Songs of Experience: A Bob Dylan Podcast

Latest Episodes:

20. God Knows with Rob Kelly (Pod Dylan) Nov 15, 2025

Show notes

Welcome to Songs of Experience: A Bob Dylan Podcast, where we explore the man and the music one song at a time In this episode Henry welcomes his friend and mentor Rob Kelly for a homecoming and return to Bob Dylan podcasting!

Rob and Henry discuss 1990's Under The Red Sky track, God Knows.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/god-knows/717157868?i=717157887

God Knows

Written by: Bob Dylan

God knows you ain’t pretty
God knows it’s true
God knows there ain’t anybody
Ever gonna take the place of you
God knows it’s a struggle
God knows it’s a crime
God knows there’s gonna be no more water
But fire next time
God don’t call it treason
God don’t call it wrong
It was supposed to last a season
But it’s been so strong for so long
God knows it’s fragile
God knows everything
God knows it could snap apart right now
Just like putting scissors to a string
God knows it’s terrifying
God sees it all unfold
There’s a million reasons for you to be crying
You been so bold and so cold
God knows that when you see it
God knows you’ve got to weep
God knows the secrets of your heart
He’ll tell them to you when you’re asleep
God knows there’s a river
God knows how to make it flow
God knows you ain’t gonna be taking
Nothing with you when you go
God knows there’s a purpose
God knows there’s a chance
God knows you can rise above the darkest hour
Of any circumstance
God knows there’s a heaven
God knows it’s out of sight
God knows we can get all the way from here to there
Even if we’ve got to walk a million miles by candlelight

If you would like to support hosting my podcasts, please check out my Patreon where for $5 I will give you a shout out on the podcast of your choice. Thank you to, Rob Kelly, Roberta Rakove, Matt Simonson, and Christopher Vanni. For $10, in addition to the shout-out I'll send you a surprise piece of Bob Dylan merch! Thank you to Kaitie Cerovec who is already enjoying her merch! I have a merch shop! Check out all sorts of fun Bob Dylan (and more) items! Thank you to Mark Godfrey, & Linda Maultsby over on Substack.

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

19. Spirit On The Water with Caroline Schwarz (The Bob Dylan Fan Club) Oct 15, 2025

Show notes

Welcome to Songs of Experience: A Bob Dylan Podcast, where we explore the man and the music one song at a time. This episode Henry completes the set of Bob Dylan Fan Club founders with Caroline Schwarz, discussing Spirit On The Water from 2006's Modern Times.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/spirit-on-the-water/187497036?i=187497259

Spirit on the Water

Written by: Bob Dylan

Spirit on the water
Darkness on the face of the deep
I keep thinking about you baby
I can’t hardly sleep
I’m traveling by land
Traveling through the dawn of day
You’re always on my mind
I can’t stay away
I’d forgotten about you
Then you turned up again
I always knew
That we were meant to be more than friends
When you are near
It’s just as plain as it can be
I’m wild about you, gal
You ought to be a fool about me
Can’t explain
The sources of this hidden pain
You burned your way into my heart
You got the key to my brain
I’ve been trampling through mud
Praying to the powers above
I’m sweating blood
You got a face that begs for love
Life without you
Doesn’t mean a thing to me
If I can’t have you
I’ll throw my love into the deep blue sea
Sometimes I wonder
Why you can’t treat me right
You do good all day
Then you do wrong all night
When you’re with me
I’m a thousand times happier than I could ever say
What does it matter
What price I pay
They brag about your sugar
Brag about it all over town
Put some sugar in my bowl
I feel like laying down
I’m pale as a ghost
Holding a blossom on a stem
You ever seen a ghost? No
But you have heard of them
I hear your name
Ringing up and down the line
I’m saying it plain
These ties are strong enough to bind
I been in a brawl
Now I’m feeling the wall
I’m going away baby
I won’t be back ’til fall
High on the hill
You can carry all my thoughts with you
You’ve numbed my will
This love could tear me in two
I wanna be with you in paradise
And it seems so unfair
I can’t go back to paradise no more
I killed a man back there
You think I’m over the hill
You think I’m past my prime
Let me see what you got
We can have a whoppin’ good time

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

18. Things Have Changed with Liz Cantalamessa Sep 15, 2025

Show notes

Welcome to Songs of Experience: A Bob Dylan Podcast, where we explore the man and the music one song at a time. Henry welcomes writer, scholar, professor, front row warrior, fellow Swiftie and all around Bestie, Liz Cantalamessa to discuss Dylan's 2000, Oscar Winning song "Things Have Changed."

