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Bob Dylan - Not Dark Yet

Music Video
ArtistBob Dylan
SongNot Dark Yet
DirectorMichael Borofsky
MusicBob Dylan
IntroNo
OutroNo
LabelColumbia
Sound MixStereo
Technical Specificationscolour - format unknown

Wiki

Synopsis

Bob Dylan performs "Not Dark Yet" with his band in Memphis, while the video cuts between concert footage and stark views of the surrounding city. Shot in both color and black and white, the imagery is deliberately warped and reflective, giving Dylan and the streets an unstable, dreamlike quality. The performance remains central, but the visual treatment emphasizes the song's themes of exhaustion, isolation, mortality, and the uneasy space between daylight and darkness.

Factoids & Trivia

  • The video was filmed in October 1997 at the New Daisy Theatre on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • Dylan performs with members of the touring and studio ensemble, including Larry Campbell on electric guitar and Bucky Baxter on pedal steel guitar.
  • The distorted images were created by filming reflections in large Mylar sheets. The technique bends and stretches Dylan's image, making him appear present but visually unreachable.
  • Color and black-and-white footage are mixed throughout the video, reinforcing the song's tension between fading light, memory, and emotional numbness.
  • The video was released in March 1998, shortly after *Time Out of Mind* won three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
  • Another video, for "Love Sick," was filmed during the same Memphis production. It was never officially released.
  • "Not Dark Yet" was recorded for *Time Out of Mind*, released in September 1997, and became one of the album's defining songs.

Lyrics

Shadows are fallin' and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep and time is runnin' away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there.

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writin' what was in her mind
I just don't see why I should even care
It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there.
...
© Bob Dylan - Not Dark Yet. This is an excerpt, provided as citation under fair-use.
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