Gonna Change My Way of Thinking (Bob Dylan)

Bob Dylan began a live concert tour in Seattle last night and the first song he Played was "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking"

Gonna change my way of thinking,
Make myself a different set of rules.
Gonna change my way of thinking,
Make myself a different set of rules.
Gonna put my good foot forward,
And stop being influenced by fools.

So much oppression,
Can't keep track of it no more.
So much oppression,
Can't keep track of it no more.
Sons becoming husbands to their mothers,
And old men turning young daughters into whores.

Stripes on your shoulders,
Stripes on your back and on your hands.
Stripes on your shoulders,
Stripes on your back and on your hands.
Swords piercing your side,
Blood and water flowing through the land.

Well don't know which one is worse,
Doing your own thing or just being cool.
Well don't know which one is worse,
Doing your own thing or just being cool.
You remember only about the brass ring,
You forget all about the golden rule.

You can mislead a man,
You can take ahold of his heart with your eyes.
You can mislead a man,
You can take ahold of his heart with your eyes.
But there's only one authority,
And that's the authority on high.

I got a God-fearing woman,
One I can easily afford.
I got a God-fearing woman,
One I can easily afford.
She can do the Georgia crawl,
She can walk in the spirit of the Lord.

Jesus said, "Be ready,
For you know not the hour in which I come."
Jesus said, "Be ready,
For you know not the hour in which I come."
He said, "He who is not for Me is against Me,"
Just so you know where He's coming from.

There's a kingdom called Heaven,
A place where there is no pain of birth.
There's a kingdom called Heaven,
A place where there is no pain of birth.
Well the Lord created it, mister,
About the same time He made the earth.

Concert Review: Bob Dylan And His Band At The Moore Theatre, Seattle WA, 10/04/09

Bob Dylan’s fall American tour doesn’t officially get underway until this Monday at Seattle’s WAMU Theatre. But for a few Seattle fans lucky enough to get tickets, Christmas came a day early as Dylan and his band performed an intimate warm-up show at the 1,300-seat Moore Theatre on Sunday night, October 4.

As someone who has seen Dylan live numerous times over the years, I can tell you from experience that his shows can be hit or miss affairs — sometimes wildly so. The last time I saw him play with his current band, for example — back in 2006 at Seattle’s much larger Key Arena — the show felt rushed, and Dylan only played one song, “Thunder On The Mountain,” from his then current (and still brilliant) album, Modern Times.

Tonight however was a completely different story. Playing in the much more intimate confines of the Moore Theatre, Dylan was about as loose as I think I’ve ever seen him. Rather than stay behind his keyboard as he has on recent tours, Dylan prowled the stage, singing several songs without playing any accompanying instrument other than his mic.

He was also uncharacteristically animated, waving his arms about as he sang, and giving cues to the rest of the band by pointing his fingers at them. Dressed from head to toe in black, this was a much showier Dylan than you’d normally expect. On several songs, he also played his signature harmonica, which made for a nice touch on songs like “Shooting Star,” “Ballad Of A Thin Man,” and “Not Dark Yet.”

Speaking of the band, they sounded simply amazing playing in such an acoustically perfect venue as the Moore. Returning lead guitarist Charlie Sexton, in particular, was a house of fire — he literally tore the joint down on rockers like “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Thunder On The Mountain.”

Bassist Tony Garnier and drummer George Recile made for a rock-solid rhythm section, although Garnier seemed to be having some sound problems during the early going (which were eventually ironed out). Rounding out Dylan’s band were second guitarist Stu Kimball and multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron (banjo, electric mandolin, pedal steel, lap steel, trumpet).

Dylan himself was in great form, reinventing his songs as he so often does in his concerts, but this time doing so more through his vocal inflections than with the actual arrangements.

On a stunning version of “Nettie Moore” from Modern Times, for example, Dylan’s voice went from a deep, low register to a high-pitched wail. He bit off the lyrics with rapid fire delivery, sometimes going from single to double phrases within a single line. The way Dylan emphasized the word “black” in particular — from the line, “The world has gone BLACK before my eyes” — gave this song a much darker feel than the recorded version. If there are any bootlegs out there of this, I would love to get my hands on one. It was a standout even on a night where there were so many of them.

Even such Dylan standards as “Ballad Of A Thin Man” and the warhorse that is “Like A Rolling Stone” took on new urgency as Dylan’s phrasing breathed new fire into them. When Dylan sang the familiar line, “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones,” he once again double-phrased the lyrics, giving the song even more of an angry feel than the original. Anyone who says Dylan is a lousy singer obviously knows very little about vocal phrasing — an art Dylan has mastered like very few singers around, outside of maybe the likes of Sinatra himself.

Dylan also did something on this night that he hasn’t done in awhile — he picked up the guitar for a few songs. Although you could see he was clearly struggling with it somewhat (Dylan rarely plays guitar live anymore, reportedly due to an arthritis condition), he sounded just fine trading licks with Sexton on “Don’t Think Twice, Its Alright” and “High Water (For Charley Patton).”

Other highlights included a letter-perfect “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” from this year’s Together Through Life album, and a fierce sounding “Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking,” a song from Dylan’s Born-again period which made for a very surprising choice to open the show.

Dylan and his band played for two solid hours — which is a little long by his usual standards, and seemed to have a great time for the duration. Dylan even smiled a few times.

Here is the complete setlist courtesy of Boblinks.com:

1. Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking
2. Shooting Star
3. Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
4. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right [Bob on guitar]
5. Lonesome Day Blues
6. I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
7. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
8. Not Dark Yet
9. High Water (For Charley Patton) [Bob on guitar]
10. When The Deal Goes Down
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Nettie Moore
13. Thunder On The Mountain
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man

And I am sure you will provide evidence for that statement.

Here you go, from Wikipedia:

Growing up in Hibbing, Dylan and his parents were part of the area's small but close-knit Jewish community, and in May 1954 Dylan had his Bar Mitzvah.[269] However, for a period during the late 1970s and early 80s, Bob Dylan publicly converted to Christianity. From January to April 1979, Dylan participated in Bible study classes at the Vineyard School of Discipleship in Reseda, California. Pastor Kenn Gulliksen has recalled: "Larry Myers and Paul Emond went over to Bob’s house and ministered to him. He responded by saying, 'Yes he did in fact want Christ in his life.' And he prayed that day and received the Lord."[270][271] By 1984, Dylan was deliberately distancing himself from the "born-again" label. He told Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone magazine: "I've never said I'm born again. That's just a media term. I don't think I've been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come."[272] In response to a question from Loder as to whether he belonged to any Church or synagogue, Dylan laughingly replied, "Not really. Uh, the Church of the Poison Mind."[272]

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