Bob Dylan's original lyrics to "Like A Rolling Stone" are going up for auction
Instead of scrounging for their next meal, fans of Bob Dylan will have to start scrounging for cash if they want to get a hold of the initial drafts of his game-changing '65 single "Like A Rolling Stone". As "The Guardian" points out, Dylan's original lyrics are headed to New York auction-house Sotheby's and are expected to fetch anywhere from $1-$2 million, which would surpass the $965,500 his electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival fetched.
One reason for heated interest in the drafts is due to Dylan's lyrical fidgeting, which includes trying to rhyme gangster "Al Capone" with the famed "like a complete unknown" line and dabbling with "dry vermouth." Along with the rough drafts of the Highway 61 Revisited-track are a series of doodles and commentary penned by Dylan that has been called a series of "stray thoughts on American cultural imagery." Based on Sotheby's own investigating, the papers contain the "only known surviving draft of the final lyrics for this transformative rock anthem," which were purchased directly from Dylan by an anonymous seller. If the price tag is too rich for your blood, you can enjoy the still great video for "Like A Rolling Stone" free of charge.
Christopher Owens of Girls drops the country-tinged "Stephen"
John Shearer/WireImage
Though details on former Girls lead-singer Christopher Owens' sophomore album are still sparse, today's release of the gently-twanging "Stephen" will fill in a few more blanks. Following in the snakeskin boot-prints of the pastoral "It Comes Back To You", the new single shuffles further into country territory.
Aided by church-like keys and delicate backing vocals, Owens captures a profound sense of familial loss with his lonesome nasal croon. "Just like an angel, he flew away," he weeps as an organ wails and the choir hits a crescendo. By the end you half-expect the song to do the same. If the tracks we've heard so far are any indication, Owens' 2nd record will be a gorgeous affair.
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When the Bob Dylan in the 80s compilation was first announced, one of the most intriguing covers listed was Comedy Bang Bang bandleader Reggie Watts diving headfirst into the unwieldy "Brownsville Girl". At 11 minutes, it's one of the longest track in Dylan's six-decade oeuvre and also one of the most poetic, with lyrics co-penned by renowned playwright Sam Shepard. In covering such an esteemed track, Watts eschews much of the spoken-word verse for tender soul singing laid over a warping dance groove. "I love this track, hadn't heard of it before I was asked to be a part of the project," Watts told Spin.com. While that unfamiliarity may spook certain Dylanphiles, there's no cause for concern. It may be nowhere near the original song length, but thanks to Watts' earnest performance it still possesses all of the heart.
Pre-orders of Bob Dylan in the 80s: Volume One are available through the project's website and the record is officially out on March 25th. You can hear the track here and view the tracklist below:
Bob Dylan In The 80s: Volume One:
1. Langhorne Slim & The Law – “Got My Mind Made Up”
2. Built to Spill – “Jokerman”
3. Reggie Watts – “Brownsville Girl (Reprise)”
4. Craig Finn – “Sweetheart Like You”
5. Ivan & Alyosha – “You Changed My Life”
6. Deer Tick – “Night After Night”
7. Dawn Landes & Bonnie “Prince” Billy – “Dark Eyes”
8. Tea Leaf Green – “Waiting To Get Beat”
9. Aaron Freeman & Slash – “Wiggle Wiggle”
10. Elvis Perkins – “Congratulations”
11. Hannah Cohen – “Covenant Woman”
12. Marco Benevento – “Every Grain Of Sand”
13. Yellowbirds – “Series Of Dreams”
14. Blitzen Trapper – “Unbelievable”
15. Lucius – “When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky”
16. Glen Hansard – “Pressing On”
17. Carl Broemel – “Death Is Not The End
Beach House go to space
A month and a half ago, I wrote about Youth Lagoon's swirling track "Worms" culled from the upcoming Space Project. Compiled by Lefse Records, the Space Project utilizes recordings from the Voyager spacecrafts of "fluctuations in electromagnetic radiation and particle and converts those occurrences into sound." In the case of "Worms" the otherwise indetectable exhalations of Uranus' rings could be heard.
