Ignored   Obscured Restored

On November 6, Bob Dylan will release The Rolling Thunder Revue 1976, a boxed set containing 39 discs for the surprisingly reasonable price of about $160 — roughly $4 per disc.  That’s a staggering amount of music, drawn from the second leg of the tour as it wound through the American South.  And it shouldn’t be confused with the excellent two-disc The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975 – The Rolling Thunder Revue, which documented the earlier leg of the tour.

I recently heard a preview of one of the 13 performances of “Going, Going, Gone” included in the new set.  It was a reminder of what a terrific deep cut the song is.  Yet as good as these live recordings may prove to be, they’ll have a hard time surpassing the original studio version from the often-overlooked Planet Waves (1974), the album that reunited Dylan with The Band.

“Going, Going, Gone” has frequently been interpreted as a song about suicide.  I’ve always heard it differently — as a song about loss, resignation, and grief.  Not necessarily grief over life itself, but over life’s accumulated disappointments: failed relationships, career frustrations, declining health, financial worries, and the countless burdens that can wear a person down.  The narrator sounds exhausted, pushed to the brink, and struggling under a weight that has become almost unbearable.

I been hangin’ on threads

I been playin’ it straight

Now, I’ve just got to cut loose

Before it gets late

So I’m going

I’m going

I’m gone

Rock critic Tim Riley captured the power of the performance when he wrote that “The Band’s windup pitch to ‘Going, Going, Gone’ is a wonder of pinpoint ensemble playing: (Robbie) Robertson makes his guitar entrance choke as if a noose had suddenly tightened around its neck.”  Riley also observed that The Band’s accompaniment is so perfectly attuned to Dylan’s despondent mood that “Robertson’s guitar sounds like it’s scratching the itch in Dylan’s throat.”

Perhaps the Planet Waves recording is merely the opening chapter in the song’s story.  If the early preview is any indication, the newly released Rolling Thunder performances may reveal fresh dimensions of one of Dylan’s most haunting and underappreciated songs.

Enjoy… until next week.