I've been reading the rec.music.dylan newsgroup for many years, having discovered it while in graduate school in the late eighties. I've always been amazed at the insight that the contributors often have (and also at the number of idiots and imbeciles out there). Often the information contributed is of higher quality than the stuff I've read in published sources.
The fact that all this useful information is lost forever, as it gets aged-off the new servers or gets buried within the Highway 61 archives, has always seemed a shame to me. Over the years I've tried to save some of the best posts I've read, particularly those that concern the lyrics of Dylan songs, either by printing them or saving them on my hard drive. Unfortunately, I've found it exceedingly difficult to keep them organized. Somehow, they always get lost, destroyed, or forgotten. I'm sure others have experienced the same thing.
To help solve this problem, I created The Dylan Lyrics Commentaries. I hope that this site will be used as a resource for people interested in Dylan's lyrics. I hope it will save people some time, in that I've already separated the wheat from the considerable chaff of postings to RMD.
The collection located here is very imperfect. With a wife, a teenager, six year old twins, and a full-time job, I am decidedly not a full-time Dylanologist. I read the posts fast, sometimes not at all, and sometimes my judgement isn't all that good. Feel free to help me improve it. If you have something you think should be included, by all means send it to me. Alternatively, if I've included something that you think isn't deserving, please let me know why.
Hope you find this collection useful.
steve lescure
11/05/97