Now dream-pop duo Beach House has unveiled their contribution to the lofty project. Entitled "Saturn Song", the track is perfectly in keeping with the vacant atmosphere that a title like Space Project would portend. Moog synths moodily burble on in the background, while timid keys step to the front. What sounds like a cold wind can be heard rustling in the intro. Victoria Legrand's voice is aching and fragile, as though it's been on one too many missions. "I don't wanna" she sighs over and over again. Rarely has non-committal sounded so engaging.
Space Project will drop April 18th through Lefse Records.
Sleigh Bells bound to wrack up noise complaints on new tour
There will be blood, as Brooklyn noise-pop duo Sleigh Bells hit the road in support of their vicious 2013 release Bitter Rivals. Though the junior LP reshuffled the band's sound, it didn't mess around with the volume, everything was still cranked all the way up to 11 when the noise came. And now that noise will be everywhere the next few months with the band's campaign. They kick off a little more than a week from now at SXSW in Austin, before pillaging through Coachella, the Governor's Ball, and countless other cities along the way. Check out the dates below along with the video for "Bitter Rivals".
Tour dates:
3/14 Austin, TX - Red Bull Sound Select Party at The Belmont 3/21 New Orleans, LA - BUKU Festival 4/5 Norman, OK - University of Oklahoma -East Lawn 4/6 Houston, TX - Warehouse Live 4/7 San Antonio, TX - White Rabbit 4/9 Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom 4/12 Indio, CA - Coachella 4/15 Mexico City, Mexico - El Plaza Condesa 4/19 Indio, CA - Coachella 4/21 Boulder, CO - Fox Theater 4/22 Omaha, NE - Slowdown 4/23 Des Moines, IA - Wooly's 4/25 Gambier, OH - Kenyon College - South Quad 4/26 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle 4/27 Atlanta, GA - Counterpoint Music Festival 4/29 Charlotte, NC - Fillmore 4/30 Charleston, SC - The Music Farm 5/2 Tampa, FL - Big Guava Music Festival 6/6-9 New York, NY - Governors Ball Music Festival 6/13-22 Toronto, Ontario - NXNE Festival 6/19-22 Dover, DE - Firefly Music Festival
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Sunday night during the Super Bowl 48, near the end of the Seahawks absolute trouncing of the Peyton Manning led Broncos (which brought me great joy as a Chiefs fan), I was hit with a moment of excitement that soon turned to incredulity and eventually anger. The moment in question came when Bob Dylan, who has long stood as one of my ultimate music "heroes" essentially stepped on screen in a Chrysler ad to brag about their "Americanness". My initial text to a friend who holds Dylan in similarly high regards simply read "DYLAN!!!", a response that was soon met with a painful "why?" That text soon made me realize this was the same man who once sang: "Blowin in the Wind", "Masters of War", "With God on Our Side", "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall", and countless other protest songs that intensely scrutinized dominant U.S. power structures. The man once labelled "the voice of a generation" was now using that voice to schlep for a Fortune 500 company. In short-hand, he'd "sold out."
But the truth is, since his earliest days Bob Dylan's been "selling out." When 1964's Another Side of Bob Dylan arrived on shelves, critic David Horowitz labelled the collection of dreamy and introspective tunes "unqualified failure of taste and self-critical awareness." And while the folk/rock blurring Bringing It All Back Home (released in March 1965) largely escaped scorn, Dylan's set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival wasn't so lucky. After a scant three electrified songs, Dylan and his band left the stage amidst boos from the audience. The recently deceased Pete Seeger apocryphally was so upset by Dylan's distorted voice he attempted to take an axe to the sound cables. He wouldn't appear at Newport again for another 37 years after the incident.
