers Band, Jeff Buckley, Johnny Cash, Gene Clark, Coheed and Cambria (with Warren Haynes), Jerry Garcia Band, The Magic Numbers, Martha Wainwright, Wilco, Fleet Foxes, Jack Johnson, Joe Cocker, Ben Harper, U2, Cass Elliot, Mary Travers, Joni Mitchell, The Who, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Chrissie Hynde, Zac Brown Band, The Band of Heathens, Mama Cass Elliot, Old Crow Medicine Show, Megafaun, Christy Moore with Declan Sinnott, Wood Brothers. In addition, The Beatles performed it as an unreleased part of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.
An unrehearsed spur of the moment inspired recording of this song in May 1971 by Elvis Presley was released in 1995
A recording by Mack James & Broadway Inspirational Voices featured in the film "A Home at the End of the World" (2004).
Personnel on The Band version
- Rick Danko – bass guitar, harmony vocal
- Levon Helm – drums, harmony vocal
- Garth Hudson – Roxochord organ
- Richard Manuel – lead and harmony vocals, acoustic piano
- Robbie Robertson – electric guitar
Published, print
- Rise Up Singing page 102, states copyright 1967 and 1976.
References
- ^ Jann Wenner (1968-06-22). "Dylan's Basement Tape Should Be Released". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2013-06-06.
- ^ David Yaffe, The Many Roads of Bob Dylan, Yale University Press, 2011, p.15
- ^ Mike Marqusee, Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s, Seven Stories Press, 2005, p. 238-40.
- ^ Clinton Heylin, Revolution in the Air (The Songs of Bob Dylan 1957-1973)
