🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 171 (from laksa023)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa171.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32914","crawl_time":1775645107,"first_indexed_time":1773315074,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"uk,org,bob-dylan!\/archives\/32914 s443","src_root_hash":"6657295398892900771","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Key West part 11. Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe | Untold Dylan","meta_descriptions":[],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"by Jochen Markhorst\nHere’s my man, the great David Allan Coe\nKey West is the place to go\nDown by the Gulf of Mexico\nBeyond the sea - beyond the shifting sand\nKey West is the gateway key\nTo innocence and purity\nKey West - Key West is the enchanted land\n“Scarborough Fair” was “my thing,” says Martin Carthy (\nTradfolk\ninterview, February 28, 2018), thinking back to the early 1960s, when every folk singer in London had their own signature song. Davey Graham had “Angi” (or “Anji”), Bert Jansch had “Strolling Down The Highway,” and Carthy had “Scarborough Fair”. But he certainly had no problem with Paul Simon confiscating it (“It’s a traditional song, for god’s sake! Why shouldn’t he do it?”), just as he could only appreciate Dylan’s reworking of the song into “Girl From The North Country” a few months earlier, in December ’62. As Martin Carthy has an opinion on that endless\nPlagiarism-Or-Inspiration\ndebate as well:\n“He did actually annoy some people by being such an effective piece of blotting paper. I don’t understand that, personally. I think it’s fantastic. Somebody suggested that “Blowin’ In The Wind” was actually a reworking of a tune called “No More Auction Block”. I’ve no idea if that’s true. There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale, aren’t there? You gonna trip over each other at some point.”\n(interview for\nPrism Films\n, 2013)\nMartin Carthy is a likeable and respected folk artist, but unfortunately not particularly authoritative – even after his downplaying\nThere’s only a limited number of notes in the scale\nin 2013, plagiarism remains a hot topic. It even seems to be getting worse. In 2014, Robin Thicke has to pay millions to the heirs of Marvin Gaye after his global hit “Blurred Lines”, and Bruno Mars had to defend himself against no fewer than\nfive\ncolleagues and heirs after “Uptown Funk” (also in 2014), all of whom believed he had stolen from their respective songs (mainly from 1970s disco songs such as “Oops Up Side Your Head” and “Funk You Up”). Kate Perry, Ed Sheeran, the Beach Boys, Radiohead, the Beatles, Madonna, Shakira… no one is spared, and as long as the plaintiffs’ chances of success are about 50\/50, little will change for the time being.\nIn general, plagiarism cases are often somewhat awkward. Especially when the complainants are heirs, but opportunism and feigned indignation colour virtually every case anyway. Occasionally, however, it can also be amusing—such as when the sunny carefreeness of paradisiacal Key West is disrupted by a minor plagiarism scandal.\nDylan does have a soft spot for outlaw country artist David Allan Coe. In the May 2009\nRolling Stone\ninterview, he calls Coe “one of my favorite guys”, and before that, in his\nTheme Time Radio Hour\nepisode “Tennessee”, he is even more enthusiastic:\n“Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe. A dangerous man, in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons since the age of 9. He supposedly spent time on death row for killing a fellow inmate who made advances to him. A\nRolling Stone\nmagazine reporter questioned Coe about this. His musical response was the song, “I’d Like To Kick The Shit Out Of You”.”\nThe love is mutual, as evidenced by the passionate ode Coe recorded in 1983 for his album\nCastles In The Sand\n. The title track is a tribute, a respectful declaration of loyalty to Bob Dylan and an assertive tirade against all journalists who peddle nonsense and lies about his hero, which Dylan will undoubtedly have appreciated. He is probably just as charmed by the next track, an exciting country-funk version of “Gotta Serve Somebody”. In the bonus episode for\nTheme Time Radio Hour\nDylan recorded in 2020 on the theme of Whiskey, he takes the opportunity to honour Coe once again, putting Coe’s “Tennessee Whiskey” on the playlist, just as he did twelve years earlier, but this time in the version by George Jones:\n“You’re listening to Theme Time Radio Hour, and we played a version of this next song on our\nTennessee\nepisode by one of my favorite outlaws, Edgar Allan Poe, no, I mean David Allan Coe. But I can’t imagine doing a show about whiskey and not playing this song. I also can’t imagine not playing George Jones, so I can kill two birds with one stone.”\nIn 1979,\none of my favorite outlaws\ngot into a dispute with\none of my favorite songwriters,\nJimmy Buffett. Perhaps igniting some inner conflict of loyalty in Dylan, but more likely it raised hardly more than an eyebrow. Coe moved to Jimmy Buffett’s Key West in the 1970s and organically adopted the congas, Caribbean Soul, and Gulf & Western sound. And more than that; the song “Divers Do It Deeper” on Coe’s 1978\nFamily Album\nsounds very,\nvery\nsimilar to Buffett’s hit “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” – which Jimmy does not take too elegantly. “I would have sued him,” Buffett is quoted as saying, “but I didn’t want to give Coe the pleasure of having his name in the paper.” Which in turn awakens the troll in David Allan Coe. For his next LP,\nNothing Sacred\n(also in 1978), David writes the scathing diss track “Jimmy Buffett” with some rather explicit insults. “\nSon of a son of a son of bitch, what’s all that bullshit for\n,” for example, winking maliciously at Buffett’s then-recent “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”. With a conciliatory finale, though:\nNow Divers Do It Deeper must have really made them mad\nSome of them reviewers said it really sounded bad\nWell they liked Margaritaville, me I liked it too\nSomeday Jimmy, why don't we just both get drunk and screw\nOh those creepy motherfuckers that think music is a whore\nTell that you just don't live in Key West anymore\nThe LP can only be bought by mail order from David himself due to all the explicit lyrics and profanity. So he repeats his message on his next “regular” LP,\nSpectrum VII\n, the LP with perhaps the ugliest cover in Coe’s oeuvre (and that’s saying something after the gruesome\nFamily Album\ncover). Under the credits on the back cover he writes “To Record Reviewers:\nJimmy Buffett doesn’t live in Key West anymore\n” (the chorus line of the song).\nDespite the hideous cover, it is a wonderful LP,\nSpectrum VII.\nSide A is called “Land Side” and opens with the catchy “Rollin’ With The Punches”, featuring a special, charming tribute: “Dedicated to Bob Dylan: I never thought it’d be easy Bob!” Apparently, Dylan also listened to the B-side, “Ocean Side,” and especially to the beautiful, epic song “Seven Mile Bridge”, from which Dylan seems to paraphrase the opening verse:\nYou know, as a child, he heard tell of the Seven Mile Bridge\nThat connected on Marathon's shore\nYes and it was the gateway to Key West \nHis grandpa had told him ten times or more\n… which Dylan then promotes to\nKey West is the gateway key\n. Coe would not dream of calling it plagiarism, of course. Not only because Dylan somehow has been above the law in that regard for sixty years now, but mainly because David Allan Coe is a devoted fan—placing Dylan’s borrowing on his mantelpiece like a Nobel Prize, no doubt.\nTo be continued. Next up\nKey West part 12: Everything is fuzzy and opalescent\nJochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:\nBlood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue\nBlonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece\nWhere Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978\nDesolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965\nBasement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967\nMississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece\nBob Dylan’s Greatest Hits\nJohn Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville\nTombstone Blues b\/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse\nStreet-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978\nBringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang\nTime Out Of Mind: The\nRising\nof an Old Master\nCrossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic\nNashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music\nNick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece\nI Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip\nBob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B\nBob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)\nBob Dylan’s 1971\nLike A Rolling Stone