Bob Dylan’s Unreleased Songs

Thanks to David Reid for the loan of this book

Mission

Derek Barker reviewed "Keys To The Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopaedia" (compiled by Oliver Trager, Billboard Books, USA, 2004) in "Isis" issue 188, and surprisingly found in the Foreword what appears to me to be a startling admission for a book that claims to be "definitive": "Entries for songs Dylan performed before he came to New York City are not included. Neither are songs from informal recording sessions, songs written but never recorded, unreleased out-takes, nor any of the unreleased material from 'The Basement Tapes' and their ilk..." The objective here is to attempt to fill that gap and list all unreleased songs written, or thought to have been written, by Bob, whenever and however recorded.

Some of these songs are deservedly unreleased, some have no known Dylan version, some were abandoned unfinished and therefore not of releasable quality, but others are real gems and deserve official release, either in a future edition of The Bootleg Series, or as "bonus" tracks on remastered albums. Please note I cannot help you to obtain copies of any of these songs which are in unofficial circulation - if you go to Bill Pagel's excellent "Bob Links" site , you will find links there that will help.

If you have any additions or corrections to the material given here, please let me know. All contributors to the accuracy and completeness of this list will be gratefully credited. Cover scans of singles or albums that contain covers of unreleased Dylan songs are also very welcome.

The Directory is in alphabetical order by song title, please click on the appropriate page below (or start with "A" and work your way through...).

(Indefinite and definite articles at the beginning of song titles are ignored, so A WOMAN LIKE YOU is on the "W" page, and THE KING IS ON THE THRONE is on the "K" page.)

2 May 2008: YOU BET YOUR LIFE, uncirculating 1967 Basement Tapes song by Bob Dylan and The Band added to the "Y" page

28 Apr 2008: "High Grass Dogs: Live From The Fillmore", 1999 Warner/Reprise US DVD with live performance of JAMMIN' ME (Dylan/Petty co-composition) by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers added to J page

23 Apr 2008: "Boo!" (Rykodisc, USA, 2008) by Was (Not Was) with MR ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE, also known as SHIRLEY TEMPLE DON'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE, 1990 co-composition by Bob and Don and David Was, added to the "M" and "S" pages

12 Apr 2008: "Take My Tip: 25 British Mod Artefacts From The EMI Vaults" (Zonophone, UK, 2007), compilation CD containing original 1965 single release of JACK O' DIAMONDS (Dylan poem set to music by Ben Carruthers) by Ben Carruthers and The Deep (featuring Jimmy Page) added to J page

5 Mar 2008: CADILLAC CARS (song which uses a lyric excerpt from KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR from "Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid") and WATCHTOWER (rewritten version of ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER from "John Wesley Harding", from DMC's 2006 solo RomenMpire Records album "Checks, Thugs And Rock-N-Roll" added to C and W pages

29 Jan 2008: THE GOSPEL TRAIN, song by Alabama 3 on their 2005 One Little Indian Records UK album "Outlaw" that uses a sample of LAY, LADY, LAY from "Nashville Skyline" added to the "G" page

18 Jan 2008: NYC BLUES, 1961 song that exists as handwritten lyrics only, added to the "N" page

For lyrics and chords of unreleased Dylan songs, see Eyolf Østrem's site "My Back Pages - Bob Dylan Chords and Lyrics"

All song titles (or guesses at song titles) listed here are either known, or assumed to be, by Bob Dylan. Bob’s co-authors are credited for songs known to be joint compositions. I’ve omitted unidentified instrumentals, most of which are just jams.

Titles of released songs on regular Dylan albums are in BOLD face, titles of songs that are officially available as covers by other artists are shown in RED (see the new extracted list "Covered & Unreleased"). Titles of songs known to be hoaxes or wrongly associated with Bob are shown in PURPLE. Titles of songs that remain unreleased on albums/singles and have not been covered by other artists are in BLUE. Song titles that were identified in the sources as being by Bob but now known to be covers are included here with their titles in ITALICS - in this case the date given is when it was first performed by Bob, not the composition date. It's very possible that some of the titles still assumed here to be unreleased songs by Bob Dylan are in fact covers that were unrecognised by the source author. Titles that end in "?" are where the song titles are questions J, guessed titles are shown as "(?)".

