Moonlight (Bob Dylan song)
| "Moonlight" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Bob Dylan | |
| from the album Love and Theft | |
| Released | September 11, 2001 |
| Recorded | May 2001 |
| Genre | Folk rock |
| Length | 6:40 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Songwriter(s) | Bob Dylan |
| Producer(s) | Jack Frost |
| Love and Theft track listing | |
12 tracks
| |
"Moonlight" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in 2001 as the eighth track on his Love and Theft album. It is one of several songs on the album that nods to the pre-rock pop ballad genre.[1] Like most of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the song himself under the pseudonym Jack Frost.
Composition and recording
The song's refrain, "Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone?"[2] was likely inspired by the Carter Family's 1928 recording of Joseph Augustine Wade's song "Meet Me By the Moonlight",[3] although the rest of the lyrics and the melody are Dylan's own. According to Dylan scholar Tony Attwood, the song sees Dylan "playing with chords that he rarely if ever used before – chords of the type we might well find in the American popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s".[4]
In an interview with Uncut magazine, engineer/mixer Chris Shaw recalled that the song was recorded entirely live in the studio: "It's really gorgeous, and I think the take that's on the record is the second take, the whole thing is completely live, vocals and all, not a single overdub, no editing, it all just flowed together at once, and it was a really beautiful moment".[5]
Reception
In a 2015 USA Today article that ranked "all of Bob Dylan's songs", Moonlight placed 28th (out of 359). It was the second highest rated song from Love and Theft on the list (behind only Mississippi, which placed first).[6]
AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine calls it a "torch song" that's "equally captivating" to any of the album's more uptempo numbers and notes that, musically, Dylan "hasn't sounded this natural or vital since he was with The Band, and even then, those records were never as relaxed and easy" as this.[7]
Singer Maria Muldaur, who has known Dylan since the 1960s, was inspired to record an entire album dedicated to Dylan's love songs after hearing "Moonlight" for the first time. "It had such jazzy, swinging melody progressions and very gorgeous lyrics," she said in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star. "It was very seductive and unbelievably romantic. It almost sounded like the kind of song you would expect Bing Crosby to be crooning to some broad on a balcony in the 1930s. Each line was like a different impressionistic painting that painted this idealistic, romantic landscape".[8]
Cultural references
The line "Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief..." is a reference to a 1945 song of that name by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster.[9]
The line "For whom does the bell toll..." is a reference to a famous poem by John Donne,[10] which Dylan had previously referenced in his 1997 song "Standing in the Doorway".[11]
Live performances
Between 2001 and 2008 Dylan played the song 101 times on the Never Ending Tour.[12]
References
- ^ "Love and Theft". Rolling Stone. September 4, 2001.
- ^ "Moonlight | The Official Bob Dylan Site". www.bobdylan.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "Meet Me By Moonlight – Joseph Augustine Wade (1796 – 1845)". Habitandchoice.com. June 12, 2018. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "Bob Dylan's Moonlight: having fun with chords and other writers phrases. | Untold DylanUntold Dylan". Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "Recording With Bob Dylan, Chris Shaw Tells All!". UNCUT. October 27, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "Ranking all of Bob Dylan's songs, from No. 1 to No. 359". For The Win. November 6, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ Love and Theft - Bob Dylan | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic, retrieved January 5, 2021
- ^ Star, Gerald M. Gay Arizona Daily. "Maria Muldaur". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief Lyrics". www.lyrics.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne - Your Daily Poem". www.yourdailypoem.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "Standing in the Doorway | The Official Bob Dylan Site". www.bobdylan.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
- ^ "Bob Dylan Tour Statistics | setlist.fm". www.setlist.fm. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