b\/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door\nIt Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b\/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues\nBob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A\nBob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs","attrs_markdown":"[Skip to content](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32914#content)\n\n[Untold Dylan](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/)\n\nThe meaning behind the music and words of Bob Dylan\n\n![Untold Dylan](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/twentyten\/images\/headers\/sunset.jpg)\n\n- [The Never Ending Tour](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/never-ending-tour)\n- [Indexes to older series](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/indexes-to-older-series)\n- [Alphabetical index of Dylan’s songs](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-reviewed-on-this-site)\n- [Bob Dylan year by year](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/bob-dylan-year-by-year-decade-by-decade)\n- [Dylan songs of the 1950s and 60s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-in-chronological-order)\n- [Dylan songs of the 1970s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-of-the-1970s)\n- [Dylan songs of the 1980s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-of-the-1980s)\n- [Dylan songs of the 1990s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-in-the-1990s)\n- [Dylan songs of the 21st century](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-of-the-21st-century)\n\n[← The Philosophy of Modern Song: My Prayer](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32908)\n\n[Theme Time Radio Hour: “Rich Man Poor Man” – the songs of hope and contrast. →](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32926)\n\n# Key West part 11. Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe\nPosted on [March 12, 2026](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32914 \"9:34 am\") by [Tony Attwood](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/author\/tony-attwood-4 \"View all posts by Tony Attwood\")\n\nby Jochen Markhorst\n\n**Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe**\n```\nKey West is the place to go\nDown by the Gulf of Mexico\nBeyond the sea - beyond the shifting sand\nKey West is the gateway key\nTo innocence and purity\nKey West - Key West is the enchanted land\n```\n[![](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)“Scarborough Fair” was “my thing,” says Martin Carthy (*Tradfolk* interview, February 28, 2018), thinking back to the early 1960s, when every folk singer in London had their own signature song. Davey Graham had “Angi” (or “Anji”), Bert Jansch had “Strolling Down The Highway,” and Carthy had “Scarborough Fair”. But he certainly had no problem with Paul Simon confiscating it (“It’s a traditional song, for god’s sake! Why shouldn’t he do it?”), just as he could only appreciate Dylan’s reworking of the song into “Girl From The North Country” a few months earlier, in December ’62. As Martin Carthy has an opinion on that endless *Plagiarism-Or-Inspiration* debate as well:\n\n“He did actually annoy some people by being such an effective piece of blotting paper. I don’t understand that, personally. I think it’s fantastic. Somebody suggested that “Blowin’ In The Wind” was actually a reworking of a tune called “No More Auction Block”. I’ve no idea if that’s true. There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale, aren’t there? You gonna trip over each other at some point.”  \n (interview for *Prism Films*, 2013)\n\nMartin Carthy is a likeable and respected folk artist, but unfortunately not particularly authoritative – even after his downplaying *There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale* in 2013, plagiarism remains a hot topic. It even seems to be getting worse. In 2014, Robin Thicke has to pay millions to the heirs of Marvin Gaye after his global hit “Blurred Lines”, and Bruno Mars had to defend himself against no fewer than *five* colleagues and heirs after “Uptown Funk” (also in 2014), all of whom believed he had stolen from their respective songs (mainly from 1970s disco songs such as “Oops Up Side Your Head” and “Funk You Up”). Kate Perry, Ed Sheeran, the Beach Boys, Radiohead, the Beatles, Madonna, Shakira… no one is spared, and as long as the plaintiffs’ chances of success are about 50\/50, little will change for the time being.\n\nIn general, plagiarism cases are often somewhat awkward. Especially when the complainants are heirs, but opportunism and feigned indignation colour virtually every case anyway. Occasionally, however, it can also be amusing—such as when the sunny carefreeness of paradisiacal Key West is disrupted by a minor plagiarism scandal.\n\nDylan does have a soft spot for outlaw country artist David Allan Coe. In the May 2009 *Rolling Stone* interview, he calls Coe “one of my favorite guys”, and before that, in his *Theme Time Radio Hour* episode “Tennessee”, he is even more enthusiastic:\n\n“Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe. A dangerous man, in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons since the age of 9. He supposedly spent time on death row for killing a fellow inmate who made advances to him. A *Rolling Stone* magazine reporter questioned Coe about this. His musical response was the song, “I’d Like To Kick The Shit Out Of You”.”\n\nThe love is mutual, as evidenced by the passionate ode Coe recorded in 1983 for his album *Castles In The Sand*. The title track is a tribute, a respectful declaration of loyalty to Bob Dylan and an assertive tirade against all journalists who peddle nonsense and lies about his hero, which Dylan will undoubtedly have appreciated. He is probably just as charmed by the next track, an exciting country-funk version of “Gotta Serve Somebody”. In the bonus episode for *Theme Time Radio Hour* Dylan recorded in 2020 on the theme of Whiskey, he takes the opportunity to honour Coe once again, putting Coe’s “Tennessee Whiskey” on the playlist, just as he did twelve years earlier, but this time in the version by George Jones:\n\n“You’re listening to Theme Time Radio Hour, and we played a version of this next song on our *Tennessee* episode by one of my favorite outlaws, Edgar Allan Poe, no, I mean David Allan Coe. But I can’t imagine doing a show about whiskey and not playing this song. I also can’t imagine not playing George Jones, so I can kill two birds with one stone.”\n\nIn 1979, *one of my favorite outlaws* got into a dispute with *one of my favorite songwriters,* Jimmy Buffett. Perhaps igniting some inner conflict of loyalty in Dylan, but more likely it raised hardly more than an eyebrow. Coe moved to Jimmy Buffett’s Key West in the 1970s and organically adopted the congas, Caribbean Soul, and Gulf & Western sound. And more than that; the song “Divers Do It Deeper” on Coe’s 1978 *Family Album* sounds very, *very* similar to Buffett’s hit “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” – which Jimmy does not take too elegantly. “I would have sued him,” Buffett is quoted as saying, “but I didn’t want to give Coe the pleasure of having his name in the paper.” Which in turn awakens the troll in David Allan Coe. For his next LP, *Nothing Sacred* (also in 1978), David writes the scathing diss track “Jimmy Buffett” with some rather explicit insults. “*Son of a son of a son of bitch, what’s all that bullshit for*,” for example, winking maliciously at Buffett’s then-recent “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”. With a conciliatory finale, though:\n```\nNow Divers Do It Deeper must have really made them mad\nSome of them reviewers said it really sounded bad\nWell they liked Margaritaville, me I liked it too\nSomeday Jimmy, why don't we just both get drunk and screw\nOh those creepy motherfuckers that think music is a whore\nTell that you just don't live in Key West anymore\n```\nThe LP can only be bought by mail order from David himself due to all the explicit lyrics and profanity. So he repeats his message on his next “regular” LP, *Spectrum VII*, the LP with perhaps the ugliest cover in Coe’s oeuvre (and that’s saying something after the gruesome *Family Album* cover). Under the credits on the back cover he writes “To Record Reviewers: *Jimmy Buffett doesn’t live in Key West anymore*” (the chorus line of the song).\n\nDespite the hideous cover, it is a wonderful LP, *Spectrum VII.* Side A is called “Land Side” and opens with the catchy “Rollin’ With The Punches”, featuring a special, charming tribute: “Dedicated to Bob Dylan: I never thought it’d be easy Bob!” Apparently, Dylan also listened to the B-side, “Ocean Side,” and especially to the beautiful, epic song “Seven Mile Bridge”, from which Dylan seems to paraphrase the opening verse:\n```\nYou know, as a child, he heard tell of the Seven Mile Bridge\nThat connected on Marathon's shore\nYes and it was the gateway to Key West \nHis grandpa had told him ten times or more\n```\n… which Dylan then promotes to *Key West is the gateway key*. Coe would not dream of calling it plagiarism, of course. Not only because Dylan somehow has been above the law in that regard for sixty years now, but mainly because David Allan Coe is a devoted fan—placing Dylan’s borrowing on his mantelpiece like a Nobel Prize, no doubt.