1 Introduction

Despite the fact that Dylan did not tour 1985 was a year of extreme visibility. At least twelve interviews, a new album, Empire Burlesque, and four charity engagements, the "We Are The World" and "Sun City" recordings, and the Live Aid and Farm Aid concerts. Besides these two public performances Dylan also played at a youth festival in Moscow.

2 1985 At A Glance

3 The 1985 Calendar

15 January	Two songs are overdubbed at The Power Station in New York City and later released on Empire Burlesque: Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love) and Clean Cut Kid.
28 January	This day Dylan participates in two recording sessions, the first results in Seeing The Real You At Last, released on Empire Burlesque, the other is the We Are The World recording session.
5 & 14 February	Recording for Empire Burlesque continues at The Cherokee Studio in Hollywood, California.
19-24 February	Recordings for Empire Burlesque are moved to The Power Station in New York City, New York.
3-4 March	Final Empire Burlesque recording sessions at The Power Station.
March	Bill Flanagan interviews Dylan for his book "Written in My Soul".
April	Dylan plays harmonica at a Sly Dunbar - Robbie Shakespeare session in RPM Recording Studio in New York. One track, No Name On The Bullet, is released on the album Language Barrier, 5 August 1985.
May	The single Tight Connection To My Heart/We Better Talk This Over is released.
8 June	Release of Empire Burlesque.
17 June	Bob Dylan answers telephone calls from listeners in the radio program Rock-Line.
11 July	Dylan jams with Mick Jagger late at night in The Lone Star Café in New York City. Paul Simon and Keith Richard are also present.
13 July	Dylan performs with Keith Richards and Ron Wood at Live Aid. Dylan's proposal to set aside a tiny amount of the raised money for the farmers inspires Willie Nelson to organize Farm Aid.
25 July	Dylan sings Blowin' In The Wind, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall and The Times They Are A-Changin at the 12th World Festival of Youths and Students in Moscow.
Summer	Dylan makes his third benefit appearance when he participates in the recording of the Sun City single and video.
August	Scott Chen from US music paper ”Spin" interviews Dylan at his home in Malibu.
22 August	Shooting of the video When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky at the Gymnasium of First Methodist Church in Hollywood.
September	Cameron Crowe interviews Dylan, the result is published in the Biograph booklet.
September	Charles Young interviews Dylan for MTV. Dylan mentions his collaboration with David Stewart and that he will be touring next year with "60 to 100 shows".
19 September	Dylan is interviewed by Bob Brown from ABC-TV in Malibu. The interview is broadcast 20 October in the program "20-20".
	Rehearsals for Farm Aid take place at Universal Studios in LA.
21 September	Rehearsals for Farm Aid at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois.
22 September	Farm Aid concert with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
Late September	Mikal Gilmore interviews Dylan for the LA Herald Examiner.
Fall	Charles Kaiser interviews Dylan for the Boston Review. The result is not published until April 1986.
October	David Fricke interviews Dylan for Rolling Stone
October	Release of Emotionally Yours/When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky single.
28 October	Release of Biograph.
Late October	Denise Worell interviews Dylan for a profile in Time magazine. The complete profile/interview is published in Worrell's book "Icons" 1989.
Early November	Robert Hilburn interviews Dylan for LA Times.
13 November	Bob Dylan's first 25 years in the music business is celebrated at the Whitney Museum in New York. A short acceptance speech by Dylan is broadcast by ABC-TV in the program "Entertainment Tonight" and also by MTV.
20-23 November	Recording session in London in "The Eurythmics Church" with Dave Stewart produces one track later released on Knocked Out Loaded.
22 November	Andy Kershaw interviews Dylan. The short conversation is broadcast by BBC 2, November 26 in the program "Old Grey Whistle Test"
November	Bob Dylan attends a wedding reception at Turpin Meadow Ranch, Jackson Hole, Wyoming and joins the bar band from the Stagecoach Bar in Wilson for its last two sets playing backup on mandolin.
December	Dylan starts rehearsing with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at Soundstage 41, Universal Studios in Los Angeles.

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4 Empire Burlesque

The recording of Empire Burlesque took place in a number of sessions starting in mid 1984 and ending in the beginning of March 1985. A large number of these were overdub sessions. There are many details missing and the summary below gives only a fragmentary picture. Arthur Baker did the final overdubs and remixing during February and March 1985. As usual there are a number of songs here that were never used again, and a number of these songs are not circulating. The titles may be just the engineer’s best guess during the recording session. Below (x) stands for “released after later overdubbing”.

Some of the sessions were produced by Bob Dylan. Here's a summary:

			# of	take released on
Date	Song	takes			EB[1]	KOL[2]	BOOT[3]	single
1984:
26 July	Driftin' Too Far From Shore	?				x		x
	Firebird	?
	Who Loves You More	?
	Wolf	?
	Clean Cut Kid	?
6 December	New Danville Girl	2				(x)
	Queen Of Rock 'n' Roll	?
	Look Yonder	?
7 December	Look Yonder	?
9 December	Gravity Song	?
10, 11 December	New Danville Girl	?				(x)
14 December	Something's Burning, Baby	?			(x)
	The Girl I Left Behind [4]	?
22 December	I'll Remember You	?
	Prince Of Plunder	?
	Seeing The Real You At Last	?
1985:
15 January	Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)	?			x
	Clean Cut Kid	?			x
28 January	Seeing The Real You At Last	?			x
5 February	Trust Yourself	?			x
	Queen Of Rock 'n' Roll	?
	I'll Remember You	?			x
14 February	Straight A's In Love	?
	I See Fire In Your Eyes	?
	Waiting To Get Beat	?
	Emotionally Yours	?			x			x
	The Very Thought Of You	?
19 February	When The Line Forms	?
	When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky	?					x
	Never Gonna Be The Same Again	?
20 February	Never Gonna Be The Same Again	9			9
21 February	Something’s Burning Baby	?
23 February	When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky	4			4			4
24 February	?
3 March	Dark Eyes	6			6			6
4 March	?

