Buried In the Mix: "Shelter from the Storm"
You will never listen to this song the same way again. Here are 17 things you never heard in Bob Dylan's Shelter from the Storm.
#1
0:03 – You hear the metallic rattle of something striking the body of the guitar. This continues throughout the entire recording.
A Metallic Rattling
This effort with Shelter from the Storm kicked off by chance. I noticed the first of the bullets itemized below - a metallic rattling - maybe a button on Dylan’s sleeve? a pick? striking the body of the guitar repeatedly a few minutes into the track. And it bothered me I’d never noticed that before. How could I have noticed that? I have played this song a LOT of times.
So I hunkered down with my headphones and did some musical homework to find what else I haven’t heard. I played Bob Dylan’s Shelter from the Storm at least fifty times. Stopping. Starting. “Rewinding.” Other than looking up the name of the bass player, Tony Brown, I left the internet alone.
Here’s What’s “Buried in the Mix”
Hopefully, I’m sharing a few of the song’s close-up brushstrokes. Maybe one or two of the ones that I’ve found will ever so slightly change how you hear this masterpiece going forward. What happens at 4:34 is my bet.
Headphones On…
0:03 – You hear a metallic rattle of something striking the body of the guitar. This continues intermittently throughout.
0:10 – The moment Dylan begins to sing, you hear a rush of reverb coming in from the vocal track. The instruments are both right up front. Dylan, on the other hand, is sonically in a hall. You hear the reverb strongly when he sings loudest. Listen for the reverb at 0:16 for "blackness was a virtue" and 0:20 for "wilderness."
0:26 – The pronunciation of "storm" is interesting throughout because of an odd thing - a really odd thing - he does with his voice. I don't know how to describe it except as a shiver. Listen to 0:52 and 3:22.
0:38 – The crazy sound of "assured." What accent is that? I suppose this doesn’t technically count as buried in the mix, but is this how they talk in Duluth? Hibbing? Greenwich Village?
0:57 – The turnarounds are wildly inconsistent throughout which is odd for such a simple three-chord song. Try to time the re-entry to the top of the verses throughout. They are off or, more generously, improvisational. Listen to 1:25 as well. More on the impact of this on his poor bass player below.
0:58 – At first I thought a change in guitar dynamics was Dylan was moving his guitar away from the microphone or shifting his body somehow, but I think they are just fading his guitar down in the mix when the verses start. (You can’t move your guitar further away from the mics and your voice closer, without being incredibly uncool about it.) Listen for these mix dynamics also at 2:39 and 3:12.
1:06 – Oh, my god. The phrasing on "try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm."
This is the lyric we put into the Martian time capsule. If you don't think Dylan can sing, you haven't listened to 1:06 or to be honest you don’t get it, Mr. Jones. Mic-drop vocal genius. Imitators need not apply. The full DNA of Bob Dylan in two bars.
1:22 – Ever so slight loss of tempo. Probably Dylan’s guitar part flagging a hair. Audible, though.
1:38 – Cool meaning shift in meaning on the words "I'll give ya" here. Almost a sense of she’s “got this shelter from the storm thing” handled. Maybe it is just me hearing that.
2:22 – "granted" glissando - phrasing is insane. Someone else must do that kind of thing vocally but I don’t know who.
2:24 – Something strange happens with the “just to think” lyric here, a micro-hiccup.
2:25 – This one you I had always noticed subliminally: Dylan sings "non" eventful morn, not "un" eventful morn. Published lyrics are "uneventful," but that is not what he sings. Feels like a simple lyric screw up. Problem seems to start with the word “think.”
Noneventful is a nonword. Not going to argue about it. I’m not sure Bob Dylan needs to make up words.
2:46 – Again that metallic clicking. (This is the clicking that launched this adventure.) On a personal note, something about this true-to-life clicking sound grounds the song in a place rather than in the musical ether. He’s in a recording studio. It's dark in there. Men in a booth are listening from behind thick glass. A big, fat, spiderweb dream catcher of a mic hangs down. Lyrics are on the music stand. Dylan’s cigarette burning in a nearby ashtray…
4:34 – This one might be the most memorable one. The bass player thinks they are done. You hear him slow for the coda, but Dylan charges on without him for a final, clearly unanticipated instrumental verse. From everything I’ve read, Dylan is not generous sharing his chord changes with other musicians prior to the recording – surprise, surprise – and poor Tony Brown has to keep up like he’s chasing after tennis balls. He does - gamely throughout - but one gets past here. Note from above: Imagine trying to stay with Dylan for the variable-length turnarounds between verses.
4:48 – Now Tony does get some help from Dylan. Listen to the tempo and then the dynamics on the hard strums. “The coda’s here, honey. Can you get it?” Dylan gives Brown the signal he would have appreciated a verse ago. Collaboration, Bob. Collaboration.
The bass player thinks they are done. You hear him slow for the coda, but Dylan charges on without him for a final, clearly unanticipated instrumental verse.
4:53 – On the arpeggio outro you can hear two notes on Dylan’s guitar almost in unison. The second one is ever so slightly flat. Tangentially related, it makes me wonder whether the guitar is in an open tuning given the unison notes of the arpeggio. I’m not checking the web because I promised, but it has to be. You would have a hard time picking this tuning issue up if it wasn’t, but the identical note side by side makes it jump out. Maybe “jump out” is a little too strong.
Extra Credit for Hardcore Dylanophiles:
Immediately after Shelter from the Storm, go listen to You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, the last song on the same side.
It is Tony Brown on bass again judging by the similar bouncy style. It’s the same three instruments, but the recorded sound / ambience / reverb is very different, either because it is hard for the engineers to match the two recordings or because they wanted to do something different with each. I’m guessing that it is the former, but I can’t make out open tunings, so there’s that.
Regifting
Let me know where I'm wrong - or what you hear buried in the mix that you can share.
Or just point out to friends that the bass player in Shelter from the Storm doesn’t know when the song ends.
You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
I don’t know what year it was, but it was the Summer of Bob. Maybe I was thirteen. We spent our summers in Maine when we were growing up, and the first few weeks of vacation were always the same grueling chore of mowing the neglected, three-foot grass around our farmhouse with a small, pull-start mower that hadn’t self-propelled for years.
Thanks for your 50+ times listening and sharing your finds. I stand enlightened. Here's my listening addition: Of the 10 "Come in she said/ I'll give ya shelter from the storm.", 4 of them have prolonged, drawn out "ya's" . The first is @ about 1:13 and after the incredible phrasing at 1:06, 2nd is @ 2:05-2:06, and then @ 3:47. Hmmm.
“Impetuous!! Homeric!!”
I’m in awe - but you are correct - I’ll never hear it the same way again!