\n\n*To be continued. Next up [Key West part 12: Everything is fuzzy and opalescent](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32951)*\n\nJochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle: ![](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/H61-1-4-3.jpg)\n\n- [Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Blood-Tracks-Dylans-Masterpiece-Blue\/dp\/B08673MC39\/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-1)\n- [Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Blonde-Bob-Dylans-mercurial-masterpiece-ebook\/dp\/B08681T1SY\/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-2)\n- [Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Where-Tonight-Journey-Through-Dark-ebook\/dp\/B0871KZ4CJ\/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-3)\n- [Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Desolation-Row-Dylans-poetic-letter-ebook\/dp\/B085BCSG7W\/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-5)\n- [Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B087SJSZX6)\n- [Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B08GYLC33G)\n- [Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits](https:\/\/www.amazon.de\/dp\/B08M87RW51)\n- [John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B08RRF5TXN)\n- [Tombstone Blues b\/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B08X5WCXBC)\n- [Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0988PPW7F)\n- [Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B09MZBX5Q4)\n- Time Out Of Mind: The [Rising](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0B4F9BVWT) of an Old Master\n- [Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0BFNZ4RDY)\n- [Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B0BVDRFXRC)\n- [Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B0C1HWRGJN)\n- [I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0CCCRZ257)\n- [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0CM1YNKWC)\n- [Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0CX16DVK8)\n- [Bob Dylan’s 1971](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0D7WC3P46?ccs_id=f5b32583-5004-4784-8249-9c88eec3e287)\n- [Like A Rolling Stone b\/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0DV5GQ7Y2)\n- [It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b\/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0FF31HL6Z)\n- [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0FWCSNCBB)\n- [Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0GDG8GJ45)\n\n[![](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/H61.jpg)](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0GDG8GJ45)\n\nThis entry was posted in [Uncategorized](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/category\/uncategorized). Bookmark the [permalink](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32914 \"Permalink to Key West part 11.   Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe\").\n\n[← The Philosophy of Modern Song: My Prayer](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32908)\n\n[Theme Time Radio Hour: “Rich Man Poor Man” – the songs of hope and contrast. →](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32926)\n\n### 3 Responses to *Key West part 11. Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe*\n1. ![](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/797e2387c87823a52836e6be51eb7d3c6abc6223596cb7e4ea33f96b4dafcba9?s=40&d=retro&r=g)\n   \n   [Kevin](http:\/\/www.kanesongs.com\/)\n   \n   says:\n   \n   [March 12, 2026 at 12:02 pm](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32914#comment-593157)\n   \n   What good writing! Clear, interesting and insightful. Nothing wrong with the starstruck passions some writers post, but it’s always a pleasure to encounter serious journalism. Thanks – Kevin Kane \/ Bronx NY\n2. ![](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b6f097955bbe129812f6caddb57437821b927383610293e1b9cb21727b9116f2?s=40&d=retro&r=g)\n   \n   Larry Fyffe\n   \n   says:\n   \n   [March 12, 2026 at 2:09 pm](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32914#comment-593164)\n   \n   In his somewhat changed version of “You Never Even Call Me By Name”, Coe  \n    continues the satire on the many melancholy aspects found in a lot of country and western songs:\n   \n   Well, I was drunk the day Mom got outta prison  \n    And I went to pick her up in the rain  \n    But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck  \n    She got runned over by a damned train.\n   \n   And there be tragic novels too:\n   \n   In Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, rejected by society because of her illicit love affair, Anna throws herself under a train, leaving blood on the tracks.\n3. ![](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3744ae70795eba55b9fd94c837c59b50d574c4d7a3ca45e8b2036d786cb3e5e7?s=40&d=retro&r=g)\n   \n   Jochen Markhorst\n   \n   says:\n   \n   [March 12, 2026 at 9:45 pm](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32914#comment-593181)\n   \n   Much appreciated Kevin, merci\n### Leave a Reply\n\n- ### Blogroll\n  - [Also from Untold: Schools.co.uk](https:\/\/www.schools.co.uk\/ \"Advertising to UK schools\")\n  - [Untold Arsenal](https:\/\/untold-arsenal.com\/ \"From the same guys: our other hobby\")\n- ### Meta\n  - [Log in](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-login.php)\n  - [Entries feed](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/feed)\n  - [Comments feed](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/comments\/feed)\n  - [WordPress.org](https:\/\/en-gb.wordpress.org\/)\n- ### Recent Posts\n  - [The Philosophy of Modern Song: From “Masters of War” to Edwin Starrr.](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33112)\n  - [Bob Dylan’s greatest composition of 1970](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33102)\n  - [Key West XVI The Sonic Light Being](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33078)\n  - [Bob Dylan Theme time radio hour: three final selections and one complete show](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33094)\n  - [The Philosophy of Modern Song: Everybody Cryin’ Mercy](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33086)\n  - [Bob Dylan’s greatest compositions year by year: 1969 – I’ll have you any time](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33081)\n  - [Key West part 15: Amelia](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33073)\n  - [Theme Time Radio Hour: Dogs and neighbours](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33065)\n  - [Dylan’s Legacy Lives on in the Gaming World](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33109)\n  - [Do the earliest of Dylan’s recordings actually entertain, or indeed tell us anything?](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33061)\n- ### Archives\n  Archives\n- ### Indexes and reference pages\n  - [A classification of Dylan’s songs](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylans-songs)\n  - [Album artwork](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/album-artwork)\n  - [All directions at once](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/all-directions-at-once)\n  - [Alphabetical index of Dylan’s songs](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-reviewed-on-this-site)\n  - [Beautiful Obscurity](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/beautiful-obscurity)\n  - [Bob Dylan and friends](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/bob-dylan-and-friends)\n  - [Bob Dylan master harpist](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/bob-dylan-master-harpist)\n  - [Bob Dylan year by year](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/bob-dylan-year-by-year-decade-by-decade)\n  - [Bob Dylan’s Themes](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/articles-on-bob-dylan)\n  - [Copyright](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/copyright)\n  - [Covers of Dylan songs](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/covers-of-dylan-songs)\n  - [Dylan at the movies](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-at-the-movies)\n  - [Dylan in Depth](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-in-depth)\n  - [Dylan re-imagined](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-re-imagined)\n  - [Dylan songs of the 1950s and 60s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-in-chronological-order)\n  - [Dylan songs of the 1970s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-of-the-1970s)\n  - [Dylan songs of the 1980s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-of-the-1980s)\n  - [Dylan songs of the 1990s](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-in-the-1990s)\n  - [Dylan songs of the 21st century](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylan-songs-of-the-21st-century)\n  - [Dylan’s creativity](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylans-creativity)\n  - [Dylan’s lighter side](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/the-lighter-side)\n  - [Dylan’s Opening Lines: an index](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylans-opening-lines-an-index)\n  - [Dylan’s songs: the themes](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylans-songs-the-themes)\n  - [Faith](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/faith)\n  - [Fearful Symmetry](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/faithful-symmetry)\n  - [Forgotten gems, lost songs](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/dylans-forgotten-gems)\n  - [Index of citations](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/index-of-citations)\n  - [Indexes to older series](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/indexes-to-older-series)\n  - [Influences On Bob Dylan](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/influences-on-bob-dylan)\n  - [Just like Tom Thumb](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/just-like-tom-thumb)\n  - [Love minus zero \/ no limit](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/love-minus-zero-no-limit)\n  - [Mississippi](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/mississippi)\n  - [Obscuranti](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/obscuranti)\n  - [Play lady play](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/play-lady-play)\n  - [Poets and themes within Bob Dylan’s work](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/poets-and-themes-within-bob-dylans-work)\n  - [Rarities](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/rarities)\n  - [Rough and Rowdy Ways](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/rough-and-rowdy-ways)\n  - [Showcase](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/showcase)\n  - [Songs about Dylan](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/songs-about-dylan)\n  - [The Never Ending Tour](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/never-ending-tour)\n  - [Untold Highlights](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/untold-highlights)\n  - [Untold Series](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/untold-themes)\n  - [Untold writers](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/about-the-author)\n  - [Why does Dylan like…](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/why-does-dylan-like)\n  - [“I don’t know what it means, either. But it sounds good.”](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/)\n- ### Recent articles\n  - [The Philosophy of Modern Song: From “Masters of War” to Edwin Starrr.](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33112)\n  - [Bob Dylan’s greatest composition of 1970](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33102)\n  - [Key West XVI The Sonic Light Being](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33078)\n  - [Bob Dylan Theme time radio hour: three final selections and one complete show](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33094)\n  - [The Philosophy of Modern Song: Everybody Cryin’ Mercy](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33086)\n  - [Bob Dylan’s greatest compositions year by year: 1969 – I’ll have you any time](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33081)\n  - [Key West part 15: Amelia](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33073)\n  - [Theme Time Radio Hour: Dogs and neighbours](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33065)\n  - [Dylan’s Legacy Lives on in the Gaming World](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/33109)\n\n[Untold Dylan](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/)\n\n[Proudly powered by WordPress.](https:\/\/wordpress.org\/ \"Semantic Personal Publishing Platform\")\n\nYou've blocked notifications","attrs_readable_markdown":"by Jochen Markhorst\n\n**Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe**\n```\nKey West is the place to go\nDown by the Gulf of Mexico\nBeyond the sea - beyond the shifting sand\nKey West is the gateway key\nTo innocence and purity\nKey West - Key West is the enchanted land\n```\n[![](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)“Scarborough Fair” was “my thing,” says Martin Carthy (*Tradfolk* interview, February 28, 2018), thinking back to the early 1960s, when every folk singer in London had their own signature song. Davey Graham had “Angi” (or “Anji”), Bert Jansch had “Strolling Down The Highway,” and Carthy had “Scarborough Fair”. But he certainly had no problem with Paul Simon confiscating it (“It’s a traditional song, for god’s sake! Why shouldn’t he do it?”), just as he could only appreciate Dylan’s reworking of the song into “Girl From The North Country” a few months earlier, in December ’62. As Martin Carthy has an opinion on that endless *Plagiarism-Or-Inspiration* debate as well:\n\n“He did actually annoy some people by being such an effective piece of blotting paper. I don’t understand that, personally. I think it’s fantastic. Somebody suggested that “Blowin’ In The Wind” was actually a reworking of a tune called “No More Auction Block”. I’ve no idea if that’s true. There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale, aren’t there? You gonna trip over each other at some point.”  \n (interview for *Prism Films*, 2013)\n\nMartin Carthy is a likeable and respected folk artist, but unfortunately not particularly authoritative – even after his downplaying *There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale* in 2013, plagiarism remains a hot topic. It even seems to be getting worse. In 2014, Robin Thicke has to pay millions to the heirs of Marvin Gaye after his global hit “Blurred Lines”, and Bruno Mars had to defend himself against no fewer than *five* colleagues and heirs after “Uptown Funk” (also in 2014), all of whom believed he had stolen from their respective songs (mainly from 1970s disco songs such as “Oops Up Side Your Head” and “Funk You Up”). Kate Perry, Ed Sheeran, the Beach Boys, Radiohead, the Beatles, Madonna, Shakira… no one is spared, and as long as the plaintiffs’ chances of success are about 50\/50, little will change for the time being.\n\nIn general, plagiarism cases are often somewhat awkward. Especially when the complainants are heirs, but opportunism and feigned indignation colour virtually every case anyway. Occasionally, however, it can also be amusing—such as when the sunny carefreeness of paradisiacal Key West is disrupted by a minor plagiarism scandal.\n\nDylan does have a soft spot for outlaw country artist David Allan Coe. In the May 2009 *Rolling Stone* interview, he calls Coe “one of my favorite guys”, and before that, in his *Theme Time Radio Hour* episode “Tennessee”, he is even more enthusiastic:\n\n“Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe. A dangerous man, in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons since the age of 9. He supposedly spent time on death row for killing a fellow inmate who made advances to him. A *Rolling Stone* magazine reporter questioned Coe about this. His musical response was the song, “I’d Like To Kick The Shit Out Of You”.”\n\nThe love is mutual, as evidenced by the passionate ode Coe recorded in 1983 for his album *Castles In The Sand*. The title track is a tribute, a respectful declaration of loyalty to Bob Dylan and an assertive tirade against all journalists who peddle nonsense and lies about his hero, which Dylan will undoubtedly have appreciated. He is probably just as charmed by the next track, an exciting country-funk version of “Gotta Serve Somebody”. In the bonus episode for *Theme Time Radio Hour* Dylan recorded in 2020 on the theme of Whiskey, he takes the opportunity to honour Coe once again, putting Coe’s “Tennessee Whiskey” on the playlist, just as he did twelve years earlier, but this time in the version by George Jones:\n\n“You’re listening to Theme Time Radio Hour, and we played a version of this next song on our *Tennessee* episode by one of my favorite outlaws, Edgar Allan Poe, no, I mean David Allan Coe. But I can’t imagine doing a show about whiskey and not playing this song. I also can’t imagine not playing George Jones, so I can kill two birds with one stone.”