Bob Dylan Breaks Out "Billy" in Sweden, Talks New Album in Website Interview

Bob Dylan has certainly pulled out many forgotten gems from his back catalog onstage over the years, but last night at a club in Stockholm he took it to the next level by playing "Billy" from the Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid soundtrack. He hadn't played it since the original recording in 1973. A remarkably clear bootleg has already surfaced on YouTube, which you can watch above. The moment is up there with other shocking Never Ending Tour one-offs, such as 2003's "Yeah, Heavy and a Bottle of Bread," "Romance In Durango" from the same year and 2000's "We Better Talk This Over."

In other Dylan news, his Website posted part two of his recent interview with Bill Flannigan. In addition to the new album, Dylan discusses the James Dean movie Giant, the historical accuracy of 1976's "Joey," whether or not 19th century Texas governor Sam Houston has gotten a bad historical rap and a new art exhibit he's creating with iron and lead. Dylan confirms Mike Campbell plays on the record, and another interesting exchange involves Aerosmith's Joe Perry:

The instrumental sections on your albums have a different quality than the usual rock instrumental sections. For instance, on an Aerosmith record, at least part of it is about Joe Perry's solo. While there's wonderful playing on "Beyond Here Lies Nothing," we don't hear the usual guitar soloing technique. Is there a special way you approach the instrumental sections on a record? What can I say, if I had Joe Perry with me everything would obviously be different. As it is though, he wasn't there. Soloing is not a big part of my records anyway. Nobody buys them to hear solos. What I try to do is to make sure that the instrumental sections are dynamic and are extensions of the overall feeling of the song.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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