Bob Dylan Performs Rarely Performed Track “Every Grain of Sand”

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Bob Dylan dusted off his song “Every Grain of Sand” and played it for the first time since 2013. For his recent show at the KeyBank State Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio, Dylan closed it with a track he rarely performed live for the past few years.

He wrote it in 1980, and it was first featured on his 1981 album “Shot of Love”. The original demo was released ten years later on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. It became a live favorite, and Dylan played it over 180 times. But he took it out of his setlist after his show in Rome on November 6, 2013.

“That was an inspired song that came to me,” Dylan wrote. “It wasn’t really too difficult. I felt like I was just putting words down that were coming from somewhere else, and I just stuck it out.”

“I’m standing there, hearing this for the first time, and the song kills me,” producer Chuck Plotkin recalled. “I think it’s one of his great, great songs – and I’m hearing it for the first time while standing beside him imitating a mic stand as best I can. And that was it. That was the version we heard on the record.”

Meanwhile, Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour wraps up on December 2 in Washington, DC. It’s the first time he went back on the road after almost two years hiatus.