Watch the Things Have Changed Video

Follow along with the lyrics here:

Things Have Changed

Written by: Bob Dylan

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, blood in my eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train
Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
This place ain’t doing me any good
I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove
Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too
Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road
If the Bible is right, the world will explode
I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can’t win with a losing hand
Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
I hurt easy, I just don’t show it
You can hurt someone and not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m in love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me
Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

17. Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat) With Kait Runevitch (The Bob Dylan Fan Club) Aug 15, 2025

Show notes

Welcome to Songs of Experience: A Bob Dylan Podcast, where we explore the man and the music one song at a time. Henry welcomes dear friend and co-founder of The Bob Dylan Fan Club, Kait Runevitch to discuss 1978's Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat).

Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)

Written by: Bob Dylan

There’s a long-distance train rolling through the rain
Tears on the letter I write
There’s a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much
But she’s drifting like a satellite
There’s a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze
Laughter down on Elizabeth Street
And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone
Where she bathed in a stream of pure heat
Her father would emphasize you got to be more than streetwise
But he practiced what he preached from the heart
A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me
The time and the place that the trouble would start
There’s a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage
And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage
And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page
Of a book that no one can write
Oh, where are you tonight?
The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure
To live it you have to explode
In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed
Sacrifice was the code of the road
I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John
Strong men belittled by doubt
I couldn’t tell her what my private thoughts were
But she had some way of finding them out
He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same
She was waiting, putting flowers on the shelf
She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair
And discovered her invisible self
There’s a lion in the road, there’s a demon escaped
There’s a million dreams gone, there’s a landscape being raped
As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape
I won’t but then again, maybe I might
Oh, if I could just find you tonight
I fought with my twin, that enemy within
’Til both of us fell by the way
Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees
While the law looks the other way
Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes
The guy you were lovin’ couldn’t stay clean
It felt outa place, my foot in his face
But he should-a stayed where his money was green
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit
With the juice running down my leg
Then I dealt with your boss, who’d never known about loss
And who always was too proud to beg
There’s a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room
And a pathway that leads up to the stars
If you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise
Remind me to show you the scars
There’s a new day at dawn and I’ve finally arrived
If I’m there in the morning, baby, you’ll know I’ve survived
I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m alive
But without you it just doesn’t seem right
Oh, where are you tonight?

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

16. Pressing On with Roberta Rakove Jul 15, 2025

Show notes

Henry welcomes back Roberta Rakove (Ep. 3: The Man In Me) to talk about a highlight from 1980's Saved, "Pressing On."

Listen to the song here

Follow along with the lyrics:

Pressing On

Written by: Bob Dylan

Well I’m pressing on
Yes, I’m pressing on
Well I’m pressing on
To the higher calling of my Lord
Many try to stop me, shake me up in my mind
Say, “Prove to me that He is Lord, show me a sign”
What kind of sign they need when it all come from within
When what’s lost has been found, what’s to come has already been?
Well I’m pressing on
Yes, I’m pressing on
Well I’m pressing on
To the higher calling of my Lord
Shake the dust off of your feet, don’t look back
Nothing now can hold you down, nothing that you lack
Temptation’s not an easy thing, Adam given the devil reign
Because he sinned I got no choice, it run in my vein
Well I’m pressing on
Yes, I’m pressing on
Well I’m pressing on
To the higher calling of my Lord

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

Bonus Episode: New Arrangement of All Along The Watchtower Jun 25, 2025

Show notes

Bob Dylan has debuted and perfected a new arrangement of a 56 year old song! This is a breakdown of the arrangement with chords and the little lick being played. I recommend checking out the video version so you can see what I'm doing, and see Bob!

https://youtu.be/iTGCPR2OoXs

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

15. They Killed Him with Harold Lepidus Jun 15, 2025

Show notes

On our 15th episode Henry welcomes a personal hero and someone he's been reading and following for 20 years! Author, journalist, writer, podcaster, and music scholar, Harold Lepidus to talk about 1986's They Killed Him from Knocked Out Loaded.

