To Fall in Love With You is an unreleased and unfinished romantic jewel from Bob Dylan. The lyrics are incomplete and he’s in mid-songwriting process. Still, the headspace the song puts me in is one of serenity and deep longing. It conjures everything that feels pure and absorbing about love – the kind you want to sink into and stay there. In that sense, it reminds me of another under-the-radar Dylan moment: his rarely heard live version of The Grateful Dead’s Black Muddy River – which is another one of his songs I could play on repeat and get lost in.
When I first heard this recording, I assumed it was taken from a live concert. Instead, it’s a studio recording – yet it has an expansive, almost floating sound, as if it’s stretching out into space. You can picture Dylan sitting on the front porch of a cabin in the middle of nowhere, singing this out deep into the night. The performance is raw and rudimentary, as if he’s shaping the song as he goes.
The track was recorded during the Hearts of Fire sessions at Townhouse Studio in London on August 27–28, 1986. Dylan is backed by Eric Clapton on guitar, Ron Wood and Kip Winger on bass, Beau Hill on keyboards, and Henry Spinetti on drums. It was recorded as a rough track for the Hearts of Fire film (image inset) but didn’t make the final cut, and the song was never revisited or completed.
In fact, very few people seem to have seen Hearts of Fire – myself included – largely because it’s regarded as a real stinker; perhaps only Cop Dog, reviewed here by Mr Plinkett, offers any real competition.
What really carries To Fall in Love With You is Dylan’s voice. His phrasing, his emphasis on certain words, and the way he stretches or leans into lines give the song its emotional weight. You don’t need a perfect voice or operatic range to deliver something powerful. If the lyric intent is there – and the emotion is real – you can make something pretty unforgettable. Dylan proves that here, unfinished and all.
A tear goes down my day is real
But your drying eye upon the shame
Each needs a road for me from you
What paradise? what can I do?
That die for my and the day is dark
I can’t believe for your touch
What I could find oh time is right
If I fell in love to fall in love
To fall in love with you
The day is dark, our time is right
Day in the night deep in the night
I can’t yet be back I heard my- surprise
I see it in your lips I knew it in your eyes
Well I feel your love and I feel no shame
I can’t unleash your horde I call your name
What you’re to me what can I do?
To fall in love to fall in love
To fall in love with you
It just rolls upon the sand
Ever this for now I’m made a man
Can make you see what I can find
I know it in my days ah in my daily mind
Oh will ages roll will ages fly?
I hear your name where angels lie
What do I know? for to come it’s true
To fall in love To fall in love
To fall in love with you
How can the doors trust on a nail?
How can I be surprised of most every day?
In the distant road I can’t be the same
I feel no love I feel no shame
I can’t watch the bay out on my own
We’ve a destined man I can attest it all
I didn’t I could find where I could go
To fall in love to fall in love
To fall in love with you
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Matt, you introducing me to cool Dylan music that’s new to me – love it!
To start with, I knew “Black Muddy River” because of Gregg Allman’s rendition he recorded on his very last album while he was dying. Every I hear his version, it literally makes me well up. Dylan’s cover of that gem is fantastic as well
“To Fall In Love With You” is fascinating as well!
Sorry I couldn’t resist, just in case you haven’t heard this yet. Grab a tissue…
Thanks for the link to Greg Allman’s rendition of ‘Black Muddy River’. I really like it. It’s just such a wonderfully written song by Garcia – it would be hard for anyone to mess it up tbh lol not to take anything away from Allman’s very moving version.
I also like another one from Allman on that Southern Blood record – ‘My Only True Friend’.
Incredible song! “My Only True Friend” was the only original on that album. Since Gregg literally was running out of time, he and his musical director Scott Sharrad decided to record covers of meaningful songs.
There’s something quite haunting when a dying man writes a song that opens with the line, “You and I both know this river will surely flow to an end.”
Yes, what a timely and genuinely awe inspiring project to undertake. Some great stuff there.