Chasing down 'Gotta Serve Somebody' 2018 to 2025
If you really want to know what Bob Dylan thinks about what’s going down in the United States of America, there are always ways to find out.
You might be an ambassador to England or France.
You might like to gamble, you might like to dance.
May be in Las Vegas, having lots of fun.
Hidin' in the bushes, holdin' a smokin' gun.
Bob Dylan is not political, that’s pretty much what he says if you ask him. But if you really want to know what he thinks about what’s going down in the United States of America, and the world at large, there are always ways to find out. Maybe it’s a line or two in an interview, maybe it’s an entire album and maybe it’s in live interpretations of songs that might capture his current mood, reading habits or humour.
The 2018 version of “Gotta Serve Somebody“ seemed to be a new state-of-the-world commentary from Bob, but this time it wasn’t just ambassadors and the elite in their feather beds he’s talking to, it’s everyone. Businessmen, farmers, state troopers, mystics, someone’s neighbour, a jealous husband, a sweet mother’s son, someone stuck at the border or holdin’ down the fort.
In his live shows he was taking the macrostructure of an existing song, or maybe the microstructure, in this case the riff in “Peter Gunn” by Duane Eddy, and injecting it into his song, in this case “Gotta Serve Somebody.” No sooner was this pointed out Dylan seemed to change the arrangement again and by the time he got to the Beacon Theatre in November, it was another arrangement altogether. Three years later in 2021 he was even talking specifically about the man in the White House.
Well you might be in The White House,
carving up the meat
or hoping for a Hand out
or Up on easy street
They may call you Peter, call you Paul
maybe you don’t have a name
they call you nothing at all
November 21, 2021, The Beacon Theatre NYC
What he was doing both with “Gotta Serve Somebody,” he was also doing with other songs. He did it with “Tryin’ To Get To Get To Heaven” too, taking the arrangement of The Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby” and putting the two songs in dialogue with one another. The implication of the lyrics from his song, “every day your memory grows dimmer, it doesn't haunt me like it did before” put in relief by, “don’t worry baby, everything will turn out alright.”
All of this, including what he had done with his Musiccares speech, where he unpacked how he wrote his early songs, also seemed to anticipate not just the direction he would go in with Shadow Kingdom, a reinterpretation of his songs lyrically and musically, but what he would do with “Murder Most Foul” and the The Philosophy of Modern Song. And while he was doing it, he was tapping into, and tapping on our shoulder about, the great collective and creative unconscious and how it all connects together in dialogue with the historical events of our time.
As Peter Stone Brown said about “Gotta Serve Somebody” at the time:
“Holy shit, just when he has you convinced he doesn't know what's going on, he shows you that he does know what's going on1 with his most topical reference in ages… and he's having fun fucking with all these old classic guitar riffs.”
I’ve often wondered if Dylan’s read stuff like Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon (something his son Jakob mentions in his interview with Joe Rogan) digging into the sinister underbelly of the ‘60s music scene and the CIA. Dylan’s been talking about this stuff off an on for years in some kind of way. The intersection of the war machine, drugs, spy-craft, atom-bomb-powered-rock-n-roll-stars (in an interview with Jann Wenner in 2004), the impact the ‘50s had on everyone, “some say the fifties was the age of great romance, I say that's just a lie, it was when fear had you in a trance.”2
Even the song chapters in The Philosophy of Modern Song suggest theres more going on under the surface. Graley Herren touches on this in his excellent piece ‘Come You Whiffenpoofs of War.’
You might be a mystic, they may call you Mr. Soul.
Maybe on the wagon, may be on a roll.
Maybe on the highway, headin' for the coast.
You might be hallucinatin', you might think you've seen a ghost.
Dylan even references Mr Soul, the Buffalo Springfield song, in the 2018 version. I’m sure he knows about about being “raised by the praise of a fan who said I upset her.”
Well you might be on the highway, heading for the coast
Maybe you’re hallucinating, think you’ve seen a ghost
Maybe you’re a businessman, maybe you’re a farmer,
Maybe you’re a state trooper wearing body armour
“Gotta Serve Somebody” continues to evolve in concert, but the chord changes had remained relatively intact, until the 2025 Outlaw Tour. This version (above) from Jones Beach features a brilliant solo from Bob Britt. This new version is wildly different to its traditional arrangement. There’s some kind of resemblance to live versions of “Shelter From The Storm” there’s even a tiny bit of the 2003 version of “Quinn The Eskimo.”
You may be in a honky tonk, or in a nursing home.
Searchin' through the rubble with a fine-toothed comb.
They may call you Peter, or they may call you Paul.
You may not even have a name, they call you nothing at all.
Clearly, Dylan has borrowed the arrangement from another song, whether it’s one of his own or or another song, I can’t tell and if anyone can please leave a comment.
Of course it’s not just “Serve Somebody,” even “All Along The Watchtower” has taken the skeleton template of “I Forgot That Love Existed” by Van Morrison and imprinted it on the song. And it’s absolutely rejuvenated the song in the live setting, cleverly turning the 2nd and 4th verses into a bridge.
But whatever it is about this new arrangement of “Gotta Serve Somebody,” I could almost hear a saxophonist playing with the band. In fact I think that’s what his band could do with, saxophone and horns to compliment his piano and the guitars.
You might be someone's neighbor, some sweet mother's son.
Someone's jealous husband, someone on the run.
You might be on the borderline, or holdin' down the fort.
Or maybe you're a lawyer, headin' for your day in court.
Dylan’s generosity of spirit as an artist is unmatched. Forever creative and transient, and each time we get to see a show we get to see him reinventing everything there and then. I’d argue he’s at his peak of creativity right now working with all of these templates and mixing and matching them so effortlessly. It takes a Master to do that, and the Master at 84 shows no sign of slowing down. If you don’t get it, then either you don’t get it or you need to work harder, but if you do get what’s happening then it’s the gift that never stops giving.
Las Vegas shooting, 2017 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting
Julius and Ethel, by Bob Dylan https://dylanchords.com/00_misc/julius_and_ethel
Slow Train Coming was released, August 20, 1979 just two months shy of my eighteenth birthday. I remember well hearing several cuts played by my local station WKQQ in Lexington, Kentucky. Double Q was great about playing at least a few tracks of artists they deemed important (or at least popular), but the single, "Gotta Serve Somebody", definitely got the most airplay. I really liked the song, and found it natural to concede it's admonition: "...it may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody." Familar with Bill Saluga's, "You can call me RJ, or you can call me Ray" schtick, I could see humor in the lyrics, as well, and I thought it was neat that Bob Dylan liked the same TV shows I did. I went away to college, got married, grew up, kept listening to Dylan, and the song got filed away as one of his songs that I "knew", but probably wouldn't list as one of my favorites...yet.
As near as I can tell, Bob's first live performance of "Blowin' in the Wind", was April 19, 1962 when I was just six months old. By the time I was five, and was in first grade, I was aware of the song as if it had always existed. We began every day of school with announcements by the principal over the intercom: the pledge of allegiance, shoutouts to teachers and students, upcoming events for the week, and we'd sing two or three songs from the mimeographed song sheet we kept in our desks. "Blowin' in the Wind" was one of these songs. "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (first released in June 1960), was another. Even at five years old, I understood there was a difference between the two songs. Some songs were catchy and popular and played on the radio because they were catchy and popular. And I was glad to get to hear and sing them. Then there were songs like "Blowin' In the Wind", which to me felt like it had been written at least a hundred years ago, like a folk ballad from England, or something, that spoke to the truth. It took a few more years, but certainly by the time I was ten I was aware that this song I revered was written by Bob Dylan, who I knew almost nothing about except his name.
Anyhoo....the first time I saw Bob play was in 1989 at the Louisville State Fair, with G.E. Smith, Tony Garnier, and Christopher Parker. Although I've lived the biggest part of my life in the stick (for the most part way deep in Appalachia), I feel blessed to be able to see Bob play at least once every decade since the 80s. This year's Outlaw Festival was my thirteenth Bob Dylan concert. Hoo Hah! I've heard Bob play "Blowin' in the Wind" twice: in 2001 in Morgantown, WV and in 2016 in Louisville, KY. I've heard him play "Gotta Serve Somebody" three times--all within the past six years: 2019 at Northern Kentucky University, 2021 in Cincinnat (on my birthday from the third row!), and in June 2025 at the Outlaw Festival. I would love to have gotten in on the Peter Gunn version from 2018 that you shared, but by the time I saw Bob in 2019, the arrangement sounded like a punk surf band doing an almost inverted Secret Agent Man riff. All in all, I think my favorite version is the most recent, played at the Outlaw Festival show this year at Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati. Dylan led the band in a sort of Muscle Shoals gospel blues shuffel and sustained it throughout the song. I found it beguiling and totally fitting. Maybe it was Bob's way of presenting the song this time. Maybe it was where I was at the moment I was there to receive it. Maybe it takes both giver and receiver to give life to the gift. But as happens in those ineffably beautiful moments at some of his performances, I finally got to the place where I felt a deeper meaning to the song.
"Blowin in the Wind" is a great song. But did I ever think the same about "Gotta Serve Somebody"? I didn't until now. As much as I loved hearing it live these past few years, I came to its greatness only this year, with this performance and some reflection. Both songs are admonitions. When asked which of the commandments is the greatest, Jesus answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these." "Blowin' in the Wind" is the lyrical manifestation of the second commandment. "Gotta Serve Somebody" is it's counterpart dealing with the first, the greatest commandment. We can allow cannonballs to fly, or we can ban them. The answer is our choice, and choices have consequences. We can serve the Devil, or we can serve the Lord, and again, it's our choice. And again--consequences.
I can never hear "Gotta Serve Somebody" the same after Bob sang it to us in Cincinnati that hot, summer night in June. I now hold it in as high esteem as I do any of his greatest songs. Without your excellent post, I probably would not have put my thoughts on paper. Thank you.
Excellent reading, once again - thanks.