The Compleat Theme Time Radio Hour Shopping List

Current as of January 2011. Originally published as part of our Theme Time Radio Hour "Frequently Asked Questions" document.

Promotional CDs and 45s


Baseball

A CD of the complete Baseball show was released in 2006 as part of a limited in-store promotion for Modern Times. The link above will take you to Amazon where various re-sellers offer the disc for prices ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous. The disc can also be found on eBay.

If packaging and "original condition" are important to you, you should make sure the packaging is the original cardboard sleeve (with the TTRH logo on the front and playlist on the back) and that the disc itself is not a CD-R copy but the original with silk-screened artwork.

If you liked "Friends and Neighbors" (see below) chances are you'll love "Baseball," which features Your Host Bob Dylan performing Take Me Out to the Ball Game a capella among its other highlights.

Friends & Neighbors

Another CD, featuring the complete "Friends and Neighbors" episode, is part of the "deluxe" Together Through Life package released in April 2009. The CD has everything that makes TTRH special and is the perfect starting point for introducing someone to the show: quirky music, interesting facts and trivia; two emails, wife-swapping and swinging, and Our Host launching into a blistering attack on modern country music. Who could ask for more?  As with the "Baseball" disc, the original "Friends and Neighbors" CD is packaged in a cardboard sleeve displaying cover artwork and track listing.  The CD also displays silk-screened artwork.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

In November 2009, Sony/Columbia offered a limited-edition 45 rpm vinyl record ("while supplies last") as a bonus to some purchasers of the "Christmas in the Heart" album. The B-side of the 45 is Our Host's reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" from the Theme Time Radio Hour Christmas Special.  The A-side of the single also has an interesting Theme Time Radio Hour connection, Bob Dylan's cover of Brave Combo's version of "Must Be Santa," a song that was featured on the TTRH Christmas Special.  Although no longer commercially available, the 45 is offered through various resellers on Amazon.

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Promotional Compilations

Radio Bob and Radio Bob Another 17 Brillant Tracks...are two compilations originally included as promotional CDs in editions of Uncut magazine. Featuring music only from various episodes of TTRH, the CDs are probably only of interest to collectors wanting a complete TTRH-related collection.  Both compilations can be found on Amazon and eBay.

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Commercial Compilations

There are currently 11 different commercial CD compilations featuring music only from TTRH.

These compilations do not include Dylan's commentary or other features that made the show unique. The tracks used on the compilations are not necessarily the ones used on the show. If you're interested in the folk, jazz, swing, rockabilly and country music played on TTRH, you might like these sets. If you're looking for TTRH shows, they're not for you.

Chrome Dreams/ISIS Compilations

There are four "unauthorized" (in the sense that they were not produced with the involvement of the TTRH team) sets from the Chrome Dreams/ISIS label:

 The Best of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Volume 1 and Volume 2 cover the show's first season. For reasons unknown, the U.S. Amazon store isn't carrying Volume 2, but it can be purchased at Amazon U.K. through the link above. Volume 1 can also be purchased at Amazon U.K.

 The Best Of The Second Series compiles music from the show's second season. It can also be purchased at Amazon U.K.

Presumably the last of the Chrome Dreams TTRH issues, Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour - The Best Of The Third Series has been released in the U.K. and  U.S.

All the above compilations are 2-CD sets of 52 tracks each.

Mischief Music "Radio Radio"Compilations

Four other "unauthorized" compilations come from the German Mischief Music label. Radio Radio is a 4-CD box set released in 2008 and covers music from TTRH's first season. A second "Radio, Radio" compilation is also available, Bob Dylan Radio Radio Vol. 2. As with the first, "Vol. 2" is a 4-CD set with 112 tracks. "Vol.2" also focuses entirely on Season 1 of TTRH.  A third 4-CD set, Bob Dylan Radio Radio Vol.3 appears to collect music played over Season 2 of TTRH with a total 108 tracks.

A fourth compilation from Mischief Music was released in late 2010 and is available through Amazon U.K., "Radio Radio: Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Volume 4." Personally, given that I haven't seen/heard it, I'd approach this one with a caveat audiens 'tude. A Dreamtime correspondent notes that at least one of the tracks was directly recorded from the radio show itself and several of the tunes fade out abruptly.  Definitely a gray market entry in the TTRH field.

