Moonlight (Bob Dylan song)

"Moonlight"
Song by Bob Dylan
from the album Love and Theft
Released	September 11, 2001
Recorded	May 2001
Studio	Clinton Recording, New York City
Genre	Folk rock western swing[1]
Length	3:23
Label	Columbia
Songwriter(s)	Bob Dylan
Producer(s)	Jack Frost
Love and Theft track listing
12 tracks "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" "Mississippi" "Summer Days" "Bye and Bye" "Lonesome Day Blues" "Floater (Too Much to Ask)" "High Water (For Charley Patton)" "Moonlight" "Honest With Me" "Po' Boy" "Cry a While" "Sugar Baby"

"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.^[2] 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?"^[3] was likely inspired by the Carter Family's 1928 recording of Joseph Augustine Wade's song "Meet Me By the Moonlight",^[4] 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".^[5]

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".^[6] The song is performed in the key of B-flat major.^[7]

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).^[8]

AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine calls it a "torch song" that's "equally captivating" to any of the album's more uptempo numbers and noted 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.^[9]

Spectrum Culture included the song on a list of Dylan's 20 best songs of the 21st century. In an article accompanying the list, critic Kevin Korber observed that those who seemed shocked when Dylan delved into the Great American Songbook beginning in 2015 with his Shadows in the Night album "may not have listened to 'Love and Theft' for quite some time, or else they would have remembered that 'Moonlight' made the inevitability of such an artistic left turn pretty obvious. Most of the album feels deliberately old-fashioned, as if Dylan is imbuing the musical genres and styles he grew up loving with new life, and this takes that idea to its extreme. It’s a jazzy torch song, the kind that would have been a hit for any number of big band crooners in the ‘40s. However, to call 'Moonlight' a straightforward tribute would be a mistake; after all, when has Bob Dylan ever been really straightforward?"^[10]

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".^[11]

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.^[12]

The line "For whom does the bell toll..." is a reference to a famous poem by John Donne,^[13] which Dylan had previously referenced in his 1997 song "Standing in the Doorway".^[14]

In popular culture

Actress/singer Rita Wilson references the song in her 2020 single "I Wanna Kiss Bob Dylan", which includes the lines: "Would his kisses be long like his six minute songs on Time Out of Mind / I want to kiss Bob Dylan / In a doorway standing in the moonlight".^[15]

Live performances

Between 2001 and 2008 Dylan played the song 101 times on the Never Ending Tour.^[16] A live version performed in Chicago on March 7, 2004 was made available to stream on Dylan's official website in March 2004.^[17] The live debut occurred at Key Arena in Seattle, Washington on October 6, 2001 and the last performance (to date) took place at Brady Theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma on August 27, 2008.^[18]

Notable cover

Maria Muldaur on her 2006 album Heart of Mine: Love Songs of Bob Dylan^[19]

References

1. Farley, Christopher John (September 9, 2001). "Legend Of Dylan". Time. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
2. "Love and Theft". Rolling Stone. September 4, 2001. Archived from the original on June 26, 2018. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
3. "Moonlight | The Official Bob Dylan Site". www.bobdylan.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
4. "Meet Me By Moonlight – Joseph Augustine Wade (1796 – 1845)". Habitandchoice.com. June 12, 2018. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
5. "Bob Dylan's Moonlight: having fun with chords and other writers phrases. | Untold DylanUntold Dylan". May 26, 2017. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
6. "Recording With Bob Dylan, Chris Shaw Tells All!". UNCUT. October 27, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
7. "Moonlight | dylanchords". dylanchords.com. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
8. "Ranking all of Bob Dylan's songs, from No. 1 to No. 359". For The Win. November 6, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
9. Love and Theft - Bob Dylan | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic, retrieved January 5, 2021
10. "Bob Dylan's 20 Best Songs of the '00s". Spectrum Culture. December 4, 2020. Retrieved March 3, 2021.
11. Gay, Gerald M. (November 2, 2006). "Maria Muldaur". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
12. "Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief Lyrics". www.lyrics.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
13. "For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne - Your Daily Poem". www.yourdailypoem.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
14. "Standing in the Doorway | The Official Bob Dylan Site". www.bobdylan.com. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
15. Lifton, Dave (December 17, 2020). "Watch New Video for Rita Wilson's 'I Wanna Kiss Bob Dylan'". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved May 21, 2021.
16. "Bob Dylan Tour Statistics | setlist.fm". www.setlist.fm. Retrieved December 24, 2020.
17. "Online Performances (bobdylan.com)". searchingforagem.com. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
18. "Setlists | The Official Bob Dylan Site". www.bobdylan.com. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
19. "Maria Muldaur: Heart of Mine: Love Songs of Bob Dylan, PopMatters". PopMatters. January 15, 2007. Retrieved May 29, 2021.

External links

• Lyrics at Bob Dylan's official site
• Chords at Dylanchords