Listen to the song here

Follow along with the lyrics:

They Killed Him

Written by: Kris Kristofferson

There was a man named Hatma Gandi
He would not bow down he would not fight
He knew the deal was down and dirty
And nothing wrong could make it right away
But he knew his duty and the prize he had to pay
Just another holy man who tried to be a friend
My God, they killed him.
Another man from Atlanta, Georgia
By name of Martin Luther King
He shook the land like the rolling thunder
And made the bells of freedom ring today
With a dream of beauty that they could not burn away
Just another holy man who dared to make a stand
My God, they killed him.
The only Son of God Almighty
The holy one called Jesus Christ
He healed the lame and fed the hungry
And for his love they took his life away
On the road to glory where the story never ends
Just the holy Son of Man we'll never understand
My God, they killed him.
There was a man named Mahatma Gandi
A man named Martin Luther King
The only Son of God Almighty
The only one called Jesus Christ
On the road to glory where the story never ends
Just the holy Son of Man we'll never understand
My God, they killed him.
There was a man named Mahatma Gandi
A man named Martin Luther King
The only Son of God Almighty
The only one called Jesus Christ
On the road to glory where the story never ends
Just the holy Son of Man we'll never understand
My God, they killed him.

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

14. Black Rider with Michael Glover Smith & Adam Selzer - 1 Year Anniversary Episode! May 24, 2025

Show notes

On this very special episode, Henry celebrates Bob Dylan's 84th Birthday and the 1 year anniversary of Songs of Experience with 2 beloved guests, Michael Glover Smith and Adam Selzer. Henry, Mike and Adam do their signature deep dive into a surprise standout from the Rough & Rowdy Ways album and tour, BLACK RIDER.

Listen to the song here :

Read the lyrics:

Black Rider

Written by: Bob Dylan

Black Rider Black Rider you been livin’ too hard
You been up all night havin’ to stay on your guard
The path that you’re walkin’ - is too narrow to walk
Every step of the way another stumblin’ block
The road that you’re on - same road that you know
But it’s not the same as - it was a minute ago
Black Rider Black Rider you’ve seen it all
You’ve seen the great world and you’ve seen the small
You fell into the fire and you’re eating the flame
Better seal up your lips if you want to stay in the game
Be reasonable Mister - be honest be fair
Let all of your earthly thoughts be a prayer
Black Rider Black Rider all dressed in black
I’m walking away and you try to make me look back
My heart is at rest I’d like to keep it that way
I don’t want to fight - at least not today
Go home to your wife stop visiting mine
One of these days I’ll forget to be kind
Black Rider Black Rider tell me when - tell me how
If there ever was a time then let it be now
Let me go through - open the door
My soul is distressed my mind is at war
Don’t hug me - don’t flatter me - don’t turn on the charm
I’ll take out a sword and have to hack off your arm
Black Rider Black Rider hold it right there
The size of your cock will get you nowhere
I’ll suffer in silence I’ll not make a sound
Maybe I’ll take the - high moral ground
Some enchanted evening I’ll sing you a song
Black Rider Black Rider you’ve been on the job too long

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

Opening Night of Outlaw 2025 - Emergency Pod with Adam Selzer & Michael Glover Smith May 15, 2025

Show notes

Fresh off of a flight from Phoenix, AZ, Adam and Michael came directly to my house from the airport for a full, exhaustive and joyous report of the first Outlaw Music Festival show of 2025!

Email us at songsofbobdylan@gmail.com

Subscribe: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack.

13. Señor (Tales of Yankee Power) with Jessica Elisheva Emerson (Author of Olive Days)) Apr 15, 2025

Show notes

Henry welcomes award winning, critically acclaimed author of "Olive Days" and dear friend, Jessica Elisheva Emerson to talk about a beloved, signature track off of the fan favorite album Street Legal -1978’s “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)!"

Listen to the song, and follow along with the lyrics:

Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)

Written by: Bob Dylan

Señor, señor, do you know where we’re headin’?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?
Seems like I been down this way before
Is there any truth in that, señor?
Señor, señor, do you know where she is hidin’?
How long are we gonna be ridin’?
How long must I keep my eyes glued to the door?
Will there be any comfort there, señor?
There’s a wicked wind still blowin’ on that upper deck
There’s an iron cross still hangin' down from around her neck
There’s a marchin’ band still playin’ in that vacant lot
Where she held me in her arms one time and said, “Forget me not”
Señor, señor, I can see that painted wagon
I can smell the tail of the dragon
Can’t stand the suspense anymore
Can you tell me who to contact here, señor?
Well, the last thing I remember before I stripped and kneeled
Was that trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field
A gypsy with a broken flag and a flashing ring
Said, “Son, this ain’t a dream no more, it’s the real thing”
Señor, señor, you know their hearts is as hard as leather
Well, give me a minute, let me get it together
I just gotta pick myself up off the floor
I’m ready when you are, señor
Señor, señor, let’s disconnect these cables
Overturn these tables
This place don’t make sense to me no more
Can you tell me what we’re waiting for, señor?