Now It Goes Like This: "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum"

Tracking its different arrangements from 2001 through now

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know there’s nothing I like more than starting a new series, writing three or four entries, and then forgetting about it. RIP(?) to One Random Song, This Date in Dylan, CD-Rchive, Compilation Corner, My Back Pages, and Venue Spotlight. (Seriously though, if there’s one of those you’d particularly like another installment of let me know—they’re not dead, just hibernating. I’ve actually got another Venue Spotlight already scheduled.)

Today, I’m kicking off another series I may or may not stick with: “Now It Goes Like This.” The idea is to take one Dylan song and track its various re-arrangements over the years, with the title inspired by Bob’s intro to a famous early rearrangement: “I Don’t Believe You” on the 1966 tour when he changed it from an acoustic folk strummer to a raw electric blast. Thanks to folk on our Discord for their help brainstorming this series name (genius runner-up ideas included “Versions of Johanna,” “Go Start a New,” and “Evolution in the Arr.”)

To test the waters before we get to a song that’s worn a million different masks like “Tangled Up in Blue” or “Maggie’s Farm,” I thought I’d start with an easy one. Despite being played hundreds of times in the years after its 2001 release on Love & Theft, “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” has only had a few different arrangements. But some of them are quite dramatic.

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2001-2007: Album arrangement (more or less)

Across the first six years of its live life, the Brothers Tweedle sounded on stage roughly as they did on the album. Extra solos might add a minute or two to the runtime, but the arrangement stayed basically the same, with all the familiar guitar riffs. For instance, here’s an early version from October 2001, less than a month after Love & Theft’s release:

During these six years though, a few smaller changes did occur, all tied to broader changes with the band. The first was that, a year into “Tweedle”’s life, Dylan switched from guitar to keyboard (two decades later, he has yet to switch back). The arrangement didn’t change, except now you could hear some piano poking through. 

His keyboard became even more prominent a couple years later, when he switched it to the circus-organ setting. Fans nicknamed the organ the “Instrument of Torture,” and on a quieter acoustic ballad it could certainly give quite you a jolt blaring through the mix, but I think it sounds great on a song like this.

The other small change within this basic arrangement was the brief band tenure of violinist Elana Fremerman. I’m on record as a Fremer-fan™, when during the Spring 2005 tour she played fiddle on every single song. For “Tweedle Dee,” this meant she doubled some of the familiar guitar riffs, giving it a bit more country flair. Plus Donnie Herron’s arrival in the band meant this song now had pedal steel on it too.

2008-2013: What happened to the riffs?

The first real new arrangement, albeit not as dramatic as the two that would follow, came in 2008 after the song had taken a year-long break. Bob’s vocals sounded more or less the same, but one thing was missing: All those guitar riffs, which had defined the song almost as much as the vocals. Well, that high-up twiddly bit during the chorus still snuck in here and there, but the “Uncle John’s Bongos” riff that opened the song and followed every vocal line was gone, or at least muted (on some tapes, it sounds like the only person still playing it is Tony on bass, which naturally lands it softer in the mix).

In its place were some other, less memorable guitar riffs. More interesting was the instrumental breakdowns that now came around the halfway point (at 2:30 in the video below, it kinda sounds like the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love with a Girl” chorus).

This Tweedle 2.0 arrangement continued shifting over the five years. By 2011, that one instrumental break had become several. Instead of the drums dropping out, they now anchored it with pounding tom-toms. And the familiar guitar riffs faded away even further—except that high-up twiddly but, which he seemed reluctant to jettison. For now.

2014-2015: That old country waltz

Dylan retired “Tweedle Dee” in 2013 other than a one-off performance in Rome. When it returned in mid-2014, it, for the first time, sounded entirely different.