When the monolithic Highway 61 Revisited arrived in August of '65, the response was much more favorable though Allen Evans of NME would still say the tracks were sung in a "monotonous and tuneless way." Such a complaint would seem tame compared to the criticism Dylan was about to receive. When he arrived in England in May of 1966 to tour Blonde on Blonde with The Band (then the Hawks), reporters continued to desperately peg him as a "folk singer", when he'd all but moved on. The disconnect reached a fever pitch with the infamous "Judas Moment" at the Manchester Free Trade Hall on May 17, 1966. Audience member John Cordwell accused Dylan of being the Messianic betrayer as the critic-savaging "Ballad of a Thin Man" had drawn to a close. Clearly caught off-guard by the remark, Dylan could only scowl back "I don't believe you", before urging The Band to "play it f***ing loud" for closer "Like a Rolling Stone".
In some ways, Dylan's been wrapped in the various forms of the Judas cloak ever since. He's been scoffed at for appearing in Victoria's Secret ads and performing in China. His work has led writers to ask "what is this s***?", while others wonder aloud about forays into Christmas music. One persistent reason for the lingering criticism is that some people worry such decisions taint the purity of Dylan's career. More than almost any other 20th Century artist, Bob Dylan is idealized and romanticized to Godlike levels. So when he shows up in a Chrysler ad, we worry he's becoming "human." But he's always been human. He warned us "there's no great message," to his songs. And the longer we try to find one, the more frustrated we'll be.
For all of the respect Bob Dylan receives and all the covers he inspires, little if any of those has anything to do with the 1980s. Where Lennon had his infamous "Lost Weekend", Dylan had the "Lost Decade", when Grateful Dead collaborations and new-wave influences ran wild. Perhaps not surprisingly it was his least successful stretch both commercially and critically, and it took 1997's inscrutable Time Out of Mind to end the "dry-spell."
Bob Dylan in the 80s, an upcoming release from ATO Records is revisiting that Dust-Bowl era of Dylan's career and cultivating incredible talent for the effort. Craig Finn of the Hold Steady is tackling Infidels cut "Sweetheart Like You", Gene Ween and Slash (yes Slash) are improbably teaming up for the reviled "Wiggle Wiggle", and comedian Reggie Watts stands in the unenviable position of recreating the 11-minute epic "Brownsville Girl". On paper though, one of the most intriguing covers is Built to Spill taking on "Jokerman" from the aforementioned Infidels. A finger-wagging, reggae-influenced tale the song regularly appears on best-of Dylan lists. Doug Martsch and company forgo the grounded island vibes for their tradition skyward guitar scrawl. It's simultaneously world-weary and gorgeous, proving the 80s were far from a lost-cause for rock's poet laureate.
Tracklist: 1. "Got My Mind Made Up"- Langhorne Slim & the Law 2. "Jokerman"- Built to Spill 3. "Brownsville Girl (Reprise)"- Reggie Watts 4. "Sweetheart Like You"- Craig Finn 5. "You Changed My Life"- Ivan & Alyosha 6. "Night After Night"- Deer Tick 7. "Dark Eyes"- Dawn Landes & Bonnie "Prince" Billy 8. "Waiting to Get Beat"- Tea Leaf Green 9. "Wiggle Wiggle"- Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween) & Slash 10. "Congratulations"- Elvis Perkins 11. "Covenant Woman"- Hannah Cohen 12. "Every Grain of Sand"- Marco Benevento 13. "Series of Dreams"- Yellowbirds 14. "Unbelievable"- Blitzen Trapper 15. "When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky"- Lucius 16. "Pressing On"- Glen Hansard 17. "Death is Not the End"- Carl Broemel
Patti Smith covers Rihanna
No you're not reading that headline wrong and this isn't some sort of hoax. While playing at NYC's Webster Hall on December 30, punk luminary Patti Smith dove into her own cover of Rihanna's gargantuan piano-ballad "Stay". As Stereogum writer Tom Breihan astutely pointed out, "Stay" once and for all proved "that she can actually sing."
Smith's own performance doesn't stray far from the starkly expressive vocals of the original, aside from the piano Smith's essentially alone on stage. Virtually none of the power her voice rang out with in the 70s has dissipated, every line rings with agony. And if you catch a glimpse of Smith in the grainy-clip, it's clear that even though the number isn't her own she can still relate.
