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Bob Dylan - Series Of Dreams

Music Video | 1991
ArtistBob Dylan
SongSeries Of Dreams
DirectorMeiert Avis
Director of PhotographyDaniel Pearl
EditorHugh Chaloner
IntroNo
OutroNo
Sound MixStereo
Technical Specificationscolour - format unknown
Release date

Wiki

Synopsis

Bob Dylan wanders through a restless collage of memory, history, and hallucination. Archival footage of Dylan from the 1960s onward is rapidly intercut with animation, handwritten words, photographs, paintings, and surreal visual fragments. Brief newly filmed scenes place an older, hooded Dylan in an urban landscape, while images of artists, writers, performers, and historical figures flash by. The result mirrors the song's fractured dream logic, moving between personal recollection, cultural memory, and ominous visions without forming a conventional narrative.

Factoids & Trivia

  • The song was recorded on March 23, 1989, during the sessions for *Oh Mercy*, but was left off that album. It was later remixed and released in 1991 on *The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991*.
  • The video was assembled almost entirely from archival Dylan footage spanning the mid-1960s to the early 1990s. Only a small amount of newly shot material was available, including scenes of Dylan walking through an urban area.
  • The production reportedly had access to only a few hours of Dylan in New York. The limited new footage forced the team to build the video around previously unseen archive material, animation, photographs, paintings, and graphic overlays.
  • Much of the drawn and painted imagery was supplied by artist and animator Charlie Whisker. The densely layered visuals include references to figures such as Arthur Rimbaud, Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, and Dylan Thomas.
  • A brief image in the video contains the playful inscription "I Charlie Whisker painted this," echoing the signature in Jan van Eyck's *Arnolfini Portrait*.
  • The clip was nominated for the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Music Video, but lost to R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion."
  • The track later appeared in a different version on *The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006*, released in 2008.

Lyrics

I was thinking of a series of dreams
Where nothing comes up to the top
Everything stays down where it's wounded
And comes to a permanent stop
Wasn't thinking of anything specific
Like in a dream, when someone wakes up and screams
Nothing too very scientific
Just thinking of a series of dreams

Thinking of a series of dreams
Where the time and the tempo fly
And there's no exit in any direction
'Cept the one that you can't see with your eyes
Wasn't making any great connection
...
© Bob Dylan - Series Of Dreams. This is an excerpt, provided as citation under fair-use.
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