To Be Alone with You
| "To Be Alone with You" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Bob Dylan | |
| from the album Nashville Skyline | |
| Released | April 9, 1969 |
| Recorded | February 13, 1969 |
| Genre | Country rock |
| Length | 2:07 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Songwriter(s) | Bob Dylan |
| Producer(s) | Bob Johnston |
| Nashville Skyline track listing | |
|
12 tracks
|
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"To Be Alone with You" is a song by Bob Dylan from his 1969 album Nashville Skyline.
"To Be Alone with You" was the first song Dylan recorded for Nashville Skyline, on February 13, 1969. It was one of four songs Dylan had written for the album before the recording sessions, the others being "Lay Lady Lay", "I Threw It All Away" and "One More Night". It was recorded in eight takes, during which Dylan increased the backing instrumentation to include multiple guitars in addition to a dobro, a piano and an organ.
Before the song starts, Dylan is heard asking his producer, Bob Johnston, "Is it rolling, Bob?" It is a simple love song, with lyrics that Allmusic's Thomas Ward compares to a nursery rhyme. Rather than the complex metaphors of earlier songs such as "Visions of Johanna", the imagery of "To Be Alone with You" invokes clichés such as "mockingbirds" and the "big fat moon." Ward considers this "one of Dylan's prettiest melodies" and notes that it "is coupled with a gorgeous, traditional country bridge (shifting to the V of the chord, then adding the II inversion) and a genuinely affecting, modest vocal." Andy Gill suggests that Dylan was influenced by Jerry Lee Lewis on this song. Gill suggests that both the arrangement and Dylan's delivery imitate Lewis' style, and that the final verse, which combines carnal and religious lyrics, is also in the style of Lewis' songs. Years after recording it, Dylan commented that "I was trying to grasp something that would lead me on to where I thought I should be, and it didn't go anywhere."
The bridge of the song begins with the line "They say that nighttime is the right time." Music critic Michael Gray notes that "Night Time Is the Right Time" is a blues lyric that may have been based on much older song and that it is surprising to find such a lyric in one of Nashville Skyline's country songs.
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