Bob Dylan approached recording as a way to capture the energy of a live musical moment, an outlook the article links to jazz musician Miles Davis. During the 1966 sessions for *Blonde on Blonde*, he brought his band into the studio before dawn to record “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, letting the performance build without telling them how long it would last.

Drummer Kenny Buttrey recalled the musicians repeatedly expecting the song to end as its intensity rose, only for Dylan to return to another verse or harmonica solo. Dylan favoured live recording and improvisation because he felt studio performances lacked the presence of an audience; he cited Frank Sinatra’s practice of bringing listeners into the studio as a way to help songs come alive.