\n\nIn 1979, *one of my favorite outlaws* got into a dispute with *one of my favorite songwriters,* Jimmy Buffett. Perhaps igniting some inner conflict of loyalty in Dylan, but more likely it raised hardly more than an eyebrow. Coe moved to Jimmy Buffett’s Key West in the 1970s and organically adopted the congas, Caribbean Soul, and Gulf & Western sound. And more than that; the song “Divers Do It Deeper” on Coe’s 1978 *Family Album* sounds very, *very* similar to Buffett’s hit “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” – which Jimmy does not take too elegantly. “I would have sued him,” Buffett is quoted as saying, “but I didn’t want to give Coe the pleasure of having his name in the paper.” Which in turn awakens the troll in David Allan Coe. For his next LP, *Nothing Sacred* (also in 1978), David writes the scathing diss track “Jimmy Buffett” with some rather explicit insults. “*Son of a son of a son of bitch, what’s all that bullshit for*,” for example, winking maliciously at Buffett’s then-recent “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”. With a conciliatory finale, though:\n```\nNow Divers Do It Deeper must have really made them mad\nSome of them reviewers said it really sounded bad\nWell they liked Margaritaville, me I liked it too\nSomeday Jimmy, why don't we just both get drunk and screw\nOh those creepy motherfuckers that think music is a whore\nTell that you just don't live in Key West anymore\n```\nThe LP can only be bought by mail order from David himself due to all the explicit lyrics and profanity. So he repeats his message on his next “regular” LP, *Spectrum VII*, the LP with perhaps the ugliest cover in Coe’s oeuvre (and that’s saying something after the gruesome *Family Album* cover). Under the credits on the back cover he writes “To Record Reviewers: *Jimmy Buffett doesn’t live in Key West anymore*” (the chorus line of the song).\n\nDespite the hideous cover, it is a wonderful LP, *Spectrum VII.* Side A is called “Land Side” and opens with the catchy “Rollin’ With The Punches”, featuring a special, charming tribute: “Dedicated to Bob Dylan: I never thought it’d be easy Bob!” Apparently, Dylan also listened to the B-side, “Ocean Side,” and especially to the beautiful, epic song “Seven Mile Bridge”, from which Dylan seems to paraphrase the opening verse:\n```\nYou know, as a child, he heard tell of the Seven Mile Bridge\nThat connected on Marathon's shore\nYes and it was the gateway to Key West \nHis grandpa had told him ten times or more\n```\n… which Dylan then promotes to *Key West is the gateway key*. Coe would not dream of calling it plagiarism, of course. Not only because Dylan somehow has been above the law in that regard for sixty years now, but mainly because David Allan Coe is a devoted fan—placing Dylan’s borrowing on his mantelpiece like a Nobel Prize, no doubt.\n\n*To be continued. Next up [Key West part 12: Everything is fuzzy and opalescent](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/archives\/32951)*\n\nJochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle: ![](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/H61-1-4-3.jpg)\n\n- [Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Blood-Tracks-Dylans-Masterpiece-Blue\/dp\/B08673MC39\/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-1)\n- [Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Blonde-Bob-Dylans-mercurial-masterpiece-ebook\/dp\/B08681T1SY\/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-2)\n- [Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Where-Tonight-Journey-Through-Dark-ebook\/dp\/B0871KZ4CJ\/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-3)\n- [Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Desolation-Row-Dylans-poetic-letter-ebook\/dp\/B085BCSG7W\/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-5)\n- [Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B087SJSZX6)\n- [Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B08GYLC33G)\n- [Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits](https:\/\/www.amazon.de\/dp\/B08M87RW51)\n- [John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B08RRF5TXN)\n- [Tombstone Blues b\/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B08X5WCXBC)\n- [Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0988PPW7F)\n- [Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B09MZBX5Q4)\n- Time Out Of Mind: The [Rising](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0B4F9BVWT) of an Old Master\n- [Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0BFNZ4RDY)\n- [Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B0BVDRFXRC)\n- [Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece](https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B0C1HWRGJN)\n- [I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0CCCRZ257)\n- [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0CM1YNKWC)\n- [Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0CX16DVK8)\n- [Bob Dylan’s 1971](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0D7WC3P46?ccs_id=f5b32583-5004-4784-8249-9c88eec3e287)\n- [Like A Rolling Stone b\/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0DV5GQ7Y2)\n- [It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b\/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0FF31HL6Z)\n- [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0FWCSNCBB)\n- [Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0GDG8GJ45)\n\n[![](https:\/\/bob-dylan.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/H61.jpg)](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0GDG8GJ45)","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	by Jochen Markhorst Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe Key West is the place to go Down by the Gulf of Mexico Beyond the sea - beyond the shifting sand Key West is the gateway key To innocence and purity Key West - Key West is the enchanted land “Scarborough Fair” was “my thing,” says Martin Carthy ( Tradfolk interview, February 28, 2018), thinking back to the early 1960s, when every folk singer in London had their own signature song. Davey Graham had “Angi” (or “Anji”), Bert Jansch had “Strolling Down The Highway,” and Carthy had “Scarborough Fair”. But he certainly had no problem with Paul Simon confiscating it (“It’s a traditional song, for god’s sake! Why shouldn’t he do it?”), just as he could only appreciate Dylan’s reworking of the song into “Girl From The North Country” a few months earlier, in December ’62. As Martin Carthy has an opinion on that endless Plagiarism-Or-Inspiration debate as well: “He did actually annoy some people by being such an effective piece of blotting paper. I don’t understand that, personally. I think it’s fantastic. Somebody suggested that “Blowin’ In The Wind” was actually a reworking of a tune called “No More Auction Block”. I’ve no idea if that’s true. There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale, aren’t there? You gonna trip over each other at some point.” (interview for Prism Films , 2013) Martin Carthy is a likeable and respected folk artist, but unfortunately not particularly authoritative – even after his downplaying There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale in 2013, plagiarism remains a hot topic. It even seems to be getting worse. In 2014, Robin Thicke has to pay millions to the heirs of Marvin Gaye after his global hit “Blurred Lines”, and Bruno Mars had to defend himself against no fewer than five colleagues and heirs after “Uptown Funk” (also in 2014), all of whom believed he had stolen from their respective songs (mainly from 1970s disco songs such as “Oops Up Side Your Head” and “Funk You Up”). Kate Perry, Ed Sheeran, the Beach Boys, Radiohead, the Beatles, Madonna, Shakira… no one is spared, and as long as the plaintiffs’ chances of success are about 50/50, little will change for the time being. In general, plagiarism cases are often somewhat awkward. Especially when the complainants are heirs, but opportunism and feigned indignation colour virtually every case anyway. Occasionally, however, it can also be amusing—such as when the sunny carefreeness of paradisiacal Key West is disrupted by a minor plagiarism scandal. Dylan does have a soft spot for outlaw country artist David Allan Coe. In the May 2009 Rolling Stone interview, he calls Coe “one of my favorite guys”, and before that, in his Theme Time Radio Hour episode “Tennessee”, he is even more enthusiastic: “Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe. A dangerous man, in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons since the age of 9. He supposedly spent time on death row for killing a fellow inmate who made advances to him. A Rolling Stone magazine reporter questioned Coe about this. His musical response was the song, “I’d Like To Kick The Shit Out Of You”.” The love is mutual, as evidenced by the passionate ode Coe recorded in 1983 for his album Castles In The Sand . The title track is a tribute, a respectful declaration of loyalty to Bob Dylan and an assertive tirade against all journalists who peddle nonsense and lies about his hero, which Dylan will undoubtedly have appreciated. He is probably just as charmed by the next track, an exciting country-funk version of “Gotta Serve Somebody”. In the bonus episode for Theme Time Radio Hour Dylan recorded in 2020 on the theme of Whiskey, he takes the opportunity to honour Coe once again, putting Coe’s “Tennessee Whiskey” on the playlist, just as he did twelve years earlier, but this time in the version by George Jones: “You’re listening to Theme Time Radio Hour, and we played a version of this next song on our Tennessee episode by one of my favorite outlaws, Edgar Allan Poe, no, I mean David Allan Coe. But I can’t imagine doing a show about whiskey and not playing this song. I also can’t imagine not playing George Jones, so I can kill two birds with one stone.” In 1979, one of my favorite outlaws got into a dispute with one of my favorite