The Black Lips debut completely NSFW video for "Boys in the Wood"
Anyone who has ever had the fortune of seeing Atlanta garage-rockers the Black Lips live knows they aren't exactly tame. Stage-diving, beer-swilling, and vomiting are all fixtures of the band's shows and those register as some of the tamer elements. With that in mind, it's still hard to stomach the skin-crawling video for "Boys in the Wood" from their upcoming 7th LP Underneath the Rainbow. The clip, directed by Atlanta-duo the ATL-Twins, slithers through a dark Georgia night where illicit drugs are done out in the open and individuals are beaten to within an inch of their life. Spring Breakers director Harmony Korine would smile with delighted approval if he saw the slow-burner, which is only missing animal cruelty to complete the "perfect recipe."
The Black Lips album Underneath the Rainbow is out March 18 through Vice.
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Welcome back to the second half of the countdown of the "Top 20 Opening Lines to Songs". In part one there were the weirdos, the ragers, and the whispers, and part two isn't going to be any different. Here again you'll find some iconic lines intermingling with a few oddballs that deserve your attention. But before we dive back into the list, let's backtrack to numbers 20 through 11. If you haven't read the first half here, do that first and then reconvene for the final 10. With that said, let's get on with it.
20. "Oceanographer's Choice"- The Mountain Goats
19. "Wouldn't It Be Nice"- The Beach Boys
18. "Criminal"- Fiona Apple
17. "Bastard"- Tyler, the Creator
16. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"- Neil Young
15. "Space Oddity"- David Bowie
14. "Imagine"- John Lennon
13. "Sympathy for the Devil"- The Rolling Stones
12. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"- The Beatles
11. "Buddy Holly"- Weezer
10. "Heroin"- The Velvet Underground
"I don't know just where I'm going."
I'll
admit a small part of "Heroin"s appearance on this list is due to Lou
Reed's recent passing. Still, if Lou had lived for another 100 years, this song
would probably make the cut. Originally written by Reed in 1965,
"Heroin" captures the spirit of a confused 23 year old kid. It's right
there in the opening line, "I don't know". "Heroin" prominently figures
into the equation of course, but the squelching guitar solos it inspires
only obfuscate that original sentiment. A crestfallen Reed encounters
"sweet girls with all their sweet talk" and wishes he was "born a
thousand years ago today", but none of that wishing can stymie the
uncertainty which plods right along with the strumming guitar. Even that
aforementioned guitar part and John Cale's shrieking viola can't wrest
the doubt out of Reed's mind. After the final ringing of arpeggiated
chords, Reed delivers one final time "I guess I just don't know". The
only thing he knows is that he knows nothing at all.
9. "Thunder Road"- Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band
"The screen door slams and Mary's dress waves."
Just as in part one I wrote no lyrics list would be complete without an appearance from the Mountain Goats John Darnielle, the same can be said of New Jersey's Bruce Springsteen. The ultimate rock music champion of the working man, Springsteen's early narratives spoke of the glory of America. Not on some jingoistic, flag-waving level; in character studies. His first two records were littered with fortune-tellers waiting down on the pier, local jokers, and young romantics making love in the dirt. To Springsteen, the nation's greatest resource wasn't the golden valleys or the military might, the greatest resource was the people. Those people began wild and free, but by the time Born to Run rolled around in 1975, they were itching for something more.
Springsteen's last ditch effort at stardom, Born to Run is rife with the desire to just pack up and leave, to put all your troubles in the rearview as you barrel down the highway at 90 MPH. The troubles hadn't reached the harrowing depths of Nebraskaquite yet, though disappointment had crept in. In "Thunder Road" the ghosts of "boys sent away" haunt skeleton "frames of burnt out Chevrolets". The only praying is done in vain. There's a lone chance left. That waving dress of Mary's hangs out of reach, as the narrator pleads "don't run back inside". Soundtracking the couple's flight from a "town full of losers" is Orbison's "Only the Lonely", foreshadowing the darkness that loomed just over the horizon. The door flung wide open for Springsteen after Born to Run's success, while slowly closing on his characters.
8. "Anarchy in the U.K."- The Sex Pistols
"I am an Antichrist, I am an anarchist."
