One State, Three Songs, One Artist

2 hours ago

A few years ago when my wife and I were driving home from Colorado, we made a stop in St. Joseph Missouri. We could have easily just passed on through St. Joseph without stopping, but I wanted to be able to say we at least saw or did something as we crossed the state. The reason we stopped in this town versus some other town was the fact that the Pony Express originated here. As you might expect, there are all kinds of historic sites in the town that you can stop and check out.

The Pony Express Motel in the opening photo for instance.

Despite having driven across it recently, I can't say as though I have ever spent a lot of time in Missouri. It's possible we camped there when I was a kid. I know for a fact we passed through St. Louis on our way to Oklahoma when I was younger. Like the scene from National Lampoons Vacation, I can still remember riding on highway 64 and seeing the famous Gateway Arch in the distance.

I have friends who live in St. Louis, but as I said, I have never really spent any time there. Which is a shame, because it seems like a pretty cool town. If nothing else, they hold pork steak in high regard there and if that is all I need to know about the city, that is enough. As an avid griller, I have said for a long time that pork steak is a very underrated cut of meat.

But I digress.

As you have probably figured out by now, our alphabetic journey through the US for #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze has brought us to the great state of Missouri. This was actually a kind of hard one. There are a lot of country songs with Missouri in the title or lyrics, but none of them really stood out to me. They are all pretty obscure, so I figured if we are going to go with obscure, we might as well go all the way.

In fact, with that in mind, I am going to try and share three songs with you today that are not only all about Missouri, but they are also all by the same artist. Yep, you heard that right, in my research for this post, I was able to find not just one, or two songs, but three different songs with the word Missouri in them all by none other than Mr. Bob Dylan.

It's honestly kind of crazy the amount of material that Dylan has out there. Even the demo's and "unreleased" stuff is quite good. It might not be as polished as some of the more mainstream stuff. If anything, the only Dylan I didn't really care for was when he went country for a bit, but that was more of a one off thing. If I were to go back and listen to it again, I might feel differently.

Direct Link

"Dink's Song" was originally included on the Minnesota Tapes album and the reference to Missouri doesn't come until much later in the song. Almost the last line to be exact. In fact, the reference isn't even about the state if I am reading it right, it is more about a man who had the last name of Missouri. Nevertheless, it is there if you take the time to listen to it.

I still want to see the movie that was recently released about Dylan called "A Complete Unknown". It looks like it was pretty good and that Timothy Chalime guy seems to be a good actor. I know I probably spelled his last name wrong there. My apologies. Anyway, let's move on to the next Dylan tune.

Direct Link

I may have forgot to mention, that until I did this post, I have never heard any of these Dylan songs before. You might consider that cheating, but the fact that I was able to share three songs by the same artist for one state trumped the fact that I wasn't super familiar with the songs. The reference to Missouri in "Tryin to get to Heaven" is a bit sooner than it was in "Dink's Song". The video I found is just something that someone threw together. You don't really need to watch it to appreciate how good the song is. I think one of the things I like so much about Dylan is how he can tell a story with his lyrics.

Even if you don't like his voice that much or his delivery, the lyrics are often quite poignant.

Direct Link

Finally, I am going to leave you with the song "Shenandoah" by Bob Dylan. Not much more to say here. When you do a search of songs with Missouri in the title or lyrics, this is one of the first ones that actually shows up. This and some songs by Eminem apparently. I can't say I am super familiar with those either.

I should point out, that this song refers more to the Missouri River than it does to the actual state and though in the past that may have been a violation of my unwritten rules, I am willing to bend it in this case, just for the coolness of having all the songs by the same artist.

Actually, I was thinking about it the other day and it is quite possible that just about every state has at least one Bob Dylan song that references it. Don't hold me to that of course, but it sure does seem like it.

Check back next week when we head to Montana (I think), and I believe that should be the last of the "M's".