Bob Dylan / 3:36
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Daniel Lanois: guitar; Augie Meyers: organ; Jim Dickinson: keyboards; Tony Garnier: upright bass; Winston Watson: drums / Recording Studio: Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997 / Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions) / Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
“Dirt Road Blues” is the logical continuation of “Love Sick.” The first track of the album ended with the narrator’s desire to return to the woman he loves. On the second track he begins his journey to find her. It’s a trip on a dirt road, treacherous, full of traps that ends with cruel disillusionment. The blues are the music of lament and despair, and the songwriter uses them to begin his journey on a road leading him “right beside the sun.”
Dylan had demoed “Dirt Road Blues” between September 1992 and August 1996 with Winston Watson, his house drummer at the time. Interviewed by the Irish Times, Daniel Lanois explained that for “Dirt Road Blues,” “[Dylan] made me pull out the original cassette, sample sixteen bars, and we all played over that.”154 This sample was looped and used as the basic rhythmic track for all takes. The sound is raw, very Memphis blues with rockabilly accents. Lanois plays a fine guitar solo, certainly on his 1956 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top. In a nod to Sam Phillips’s recordings for Sun Records, Tony Garnier, the bassist, plays an upright bass, and, especially for this piece, an “Elvis echo” is applied to Dylan’s vocals.