Ace Records Compilations

The authorized Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan set was compiled by Ace Records U.K. under the supervision of TTRH producer Eddie Gorodetsky and Dylan factotum, Jeff Rosen.

In September 2009 Ace released another 2-CD set, Theme Time Radio Hour Season 2. As the title implies, the compilation features music from Season 2 of TTRH.

In November 2010, Ace  released the third, and presumably last, of its TTRH compilations, Theme Time Radio Hour Season 3 with your host Bob Dylan. The 2-CD set is available for order through both Amazon U.S. and Amazon U.K.

Of all the commercial compilations, the Ace volumes of Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan best reflect the breadth of music played on TTRH.  All contain both relatively modern music, such as The White Stripes Seven Nation Army, The Clash's Tommy Gun, and Nirvana's Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle, as well as the type of vintage cuts you'll find on the other sets.

The Collected Ace TTRH Compilations and the Infamous Slipcase

Ace announced that it would release a box set collecting all three of its TTRH CD compilations in a packaged slipcase resembling a vintage radio, and for a short time advertised that set on both Amazon and Amazon U.K. for a $79.98 U.S. dollars price.

However, as of this writing (November 2010), both the U.S and U.K Amazon pages have been changed to sell the slipcase only - although both note that it is out-of-stock.  Adding to the confusion is the erroneous price listing and description on the Amazon U.S. page, noting a $64.84 discount and that what is being sold is "all three volumes of this acclaimed series based on Bob Dylan's 'Theme Time Radio Hour' radio show from Ace together in this limited edition cardboard box holder"  Add it to your shopping cart if you like - I did - but I think it's highly unlikely that either you or I will eventually receive all three editions of the Ace compilations in a cardboard holder for $15.14.  But hope springs eternal.

For those wishing to buy the slipcase only, the current best bet seems to be through Ace itself.

Other TTRH-related Compilations

The 2008 Starbucks compilation, Artist's Choice - Bob Dylan: Music That Matters To Him is highly recommended. The CD set reflects Dylan's musical interests, "right now," as he relates in the liner notes, and the music in the compilation could easily have appeared on a TTRH playlist. The CD also has another connection to TTRH. Its liner notes state that it was produced by "Tim Ziegler," the fictitious name used by a caller during one of the Season 2 episodes who complained that Dylan had misidentified a record label.

Christmas Party with Eddie G. is the only commercial release of one of TTRH writer/producer's Eddie Gorodetsky's infamous Christmas compilations. It's more Dr. Demento-oriented than a typical TTRH episode, and as its title implies, Christmas Party with Eddie G. is focused entirely on a holiday theme.

The compilation is notable to those interested in the background and origins of  TTRH. The original CD was the only release from Bob Dylan's Strikin' It Rich label, created in October of 19 and 90 with the stated goal of "releasing rare and interesting rhythm and blues material" and an early precursor of what would become the idea for TTRH.  Prices for the CD, available through resellers on Amazon, verge on the ridiculous to the reasonable.

Although overpriced, the CD/DVD set, Ricky Jay Plays Poker is also of interest to the TTRH fan. A friend of Bob Dylan and Eddie Gorodetsky (Eddie G. is one of the table members watching Jay demonstrate various card deceptions on the DVD feature), Jay's compilation could easily be a TTRH set with the theme of "Poker."  The tracklist includes artists as diverse as Memphis Minnie, Anita O'Day, and Lorne Greene. Recommended for the TTRH completist.


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There are literally dozens "Roots of Bob Dylan" compilations, including at least one using that title, all collecting music that the curators claim had some influence on Bob Dylan. My personal favorite from a TTRH viewpoint is Songs from the Invisible Republic: The Music That Influenced Bob Dylan.

Invisible Republic is a 2-CD set issued by a Repertoire Records, based out of Hamburg, Germany. The 45 cuts on the set include artists as diverse as Odetta, Slim Harpo, Bing Crosby, and Curtis Mayfield. The common thread tying all together... Bob Dylan.

