Bob Dylan / 3:15
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Daniel Lanois: Omnichord
Brian Stoltz: guitar
Tony Hall: bass
Willie Green: drums
Recording Studio
The Studio, New Orleans: March 14, 1989 (Overdubs April–July 1989)
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois
Sound Engineers: Malcolm Burn and Mark Howard
“Shooting Star” and “Man in the Long Black Coat” were the last songs Dylan wrote for Oh Mercy. He wrote “Shooting Star” in New Orleans after a long ride on a Harley-Davidson on the roads of Mississippi with his wife Carolyn. “The song came to me complete, full in the eyes like I’d been traveling on the garden pathway of the sun and just found it. It was illuminated. I’d seen a shooting star from the backyard of our house, or maybe it was a meteorite.”1
This song is open to interpretation. Always fascinated by biblical texts, Dylan may be referring to the star that guided the three kings from the East to Bethlehem after the birth of the Christ. It is also possible that this star announces the end of the world, as the songwriter sings, “It’s the last temptation, the last account” and the “last radio is playing.” In the third verse, “The last time you might hear the Sermon on the Mount” refers to the primary expression of the Christian religion as described in the Gospel according to Matthew. But there is another, more temporal, explanation: “Shooting Star” is the evocation of love lost. Before his beloved, the lover asks himself, “If I was still the same,” “If I ever became what you wanted me to be.” In this case, “Shooting Star” is a symbol of the fantasy of love, ephemeral or inaccessible. Dylan could have also been influenced by the playwright Anton Chekhov (a shooting star played a role in Chekhov’s story “The House with the Mezzanine” [1896]).
Dylan remembers the recording: “I would have liked to have played combination string stuff with somebody else playing the rhythm chords, but we didn’t get it that far. In this song, the microphones were pinned up in odd places. The band sounded full.”1 He regretted not having been able to add brass to the piece. He feared that when it was finished the piece did not sound cohesive, not like a full orchestra. But his doubts were soon dispelled when, in the mix, Lanois “hyped the snare and captured the song in its essence.” Dylan was reassured. “It was frigid and burning, yearning—lonely and apart.”1
For this last track of the album, the producer played a curious instrument, the Omnichord. This is, according to Dylan, “a plastic instrument that sounds like an autoharp.”1 Dylan played guitar and harmonica. Eight takes were recorded on March 14. The seventh was selected for the overdub sessions between April and July.
Dylan has played “Shooting Star” more than one hundred times since a concert at East Troy in Wisconsin on June 9, 1990. A special mention goes to the version appearing on MTV’s Unplugged (1995).