Bob Dylan – Only A River (Live) April 20, 2023 – Nagoya, Japan (Aichi Prefectural Art Theater)
Only a River is a song recorded by Bob Weir off of his album Blue Mountain – it was written by Josh Ritter
When I learned yesterday that Mr. Dylan had sung a song that I’d written, I was washed over with a feeling that that can only be described as a cousin of vertigo. So many songs, and all of them rambling around out there. Somehow, this one found Dylan’s pasture. How beautiful.
“I am speechless”, Josh Ritter (@joshritter) retweeted when he got the note that Bob Dylan sang ‘Only A River’ in Nagoya, Japan on April 20, 2023. And he added “I wrote that song in the stairwell of my dorm in college, 25 years ago. Music is a blessed traveler.” Next day he tweeted “When I learned yesterday that Mr. Dylan had sung a song that I’d written, I was washed over with a feeling that that can only be described as a cousin of vertigo. So many songs, and all of them rambling around out there. Somehow, this one found Dylan’s pasture. How beautiful. I wrote Only a River in my dorm in college. Like all my favorites, it came unbidden, and I just wrote it down. Many years later, as I got the amazing opportunity to work with Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, this song rose to the top of the pack, asking to be let out the door. I sent it to Weir and Josh Kaufman, who beautifully arranged and recorded and performed the song that Dylan eventually must have heard”.
Bob Weir | Only a River | Etown performance with Steve Kimock
Album cut of Only a River – Bob Weir, Blue Mountain 2016