Anti-religion. Anti-government. Anti-capitalism. Anti-dinosaur-rock. An easier list to make for the furious and filthy Sex Pistols is what they actually stood for. The Ramones expressed the rebellious spirit of punk with "Blitzkrieg Bop", but this was something else entirely. Their rousing "hey-oh let's go" chant sounded tame compared to John Lyndon's caterwauling. Rebellion seemed real when the Sex Pistols emerged on the scene with "Anarchy in the U.K.". If Buckingham Palace had burned down on November 27th, 1976 (the day after the single dropped), authorities had the perpetrators' manifesto blaring over the airwaves. Lydon/Jones/Matlock/and Cook (Sid Vicious had a lone appearance on "Bodies") don't simply sound frustrated, they sound "pissed". You can picture a bloodlust overtaking Lydon's face as the band creates an unholy racket behind him. Passersby won't be spared, and forget the future, it's all a scheme. The band was living moment-to-moment and after three turbulent years that life came to an abrupt ended. More the anything, the band's short existence proved anarchy can't be contained.
7. " The Sound(s) of Silence"- Simon & Garfunkel
"Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again."
Some time back in my "I hate everything" high-school days, I can recall an afternoon spent cooped up in my room as a particularly dour playlist wafted out of my computer speakers. Apparently "fed up" with such wallowing music, my father poked his head in and politely asked "don't you have anything less depressing to play?" I nodded and then clicked on "The Sound of Silence" to let it play. When that bone-chilling opener wafted into the air, my dad rather comically said "that's better". Knowing little of Simon & Garfunkel's discography, I can't blame him for the mistake. Delivered in an angelic whisper, nothing about Simon's calm voice suggests unfathomable pain. Darkness isn't some stranger or a mere acquaintance; it's an "old friend". It's sought out as if there's nothing else.
Written in part as a recollection of the still fresh Kennedy assassination, Simon penned the opening line after fumbling with his guitar in his bathroom with the lights off and the faucet running. And out of that innocent moment came the song the duo would refer to as "more than either of us expected." Despite such profound despair, where silence grows like cancer, a reworked full-band version of the song found a home on commercial radio. So popular was "The Sound of Silence" that when director Mike Nichols and editor Sam O'Steen needed a song to illustrate Benjamin Braddock's post-college existential dread in The Graduate, they turned to the track. As Braddock wearily rode the automated walkway, the silent raindrops of the track pitter-pattered. Surrounded by fellow travelers, it was clear he was all alone. And in the madcap party scene, Braddock's experience reflected the song. He attempted to share his plans, only to be cut off by talk of "plastics". He was talking, but no one was listening.
6. "F*** tha Police"- N.W.A.
"F*** the police coming straight from the underground, a young n**** got it bad cause I'm brown."
Call order in the courtroom all you'd like, nothing about this protest track is civil in its disobedience. In all of rap music, few statements have ever been so effusive and damning as the opening line of the seminal "F*** tha Police". 1988 in hip-hop was a year defined by the righteous anger of Public Enemy and their desire to "Bring the Noise". Nothing about "F*** tha Police" is righteous or holy. The Compton crew doesn't want to see abusive cops off the force; they want them led to slaughter like pigs. The song was the embodiment of the 1968 Kerner Commission which warned "our nation is moving towards two societies, one black, one white-- separate and unequal".
Critics of the song and the album as a whole came out in droves. Finally they had their hip-hop boogie man. The F.B.I. wasted no time in condemning the group for "encouraging violence and disrespect towards law enforcement". Assuming these are just local hoodlums is a tremendous mistake. Ice Cube, MC Ren, and Eazy-E are hip-hop journalists; giving a first-hand account of what they've seen. One of the Society of Professional Journalism's tenets is to expose unethical practices, and when Ice Cube recounts being stopped simply for "being brown", he's performing his journalistic duty. Many journalists themselves had failed to report on the police state that been allowed to grow in inner-city L.A., resulting in thousands of arrests. Instead, they opted to pigeonhole Straight Outta Compton as a racist/sexist/violent diatribe. N.W.A.'s vindication came in 1992, when seemingly everything they predicted came to pass with the Rodney King trial and subsequent riots. After that, if you still scoff at their press credentials or the profanity laced APB they put out, you might just be the "redneck, white-bread, chicken-s*** motherf***er" Dre warned of.