If you've read the various speculations and commentaries on the musical influences on the songs of "Love and Theft" and Modern Times, here's the means to listen to all their antecedents in one package: Gene Austin's The Lonesome Road; Slim Harpo's Shake Your Hips; Bing Crosby's Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day) itself the theme song for Crosby's Philco radio show; Billie Holiday's Having Myself a Time; and more, including the hard-to-find Uncle John's Bongos by Johnny & Jack, which inspired probably the most nakedly transparent music appropriation Dylan has made to date: Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum.

While hard-core Dylan fans may find nothing particularly new in Invisible Republic (for example, the roots of Modern Times were thoroughly covered by the excellent Live Roots and Wounded Flowers bootleg of 2006), the chances are that you'll hear at least one surprise.

Of course, that's one of the delights of Theme Time, hearing music you've never heard before, and connecting it to other music. And it's one of the delights of Invisible Republic. If you want to listen to a Theme Time Radio Hour with the theme of "Roots," you couldn't do better for source material than Invisible Republic.

Marilyn Monroe - Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

"I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful." ~ Marilyn Monroe

I think I'm taking that as the new Dreamtime motto. Of course being obstinate, we'd prefer money too. Marilyn at her best, with "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" from 19 and 53's Gentleman Prefer Blondes. Our Host played T-Bone Burnett's very nice cover of the song on the "Friends and Neighbors" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour, and you can hear Marilyn's original as background during Mr. D.'s commentary.

Marilyn's birthday was this past Monday, June 1st. She would have been 83, which should give us all pause for a moment. She was 27 when she did Gentleman, earning $18,000 for the role, which Fox considered a bargain. Betty Grable, who was originally cast for Gentleman, was commanding $150,000 at the time. Fox decided to bet on a younger (and cheaper) sex bomb... and the rest, as they say, is history.

The studio wanted to dub Monroe's singing voice, thinking it too high-pitched and childish. Sanity eventually prevailed, and only the opening operatic "No, no, no" segment was dubbed with another singer's voice. Rumor has it though that the fabulous M's posterior was replaced by a body double in a least one shot when it was felt that her tail end was wagging too much. Dancing coach Gwen Verdon was brought in to instruct Monroe and co-star Jane Russell in the art of dance and sexy walk and reportedly stood in for both in several scenes when they couldn't get their bottoms to sway to director Howard Hawks' satisfaction.

Verdon would later go on to become the star of Broadway's Can-Can.

And yes, that's a "way homer."

Prom Night at Brookland-Cayce High School with The Swinging Medallions

"I've been listening to my legally obtained copy of the Friends & Neighbors Show and in the "Garage Rock" email the guy mentions The Swinging Medallions played his prom instead of Billy Stewart. I tried to do a little research of my own, cause this sounds like a real email to me, but came up cold.

"What do you think?" ~ from a comment posted by "Dreamtime Fan"

Y'know, "Dreamtime Fan," what I think is that you should definitely keep writing to me with your suggestions, as you sent me on a hunt that proved - to me at least - that at least some of the emails Our Host read on Theme Time Radio Hour were real, including this one....

"So, we got more emails than we know what to do with. So, this week we're gonna double-dip. This one comes from Guy Hornsby. He writes..."

"'Bob, I'm afraid your crack research team has let you down. On your show devoted to the songs of summer, you told listeners that Billy Stewart died June 17, 19 and 70. I know he died in January of that year, because my high school senior class in Brookland-Cayce, South Carolina had booked him to perform at our prom. Remember when high school proms had live music instead of deejays? -'"

"Matter of fact, I do. That was better! Guy continues to write..."

"'We had to scramble to come up with a local band. We were fortunate enough to get The Swinging Medallions. Their big hit was Double-Shot of My Baby's Love. To make a long story short...'"

"Too late, Guy..."

'I would like a Theme Time Radio Hour devoted to garage bands..."

"Garage bands? Well, first off, Guy, thank you for your note. I'd like to point out that there is already a program that focuses on garage music. I think that guy from The Sopranos does it. Not the Big Soprano, but one of the little Sopranos. But you know what, I enjoyed your letter so much, I think I got something for ya.

"By the way, Guy, what is a garage band? I've recorded songs in my garage. Am I a garage band?" ~ Bob Dylan, reading a second "listener email" on the "Friends and Neighbors" episode

I had first thought this email was the usual Theme Time Radio Hour mix of fact, fiction and in-jokes, but the more I dug into it, the more surprised I became.

Guy Hornsby

Was "Guy" a friend or acquaintance of the TTRH team who they were giving the wink and nod to in a fake email? A Google Search turned up as the first result a link to this "Guy Hornsby." Was the email a shout-out to a contemporary London-based deejay and producer of house music?

A little unlikely.

With some more digging I found this "Guy Hornsby," whose bio notes that he was a one-time BBC radio producer of "The Tony Blackburn Show," "[a] combination of soul and dance music, together [with a] risqué style of presentation..."

That Guy seemed to have more of a probable TTRH connection. Maybe Eddie G. or even Mr. D. was a fan of "The Tony Blackburn Show"? In any case, I was satisfied I had found the right guy, or Guy.

Turns out I was completely wrong. To paraphrase Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. But it would take me some more fact-checking to realize that.

"...my high school senior class in Brookland-Cayce, South Carolina..."

There ain't nothing like a good ol' challenge for the crack Dreamtime research team, although this one almost brought us to our knees as we tried variations of "Brooklyn," "Brooklin," and "Case" without success.

After too many repeat listenings and way too much research in the South Carolina groves of acadame, I finally produced a list of every goddamned high school in South Carolina, and discovered Mr. D. was saying "Brookland-Cayce." There is no town of that name, but there sure is a Brookland-Cayce High School, home of the Bearcats, in Cayce, South Carolina.

"Hmm," crack researcher Fred thought to himself. "Self, it'd be mighty interesting to see the 1970 yearbook for Brookland-Cayce."

Now, what I was thinking was that edition of the Brookland-Cayce yearbook might have the picture and name of one of the TTRH research team. Still wrong, as it turned out, but I was getting warmer. I decided to see what I could find out about the graduating class of Brookland-Cayce High School for 19 and 70. And guess who I found. That's right: one "Guy Hornsby, Class of 1970."

The email was real.

"...you told listeners that Billy Stewart died June 17, 19 and 70."

And indeed, Our Host did say that in the "Summer" episode, which first aired the day after the 4th of July in 2006, after playing Stewart's unique interpretation of "Summertime." It was more likely that Mr. D. let the crack research team down through a slip of the tongue, as he got everything else right except the month.

Billy Stewart did in fact die January 17th of that year when the car he was driving went off the road and plunged into the Neuse River in North Carolina, killing him and three members of his band. Stewart was two months shy of his 33rd birthday. Here's Billy Stewart with "Summertime," which should be worth the price of admission to Dreamtime alone.

"We had to scramble to come up with a local band. We were fortunate enough to get The Swinging Medallions."

As Guy and Our Host note, it wasn't all that unusual for high school prom committees to book semi-famous regional bands. All it took was money. Even though I had first greeted this email with a healthy dose of skepticism,  Guy was real. Occam's Razor would say it was then also highly probable that Guy's senior class had originally booked Billy Stewart and after his death recruited The Swinging Medallions to play at the senior prom at Brookland-Cayce in 19 and 70. The Medallions home base was Greenwood, SC, about an hour-and-a-half drive from Cayce, certainly putting them into the "local band" category.

The Swinging Medallions second single, "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)", originally recorded by Dick Holler & the Holidays, reached #17 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 19 and 66. The Swingers would have a couple of other Top 40 hits in the late `60s, but "Double Shot" was the apex of their career, and they were working mostly frat houses, colleges, beach joints, armories - and maybe the occasional high school prom - by the `70s. In fact, "The Party Band of the South" still does shows today, still chuggin' away with the quintessential garage band song, "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)."

Thanks, Dreamtime Fan!

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For the New Theme Time Radio Hour Listener

As a fan of Theme Time Radio Hour, I sometimes forget that not everyone is familiar with the show. Many Bob Dylan fans have never heard an episode of TTRH, even if they know of it. With the success of Together Through Life (Now #1 with a bullet on both the U.S. and U.K. charts. Go, Mr. D!), Dreamtime is getting on the average of a half-dozen emails a day from people who picked up the deluxe package, heard the "Friends and Neighbors" show and now want more TTRH .

So here's the scoop, amended from our Theme Time Radio Hour "Frequently Asked Questions" document which you should check out if you have other questions about the show.

Theme Time Radio Hour Promotional CDs

A CD of the complete Baseball show was released in 2006 as part of an in-store promotion for Modern Times. The link above will take you to Amazon where various re-sellers offer the disc for prices currently ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous. The disc can also be found on eBay, but note the following caveat for either Amazon or eBay: if packaging and "original condition" are important to you, you should make sure the disc is not a CD-R copy and is in its original cardboard sleeve (with the TTRH logo on the front and playlist on the back) before purchasing. If you liked "Friends and Neighbors" chances are you'll love "Baseball," which features among other things Your Host Bob Dylan performing Take Me Out to the Ball Game a capella.

Another promotional CD, featuring the "Friends and Neighbors" episode, is part of the "deluxe" Together Through Life package released in April 2009. I noted in another post that "Friends and Neighbors" wouldn't have been my first choice for a TTRH commercial release but after listening to the show again, I've decided I was wrong. The show has everything that makes TTRH special; quirky music, interesting facts and trivia; two emails, wife-swapping and swinging, and Our Host launching into a blistering attack on modern country music. Who could ask for more?

Theme Time Radio Hour Music Compilations

As of May 2009 there were five different commercial CD compilations featuring music only from TTRH. Note that these compilations do not include Dylan's commentary or other features that made the show unique, and that the tracks used on the compilations are not necessarily the ones used on the show. If you're interested in the folk, jazz, swing, rockabilly and country music played on TTRH, you might like these sets. If you're looking for TTRH shows, they're not for you.

There are three "unauthorized" (unauthorized in the sense that they were not produced with the involvement of the TTRH team) sets from the Chrome Dreams/ISIS label: The Best of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour Volume 1 and Volume 2 which cover the show's first season and The Best Of The Second Series which compiles music from the show's second season. All three compilations are 2-CD sets. Note that all three links will take you to the Amazon U.K. store, which is where I recommend you purchase the sets. Dreamtime has received emails complaining that the buyer was sent Alan Freed's A Stompin' Good Time instead of the Chrome Dream TTRH compilations when purchasing through the U.S. store.

Radio Radio , a 4-CD box set released in 2008 from Mischief Music - again "unauthorized" - also covers music from TTRH's first season.

The authorized Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan set was compiled by Ace Records U.K. under the supervision of TTRH producer Eddie Gordodetsky and Dylan business manager, Jeff Rosen. Of the five compilations, Theme Time Radio Hour with Your Host Bob Dylan probably best reflects the breadth of music played on TTRH as it contains both relatively modern music, such as The White Stripes Seven Nation Army and The Clash's Tommy Gun, as well as the type of vintage cuts you'll find on the other sets.

While not marketed as TTRH material, the 2008 Starbucks compilation, Artist's Choice - Bob Dylan: Music That Matters To Him is also highly recommended. The CD set reflects Dylan's musical interests, "right now," as he relates in the liner notes, and the music in the compilation could easily have appeared on a TTRH playlist. The CD also has another connection to TTRH. Its liner notes state that it was produced by "Tim Ziegler," the name used by a fictitious caller during one of the Season 2 episodes who complained that Dylan had misidentified a record label. As with the "Baseball" show, if "original condition" is important to you, you'll want to ensure that you're getting the original disc including its original packaging before purchasing.

Non-commercial

Yes, they're out there. No, I'm not going to tell you how to find them.

A Peek at the Friends & Neighbors Disc

Amazon recently updated the images on their Together Through Life "deluxe edition" page, giving us a glimpse of what the bonus CD of the "Friends & Neighbors" TTRH episode exterior/interior will look like. There's been some speculation that the CD might contain only music from the show, but I think it's safe to say that, like the "Baseball" episode, this will be the full show, with Our Host's commentary included.

