I don’t know if they had any dreams or hopes
I had ’em once though, I suppose, to go along
With all the ring dancin’ Christmas carols on all of the Christmas Eves
I left all my dreams and hopes
Buried under tobacco leaves
In this latest episode of the Million $ Bash roundtable, the gang goes at the surprise 2009 release of Christmas in the Heart, Bob Dylan’s first and perhaps only album of Christmas music, at least until there is a Bootleg Series box set of the session outtakes. The album is, unsurprisingly, contentious, and the M$B roundtable participants, despite their academic restraint, are not immune from that controversy. Enjoy this special holiday edition of the Million $ Bash!
MDB Roundtable Panelists:
Rob “Rockin’ Rob” Reginio teaches modern literature at Alfred University. He's currently at work on a book about Dylan's album John Wesley Harding.
Nina Goss is Editor of or contributor to the volumes Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the 21st Century and Dylan at Play. She is a contributor to various anthologies and presented at the first World of Bob Dylan conference (2019), and Dylan and the Beats conference in Tulsa (2022). She teaches at Fordham University.
Court Carney is a professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University, where he teaches courses on Black history and cultural history. He is finishing a book manuscript on the public memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Erin Callahan lives in the Houston, Texas, area where she teaches English at San Jacinto College. She has presented and published on Dylan and is currently co-editing a volume with Court Carney on interpretations of Dylan’s setlists for Routledge.
Graley Herren is an English professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he regularly teaches a first-year seminar on Bob Dylan. He is author of the book Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and he has a Substack newsletter devoted to Dylan called Shadow Chasing.
Jim Salvucci is the founder and keeper of The Dylantantes.
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“Ring dancing Christmas carols”: Christmas in the Heart