songwriters, Jimmy Buffett. Perhaps igniting some inner conflict of loyalty in Dylan, but more likely it raised hardly more than an eyebrow. Coe moved to Jimmy Buffett’s Key West in the 1970s and organically adopted the congas, Caribbean Soul, and Gulf & Western sound. And more than that; the song “Divers Do It Deeper” on Coe’s 1978 Family Album sounds very, very similar to Buffett’s hit “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” – which Jimmy does not take too elegantly. “I would have sued him,” Buffett is quoted as saying, “but I didn’t want to give Coe the pleasure of having his name in the paper.” Which in turn awakens the troll in David Allan Coe. For his next LP, Nothing Sacred (also in 1978), David writes the scathing diss track “Jimmy Buffett” with some rather explicit insults. “ Son of a son of a son of bitch, what’s all that bullshit for ,” for example, winking maliciously at Buffett’s then-recent “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”. With a conciliatory finale, though: Now Divers Do It Deeper must have really made them mad Some of them reviewers said it really sounded bad Well they liked Margaritaville, me I liked it too Someday Jimmy, why don't we just both get drunk and screw Oh those creepy motherfuckers that think music is a whore Tell that you just don't live in Key West anymore The LP can only be bought by mail order from David himself due to all the explicit lyrics and profanity. So he repeats his message on his next “regular” LP, Spectrum VII , the LP with perhaps the ugliest cover in Coe’s oeuvre (and that’s saying something after the gruesome Family Album cover). Under the credits on the back cover he writes “To Record Reviewers: Jimmy Buffett doesn’t live in Key West anymore ” (the chorus line of the song). Despite the hideous cover, it is a wonderful LP, Spectrum VII. Side A is called “Land Side” and opens with the catchy “Rollin’ With The Punches”, featuring a special, charming tribute: “Dedicated to Bob Dylan: I never thought it’d be easy Bob!” Apparently, Dylan also listened to the B-side, “Ocean Side,” and especially to the beautiful, epic song “Seven Mile Bridge”, from which Dylan seems to paraphrase the opening verse: You know, as a child, he heard tell of the Seven Mile Bridge That connected on Marathon's shore Yes and it was the gateway to Key West His grandpa had told him ten times or more … which Dylan then promotes to Key West is the gateway key . Coe would not dream of calling it plagiarism, of course. Not only because Dylan somehow has been above the law in that regard for sixty years now, but mainly because David Allan Coe is a devoted fan—placing Dylan’s borrowing on his mantelpiece like a Nobel Prize, no doubt. To be continued. Next up Key West part 12: Everything is fuzzy and opalescent Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle: Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978 Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965 Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967 Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978 Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton) Bob Dylan’s 1971 Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs
Markdown	[Skip to content](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914#content) [Untold Dylan](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/) The meaning behind the music and words of Bob Dylan ![Untold Dylan](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/themes/twentyten/images/headers/sunset.jpg) - [The Never Ending Tour](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/never-ending-tour) - [Indexes to older series](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/indexes-to-older-series) - [Alphabetical index of Dylan’s songs](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-reviewed-on-this-site) - [Bob Dylan year by year](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/bob-dylan-year-by-year-decade-by-decade) - [Dylan songs of the 1950s and 60s](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-in-chronological-order) - [Dylan songs of the 1970s](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-of-the-1970s) - [Dylan songs of the 1980s](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-of-the-1980s) - [Dylan songs of the 1990s](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-in-the-1990s) - [Dylan songs of the 21st century](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/dylan-songs-of-the-21st-century) [← The Philosophy of Modern Song: My Prayer](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32908) [Theme Time Radio Hour: “Rich Man Poor Man” – the songs of hope and contrast. →](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32926) # Key West part 11. Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe Posted on [March 12, 2026](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914 "9:34 am") by [Tony Attwood](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/author/tony-attwood-4 "View all posts by Tony Attwood") by Jochen Markhorst Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe ``` Key West is the place to go Down by the Gulf of Mexico Beyond the sea - beyond the shifting sand Key West is the gateway key To innocence and purity Key West - Key West is the enchanted land ``` [![](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)“Scarborough Fair” was “my thing,” says Martin Carthy (Tradfolk interview, February 28, 2018), thinking back to the early 1960s, when every folk singer in London had their own signature song. Davey Graham had “Angi” (or “Anji”), Bert Jansch had “Strolling Down The Highway,” and Carthy had “Scarborough Fair”. But he certainly had no problem with Paul Simon confiscating it (“It’s a traditional song, for god’s sake! Why shouldn’t he do it?”), just as he could only appreciate Dylan’s reworking of the song into “Girl From The North Country” a few months earlier, in December ’62. As Martin Carthy has an opinion on that endless Plagiarism-Or-Inspiration debate as well: “He did actually annoy some people by being such an effective piece of blotting paper. I don’t understand that, personally. I think it’s fantastic. Somebody suggested that “Blowin’ In The Wind” was actually a reworking of a tune called “No More Auction Block”. I’ve no idea if that’s true. There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale, aren’t there? You gonna trip over each other at some point.” (interview for Prism Films, 2013) Martin Carthy is a likeable and respected folk artist, but unfortunately not particularly authoritative – even after his downplaying There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale in 2013, plagiarism remains a hot topic. It even seems to be getting worse. In 2014, Robin Thicke has to pay millions to the heirs of Marvin Gaye after his global hit “Blurred Lines”, and Bruno Mars had to defend himself against no fewer than five colleagues and heirs after “Uptown Funk” (also in 2014), all of whom believed he had stolen from their respective songs (mainly from 1970s disco songs such as “Oops Up Side Your Head” and “Funk You Up”). Kate Perry, Ed Sheeran, the Beach Boys, Radiohead, the Beatles, Madonna, Shakira… no one is spared, and as long as the plaintiffs’ chances of success are about 50/50, little will change for the time being. In general, plagiarism cases are often somewhat awkward. Especially when the complainants are heirs, but opportunism and feigned indignation colour virtually every case anyway. Occasionally, however, it can also be amusing—such as when the sunny carefreeness of paradisiacal Key West is disrupted by a minor plagiarism scandal. Dylan does have a soft spot for outlaw country artist David Allan Coe. In the May 2009 Rolling Stone interview, he calls Coe “one of my favorite guys”, and before that, in his Theme Time Radio Hour episode “Tennessee”, he is even more enthusiastic: “Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe. A dangerous man, in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons since the age of 9. He supposedly spent time on death row for killing a fellow inmate who made advances to him. A Rolling Stone magazine reporter questioned Coe about this. His musical response was the song, “I’d Like To Kick The Shit Out Of You”.” The love is mutual, as evidenced by the passionate ode Coe recorded in 1983 for his album Castles In The Sand. The title track is a tribute, a respectful declaration of loyalty to Bob Dylan and an assertive tirade against all journalists who peddle nonsense and lies about his hero, which Dylan will undoubtedly have appreciated. He is probably just as charmed by the next track, an exciting country-funk version of “Gotta Serve Somebody”. In the bonus episode for Theme Time Radio Hour Dylan recorded in 2020 on the theme of Whiskey, he takes the opportunity to honour Coe once again, putting Coe’s “Tennessee Whiskey” on the playlist, just as he did twelve years earlier, but this time in the version by George Jones: “You’re listening to Theme Time Radio Hour, and we played a version of this next song on our Tennessee