"Friends & Neighbors" was the 17th episode of Season 1 of Theme Time Radio Hour, originally airing on August 23, 2006. Its playlist includes:

Howdy Neighbor - Porter Wagoner & The Wagonmasters
Don't Take Everybody To Be Your Friend - Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend - T-Bone Burnett
La Valse d'Amitie - Doc Guidry
Make Friends - Moon Mullican
My Next Door Neighbor - Jerry McCain
Let's Invite Them Over - George Jones & Melba Montgomery
My Friends - Howlin' Wolf
Last Night - Little Walter
You've Got a Friend - Carole King
Bad Neighborhood - Ronnie & The Delinquents
Neighbors - The Rolling Stones
Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals - Hank Williams
Why Can't We Be Friends? - War

While it wouldn't be my first choice as a commercial TTRH release, it's a good representation of what you get when you listen to the show, with music ranging from 1952 to 1995, with a heavy emphasis on cuts from the `50s, probably Mr. D.'s peak radio listening period as a kid in Minnesota. The musical highlight may be George Jones and Melba Montgomery's saga of wife-swapping, Let's Invite Them Over, which inspired one of Mr. D.'s greatest on-air rants...

“Now I love country music, but I say ‘What happened to it?'

"You hear a song like this and it's obvious it's about real people, and real emotions, and real problems, that's all, that's the country music we learned to love. Nowadays they want to sweep all the problems under the rug and pretend they don't exist. Well guess what folks – they do exist! And if you try and sweep 'em under the rug, they're just gonna pop up somewhere else. So we might as well all just face it and listen to the old style country music, the real country music. You know, about drinking and sleeping around. That's my kind of country music, and I hope yours. But I digress."

It was after listening to that outburst that I decided Mr. D. was deeply passionate about what was being played on TTRH, rather than just reading a script and collecting a check. One gets the impression that his friends and neighbors have heard a variation on that theme more than once. And God knows, it's true. If you didn't get the chance to read this Newsweek article, Is This the End of Traditional Country Music? when it was featured in the TTRH News & Views column, go read it now.

Commenters have questioned whether purchasing the "deluxe edition" is really worth the money (currently $15.99 at Amazon vs. $9.99 for the "regular" edition), given the fact that most people who care about TTRH probably already have a copy of the show, and the worth of the other bonus material - a DVD containing the so-called "Lost Interview" with Roy Silver - is problematic. And that's true. But the collector's mind isn't constrained by logic, of course, and many of us will pay the extra $6.00.

Theme Time Radio Hour Roundup

We have a couple of TTRH-related miscellanea to talk about, nothing  weighty enough for a post by itself, so we're hereby initiating the Dreamtime Theme Time Radio Hour Roundup Day, which, as all good Mouseketeers know, always comes on a Friday.

Our readers probably know by now that the "deluxe" edition of Together Through Life will include as a bonus disc the "Friends & Neighbors" Theme Time episode, first broadcast way back in Season 1, August of 2006. The track listing on Amazon matches up to the aired show, and I think one can safely assume that Our Host's commentary will be included.

"Friends & Neighbors" will be the second "official" full TTRH show to be released.  The first, of course, was the "Baseball" show from Season 1, itself a not-for-sale promotional CD that was haphazardly distributed to some stores such as the now-defunct Circuit City.  As I remember, you had to buy both Modern Times and at least one other Dylan CD at onerous CC prices in order to get your "free" copy of the "Baseball" show.  Being the total TTRH fanboy that I am, I have two copies of the show.  It still remains one of the best TTRHs ever aired, if, for no other reason, Mr. D's a capella rendition of the full Nellie Kelly version of Take Me Out To The Ball Game.

The Fan's Conundrum

Speaking of "official," there's been a minor kerfuffle in various online forums about Our Host's comments to a supposed email in this week's "Family" show.  In reply to a listener's aside that she copies various TTRH episodes to pass on to her family, Mr. D. notes that he "can't condone that," goes into Ann Landers' mode to straighten out the listener's family problems, and concludes his commentary with a stern, "And stop giving my shows away!" And stop making copies of my show! (Dylan's actual statement courtesy of our friends over at RightwingBob).

The comment generated some angst among fans.  Is he talking about us? Does he mean it?  What does that mean in relation to Mr. D.'s remark in an earlier show that listeners should go "illegally download" TTRHs that they've missed?

