Bob Dylan Debuts 1967 Song Live on 35-Date Summer Tour in Portland

Q: Why did Bob Dylan wait nearly 60 years to perform a song live for the first time?

Bob Dylan appears to have waited that long mainly because the song was buried in the deepest part of his catalog, not because of any stated artistic ban. The song in question, “Baby, Won’t You Be My Baby,” was recorded in 1967 during the Basement Tapes sessions with The Band but was not officially released until 2014 on *The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete*. For decades, it was essentially a bootleg-era obscurity rather than a standard part of his public repertoire. That helps explain why it never surfaced onstage. Dylan has spent much of his touring life reshaping setlists around better-known songs, newer material, covers, and selected rarities. Even after the 2014 release, “Baby, Won’t You Be My Baby” remained an unusually deep cut, with little public profile compared with the songs that typically anchor his shows. The timing also fits Dylan’s current live approach. Reports from the opening night of “The Long Hot Summer” tour described the show as looser, less fixed, and more spontaneous than many of his recent performances. In that setting, he reached for a surprise choice and finally gave the song its live debut, nearly 60 years after recording it. So the most evidence-based answer is that Dylan waited because the track was long unreleased, little known even after its official issue, and only now suited the unpredictable, deep-catalog direction of his 2026 shows.

3 articles · Updated · MOJO · Jun 5

Portland’s Edgefield Amphitheater hosted the first-ever live performance of “Baby, Won’t You Be My Baby” on June 4, opening Bob Dylan’s 35-date “The Long Hot Summer” U.S. run.
The 85-year-old largely kept to his regular touring format—his usual band and a setlist drawn mostly from the Rough and Rowdy Ways and Outlaw tours—rather than unveiling the bigger overhaul some fans had anticipated.
Two surprises gave the show its spark: Dylan also revived “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” for the first time since July 2025, and the performance carried a looser, more improvised feel than his 2022 Portland stop.
That mix of familiar material and selective deep cuts suggested the new tour may favor subtle reshaping over reinvention as Dylan heads across the U.S.