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Live history

Song	Debut
Clean Cut Kid	Champaign, Illinois 22 September 1985 at Farm Aid
Dark Eyes	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 25 February 1986[5] and Boston, Massachusetts, 10 December 1995 [6]
Driftin' Too Far From Shore	Concord, California 7 June 1988
Emotionally Yours	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 11 February 1986
I'll Remember You	Champaign, Illinois 22 September 1985 at Farm Aid
Never Gonna Be The Same Again	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 21 February 1986
Seeing The Real You At Last	Wellington, New Zealand, 5 February 1986
Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)	Toad's Place, New Haven, Connecticut, 12 January 1990
Trust Yourself	Wellington, New Zealand, 5 February 1986
When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky	Wellington, New Zealand, 5 February 1986

Something's Burning, Baby is the only song from Empire Burlesque that has never been played live.

Officially released live versions

Hard To Handle

I'll Remember You
When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 25 February 1986

Performances during The Never-Ending Tour

Clean-Cut Kid	1988, 1990
Dark Eyes	1995
Driftin' Too Far From Shore	1988, 1989
Emotionally Yours	1993
Tight Connection To My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love)	1990, 1993
I'll Remember You	1988-1999, 2001-2003
Never Gonna Be The Same Again	1995-1997, 1999, 2002, 2003
Seeing The Real You At Last	1988-1992, 1995-2003

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5 Songs 1985

January	Emotionally Yours
	I'll Remember You
	Trust Yourself
	Seeing The Real You At Last
February	Never Gonna Be The Same Again
	I See Fire In Your Eyes	1
	Queen Of Rock 'n' Roll	1
	Straight A's In Love
	The Very Thought Of You
	Waiting To Get Beat
	When The Line Forms	1
	When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky
March	Dark Eyes
November	Under Your Spell	2

Notes

1. No version is circulating.

2. Co-written with Carole Bayer Sager.

6 Suggested Readings

6.1 Articles

Dark Eyes – Homer, the Slut #8

Mixed Up Confusion In Biograph's Dates by Clinton Heylin – The Telegraph #23

Movies Inside His Head by John Lindley – The Telegraph #25

The First Live Aid – Isis #21

We Are The World by John Bauldie – The Telegraph #20

6.2 Interviews

20 ABC Interview – Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985

Charles Young Interview – Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985

Mikal Gilmore Interview – Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985

Bob Dylan Interview – by Mikal Gilmore, On The Tracks #11 (Summer 1997)

Old Grey Whistle Test Interview – Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985

Robert Hilburn Interview – Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985

Rockline – Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985

Westwood One: Dylan on Dylan – Talkin' Bob Dylan 1984 & 1985

6.3 Reviews of Empire Burlesque

Empire Burlesque ... The Reviews – The Telegraph #21

Empire Burlesque by Larry Sloman – The Telegraph #21

7 SOURCES

William J. Clinton	The Bob Dylan CD & CDR Field Recordings Guide Of William J. Clinton www.angelfire.com/wa/monicasdude
Tim Dunn	I Just Write 'Em As They Come. Annotated Guide to the Writings of Bob Dylan A Not-A-Ces Publishing Venture 1990.
Glen Dundas	Tangled Up In Tapes — 4th Edition A Recording History of Bob Dylan SMA Services, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada 1999. Softcover 334 pages.
Clinton Heylin	A Life In Stolen Moments. Bob Dylan Day By Day 1941-1995. Schirmer Books 1996, 404 pages.
Clinton Heylin	Bob Dylan, The Recording Sessions 1960-1994 St. Martin's Press, 1995, 233 pages.
Michael Krogsgaard	Positively Bob Dylan A Thirty-Year Discography, Concert & Record Session Guide 1960-1991. Popular Culture, Ink. 1991. 500 pages.
Michael Krogsgaard	Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions (Part 3). The Telegraph #55, Summer 1996, pp. 111–142.
Craig Pinkerton	Bob's Boots www.bobsboots.com/
Ray Stavrou	A Vinyl Headstone Almost In Place Loose leaf binder, 530 pages.

8 Bibliography

John Baldwin	The fiddler now upspoke, Volumes 1–5. A collection of Bob Dylan interviews and press conferences. Desolation Row Promotions, 1995.
Carl Benson (ed)	The Bob Dylan Companion — Four Decades of Commentary. Schirmer Books, New York 1998. Softcover 306 pages.
Michael Gray	Song & Dance Man III. The Art Of Bob Dylan Cassell 1999. Hardback 918 pages.
Clinton Heylin	Behind The Shades. A Biography. Summit Books 1991, 500 pages.
Daniel Kramer	Bob Dylan. Citadel Press (hardback) or Pocket Books. Great photo book from 1964-1965.
Craig McGregor (ed)	Bob Dylan. A Retrospective. William Morrow 1972
Anthony Scaduto	Bob Dylan. An intimate biography. New American Library 1973
Robert Shelton	No Direction Home. The Life and Music of Bob Dylan. New American Library 1986.
Howard Sounes	Down The Highway. The Life Of Bob Dylan. Groove Press 2001.
Elizabeth M. Thomson (ed)	Conclusions On The Wall. New Essays On Bob Dylan. Thin Man 1980
Paul Williams	Watching The River Flow Observations on Bob Dylan's Art-in-Progress, 1966-1995. Omnibus Press 1996, 255 pages.
Paul Williams	Performing Artist – The Middle Years: 1974-1986 Underwood Miller 1992, 334 pages.

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Debut

6 Suggested Readings