episode by one of my favorite outlaws, Edgar Allan Poe, no, I mean David Allan Coe. But I can’t imagine doing a show about whiskey and not playing this song. I also can’t imagine not playing George Jones, so I can kill two birds with one stone.” In 1979, one of my favorite outlaws got into a dispute with one of my favorite songwriters, Jimmy Buffett. Perhaps igniting some inner conflict of loyalty in Dylan, but more likely it raised hardly more than an eyebrow. Coe moved to Jimmy Buffett’s Key West in the 1970s and organically adopted the congas, Caribbean Soul, and Gulf & Western sound. And more than that; the song “Divers Do It Deeper” on Coe’s 1978 Family Album sounds very, very similar to Buffett’s hit “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” – which Jimmy does not take too elegantly. “I would have sued him,” Buffett is quoted as saying, “but I didn’t want to give Coe the pleasure of having his name in the paper.” Which in turn awakens the troll in David Allan Coe. For his next LP, Nothing Sacred (also in 1978), David writes the scathing diss track “Jimmy Buffett” with some rather explicit insults. “Son of a son of a son of bitch, what’s all that bullshit for,” for example, winking maliciously at Buffett’s then-recent “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”. With a conciliatory finale, though: ``` Now Divers Do It Deeper must have really made them mad Some of them reviewers said it really sounded bad Well they liked Margaritaville, me I liked it too Someday Jimmy, why don't we just both get drunk and screw Oh those creepy motherfuckers that think music is a whore Tell that you just don't live in Key West anymore ``` The LP can only be bought by mail order from David himself due to all the explicit lyrics and profanity. So he repeats his message on his next “regular” LP, Spectrum VII, the LP with perhaps the ugliest cover in Coe’s oeuvre (and that’s saying something after the gruesome Family Album cover). Under the credits on the back cover he writes “To Record Reviewers: Jimmy Buffett doesn’t live in Key West anymore” (the chorus line of the song). Despite the hideous cover, it is a wonderful LP, Spectrum VII. Side A is called “Land Side” and opens with the catchy “Rollin’ With The Punches”, featuring a special, charming tribute: “Dedicated to Bob Dylan: I never thought it’d be easy Bob!” Apparently, Dylan also listened to the B-side, “Ocean Side,” and especially to the beautiful, epic song “Seven Mile Bridge”, from which Dylan seems to paraphrase the opening verse: ``` You know, as a child, he heard tell of the Seven Mile Bridge That connected on Marathon's shore Yes and it was the gateway to Key West His grandpa had told him ten times or more ``` … which Dylan then promotes to Key West is the gateway key. Coe would not dream of calling it plagiarism, of course. Not only because Dylan somehow has been above the law in that regard for sixty years now, but mainly because David Allan Coe is a devoted fan—placing Dylan’s borrowing on his mantelpiece like a Nobel Prize, no doubt. To be continued. Next up [Key West part 12: Everything is fuzzy and opalescent](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32951) Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle: ![](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/H61-1-4-3.jpg) - [Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Tracks-Dylans-Masterpiece-Blue/dp/B08673MC39/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-1) - [Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blonde-Bob-Dylans-mercurial-masterpiece-ebook/dp/B08681T1SY/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-2) - [Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Where-Tonight-Journey-Through-Dark-ebook/dp/B0871KZ4CJ/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-3) - [Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Desolation-Row-Dylans-poetic-letter-ebook/dp/B085BCSG7W/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-5) - [Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087SJSZX6) - [Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GYLC33G) - [Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits](https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08M87RW51) - [John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RRF5TXN) - [Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X5WCXBC) - [Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0988PPW7F) - [Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MZBX5Q4) - Time Out Of Mind: The [Rising](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4F9BVWT) of an Old Master - [Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFNZ4RDY) - [Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BVDRFXRC) - [Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C1HWRGJN) - [I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCCRZ257) - [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CM1YNKWC) - [Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CX16DVK8) - [Bob Dylan’s 1971](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7WC3P46?ccs_id=f5b32583-5004-4784-8249-9c88eec3e287) - [Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DV5GQ7Y2) - [It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF31HL6Z) - [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FWCSNCBB) - [Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GDG8GJ45) [![](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/H61.jpg)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GDG8GJ45) This entry was posted in [Uncategorized](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/category/uncategorized). Bookmark the [permalink](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914 "Permalink to Key West part 11. Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe"). [← The Philosophy of Modern Song: My Prayer](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32908) [Theme Time Radio Hour: “Rich Man Poor Man” – the songs of hope and contrast. →](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32926) ### 3 Responses to Key West part 11. Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe 1. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/797e2387c87823a52836e6be51eb7d3c6abc6223596cb7e4ea33f96b4dafcba9?s=40&d=retro&r=g) [Kevin](http://www.kanesongs.com/) says: [March 12, 2026 at 12:02 pm](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914#comment-593157) What good writing! Clear, interesting and insightful. Nothing wrong with the starstruck passions some writers post, but it’s always a pleasure to encounter serious journalism. Thanks – Kevin Kane / Bronx NY 2. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b6f097955bbe129812f6caddb57437821b927383610293e1b9cb21727b9116f2?s=40&d=retro&r=g) Larry Fyffe says: [March 12, 2026 at 2:09 pm](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914#comment-593164) In his somewhat changed version of “You Never Even Call Me By Name”, Coe continues the satire on the many melancholy aspects found in a lot of country and western songs: Well, I was drunk the day Mom got outta prison And I went to pick her up in the rain But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck She got runned over by a damned train. And there be tragic novels too: In Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, rejected by society because of her illicit love affair, Anna throws herself under a train, leaving blood on the tracks. 3. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3744ae70795eba55b9fd94c837c59b50d574c4d7a3ca45e8b2036d786cb3e5e7?s=40&d=retro&r=g) Jochen Markhorst says: [March 12, 2026 at 9:45 pm](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32914#comment-593181) Much appreciated Kevin, merci ### Leave a Reply - ### Blogroll - [Also from Untold: Schools.co.uk](https://www.schools.co.uk/ "Advertising to UK schools") - [Untold Arsenal](https://untold-arsenal.com/ "From the same guys: our other hobby") - ### Meta - [Log in](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-login.php) - [Entries feed](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/feed) - [Comments feed](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/comments/feed) - [WordPress.org](https://en-gb.wordpress.org/) - ### Recent Posts - [The Philosophy of Modern Song: From “Masters of War” to Edwin Starrr.](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/33112) - 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Readable Markdown	by Jochen Markhorst Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe ``` Key West is the place to go Down by the Gulf of Mexico Beyond the sea - beyond the shifting sand Key West is the gateway key To innocence and purity Key West - Key West is the enchanted land ``` [![](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/David-Allan-Coe-Spectrum-VII.jpg)“Scarborough Fair” was “my thing,” says Martin Carthy (Tradfolk interview, February 28, 2018), thinking back to the early 1960s, when every folk singer in London had their own signature song. Davey Graham had “Angi” (or “Anji”), Bert Jansch had “Strolling