New Morning is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 11th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1970.
Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of Dylan's more familiar, nasally singing voice. However, on Alberta #1 (Self Portrait), he has a slight nasal tone in his voice, but this was his first full Read Full BioNew Morning is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 11th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1970.
Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of Dylan's more familiar, nasally singing voice. However, on Alberta #1 (Self Portrait), he has a slight nasal tone in his voice, but this was his first full album with his familiar voice since John Wesley Harding in 1967 (he had taken on an affected country croon since then). In retrospect, the album has come to be viewed as one of the artist's lesser successes, especially following the release of Blood on the Tracks in 1975, often seen as a fuller return-to-form.
It reached #7 in the U.S., quickly going gold, and gave Bob Dylan his 6th UK #1 album. The album's most successful song from a commercial perspective is probably "If Not For You," which was covered by George Harrison, who had played guitar on a version of the song not released until 1991's Bootleg Series Volume 2, and was also an international hit for Olivia Newton-John in 1971. Bryan Ferry also included the song on Dylanesque.
Note: I found this 1970 write up by a Rolling Stone reviewer that I thought interesting:
Well, friends, Bob Dylan is back with us again. I don't know how long he intends to stay, but I didn't ask him. Didn't figure it was any of my business.
Put simply, New Morning is a superb album. It is everything that every Dylan fan prayed for after Self Portrait. The portrait on the cover peers out boldly, just daring you to find fault with it, and I must admit that if there is a major fault on the album, I haven't found it. Nor do I care to. This one comes easy, and that's what it's all about, isn't it? A newly re-discovered self-reliance is evident from the first measure to the last fadeout, the same kind of self-reliance that shocked the old-timers when this kid dared to say "Hey-hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song." That may have been his own modest (as it turns out in retrospect, anyway) way of saying "Here I am, world." Calling his latest outing New Morning may very well be his way of saying, "I'm back."
But that's reading things into it already, and I'd like to get through this review without reading much into what's already there, because what's there is very impressive indeed, and needs no help from the likes of me. Instead, let's look at what is there, pausing now and again to comment on it.
To begin with, there's the cover. Dylan, looking like he's been through some rocky times, but confident. And the back cover, with Young Zimmerman and Victoria Spivey, self-appointed "Queen of the Blues," standing by her piano. He's holding a guitar that Big Joe Williams had just given him, and she is beaming up at him, immensely pleased. The look on his face seems to say, "I thought I could do it, and I could. Shit, man, I'm Bob Dylan, that's who I am." And indeed, that's who he was. And is.
"If Not For You" starts it all off. A kind of invocation to the muse, if you will, only this time, instead of crying "I want you so bad," he's celebrating the fact that not only has he found her, but they know each other well, and get strength from each other, depend on each other. 'Twas always thus, it seems, and the Kooperishly bouncy organ and brisk tempo go back a long ways.
Everyone seems to think that "Day of the Locusts" is about Dylan picking up his degree at Princeton, but it could as easily be any kid in this day and age, perplexed, uptight, and not a little unnerved by this juncture of his life, graduating from college. But putting all that aside, musically, this is where the whole thing gets off the ground. Dylan makes his first appearance here playing piano (piano cuts wisely ticked off on the cover, probably by Kooper who knows a great keyboard artist when he hears one, and who hears one in Dylan), and the entire production, from the locust organ discord to the subtly mixed-down vocal backup, is just fine. This cut sounds like a lot of work was put into it, which is a break from Dylan's usual studio practice of doing a song about twice and leaving it at that.
After the hero of "Locusts" has run off to the Black Hills, he tells us that "Time Passes Slowly." More superb pianistics here, although the erratic ending makes me think that this was done on the spot in the studio. No matter, it's a nice piece of fluff, and it fits.
"Went to See the Gypsy" is what the side's been building up to, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is a masterpiece. The hardest rocker from Dylan in a 'coon's age, it builds beautifully, ending in some fantastic electric guitar work. Dylan's voice is back in its raspy, rowdy glory; after a list of unusual achievements credited to the gypsy by his dancing girl, we hear Bob growl, "He did it in Las Vegas and he can do it here," Really! I whooped the first time I heard that. For some unknown reason, the story line in this song reminds me of the scene in Juliet of the Spirits where Juliet and her friend go to see the androgynous Indian at the grand hotel. And the meaning, if indeed there is one, of the line about the "little Minnesota town" escapes me, but I don't really care.
Side one ends on two comic notes. "Winterlude" is lewd, and makes me wish I'd learned to ice skate when I was still back East. The line about going to get married and then coming back and cooking up a meal reminds me of Bing Crosby crooning, "In the meadow we can build a snowman" in "White Christmas." And "If Dogs Run Free" puts me in mind of a beatnik poetry reading at the Fat Black Pussy Cat Theatre in Greenwich Village. Everybody — and especially Maeretha Stewart — sounds like they're having a good time, and Al Kooper can play in my piano bar any time he wants.