"Who knows?" is what we say here at Dreamtime.  You can drive yourself crazy trying to parse any Bob Dylan remark, of course.  If he said, "the sky is blue," there would be several articles - if not books -  written on its exact meaning, postulating everything that it had been an ironic commentary on the American political situation to proof positive that Dylan was a Freemason.

On the other hand, he might have meant that the sky was blue.

The whole bootleg/download thing is something that any Bob Dylan fan has to confront and deal with on an individual basis.  At Dreamtime we subscribe to Sirius XM as a means to assuage our conscience, and we encourage others in a position to do so to do the same.  We also make copies of the show, usually for personal use only.  Occasionally we make copies for family and friends. We don't sell them.

That still doesn't make it right.  Plus, we have to deal with the fact that bootlegging is one of the few issues I can remember where Dylan's position has been unchanging and unyielding.  Space travel is the only other subject I can think of where his opinion has been the same each time it's been brought up. He doesn't like either, period.  He's compared bootleggers to thieves and house-breakers and complained that they've diluted his artistic opus.  He won't play any new work on tour until it's been released on album for fear that the first release would be a bootlegged release... which, of course, it would.

So, we're dealing with a revered figure that has flatly said that he doesn't want us doing what we're doing, while we grasp at straws like, "some of these bootleggers they make pretty good stuff," in our defense. 

Yet we still do it.  Such is the conundrum of the fan.

It's a conundrum that even Our Host has fallen into at times.  In at least three instances Theme Time Radio Hour has played bootlegged music: a Frank Sinatra commercial for Pete Epsteen Pontiac in the "Cars" episode of Season 1, and more recently, the "Blood" and "War" shows featured two Jerry Lee Lewis songs that have never been officially released.  An obviously delighted Bob Dylan noted, "You know, if anybody ever asks me why I do this radio show, I could just play them that - Jerry Lee Lewis singing Shakespeare. That's what this show is all about."

Indeed.  And we all would have been the poorer if he hadn't played them.   Such is the conundrum of the fan.

Name That Tune

We'll leave it at that and with a question for our readership which is bugging the usually infallible crack Dreamtime research team. At the beginning of the "Truth & Lies" show, when Mr. D. claims that we're listening to Little Steven's Underground Garage, there's a song playing in the background.  It's annoyingly familar to me, I can even hum it all the way through, but damned if I can think of its title or the artist.  Can anyone clue me in?

Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Didn't It Rain

Way back from TTRH #1, "Weather." Gospel's first national star, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Tharpe also makes a an appearance in the "Friends and Neighbors" episode, with Our Host mentioning her attracting 25,000 paying customers to her wedding to her manager Russell Morrison, followed by a performance at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. in 19 and 51.

Episode 33: Oh Baby, Me Gotta Go

"I've recorded songs in my garage. Am I a 'garage band'?" - Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour Friends & Neighbors

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This month is the 50th anniversary of the first recording of inarguably the greatest garage band song ever written, and what better way to celebrate than with this rare clip of Dylan and Tom Petty doing a sound check at Farm Aid 1985 with a rocking - if very muffled - "Louie Louie." Check out the Dreamtime blog (that's right here) for a better watching experience of the YouTube video.



1985 was the year of the first Farm Aid, a benefit spurred by a comment Dylan made at Live Aid earlier that year,

"I hope that some of the money...maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe...one or two million, maybe...and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks...."

Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young took Dylan's comments to heart, and in September 1985, the first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign Illinois. The annual benefit continues, with Nelson, Mellencamp, and Young still performing.

With the possible exception of Paul McCartney's "Yesterday," "Louie Louie" has been covered more than any pop song in history - over 1,000 different versions, according to louielouie.net. In fact, a college radio station once played "Louie Louie" non-stop for over 63 hours... without repeating the same version twice. Here's the ultimate mashup of "Louie Louie," 50, yes, count `em 50 artists covering the song, all in two and a half minutes.

[Daily Reckless "Louie Louie" mashup]

Among 45 others, you just heard Iggy Pop, Led Zepplin, Blondie, The Grateful Dead, and Julie London. We'll be hearing more from Julie later in the show.