Down The Highway,” and Carthy had “Scarborough Fair”. But he certainly had no problem with Paul Simon confiscating it (“It’s a traditional song, for god’s sake! Why shouldn’t he do it?”), just as he could only appreciate Dylan’s reworking of the song into “Girl From The North Country” a few months earlier, in December ’62. As Martin Carthy has an opinion on that endless Plagiarism-Or-Inspiration debate as well: “He did actually annoy some people by being such an effective piece of blotting paper. I don’t understand that, personally. I think it’s fantastic. Somebody suggested that “Blowin’ In The Wind” was actually a reworking of a tune called “No More Auction Block”. I’ve no idea if that’s true. There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale, aren’t there? You gonna trip over each other at some point.” (interview for Prism Films, 2013) Martin Carthy is a likeable and respected folk artist, but unfortunately not particularly authoritative – even after his downplaying There’s only a limited number of notes in the scale in 2013, plagiarism remains a hot topic. It even seems to be getting worse. In 2014, Robin Thicke has to pay millions to the heirs of Marvin Gaye after his global hit “Blurred Lines”, and Bruno Mars had to defend himself against no fewer than five colleagues and heirs after “Uptown Funk” (also in 2014), all of whom believed he had stolen from their respective songs (mainly from 1970s disco songs such as “Oops Up Side Your Head” and “Funk You Up”). Kate Perry, Ed Sheeran, the Beach Boys, Radiohead, the Beatles, Madonna, Shakira… no one is spared, and as long as the plaintiffs’ chances of success are about 50/50, little will change for the time being. In general, plagiarism cases are often somewhat awkward. Especially when the complainants are heirs, but opportunism and feigned indignation colour virtually every case anyway. Occasionally, however, it can also be amusing—such as when the sunny carefreeness of paradisiacal Key West is disrupted by a minor plagiarism scandal. Dylan does have a soft spot for outlaw country artist David Allan Coe. In the May 2009 Rolling Stone interview, he calls Coe “one of my favorite guys”, and before that, in his Theme Time Radio Hour episode “Tennessee”, he is even more enthusiastic: “Here’s my man, the great David Allan Coe. A dangerous man, in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons since the age of 9. He supposedly spent time on death row for killing a fellow inmate who made advances to him. A Rolling Stone magazine reporter questioned Coe about this. His musical response was the song, “I’d Like To Kick The Shit Out Of You”.” The love is mutual, as evidenced by the passionate ode Coe recorded in 1983 for his album Castles In The Sand. The title track is a tribute, a respectful declaration of loyalty to Bob Dylan and an assertive tirade against all journalists who peddle nonsense and lies about his hero, which Dylan will undoubtedly have appreciated. He is probably just as charmed by the next track, an exciting country-funk version of “Gotta Serve Somebody”. In the bonus episode for Theme Time Radio Hour Dylan recorded in 2020 on the theme of Whiskey, he takes the opportunity to honour Coe once again, putting Coe’s “Tennessee Whiskey” on the playlist, just as he did twelve years earlier, but this time in the version by George Jones: “You’re listening to Theme Time Radio Hour, and we played a version of this next song on our Tennessee episode by one of my favorite outlaws, Edgar Allan Poe, no, I mean David Allan Coe. But I can’t imagine doing a show about whiskey and not playing this song. I also can’t imagine not playing George Jones, so I can kill two birds with one stone.” In 1979, one of my favorite outlaws got into a dispute with one of my favorite songwriters, Jimmy Buffett. Perhaps igniting some inner conflict of loyalty in Dylan, but more likely it raised hardly more than an eyebrow. Coe moved to Jimmy Buffett’s Key West in the 1970s and organically adopted the congas, Caribbean Soul, and Gulf & Western sound. And more than that; the song “Divers Do It Deeper” on Coe’s 1978 Family Album sounds very, very similar to Buffett’s hit “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” – which Jimmy does not take too elegantly. “I would have sued him,” Buffett is quoted as saying, “but I didn’t want to give Coe the pleasure of having his name in the paper.” Which in turn awakens the troll in David Allan Coe. For his next LP, Nothing Sacred (also in 1978), David writes the scathing diss track “Jimmy Buffett” with some rather explicit insults. “Son of a son of a son of bitch, what’s all that bullshit for,” for example, winking maliciously at Buffett’s then-recent “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”. With a conciliatory finale, though: ``` Now Divers Do It Deeper must have really made them mad Some of them reviewers said it really sounded bad Well they liked Margaritaville, me I liked it too Someday Jimmy, why don't we just both get drunk and screw Oh those creepy motherfuckers that think music is a whore Tell that you just don't live in Key West anymore ``` The LP can only be bought by mail order from David himself due to all the explicit lyrics and profanity. So he repeats his message on his next “regular” LP, Spectrum VII, the LP with perhaps the ugliest cover in Coe’s oeuvre (and that’s saying something after the gruesome Family Album cover). Under the credits on the back cover he writes “To Record Reviewers: Jimmy Buffett doesn’t live in Key West anymore” (the chorus line of the song). Despite the hideous cover, it is a wonderful LP, Spectrum VII. Side A is called “Land Side” and opens with the catchy “Rollin’ With The Punches”, featuring a special, charming tribute: “Dedicated to Bob Dylan: I never thought it’d be easy Bob!” Apparently, Dylan also listened to the B-side, “Ocean Side,” and especially to the beautiful, epic song “Seven Mile Bridge”, from which Dylan seems to paraphrase the opening verse: ``` You know, as a child, he heard tell of the Seven Mile Bridge That connected on Marathon's shore Yes and it was the gateway to Key West His grandpa had told him ten times or more ``` … which Dylan then promotes to Key West is the gateway key. Coe would not dream of calling it plagiarism, of course. Not only because Dylan somehow has been above the law in that regard for sixty years now, but mainly because David Allan Coe is a devoted fan—placing Dylan’s borrowing on his mantelpiece like a Nobel Prize, no doubt. To be continued. Next up [Key West part 12: Everything is fuzzy and opalescent](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/32951) Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle: ![](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/H61-1-4-3.jpg) - [Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Tracks-Dylans-Masterpiece-Blue/dp/B08673MC39/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-1) - [Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blonde-Bob-Dylans-mercurial-masterpiece-ebook/dp/B08681T1SY/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-2) - [Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Where-Tonight-Journey-Through-Dark-ebook/dp/B0871KZ4CJ/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-3) - [Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Desolation-Row-Dylans-poetic-letter-ebook/dp/B085BCSG7W/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Jochen+Markhorst&qid=1587629592&sr=8-5) - [Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087SJSZX6) - [Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GYLC33G) - [Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits](https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08M87RW51) - [John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08RRF5TXN) - [Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X5WCXBC) - [Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0988PPW7F) - [Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MZBX5Q4) - Time Out Of Mind: The [Rising](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4F9BVWT) of an Old Master - [Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFNZ4RDY) - [Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BVDRFXRC) - [Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C1HWRGJN) - [I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCCRZ257) - [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CM1YNKWC) - [Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CX16DVK8) - [Bob Dylan’s 1971](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7WC3P46?ccs_id=f5b32583-5004-4784-8249-9c88eec3e287) - [Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DV5GQ7Y2) - [It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF31HL6Z) - [Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FWCSNCBB) - [Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GDG8GJ45) [![](https://bob-dylan.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/H61.jpg)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GDG8GJ45)
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