"I'll Remember You" with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1985)
It may have had a lot of rough musical moments including a muddy stage mix and lots of false starts, but there's still few combinations we'd rather hear than Dylan and Petty. Enjoy Episode Two's theme song.
How to Person with Sarah Cooper
We detest Donald Trump. Oh how we detest him. Let's make him go away. Nonetheless he's here for a moment to show how vital memory is to human function. He is tolerable for a moment thanks to Sarah Cooper, who brilliantly steals his voice, his face, and all else.
The Memory Palace Explained
Joshua Safran Foer does a wonderful job of explaining the Memory Palace, a concept deriving from "the art of memory" at the heart of Episode Two. Watch how it works. And we can tell you, it really does work!
"Desolation Row" (1965)
It's hard to find a rock and roll song with a deeper insight into how consciousness, memory, and feeling of a single observer of the world can rearrange what the world means. It's a foundational work of cultural intuitiveness and ingenuity.
Theme Time Radio Hour
This is the inventory. Dig the invention. Radio De Profundis. 100+ episodes of Bob Dylan as DJ of the West.
The Singer of Tales | Avdo Mededovic
Bards and epic poets and all that made them -- this is the work at work. Albert Lord's book The Singer of Tales changed the way we understand the singers and storytellers who have, for millennia, shaped our imagination and narratives and how we experience the world: we don't memorize our sacred stories, nor do we invent them ourselves. Rather, we build them anew each time from a vast inventory that came before us. From inventory comes invention.
"Lord Randal" |Giordano Dall'Armellina
And finally, if there is any question about Dylan drawing upon inventories of tradition in order to invent his world, listen to "Lord Randal" side-by-side with "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall." The one, the two, and there it is.