Originally written by Richard Berry in 19 and 55, and released by Berry two years later, "Louie Louie" was a moderate regional success, but wouldn't become a mega-hit until the early `60s when both Paul Revere and the Raiders and The Kingsmen recorded their different versions. While the PR&tR version of "Louie Louie" was extremely popular on the West Coast from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, it was The Kingsmen who would have the national breakout hit with "Louie Louie."

Almost immediately there were adult complaints about the near-indecipherable lyrics, with concerned parents writing plaintive missives such as this one to then-attorney general Robert F. Kennedy...

"Who do you turn to when your teen age daughter buys and brings home pornographic or obscene materials... My daughter brought home a record of "LOUIE LOUIE" and after reading that the record had been banned from being played on the air because it was obscene, proceeded to try to decipher the jumble of words... The lyrics are so filthy that I can not enclose them in this letter."

Well, yes. Or, maybe no.

Actually there was something of a cottage industry among adolescents who were passing smudged, yellow, lined sheets of paper - the kind with the wood chips in the middle - to each other containing what were claimed to be the "real" lyrics of "Louie Louie." For example, while you might have thought you had heard these lyrics,

Louie, Louie,
me gotta go. Louie, Louie, me gotta go.
me catch a ship across the sea.
I sailed the ship all alone;
I never think I'll make it home
me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there;
I smell the rose in her hair.
It won't be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again.

A fine little girl, she wait for me;
Three nights and days we sailed the sea;
Me see Jamaica moon above;

Those nasty ol' Kingsmen were really singing - the crib sheets claimed,

Louie, Louie,
grab her way down low. Louie, Louie, grab her way down low.
she gets her kicks on top of me.
Each night I take her out all alone;
she ain't the kind I lay at home
I fuck my girl all kinds of ways.
And on that chair, I lay her there;
I felt my boner in her hair.
It won't be long, she'll slip it off.
I'll take her in my arms again;
tell her I'd rather lay her again.

A fine little bitch, she waits for me;
Each night at ten, I lay her again;
If she's got a rag on, I'll move above;

Even the nation's churches got into the act, producing a "clean" version of "Louie Louie," with a musical retelling of the Israelites flight from Egypt:

"Pharaoh, Pharaoh whoa whoa
Let my people go Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Well Pharaoh Pharaoh whoa baby Let my people go."

"Pharaoh Pharaoh" is still sung at many summer camps to this day.

To add to the fun, the ever-watchful J. Edgar Hoover sicced his minions on this aural evil threatening the morals of the nation's children, and the F.B.I. spent much of 1964 through `65 investigating this dire threat to America. However, even when the Ace Investigators of Our Nation slowed down the 45 single to 33 1/3, "Louie Louie" remained impenetrable. The F.B.I. finally admitted defeat in May of `65, noting in a memo,

"The FBI Laboratory advised that because the lyrics of the recording "Louie Louie" could not be definitely determined in the Laboratory examination, it was not possible to determine whether this recording was obscene."

Justice thwarted and Louie triumphant.

We're closing out today's show with one last "Louie Louie," this one a hot and sultry version from Theme Time favorite, Ms. Julie London. You can find "Louie Louie" on Julie's last album, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, which yes, does include that piece of bubblegum pop, as well as a cover of Dylan's "Quinn The Eskimo."

Here's Julie London and "Louie Louie."

Above another YouTube video for your education and entertainment, a "follow the bouncin' ball version" of "Louie Louie."

You can make your own decision whether the singer is saying, "We," or the more commonly accepted "Me gotta go."

Episode 33 of the Dreamtime podcast was brought to you with the help of Mr. Glad Head from the Expecting Rain Theme Time forums, and he'd like to give a shoutout to Mr. Buddy Guy,

"Buddy, don't close Legends! Keep the blues flowin' man!"

Agreed, Mr. Glad Head. Agreed.

Sources: All things Louie can can found at the eponymous "louielouie.net." The ever-wonderful "The Smoking Gun" has the documented F.B.I. lost war against "Louie Louie." Snopes.com explores the history of the "dirty" "Louie Louie" lyrics.

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You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.

Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals, and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.

Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.dot com. Our closing theme is performed by Lounge Affaire, courtesy of Christopher Murphy Studio.

We love your email and you can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com

The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.

Until next time, dream well.