“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (live)” (1994) – Bob Dylan * Written by Bob Dylan * LP: MTV Unplugged (1995) * Label: Columbia
MTV’s still-extant Unplugged franchise, with its “hey what would it sound like” premise, now seems a little quaint, but during its ’90s heyday it rolled out a lot more keeper versions of tracks, hit singles, and platinum albums than you may remember. Bob Dylan did two tapings for the series in 1994, then culled tracks for a single disc with quickie cover art that appeared the following year. It captures him right after an insular trad-folk phase on the way to a new creative awakening in 1997, and is more worthwhile than its used CD bin veneer wants you to believe. His stinging anti-war rarity “John Brown” makes you wonder if the Iraqi Kurdish confict had gotten seriously under his skin. “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” (on the European edition) hijacks “If Not for You,” and “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” preserves for posterity the comically garbled and hurried delivery he’d been treating live audiences to (“theyllstoneyou-abblablloo”). With “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” he reclaims the 1973 original from the realm of the maddeningly rote cover exercise. He changes up vocal cadences and brings its conflicted essence back to the fore, even adding words to the refrain, “knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door, just like so many times before” in a weary way that reminds his prospective interpreters that to be on heaven’s door is to be, in fact, almost dead.