Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

"Beyond Here Lies Nothin' " is a song written by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter) and performed by Dylan as the opening track on his 2009 studio album Together Through Life. The title is a quote from the ancient Roman poet Ovid. The track was available as a free download on Dylan's official website from March 30 to March 31, 2009, and a photo montage set to the song premiered on Amazon on April 21. It has been anthologized on every reissue of The Essential Bob Dylan since 2010. Like much of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the song himself using the pseudonym Jack Frost. Composition and recording In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon describe the song as one in which Dylan and co-writer Robert Hunter have "created a beautiful love story set as a film noir, with abandoned cars lining the boulevards and light from only a few stars and the moon". They note that, musically, it "sounds quite different from anything Dylan has written so far. It has the sound of the modern blues of the 1950s, the Chicago blues, enriched by David Hidalgo's accordion and Donnie Herron's trumpet". They also claim that the song bears a resemblance to Otis Rush's 1958 song "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)" with a lead guitar part that is similar to Fleetwood Mac's 1968 single "Black Magic Woman". The song is performed in the key of A minor. Reception and legacy Jon Dolan, writing in Rolling Stone, which placed the song 16th on a list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century", praised its atmospheric musicianship: "With Mike Campbell’s guitar lashing against rumbling drums, and the forlorn feel of Donnie Herron’s trumpet and David Hidalgo’s accordion, the song has a mysterious noir feel". Spectrum Culture included the song on a list of Dylan's "20 Best Songs of the '00s". In an article accompanying the list, critic Tyler Dunston noted that the lyrics seemed to be a deliberate reversal of the Ovid exile poem that gave Dylan's song its title: