Seven Songs for the Week #113 - 4th June 2025

I didn't own any of the big Bob Dylan boxsets and now I own three of them. This started with the Fragments/Time Out Of Mind box which I really enjoyed as an overhaul and exploration of that record. The Springtime in New York box then piqued my interest, even though I don't own many of the albums that it covers, and indeed it's a total reframiing of early 80s Bob. Then I got a notification about a price drop on Trouble No More which covers Bob's Christian period. It's 8CDs full of music. Two full concerts, two CDs of other live material and two CDs of rarities, alt takes, rehearsals. Oh and a DVD with a film. The point of buying something as overwhelming as 10 hours of GospelBob is that at some point a song will stop you in your tracks. While listening to CD2 this week, it was this song which I've never heard before and which Bob never released in any version back in the day. It starts quiet and then reaches a galloping righteousness pretty quickly. Bob's intro line of "I can manipulate people as well as anybody" is one hell of an opening line.

No Line on the Horizon is a superb record, even more so considering the below par output of 2010s U2. Yes, Get on Your Boots should have never been released, and making a playlist that simply drops that track and ...Crazy Tonight... and adds the alt take of the title track as a bookend is a top listen. Moment of Surrender, which is just as religious as anything on Bob's box set, sounds like the most lugubrious hymn of all time. Taking 2.5 minutes to hit the refrain, it's a trip. I think an instrumental and Atmos version of the album would be sensational.

More new Pulp - the album comes on Friday and I'll see them live next Tuesday. This has Scott Walker Jackie vibes, what with its galloping urgency. I mean it's really the same message as the first two tracks.

How do you follow Jarvis? With Cliff. Simply one of the greatest songs of all time. I am never not delighted to hear this. I wish I could have included the 12 inch version, but couldn't find it on streaming.

Continuing on from a previous list, here's more Paramore that's new to me.

Pulp made me think of the Walker Brothers, so why not revel in more intense emotions.

A song that sounds like the end.