5. "Hurt"- Nine Inch Nails
"I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel".
Welcome to the downward spiral or better yet, the bottoming out. Downward Spiral, Trent Reznor's second album as Nine Inch Nails was an audible suicide watch and closer "Hurt" became the flat-lining. This isn't a suicide that burns away, that wouldn't be punishing enough. It's a self-inflicted bloodletting where every droplet pouring out should signal the end, but doesn't. Here we have immolation that refuses to cease.
Even for Reznor's nihilistic catalog, "Hurt" is oppressively bleak. Putting "Hurt" on ensures you'll drift into dark thoughts no matter what your disposition is. That said, "Hurt" is in no way relatable.We're given a narrator who wants nothing more than to shuffle his mortal coil and cruelly he's the last one bound to it. Every familiar face he can remember slowly fades from memory. Drugs masquerade as an escape, but in turning to the needle, the narrator further digs further into an "empire of dirt". Now the pain he chased as sweet release is gone, numbed by the heroin coursing through his veins. A lone clatter of noise can't snap the subject out of it and the final seconds of "Hurt" float on in ambient feedback. Feeling nothing at all is the worst thing in the world, but not for reasons you'd think.
4. "Travelin' Band"- Creedence Clearwater Revival
"737 coming out of the sky."
When I was younger, anytime I heard Creedence Clearwater Revival's effortlessly shuffling "Down on the Corner" I never had any idea what John Fogerty was saying in that bayou-affectation of his during the chorus. Hearing CCR's life-on-the-road chronicle "Travelin' Band" for the first time, I had no such problem. Even delivered in a snarl, it's clear what Fogerty is saying when the entire band screeches to a halt for the opening line. This isn't some idyllic picture of a band traveling through the countryside, peering out their bus windows and admiring the scenery. What we have here is pure chaos. That airline may as well be in freefall. "Hit something hard" you can picture Fogerty telling the doomed pilot. The livewire narrative presented here is less shuffling to the next gig and more sprinting. "I wanna move" Fogerty flatly declares. Tour-life can be hell and staying in one hotel room or city too long can become purgatory. You lose your luggage along with your mind. Fogerty captures this perfectly when he wails before a mid-song solo break that swelters as much as any CCR solo. The monotony of playing again Saturday night is getting to him and he's doing everything to rage against it. Rest assured, when that 737 touches down on the tarmac Fogerty will be the first one off the flight.
3. "Loser"- Beck
"In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey."
In the land of the non-sequiturs, this one reigns supreme. "Butane in my veins so I'm out to cut the junkie." "Get right with the Cheeze Whiz." "Saving all your food-stamps and burning down the trailer park." Trading "the cash for the beef for the body for the hate." Beck's 1993 hit single "Loser" stockpiles all of these bizarre utterances as some form of slacker currency. The delta-blues slide guitar riff screams product of the people. Beck though seems to have come from an alien race where everyone knows what "beefcake pantyhose is" and time is just a "piece of wax fallin' on a termite that's chokin on the splinters." To most listeners, he may as well being speaking the "Deutsches" He's confessed to much of it being "accidental", but that chorus arrives too fully formed to have happened by chance. Any 90s kid knows at least one line of Spanish courtesy of this song, "soy un perdedor", translation: "I'm a loser." He cops to being less evolved than the rest of us in that opening line. But, what lower form of life would ever dream of blending laconic rapping, delta-blues, drum loops, and droning sitar together? "Daytime crap of a folksinger slob" this is not; Beck's on a whole other level. It's fine if none of this makes sense to you, just know "you can't write if you can't relate."
