Comedy
I've had two major, can't-eat, can't-sleep, can't-do-anything-but-be-miserable breakups in my life, and after each one, I've found myself buried in Dylan albums. And, after each one, I've latched onto one song, called my extremely talented friend Jessie Peck, and asked her to sing it with me. The first breakup, in 2013, produced a version of Boots of Spanish Leather, which I arranged badly enough that you won't find it here. But in 2017, the album I disappeared into was Blood On The Tracks, and the song I couldn't get over was this one. When I learned to play it, I found myself slowing it down, picking out my favourite verses and phrases. It's no surprise, then, that the verses I chose are about a woman, obscured by the past, but remembered with something like longing, comfort, and regret. Jessie came to my apartment and arranged the harmonies one night in October, then I called my friend Dakota, a bassist and sound designer who worked at a studio. The three of us were able to get in after hours and record this. What you hear is basically the bed track - we had intended to flesh it out and finish it later, but lives change and time marches on and somehow, it never happened. It's unmixed and unfinished, without so much as a hint of reverb, but it sounds like Jessie and I working out how to sing a song together, and for that reason I'll always love it.