Bob Dylan - General Appreciation Thread

I was tempted to throw in Infidels as a high point album for Bob from the 80s. Especially the song Jokerman is a poetic masterpiece. But the sequence of three you recommend: Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61, and Blonde on Blonde probably represents his greatest block of albums for rock music fans, having been made just after he "went electric". Though each are quite distinctive, all feature a similar kind of surrealism in the lyrics, which only lasted for a couple of years for Bob, in terms of his writing approach. He has reinvented himself a few times since in terms of songwriting style. My own personal favorite block of three (in record release sequence from 1975-76) are Blood on the Tracks, The Basement Tapes, and Desire. [The Basement Tapes were recorded with The Band, his only true musical collaborators (IMO), in 1967 after Bob's motorcycle accident. They were never intended for commercial release, but selected tracks from the sessions (basically home-made recordings) were produced by Robbie Robertson of the Band in 1975 for a double album, along with a few Band tracks, mostly from their Big Pink period around the same time. These are great songs, un-self-consciously made for their own enjoyment and perhaps pitching to other artists to record. Or so the story goes. They obtained a certain heavy mystique due to their unreleased (though bootlegged) status before 1975.] Anyway, these three favorites of mine are close in time in terms of my fateful encounter with Bob's music in the 70s, but widely divergent in the type of music and style of recording they present.

 

Hey Jrr: if you're interested there was a detailed Album-by-Album thread on Dylan a while back. You might find it interesting and useful:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/bob-dylan-album-by-album-thread.140791/

L.

 

Thought this should be posted here:

http://www.theonion.com/article/rock-fans-outraged-as-bob-dylan-goes-electronica-17699

L.

 

I've only been (finally) getting into Dylan the past month. I've long respected his influence but never cared for his music (or honestly given it much of a chance) but after reviewing a great book about how he came to play the IoW Festival in 1969, I decided to really dive in and explore his discography and lo and behold, I love (most) of it. From the first album to the late 70s, I love it. The 80s are spotty with some highs and some lows, and I've yet to get into the 90s-00s-2010s but am heading there. So forgive me my Dylan ignorance when I chime in on this thread as I'm still learning about Bob's music

 

Some of you might have seen this over at the recent PJ Harvey video thread, but I thought it was worth posting here because it illustrates how strong a songwriter Dylan be even when his own version of a given song might not plumb the full depths of a particular song. I like Dylan's original version of the song, but Harvey wires herself to something deeper and more intense than Dylan himself was able to access on his own studio cut, and it makes me see how much stronger the song is than I'd ever really understood before:



Here's a version with better audio and no video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUxbQToBj20

And here's Dylan's studio version for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlfbUAabhmc

L.

 

people who gripe about his voice
don't understand that a singer needs
"character" in his/her singing.
When the singers personality comes through that is the "highest level"
one can acheive.
It's never about "technique"
it's about "personality"
THAT'S what "communicates."

"...my voice is really warm
it's just that it's got no form..."

 

Thanks for the clip, and your usual insight. However, I'll beg to differ and say that I think Dylan absolutely nailed this song on the released performance. Other than stripping the melody from the song, Ms. Harvey's version doesn't add anything for me, personally.

 

Really? As I said, I like the original, but I think it flattens the different emotional shadings of the verses. It's all too "on" and busy to really push forward the strength of some of the verses and their different valences. At least it's not as bared as Harvey's feels to me.

L.

 

This is probably just a matter of personal taste. I agree that Harvey's versions has emotional shadings while Dylan's has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. But I've always enjoyed the sledgehammer songs (as evidenced by my persistent touting of "Band of the Hand"). The lyrics on paper read as something of a plea, yet Dylan sings them as an angry rant. His singing doesn't seem to relate to spiritual seeking, it seems directed more towards those who would stand in the way of what he seeks, or offer other means for removing his pain (means that he doesn't value). I see the song as a companion piece to "Property of Jesus", which is perhaps my favorite of all the "Born Again" songs (and another sledgehammer of anger).

