The collection reveals that six months before the Byrds turned "Mr. Tambourine Man" into a folk-rock smash, Dylan himself saw its possibilities, taking a clumsy, abortive stab at recording a drums-and-electric-guitar version. ("The drums are driving me mad," he says at the end.) It shows how Dylan attempted to record some Blonde on Blonde tracks with future members of the Band before opting for the subtler touch of Nashville musicians: Their "Visions of Johanna" is almost another song altogether (complete with lyric tweaks — "useless and small" instead of "useless and all"), rollicking where the released version is hushed....Oh, come on. The line is: "He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all/Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall." You can't say "useless and small" and then "small talk." It's a mistake, and maybe it's a mistake because he anticipated "small" coming up in the next line or maybe it's a mistake because he actually wrote "small" twice and then saw the problem and fixed it, but is this something we should be muttering at the wall half a century later?
September 24, 2015
There's no music I love more than Bob Dylan from 1965 and 1966 but...
... I don't know if I can take all these takes: "The Cutting Edge will
be available in a six-disc and a two-disc version, as well as a monster
limited-edition 18-disc set that includes every single take of every
song from the three albums..." Okay, maybe the 2-disc version.
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25 comments:
Like a fine wine the early Dylan gets better with age.
There's no music I love more than Bob Dylan from 1965 and 1966 but...
..it really does mean I'm at retirement age.
There's no music I love more than Bob Dylan from 1965 and 1966 but...
...it sounded better playing on my parents' Zenith console stereo than it does as an mp4.
From the link
"We'd also love to revisit Blood on the Tracks, Infidels, Oh Mercy and the gospel albums."
This is what I want. I feel like they've exhausted the mid-60s, although the cd with the evolution of Like a Rolling Stone sounds interesting.
I'm still learning Bob tunes - or relearning them as the case may be - these fifty years later. Not that anyone wants to hear me play them except my gf. We took her kids to see Bob a decade ago when he was still parading his hits. Her two sons (15 and 20) just didn't get it. Money Quote "You guys must have been high". Well yes as a matter of fact we were. Think I'll pass on getting high these days "under a Panamanian moon". I guess you had to have been there.
I've enjoyed most of the official Dylan Bootleg Series, but I'll give this one a miss. Like the Complete Basement Tapes, it might be interesting to hear some of these songs once to see how they evolved but I doubt I'd want to listen to any them more than once.
Althouse NEEDS the 18 disk edition....for completeness, to gavotte in endless reverie a la Dylan.
Have it on in the background while you work; Bob's working, you're working.....you are 'in the studio' with the music you enjoy most. I do this with the Beatles.
The line is: "He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all/Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall." You can't say "useless and small" and then "small talk." It's a mistake, and maybe it's a mistake because he anticipated "small" coming up in the next line or maybe it's a mistake because he actually wrote "small" twice and then saw the problem and fixed it, but is this something we should be muttering at the wall half a century later?
There can never be too much discussion and dissection of Dylan's doggerel.
Should we? Don't know, but the muttering at the wall will continue until the last breath of the last boomer.
Sarc on:
We were the baby boomers and we saw things no generation in history saw.
We were special. The doors of perception and such.
Now that we are the man, questioning authority is unpatriotic.
Sarc off:
The first song I learned on guitar was Tambourine Man, the Byrds version.
Like a Rolling Stone had already exploded into our consciousness, but to hear all of Dylan's verses of Tambourine man was to understand his poetic impact on music.
Visions of Johanna took it to the next level.
I would love to hear all of the out takes on Like a Rolling Stone, to see how it developed.
Most of Dylan's music is a cliche anymore, but we were young and impressionable at a time when music was important to us and a time when it was radically changing.
I tell you what, hand them over to Pandora, let they listen to them and pick the best stuff to add to my mixes where appropriate. That would be fine.
Editing is a wonderful thing, not sure I want to hear the unedited 18 CDs version.
I can't find it on youtube, but there is a really interesting movie showing the progression of "Sympathy for the Devil" from a sketch to a masterpiece. I'm not sure I would have the patience to watch all of Dylan's progressions.
There's a reason there are "record producers". Take the example of Donovan and Micky Most his producer. Without Mr. Most the music of Donovan is pretty boring. The arrangements, production values, instrumentation, et al that Micky provided the Donovan oeuvre was crucial in his string of hit singles that still pop and sparkle fifty years down the road. Live and in concert not so much. And, never under estimate mastering. As Bob Katz once said to us when we took him a project and inquired about the fee: "Just leave your wallet". Mastering is everything. Bob is better off left where he was in our collective psyches when he was a Napoleon in rags using the language that he used. No sense pulling back the curtain to expose the wizards pulling the levers.
I've been a Dylan fan since before Blood on the Tracks (I was 15), the release of which sent me backward through his catalog and checked out all the other stuff. I thought his book was excellent, as well, and loved the writing style which was unmistakably his. I started law school in 2008 (at 48) and met several ardent Dylan fans, half my age. Some of them had huge libraries of bootleg concerts and recordings and they were eager to share them. I listened to some of that stuff and it just doesn't interest me. I'm just not at the level of fandom, I suppose. I'm fine with the original recordings and his variations when I see him from time to time. There's a point where it just goes to far into the minutiae.
I saw Dylan the first time in the late seventies. My favorite performance was in about 2006 or so, in a minor league baseball stadium. Willie Nelson fronted him and he was great. Dylan came on and he and the band were excellent that night. Most of the times that I've seen him, he was terrible to flat. Second best time I saw him was at the Ryman in Nashville in 2007 (I think). Besides the effect of the venue, the concert was enhanced by both Elvis Costello and Jack White showing up unannounced. Jack White in particular.
@Mid-Life Lawyer - Concur. Bob shows suck these days. Unintelligible, a lack of former songs from the catalogue, good but indistinguishable musicians and everybody dressed in the same suit. No more Bob for me and unless irs just wandering back through memories in my mp3 collection. Enough is enough.
I'll keep an eye out to see if our university library gets this. As someone said above, it's probably worth listening to once (at least in bits and pieces.)
"There's no music I love more than Bob Dylan from 1965 and 1966..."
Althouse's absurd quandary is emblematic of a tragic generation. It's one thing to be deprived by circumstances, like surviving on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, but to be self-deprived...
Try explaining to someone not a baby boomer how the beauty of Dylan's voice is that it has that jenna say kwa of perfect imperfection. I've tried. Major fail.
And the Beatles were about twice as good. And the Stones were much more zeitgeisty. But don't get me wrong. He's third and belongs there.
Oh wow, aren't we so, like, pathetically old?!?
Deano or Frank y'all?
Who's up for a hip/knee replacement?
madAsHell said...
I can't find it on youtube, but there is a really interesting movie showing the progression of "Sympathy for the Devil" from a sketch to a masterpiece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXFaNi8Eic4
Poor Brian Jones...
the progression of "Sympathy for the Devil"...
I forgot about this part, which everyone booed and threw bottles at when I saw it in a theater...
"Interwoven through the movie are outdoor shots of Black Panthers milling about in a junkyard littered with the rusting cars heaped upon each other. They read from revolutionary texts ... " Wikipedia
So be ready with the fast-forward.
"which everyone booed and threw bottles..."
Man, that brings back memories...
I still do that. ... sometimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXFaNi8Eic4
Bogus video (which is why the comments were turned off), don't bother.
Here:
http://veehd.com/video/4501746_Godard-Sympathy-for-the-Devil-1968-nYx64
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