On the surface, the second side would seem to be the "serious" side of the record, but that notion is belied immediately by the fact that somebody's guitar (Bob, is that you?) is horribly out of tune. But there is a lot of gusto to Dylan's singing and, for a change, the backup girls add just the right touch.
The unquestioned masterpiece of the album is "Sign on the Window." It ranks with the best work he's done, and the fact that he plays such moving piano and sings with just everything he's got makes it one of the most involved (and involving) pieces he's ever recorded. It's right up there with "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowland," "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," "Like A Rolling Stone," and the unreleased "I'm Not There" in intensity. "She and her boyfriend went to California." And baby, that's a long, long way. It's gonna be wet tonight on Main Street, and with that pronouncement, Dylan communicates a despair mixed with resignment. And is the cabin in Utah the panacea that it would seem, the glue to mend this broken heart? I'm not convinced, and Dylan doesn't sound like he is either. If poetry can be a story that must be sent by telegraph, then this is certainly one of Dylan's foremost achievements as a poet. Words, music, singing, piano work, all of the highest order. Yes, Doubting Thomas, he can still do it. And how!
And if there is any doubt left try on "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat Volume Two," otherwise known as "One More Weekend." It's such a good rocker, and so full of energy that I still haven't bothered to listen to the words. No matter, they surely say what they must, which, in the grand old rock lyric tradition, is not much.
Speaking of lyrics, who among us would have thought that we'd see the day when Bob Dylan would start out a song with "La la la la la ...?" I've never heard Dylan sounding so outrageously happy before. The tune to the verse is similar to "I Shall Be Released," but the sentiments here show that the release has already happened. I just love this number, and I hope that the likes of Joe Cocker will think twice before attempting a cover version of it.
The second side ends with two "religious" songs that will doubtless be plumbed for "meanings" they don't contain. "Three Angels" is an old-fashioned Dylan word-riff, the kind of thing that we've seen before in "Gates of Eden" and "Desolation Row." It is so corny that it is funny, and this is the one cut on the album that makes me wonder if it'll stand up under repeated playings. And regardless of what others say about "Father of Night," I think that Dylan found a good gospel riff on the piano and used it. Anybody can make up words to it; they simply aren't that important. I guess it could also be seen as the leavetaking of the muse too, but I'll leave it to others far more erudite than myself to figure that out. Praising the maker of the night is an awfully good way to end a New Morning, anyway.
* * *
In the end, this is an album that, the less said about it, the better. I have my favorite moments (like the part in "Sign On the Window" where he modulates up and then, when he says "Looks like it's gonna rain", he hits a major chord — right out of the blue), but so will you. It seems almost superfluous to say that this is one of the best albums of the year, one of Dylan's best albums, perhaps his best. In good conscience, all I can really say is get it yourself and prepare to boogie.
After all, what better recommendation for an album — be it Dylan or a bunch of unknowns — is there?
Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of Dylan's more familiar, nasally singing voice. However, on Alberta #1 (Self Portrait), he has a slight nasal tone in his voice, but this was his first full Read Full BioNew Morning is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 11th studio album, released by Columbia Records in October 1970.
Coming only four months after the controversial Self Portrait, the more concise and immediate New Morning won a much warmer reception from fans and critics. Most welcome was the return of Dylan's more familiar, nasally singing voice. However, on Alberta #1 (Self Portrait), he has a slight nasal tone in his voice, but this was his first full album with his familiar voice since John Wesley Harding in 1967 (he had taken on an affected country croon since then). In retrospect, the album has come to be viewed as one of the artist's lesser successes, especially following the release of Blood on the Tracks in 1975, often seen as a fuller return-to-form.
It reached #7 in the U.S., quickly going gold, and gave Bob Dylan his 6th UK #1 album. The album's most successful song from a commercial perspective is probably "If Not For You," which was covered by George Harrison, who had played guitar on a version of the song not released until 1991's Bootleg Series Volume 2, and was also an international hit for Olivia Newton-John in 1971. Bryan Ferry also included the song on Dylanesque.
Note: I found this 1970 write up by a Rolling Stone reviewer that I thought interesting:
Well, friends, Bob Dylan is back with us again. I don't know how long he intends to stay, but I didn't ask him. Didn't figure it was any of my business.
