T.V. Talkin' Song

Album: Under The Red Sky (1990)
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Songfacts®:

  • Unusually for Bob Dylan, Under The Red Sky features numerous guest appearances by established artists. For this song and "Born In Time," he put together an all-star band comprising Bruce Hornsby on piano, Kenny Aronoff on drums, Randy Jackson on bass and Robben Ford on guitar. Hornsby recalled to Uncut magazine how they witnessed Dylan's genius:

    "Bob came into the room, he was wearing a big hoodie with a baseball cap underneath. He introduced himself to us then he went over to a table and started emptying his pockets, every pocket, and revealing all these napkins and pieces of hotel notepaper filled with jottings. Then he came over to the piano and proceeded to teach me this great song called 'Born in Time.'

    So we recorded that, then we took a little break and came back and started up this little one-chord jam. All of a sudden Bob walks in, goes over to the table, sifts through the napkins, picks one up and goes over to the mic and start singing. And that became a song on the record called 'T.V. Talkin' Song.' Talk about spontaneity."

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