In being abandoned, Smith is free to do as she pleases. Now "anything's allowed" she relays in her Tom Verlaine yelp. If she's bored by the party she's at, she can leave to chat up the sweet young thing she spies "leanin on the parking meter." G-L-O-R-I-A remains her name. Van Morrison's original take had all the trappings of a sexually frustrated teenage boy waiting to end his dry spell and Gloria marked the end. To an ecstatic Smith, this urban Isis walking down the street is the beginning. She wants to take the big plunge with her when the jagged guitars are at their most fractured; "make her mine" in an eternal sense. It won't be easy, that "thick heart of stone" is wearing her down. Those sins she's made her own are a heavy burden. She'll be alright though; they're just rules and regulations after all.
1. "All Along the Watchtower"-Bob Dylan
" 'There must be some way out of here,' said the joker to the thief."
He started in the middle. Without any context, the Sphinx-like Bob Dylan drops us smack dab in the midst of the action. Instead of beginning at Genesis or working back from the Book of Revelation, he plunges us somewhere in Isaiah. Like the two lead characters, we're forced to fight our way out to find any meaning, its sink or swim from word one. The confusion they feel runs rampant in the mind of anyone trying to make sense of all of this. Where's all this confusion coming from? What has happened to cause such calamity?
One suggestion from the commonalities between the John Wesley Harding track and Isaiah is that Dylan's mysterious tale concerns the fall of Babylon. Our fabled leads are on their way back to tell the Israelites that a great evil is no more. Something about the conversation we're privy to says this is not the case. Nothing in their tones is the slightest bit celebratory. "There are many here among us that feel that life is but a joke" the thief relays in the second verse. There's no warmth in their souls, plowmen have dug up their earth and without any land they're trapped outside in the cold. Now outsiders, they can't trust anyone, least of all each other. A psychological danger lingering in the corner of their mind is far more worrisome than the growl of a wildcat. Meanwhile, Dylan's harmonica is setting us up for some grand conclusion. An unalterable fate neither of them can ever come back from. And then, he affixes upon a distant image "two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl" he hails in his nasal whine. Like that we're back at the start with the joker and thief and seemingly nothing has happened. In crafting this circular narrative, Dylan reminds us all we're doomed to repeat ourselves. There's no way out.
I hope everyone enjoined the list. If you think something is too high or too low or some grand omission was made, feel free to say so in the comment section.
Self Portrait, which Another Self Portrait the
now 10th entry in the revelatory Bob Dylan Bootleg Series canonizes, could be considered
the rock laureate's first full swing and a miss. The run-up to his 1966
motorcycle accident was thoroughly unimpeachable from the folk/rock split of Bringing
It All Back Home to the electric sea change of Highway 61 Revisited
and finally cresting on the sublimely surreal Blonde on Blonde. No
matter where the pied-piper of rock trod, an entire generation followed. When
he went to sidelines after the crash, everyone waited for the timeout to be
over. The inauspicious return record John Wesley Harding in late 1967 met
the same feverish intensity. He pared down his lyrics, but the crowds remained.
The country croon he adapted for follow-up Nashville Skyline presented a
clear attempt to trim the fat; however glowing
reviews by Rolling Stone prevented
any weight loss. The "voice of a generation" moniker weighed on Dylan
and the man himself noted, "that notion needed to be pulled up by its
roots."
Even provided that warning, few
could have predicted how far Dylan would burrow to sever the roots. When Self
Portrait sprouted in June 1970, Greil Marcus infamously asked "what is
this shit?" in his Rolling Stone review. Traditional folk tunes elbowed
schmaltzy pop-rock. Live cuts nestled
alongside studio outtakes, sequencing be damned. The tossed-off "The Boxer" cover
was so tongue-in-cheek Dylan's puffy face could be seen from miles away. The
country croon of Nashville Skyline grew tenderer. When his voice
was at its softest the cries of "foul" would grow the loudest. Released four months later, New
Morning fared demonstrably better, receiving the label of "his best
album since..." an honor now bestowed to any marginally successful album
post-Blood on the Tracks. He slid back into the nasal tone and critics
rested their weary heads on a bed of familiarity. However, New Morning shares
rent with the critic-baiting hodgepodge of Self Portrait. There were songs
like "Winterlude" featuring choruses of "winterlude, this dude
thinks your fine." The tongue was still firmly in cheek.
