Bob Dylan  Sure or Shut Up???   You listen closely and decide!
Channel: Artur Artist presents The Casper Collection
Date: 2022-01-25

A lot of people have gotten the idea somehow that during his performance of "My Own Version of You," at the Sunday night Beacon Theatre show, Nov. 21, 2021, Bob Dylan responded "Shut up!" to someone in the audience who'd yelled out just before.

There are a number of reasons NOT to believe this - people were yelling out throughout, as they always do, and Dylan didn't respond that way any other time; Dylan wasn't looking toward the audience when he said what he said, he didn't seem annoyed at all - didn't even seem to be paying any particular attention to the audience at all.

I could  hear perfecty what he said -- and it was a funny aside.  He'd just sung the line, "Do it with decency and common sense" - and then wryly commented, "Su-ure..." - dragging it out like people do when expressing ironic disbelief.  Like if someone said, "I'm going to make a million dollars without even trying," and someone might respond, "Su-ure you will."
Dylan was commenting on the idea that anyone could think it a common sense thing to do, to make their own version of someone they miss or wish for, by reanimating an assemblage of pieces of corpses.   "Su-ure you'll do it  with common sense!"

But the best reason to dismiss the idea that he instead said, "Shut up" is by listening to a decent sounding version of the recording.

The sound on my video seems clear enough to me.  But for good measure, I took the audio and used Adobe Audition to denoise it and highlight the voice for clarity.

Listen, and honestly share your opinion - without any preconceived ideas about what somebody told you Dylan said.  Does it sound more like "Shut up" or "Su-ure...?"




Denoised, voice highlighted for clarity