Put simply, New Morning is a superb album. It is everything that every Dylan fan prayed for after Self Portrait. The portrait on the cover peers out boldly, just daring you to find fault with it, and I must admit that if there is a major fault on the album, I haven't found it. Nor do I care to. This one comes easy, and that's what it's all about, isn't it? A newly re-discovered self-reliance is evident from the first measure to the last fadeout, the same kind of self-reliance that shocked the old-timers when this kid dared to say "Hey-hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song." That may have been his own modest (as it turns out in retrospect, anyway) way of saying "Here I am, world." Calling his latest outing New Morning may very well be his way of saying, "I'm back."
But that's reading things into it already, and I'd like to get through this review without reading much into what's already there, because what's there is very impressive indeed, and needs no help from the likes of me. Instead, let's look at what is there, pausing now and again to comment on it.
To begin with, there's the cover. Dylan, looking like he's been through some rocky times, but confident. And the back cover, with Young Zimmerman and Victoria Spivey, self-appointed "Queen of the Blues," standing by her piano. He's holding a guitar that Big Joe Williams had just given him, and she is beaming up at him, immensely pleased. The look on his face seems to say, "I thought I could do it, and I could. Shit, man, I'm Bob Dylan, that's who I am." And indeed, that's who he was. And is.
"If Not For You" starts it all off. A kind of invocation to the muse, if you will, only this time, instead of crying "I want you so bad," he's celebrating the fact that not only has he found her, but they know each other well, and get strength from each other, depend on each other. 'Twas always thus, it seems, and the Kooperishly bouncy organ and brisk tempo go back a long ways.
Everyone seems to think that "Day of the Locusts" is about Dylan picking up his degree at Princeton, but it could as easily be any kid in this day and age, perplexed, uptight, and not a little unnerved by this juncture of his life, graduating from college. But putting all that aside, musically, this is where the whole thing gets off the ground. Dylan makes his first appearance here playing piano (piano cuts wisely ticked off on the cover, probably by Kooper who knows a great keyboard artist when he hears one, and who hears one in Dylan), and the entire production, from the locust organ discord to the subtly mixed-down vocal backup, is just fine. This cut sounds like a lot of work was put into it, which is a break from Dylan's usual studio practice of doing a song about twice and leaving it at that.
After the hero of "Locusts" has run off to the Black Hills, he tells us that "Time Passes Slowly." More superb pianistics here, although the erratic ending makes me think that this was done on the spot in the studio. No matter, it's a nice piece of fluff, and it fits.
"Went to See the Gypsy" is what the side's been building up to, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is a masterpiece. The hardest rocker from Dylan in a 'coon's age, it builds beautifully, ending in some fantastic electric guitar work. Dylan's voice is back in its raspy, rowdy glory; after a list of unusual achievements credited to the gypsy by his dancing girl, we hear Bob growl, "He did it in Las Vegas and he can do it here," Really! I whooped the first time I heard that. For some unknown reason, the story line in this song reminds me of the scene in Juliet of the Spirits where Juliet and her friend go to see the androgynous Indian at the grand hotel. And the meaning, if indeed there is one, of the line about the "little Minnesota town" escapes me, but I don't really care.
Side one ends on two comic notes. "Winterlude" is lewd, and makes me wish I'd learned to ice skate when I was still back East. The line about going to get married and then coming back and cooking up a meal reminds me of Bing Crosby crooning, "In the meadow we can build a snowman" in "White Christmas." And "If Dogs Run Free" puts me in mind of a beatnik poetry reading at the Fat Black Pussy Cat Theatre in Greenwich Village. Everybody — and especially Maeretha Stewart — sounds like they're having a good time, and Al Kooper can play in my piano bar any time he wants.
On the surface, the second side would seem to be the "serious" side of the record, but that notion is belied immediately by the fact that somebody's guitar (Bob, is that you?) is horribly out of tune. But there is a lot of gusto to Dylan's singing and, for a change, the backup girls add just the right touch.
The unquestioned masterpiece of the album is "Sign on the Window." It ranks with the best work he's done, and the fact that he plays such moving piano and sings with just everything he's got makes it one of the most involved (and involving) pieces he's ever recorded. It's right up there with "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowland," "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," "Like A Rolling Stone," and the unreleased "I'm Not There" in intensity. "She and her boyfriend went to California." And baby, that's a long, long way. It's gonna be wet tonight on Main Street, and with that pronouncement, Dylan communicates a despair mixed with resignment. And is the cabin in Utah the panacea that it would seem, the glue to mend this broken heart? I'm not convinced, and Dylan doesn't sound like he is either. If poetry can be a story that must be sent by telegraph, then this is certainly one of Dylan's foremost achievements as a poet. Words, music, singing, piano work, all of the highest order. Yes, Doubting Thomas, he can still do it. And how!
And if there is any doubt left try on "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat Volume Two," otherwise known as "One More Weekend." It's such a good rocker, and so full of energy that I still haven't bothered to listen to the words. No matter, they surely say what they must, which, in the grand old rock lyric tradition, is not much.
Speaking of lyrics, who among us would have thought that we'd see the day when Bob Dylan would start out a song with "La la la la la ...?" I've never heard Dylan sounding so outrageously happy before. The tune to the verse is similar to "I Shall Be Released," but the sentiments here show that the release has already happened. I just love this number, and I hope that the likes of Joe Cocker will think twice before attempting a cover version of it.
The second side ends with two "religious" songs that will doubtless be plumbed for "meanings" they don't contain. "Three Angels" is an old-fashioned Dylan word-riff, the kind of thing that we've seen before in "Gates of Eden" and "Desolation Row." It is so corny that it is funny, and this is the one cut on the album that makes me wonder if it'll stand up under repeated playings. And regardless of what others say about "Father of Night," I think that Dylan found a good gospel riff on the piano and used it. Anybody can make up words to it; they simply aren't that important. I guess it could also be seen as the leavetaking of the muse too, but I'll leave it to others far more erudite than myself to figure that out. Praising the maker of the night is an awfully good way to end a New Morning, anyway.
* * *
In the end, this is an album that, the less said about it, the better. I have my favorite moments (like the part in "Sign On the Window" where he modulates up and then, when he says "Looks like it's gonna rain", he hits a major chord — right out of the blue), but so will you. It seems almost superfluous to say that this is one of the best albums of the year, one of Dylan's best albums, perhaps his best. In good conscience, all I can really say is get it yourself and prepare to boogie.
After all, what better recommendation for an album — be it Dylan or a bunch of unknowns — is there?
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If Not for You
Bob Dylan Lyrics
If not for you
Babe, I couldn't find the door
Couldn't even see the floor
I'd be sad and blue
If not for you
If not for you
Babe, I'd lay awake all night
Wait for the mornin' light
To shine in through
But it would not be new
If not for you
If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all
I'd be lost if not for you
And you know it's true
If not for you
My sky would fall
Rain would gather too
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all
Oh! What would I do
If not for you
If not for you
Winter would have no spring
Couldn't hear the robin sing
I just wouldn't have a clue
Anyway it wouldn't ring true
If not for you
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Bob Dylan
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
To comment on specific lyrics, highlight them
내마음
If not for you
당신이 아니면
Babe, I couldn't find the door
난 문을 찾지 못했을거야
Couldn't even see the floor
심지어 어딘지도 몰랐을걸
I'd be sad and blue
슬프고 우울 했을거야
If not for you
당신이 아니면
If not for you
당신이 아니면
Babe, I'd lay awake all night
난 뜬눈으로 밤을 새웠을 거야
Wait for the mornin' light
아침 햇살만 기다렸을거야
To shine in through
빛이 들어오기를
But it would not be new
하지만 새롭지도 않았겠지
If not for you
당신이 아니면
If not for you
당신이 아니면
My sky would fall
하늘은 무너졌을거야
Rain would gather, too
폭우가 내렸겠지
Without your love, I'd be
nowhere at all
너의 사랑이 없이는 난 어디에도 존재 하지 않을거야
I'd be lost if not for you
방황했겠지 당신이 아니라면
And you know it's true
그리고 너도 알잖아 정말이야
If not for you
당신이 아니면
My sky would fall
하늘이 무너졌겠지
Rain would gather, too
폭우가 내렸겠지
Without your love, I'd be
nowhere at all
너의 사랑 없이는 난 어디에도 존재하지 않을걸
Oh! What would I do
오 내가 뭘 할수 있었을까
If not for you
당신이 아니면
If not for you
당신이 아니면
Winter would have no spring
봄이 오지않는 겨울이고
Couldn't hear the robin sing
새소리도 들리지 않았겠지
I just wouldn't have a clue
난 그냥 멍청했을거야
Anyway, it wouldn't ring true
어쨋든 진실되지 않았을거야
If not for you
당신이 아니면
Gib Williamson
Yes, this is for the woman i met in 1964 & we are still together in 2020, with a few more years to go
Paul McAleny
Sweet....respect
Gib Williamson
@B B Thank you mate. I didn't realise, that we don't pick them, they choose us. (Yep very lucky) here we still are.
https://youtu.be/sBOvG3_v5FY
B B
Lucky!!💙
Jason Deacon
@Gib Williamson best comment ever
Gib Williamson
@Little Birdling Greetings from New Zealand, Thank you xx
Martha Bixler
This song just randomly came into my head today so I had to listen to this version and the George Harrison one. Now I'm going to listen to some traveling wilburys
Corey Williams
Well it’s alright
Mox Avenger
Same her. Songs just appear in my head. Try Dragging the Line.
Nora Lamartina
Hi Martha