"Forever Young" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Song by Bob Dylan from the album Planet Waves | ||||
Released | January 17, 1974 | |||
Format | Vinyl | |||
Recorded | November 1973 (California) |
|||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 4:57, 2:49 | |||
Label | Asylum | |||
Writer(s) | Bob Dylan | |||
Producer(s) | Rob Fraboni | |||
Planet Waves track listing | ||||
|
11 tracks |
---|
|
"Forever Young" | |
---|---|
German single cover
|
|
Single by Bob Dylan | |
from the album Bob Dylan at Budokan | |
B-side | "All Along the Watchtower" & "I Want You" |
Released | June 22, 1979 |
Format | Vinyl |
Genre | Rock |
Length | 5:27 |
Label | CBS Records |
Writer(s) | Bob Dylan |
Producer(s) | Don DeVito |
"Forever Young" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Louisa Johnson | ||||
Released | 13 December 2015 | |||
Format | ||||
Recorded | 2015 | |||
Length | 3:23 | |||
Label | ||||
Writer(s) | Bob Dylan | |||
Producer(s) |
|
|||
Louisa Johnson singles chronology | ||||
|
"Forever Young" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded in California in November 1973. The song first appeared (in two different versions, one slow and one fast) on Dylan's fourteenth studio album Planet Waves (1974).
A demo version of the song, recorded in New York City in June 1973, was included on Dylan's 1985 compilation Biograph. In the notes included with that album, Dylan is quoted as saying that he wrote "Forever Young" in Tucson, Arizona, "thinking about" one of his sons and "not wanting to be too sentimental."
A live version of the song, recorded in Tokyo on 28 February 1978 and included on Dylan's album Bob Dylan at Budokan, was released as a European single in 1979.
Written as a lullaby for his eldest son Jesse, born in 1966, Dylan's song relates a father's hopes that his child will remain strong and happy. It opens with the lines, "May God bless and keep you always / May your wishes all come true", echoing the Old Testament's Book of Numbers, which has lines that begin: "May the Lord bless you and guard you / May the Lord make His face shed light upon you." Not wishing to sound "too sentimental", Dylan included two versions of the song on the Planet Waves album, one a lullaby and the other more rock oriented.
In notes on "Forever Young" written for the 2007 album Dylan, Bill Flanagan writes that Dylan and the Band "got together and quickly knocked off an album, Planet Waves, that featured two versions of a blessing from a parent to a child. In the years he was away from stage Dylan had become a father. He had that in common with a good chunk of the audience. The song reflected it. Memorably recited on American TV by Howard Cosell when Muhammad Ali won the heavyweight crown for the third time."