 

I agree with you on what's compelling in its own terms about Dylan's version, especially the sense that its anger is aimed at those who "offer other means for removing his pain (means that he doesn't value)." Other, that is than what we'd call "grace" if we needed the theologically correct name for it. Part of the anger is also aimed at himself and his own feeling of weakness, susceptibility to the lure of those other means--and that includes the wrong kind of wrath. The key drama of the song is in how to be angry, if you're going to be angry, in the right ways and at the right things for the right reasons. And for that you need a shot of love.

And, by the way, I love "Band of the Hand!"

L.

 

Yes, the ever-present "lure". Even more real to the 70s rock star than a mortal like me could ever imagine.

"The call of the wild is forever at my door."
"Satan whispers to you, 'I don't want to bore ya. When you get tired of that Miss So and So, I got another woman for ya'."

 

That was the greatest thing ever

 

Welcome to Bob. After 89's Oh Mercy, you have some great things to look forward to! Namely:

- The "folk revival" period through about 1993. We saw two folk type albums mostly of covers "Good as I been to you" and "World gone wrong". The remasters particularly sound great. Sounds like Dylan is playing a coffee house right in front of you
- The "modern great trilogy" starting in 1997 with "Time out of Mind" "Love and Theft" and "Modern Times". Also in there you have the Bootleg Series 8 Tell Tale Signs which is just breathtaking...I mean stunningly good. Then there is...well there is always more : )

 

I remember the first time I heard him, I thought, sitting on on a porch in middle America and twice his age, I loved him, but was so wrong.

 

Though I enjoy Bob's version I agree with you. Forceful interpretation from Polly.
Of course, I feel the same about 'All Along The Watchtower' - Jimi's version has an emotional gravitas and sense of drama that Bob's original lacks.

 

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.

So interesting that he should see the flame of temptation as "angry."

L.

 

Ah, yes, there's more theology for you. Temptation may be angry as compared to grace, which is gentle, loving, and forgiving. My feeling is that the Shot of Love album lyrics were much more perceptive than those of the previous two, as though he were now integrating the new dimensions of faith into his life or persona in a deeper more nuanced way. Or, at least in the songs as they turned out. I got the feeling that the songs were more personal and intimate than usual, as was the recording itself. I think it was Bono that told him it sounded like it was recorded sort of close up in the living room of a house, or something like that.

 

A great point. Dylan's battle with temptation was certainly a contentious one.

 

Wow! Amazing cover! Shivers down my spine watching that one!

 

Thanks for sharing... Great version of one of my favorite Dylan songs.

 

Calling the flame of temptation itself angry feels to me like it imbues temptation with the anger of the singer at being tempted. Contentions indeed! The key site of contention in the reality of man in this way of thinking. Grace may come unbidden, but it doesn't always come--or it waits while choices are being made. Sometimes there's someone there, other times.....

L.

 

Well, as long as we're doing a theological take, which I assume Dylan was studying or had been recently when the recording of Every Grain of Sand was made, there's the whole notion of the bifurcated nature of the experience of God and the reality of man. One the one hand you have grace in the encounter, but on the other hand you have the wrath of God, which is also experienced in the reality of man and man's condition. It's what Luther called the backside or hindquarters of God, which I'm assuming could be revealed or experienced in conjunction with temptation. Hence maybe that is the angry aspect Dylan is referring to rather than his own internal anger. I'm speculating a bit because I really couldn't say exactly what he was thinking. But to experience both wrath and grace simulateously has the potential to be a powerful transformative experience. Killing and making alive.

 

I'd be interested to know what posters to this thread prefer in Dylan books. I have read his book Chronicles and I have something called " the Bob Dylan Reader". The latter is a collection of articles about Dylan over many years.
As an example, I am curious about the Greil Marcus books ? Recommendations ?

 

For insight into (or is it mythic imagination) the fabled Basement Tapes, Greil Marcus' Invisible Republic is indispensable and a great read.

 

If anybody is both a big Dylan fan and Beatles fan, I think you would like "Bob Dylan and The Beatles" by Al Aronowitz

Crazy stories...Al is famous for introducing the fabs to Bob in 1964 and for supplying the weed : ) I got to meet Al a few years before he passed away, and he signed my copy. Dude had seen a lot