Some songs have no known "official" title and are listed several times under the various titles that have appeared for them (which people guess at or make up because they don't know the title Bob has given the song). A good example is the unreleased and uncopyrighted song with lyrics about Van Gogh worked on by Bob in a Denver hotel room in March 1966. This has been given several titles, namely THE PAINTING BY VAN GOGH, POSITIVELY VAN GOGH, MOST DEFINITELY NOT VAN GOGH and SPURIOUSLY SEVENTEEN WINDOWS (THE PAINTING BY VAN GOGH)! Bob's choice of title is still not known. SPURIOUSLY SEVENTEEN WIDOWS, of which the last title may be a mis-hearing, is a joke title made up by Paul Cable for the unreleased TELL ME, MOMMA. (He obviously didn't know then that Bob had just called it TELL ME, MOMMA after all!)

If the authorship of a title is not identified in any of the sources it is indicated as "Bob Dylan?".

Some titles identified in the sources as unreleased Dylan songs are in fact session sheet or working titles of released songs or unreleased songs known better by other names. LOVE COPY is a good example - this was named by Larry Sloman in his Rolling Thunder Logbook as being an unreleased song from the "Desire" sessions (which it then was). Michael Krogsgaard's examination of the 1976 Columbia studio records revealed LOVE COPY not to be a new song, but a working title for ABANDONED LOVE, released in 1985 on "Biograph". Such titles are listed in the directory for completeness. A partial list of such titles appears in the book by Clinton Heylin "Dylan: Behind Closed Doors, The Recording Sessions 1960-1994", others appear in Michael Krogsgaard's series of articles on Bob's recording sessions in the "Telegraph" and now "The Bridge".

No circulation code means the song hasn't actually been written or performed by Bob, and the entry is a correction of a report that appears elsewhere.

Thanks to Sigurjon Thor Fridthjofsson (Sion) for providing the list that started this work off.
Thanks to "Frisco Drifter" for the first feedback.
Thanks also go to Phil Aldridge, Derek Barker, Harvey Bojarsky, Dag Braathen, Scott Brodie, Bob Burton, Mark Charles, Ron "Crazy" Chester, Arie Euwijk, Roger Ford, Nick Garrett, Andra, John Halley, John Howells, Craig Jamieson, Artur Jarosinski, Rob Lake, Gil Lamont, A.J. LaRue, John Lettiere, Tobias Levander, Jim Linwood, Daniel Luth, Hans Marijnissen, Joy Munsey, Jim O'Neil, Tom Ostoyich, Raymond Padgett, Dieter Petzold, Michael Poole, Moise Potie, David Reid, John Singer, Michael Smith, Bob Stacy, Raoul Verolleman and Don Wedge.

There are many more now officially-released Dylan songs that were originally unreleased by Bob but were covered by other artists, such as those on "The Basement Tapes" - too many to list here. This "Released" list is therefore restricted to songs released after the setting up of this web-site in 1998.

(That was when I started using a new counter - I estimate that around 700,000 people previously visited the site since its set-up in mid-1998.)

C Soundcheck	D Demo	H Home recording	L Live	M Media recording - radio, TV or film
N? No recording circulating?	O Officially released	R Rehearsal	S Studio recording	Y For uncirculating songs - lyrics known

	MISSISSIPPI - out-take from "Time Out Of Mind", 1997 - new recording released on "Love And Theft", 11 Sep 2001 Sheryl Crow's 1998 A&M album "The Globe Sessions" containing her version of MISSISSIPPI, then unavailable anywhere else.
	TELL ME, MOMMA - only ever performed live in 1966 (no studio version known), released on "The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1996, The 'Royal Albert Hall' Concert", 12 Oct 1998
	LIKE A SHIP and MAXINE - two out-takes from "Traveling Wilburys Volume Three", recorded at Wilbury Mountain Studio, Los Angeles, CA, Apr 1990, finally released on the 2007 Rhino boxed set, "The Traveling Wilburys Collection"
	I'M NOT THERE (1956) - previously unreleased Basement Tapes song with The Band from 1967 released on the Todd Haynes film soundtrack I'm Not There, 2007