Dylan's Solo Acoustic Songs of Rolling Thunder '76

1976-04-28, University Of West Florida, Pensacola, FL

This is the eighth entry in our series covering every Rolling Thunder 1976 show on its 50th anniversary! The shows are coming fast and furious now, so you can always catch up on all the entries so far here.

Photo via The Telegraph

For the second song of today’s set in Pensacola, the final of nine consecutive performances in Florida (!), Dylan played “Just Like a Woman.”

Why does this matter? He’d played the song twice already this tour. But both those times—St. Petersburg, Clearwater—he performed it with the band, in an arrangement similar to how they did it in 1975. At today’s Pensacola show, however, he performed it solo, just like he had every night back in 1966. It was the only time he did so on this tour.

That got me thinking about one of the most interesting parts of Rolling Thunder 1976 setlists, and one big thing that differentiates the tour from 1975. Every night, he would open with two solo-acoustic songs. In ’75, he played a few solo tunes in the middle of the show, but now he started off his set with them. The song choices also varied more than they did in ’75—particularly in the second slot.

The number-one song, the first of the concert (well, of the Dylan portion; “Guam” had already been up there rocking for an hour) most nights was “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Here’s tonight’s rendition:

There were only two exceptions, two times he opened a regular concert with anything other than “Tambourine” (with the usual caveat there are a few setlists we don’t know, plus I’m not counting the TV tapings). The first exception came opening night. The very first song of Rolling Thunder ’76 was not “Mr. Tambourine Man.” It was “Visions of Johanna.” Here’s what I wrote about it in my song-by-song look at opening night:

Opening a show with “Visions of Johanna” - hell, opening an entire tour with it - is a bold move. He’s only ever opened one other concert with “Visions” that I can find, a random one-off in 1989. I was hoping for a killer full-band arrangement like Rolling Thunder II offers for so many other ’60s songs, but it’s solo acoustic. Too bad; a scorching ’76-band version of “Visions” would be a hell of a thing. Still, Bob making his unusual entrance with a seven-minute “Visions” must have been pretty amazing to see. Especially after an hour-plus of mostly-loud sets from the Guam backing band.

This was the only time “Visions” was performed at a regular concert the whole tour, though he did also play it at one of the Clearwater TV tapings.

Also, a local newspaper reported that a show in Corpus Christi opened with “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” This falls into the “Just Like a Woman” category of songs he played both solo-acoustic and electric with the band on this tour. In the latter incarnation, it gave the album and TV special its title: Hard Rain. (Another in the both-solo-and-band category this tour: “Tangled Up in Blue.” I wrote about the truly wild band arrangement here.)

The second slot of the two opening acoustic numbers varied a lot more. Here are all the songs he rotated through in that second slot:

• If You See Her, Say Hello

• It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

• Tangled Up in Blue

• The Times They Are a-Changin’

• Simple Twist of Fate

• Just Like a Woman

• Love Minus Zero / No Limit

• It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

• Spanish Is the Loving Tongue

• It Ain’t Me Babe

• Gates of Eden [reportedly]

Looking at that list, most of those songs feel unsurprising. It’s not like he busted out a solo-acoustic “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or anything. But I made a playlist of all the solo-acoustic performances, and what struck me listening to it is—they’re really good!

The solo acoustic numbers can feel like an afterthought this tour. There weren’t any included on Hard Rain, for instance, but they sound great. Take this “The Times They Are a-Changin.’” Nothing special on paper—an old warhorse he’s sung in this format hundreds of times—but I find this a very convincing version.

Ditto today’s “Just Like a Woman” in Pensacola. As I mentioned, it was the only time on the tour he performed it this way. He had a lot of other acoustic songs to get to.

One of my favorite performances of the entire tour also comes from one of these opening acoustic mini-sets. It’s also the only time he ever performed this song live at a regular concert. In San Antonio, he played “Spanish Is the Loving Tongue.” Presumably a nod to Texas border culture, in the home of the Alamo. Stunning.

If there’s one solo-acoustic song you know from this tour, though, it’s probably none of those. It’s a song he only played twice, and neither on a tape with particularly good sound quality. So why is this particular song well-known?

Well, it’s another Blood on the Tracks song that, like “Idiot Wind,” he wrote vengeful new lyrics for this tour. They flip the song’s meaning entirely from regret to rage. It’s “If You See Her Say Hello.” It used to go like that, but now it goes like this:

If you’re making love to her, watch it from the rear
You’ll never know when I’ll be back, or liable to appear
For it’s natural to dream of peace as it is for rules to break
And right now I’ve got not much to lose, so you’d better stay awake

1976-04-28, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL

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