The true beauty of the Bootleg
Series is the opportunity it affords for re-evaluation of the Dylan discography
and no period more desperately needed a new dissection than 1969-1971. Disc 1
opener "Went to See the Gypsy" (Demo Version) at first scans as a
turgid recounting of Dylan's meeting of Elvis Presley. However, lines
preoccupied by pretty girls dancing in lobbies shouting to "go see the
gypsy" assure this is no straightforward autobiographical retelling. The song's
bridge poignantly conveys Dylan's state-of-mind at the time, "the lights
were on the river, shining from outside, I contemplated every move or at least
I tried." Even the missteps of a high-profile artist like Dylan become
calculated.
"Spanish Is the Loving
Tongue" and "I Threw It All Away" evince a blend of two Dylan strands,
winsome folk melodies intertwining with the more surreal lyrics of his
"rock" period. "Nights go a flyin," in the carefully
considered piano playing of the former, while the latter finds Dylan cradling
mountains in the palm of his hand. "Love is all there is," he
confesses. In all its glory love can still beating hearts and stop time; thrown
away it ensures agony.
Dylan is in full-flight on the
traditional folk tunes, the jaunty "Railroad Bill" sees the harmonica
return and Dylan rambles in a way he hadn't since '63's The Freewheelin Bob
Dylan. The ancient "Pretty
Saro" is reinvigorated; Dylan's shy warbling adeptly reflecting the
title figure resting "down in some lonesome valley." The previously
unreleased "House Carpenter" is a far-cry from the lightning take bottled up
on the Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3. Dylan outran the spirit on the water in
the earlier version; here he and a specter walk side-by-side. "Days of
'49" is similarly haunted, Dylan playing the ghost "Tom Moore from
the bummer shore". If the "House Carpenter" was unfairly
forsaken, the "ginsot" Moore and his "jolly saucy crew"
receive their just desserts. The Dylan songbook is lousy with tragic characters
("Hurricane", "Catfish", "Blind Willie McTell")
"repining" the glory years, and few look to the past as longingly as
Tom Moore.
The much maligned Isle of Wight
recordings (Dylan would scrap a concert album) are re-contextualized on the
second disc. "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight"s country waltz only skirts
the edges of the masterpieces Dylan and The Band would paint on 1975's The
Basement Tapes. A herky-jerky "Highway 61 Revisited" finds Robbie
Robertson's guitar going in and out of gallop, while Levon Helm's drum-set
drops out of frame to spotlight crucial lines. The concert doesn’t provoke in
the same way Live 1966’s electric half did, however its laconic country
grooves reward just the same.
Many cuts here find success in
addition by subtraction; tracks like "If Not For You" (Alternate
Version) tip the scales in the other direction. A redolent violin part tiptoes
on a snow covered rooftop while Dylan waits for the promise of his love's
spring to begin the melting. His is a world where an absence of love cause
robins to cease their singing. Sleepless nights are spent desperately trying to
see the morning light. We lose sight of what's right in front of us when love
vanishes and on "If Not For You" Dylan's gone blind.
Another Self Portrait arguably saves the best for last, a piano
demo version of "When I Paint My Masterpiece". Dylan's weathered
vocals evoke "a long hard climb", one laboring from the Mesabi Iron
Range of Hibbing, Minnesota to the pinnacle of popular music. He retraces Roman
footsteps until he and his "old Victrola" are reunited and spends
hours inside the Coliseum in the name of "wasting time."
"Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent when I paint my
masterpiece," he belts near the end. Self-Portrait is certainly
"different", in terms of audience-shedding it sits comfortably alongside:
Metal Machine
Music, In
Utero, Kid A, and Yeezus
in the pantheon. If Self-Portrait is any kind of a painting,
it's an abstraction. This edition of the Bootleg Series reveals a rudimentary
canvas to be an ornately crafted work. A piercing shrill curls into a pleasing
rhapsody. The voice of a generation hadn't gone mute, it was singing in a tone
no one had heard before.
