Now It Goes Like This: "Shelter From the Storm"

Tracking its different arrangements from 1976 through now

If you missed the first Now It Goes Like This installment, it’s a new series where I track Bob Dylan’s live rearrangements of songs. I eased in slowly on the first one, with a more recent song that has only had a few dramatic arrangement changes: “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum.” For the second entry today, though, we dive into the deep end, with a song several commenters suggested I tackle: “Shelter From the Storm.”

From its very first onstage outing, “Shelter” sounded nothing like the Blood on the Tracks recording. And it has only continued to shift and morph over the subsequent decades. Settle in and listen along to the clips as I break down the song’s many live incarnations.

1976: Sliding Thunder

We’re going chronologically, which means we’re starting with the big kahuna up front. The first “Shelter” rearrangement is both the most famous and one of the most dramatic. This is the one I bet everyone reading this has heard—and for good reason.

Dylan had released the song a year earlier as an acoustic-guitar-and-bass ballad. The first time anywhere hears it live, though, he’s shredding an insane slide guitar (only time he ever played slide I believe) and screaming his head off. You’ve heard it on Hard Rain, and that’s basically how it sounded the entire tour. This and the other 1976 Blood on the Tracks tunes rank among his wildest rearrangements ever. Certainly among his angriest. The person offering you shelter here seems like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Maybe just keep walking.

One comparison point to the ’76 versions you know is this ’76 rehearsal tape from before the tour started. To be honest, the mix is so wild here it’s hard to tell whether it would have sounded as different in the room—but it certainly sounds different on the recording, led almost entirely by bandleader Rob Stoner’s inventive bass lines. I can’t even tell if Dylan is playing the slide guitar here. It sounds like that might be Scarlet Rivera on violin instead.

Belleview Biltmore Hotel rehearsals, Clearwater, FL, April 15 1976

1978: Beyond Budokan

If that’s the best-known rearrangement, the second best-known is, unsurprisingly, the other one featured on an official live album. The second track on At Budokan is the 1978 sax-and-singers “Shelter.” Regular readers known I’m a longtime Budokan defender, so no surprise I love this one. It’s arguably less garish than some of the other arrangements on that album, though I suppose that depends on your tolerance for saxophone solos.

But wait! That one you probably already know wasn’t the only new “Shelter” arrangement of 1978.

Recall the backing vocalists’ role on that Budokan “Shelter.” The entire vocal is essentially a duet between two parts: Dylan and the backing trio (Debi Dye, Jo Ann Harris, Helena Springs)*. They all sing together, then they all stop together to let someone take a solo. Rinse and repeat.

* Correction: Bandleader Rob Stoner informs me those high backing vocals are actually him and guitarist Steven Soles! “We are singing in our upper ranges in a style sometimes found in Bluegrass gospel music. My part is falsetto. The female voices only sing the ‘ooohs’ during the instrumental interludes. This is the only track from Budokan where the RTR backup vocal duo of me and Soles reprised our former roles as BD's principal backup vocalists.”

That fall, they changed the vocal formula entirely. Dylan sang the verses alone. Then, when he was done, the female singers came with a chirpy echo of the title line: “from the storm / from the stoo-oooorm…” The snappy drums make it sound extremely disco. Listen below (you can skip to 0:30 for an example, but it comes up a lot). Another reason I wish they’d release a 1978 set beyond just More Budokan; things changed a lot by the end of the year.

Charlotte, NC, December 10 1978

1984: Rawk and Roll

“Shelter” was one of the rarest songs of the 1984 tour, getting only three airings the entire run. None of those occurred at the the two shows taped for Real Live, so it wouldn’t have been considered for this live album.

As is the case on a lot of this tour, there’s nothing wrong with the ’84 arrangement per se, but it feels a bit indistinct. It’s a meat-and-potatoes rock version, Dylan hollering along while leaving room for Mick Taylor to shred a bunch of solos. The performance honestly feels more like “Mick Taylor ft. Bob Dylan” at times. Until the closing harmonica at least—the instrument’s first appearance on a live “Shelter.” Very much not the last.

Slane Castle, Ireland, July 8 1984

My favorite 1984 version actually comes from the pre-tour rehearsals though. Not really a different arrangement, but a more nuanced delivery, probably because they’re not trying to blast it to the back of a giant stadium.

1987: Dylan & The Dead & The Heartbreakers

Like 1978, 1987 was a year with two different “Shelter”s. In this case, it was a year with two different backing bands.

In the summer, Dylan hit the road for the infamous Dylan & The Dead tour. They only did “Shelter” once, in Oakland, California. It was fairly undistinguished. The arrangement is pretty similar to 1984, with Jerry Garcia taking the guitar-solo slots over from Mick Taylor. Brent Mydland’s little keyboard flourishes in the background are the highlight, but there’s not a whole lot to recommend it.

w/ the Grateful Dead, Oakland, CA, July 24 1987

It’s a whole different story when we hit 1987’s second all-star backing band: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. They hadn’t done “Shelter” on their first run in 1986. And while that outing is better remembered by many—not least the band members themselves—1987 had some real highlights. And this is one of them.