Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks (2 Nov 2018)*

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Dave Gilmour's Cat, Nov 2, 2016.

  1. Eduardo Denaro

    Eduardo Denaro Forum Resident

    Location:
    Minnesota
    I've had a lot of time to digest these discs while driving recently. To be honest I have been kind of burnt out on BooT for a couple years now. But this set is so darn brilliant (and I have yet to hear everything) that it makes the album interesting to me again. I love the evolution of the songs and sometimes I like asking Bob what the heck he was thinking with a certain take. I would say that if you're still on the fence about ordering this set to go for it. We can only hope that the Dylan camp promptly goes to work on another set from the same time period that would make an excellent choice for release. The Desire Sessions. I'm drooling thinking about any alternate takes of Abandoned Love and Black Diamond Bay!
     
  2. onlyconnect

    onlyconnect The prose and the passion

    Location:
    Winchester, UK
    Dark Horse 77 likes this.
  3. streetlegal

    streetlegal Forum Resident

    For me, this (meaning More Blood) might just be the most intimate release in Dylan's canon. The Bootleg Series editions like this one (one's that showcase multiple song drafts), seem to return a certain humanity (and frailty) to works that either been elevated to lofty heights or maybe we've just become over-familiar with/take for granted.

    They seem to offer a different kind of listening experience from the album as we know it. The immersion experience of listening to one take after another brings a closeness and dynamism to the performance and all its twists and turns. How much of this is down to the novelty of the experience, I guess time will tell.

    Well, that's my take!
     
    JohnKale, matt79rome89 and Blue Note like this.
  4. h.egbert

    h.egbert Forum Resident

    That's what I think. But couldn't be there another meaning, that she's playing the role as an actress in a stage play?
     
  5. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    NPR somehow had (the superior, IMO) Take 1A on their sampler (but listed as Take 3A). This has been 'corrected' on subsequent versions of the sampler.
     
  6. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    Yes, the 'parrot' is in the narrator's own head (IMO), constantly repeating the conversations and events that have taken place.
     
    RayS and streetlegal like this.
  7. BASEMENT TAPES

    BASEMENT TAPES Forum Resident

    How about other "omission decisions" of other Bootleg Series & Compilations:
    "Let's Keep It Between Us" Trouble No More
    "Long Distance Operator" Live 1962-1966 Rare Performances
    "Dusty Old Fairgrounds" Live 1962-1966 Rare Performances
    "Hiding Too Long" Live 1962-1966 Rare Performances
    "John Birch Paranoid Blues" Freewheelin' Studio Version, not Live version Bootleg Series Vol 1-3
    "Let Me Die In My Footsteps" with missing verse Bootleg Series Vol 1-3 & many more to open a can of worms
    &
    Various Artists Soundtrack Cds with one unreleased Bob Dylan track costly approx. $13.00 for the one track!
    ( not available on ITunes must buy entire album)
    Talk about decision$, holding back & milking the catalog, Amen
     
  8. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Ha! I'd forgotten all about this somewhat tongue-in-cheek suggestion. "Blazing Saddles" also has a hanging scene and Bart hands Lili a rose in her backstage dressing room, of course.

    However, in an interview with Mike Ragogna of the Huffington Post in 2010 to promote "How Sweet The Sound" Joan Baez recalls Bob reading her the just-completed lyrics to "Lily..." over the phone.

    MR: “Diamonds And Rust” was another magic moment. You’ve said when you began writing the song, it started as something else until Dylan phoned you. Then it became about him. That must have been one helluva call.

    JB: He read me the entire lyrics to “Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts” that he’d just finished from a phone booth in the Midwest.

    MR: What was the song about originally?

    JB: I don’t remember what I’d been writing about, but it had nothing to do with what it ended up as.



    How Sweet The Sound: An Interview With Joan Baez | HuffPost


    Frustratingly, she doesn't put a date to the conversation but if her recollection of "Midwest" is correct than it would have to be between 03 February and 06 February, just a couple of days before "Blazing Saddles" was premiered.





    #
     
  9. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    That’s a relief!
     
    Percy Song likes this.
  10. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Why would she portray the wife of a real person from the town in a play? Why would she kill Big Jim, whom she would then have no involvement with (apart from portraying his wife in a play)? She kills Big Jim because she is tired of his blatant cheating, and the jealousy that he feels when Lily is with Jack is the last straw for her.
     
    subtr, lschwart and Dflow like this.
  11. onlyconnect

    onlyconnect The prose and the passion

    Location:
    Winchester, UK
    Sony's a commercial company but does an amazing job overall. Quite hard to think of artists where the archive has been handled better. King Crimson, yes.

    Of course there are no exact parallels to Dylan.

    Tim
     
    NumberEight likes this.
  12. mpayan

    mpayan A Tad Rolled Off

    I never understood why people find L,R and the J of H's hard to figure out. Its a love triangle. One doesnt know the complete story or all the why's of the story. In order for the " mystery man with no name" the "saloon girl sadness that no one knows why" and "the classic evil businessman who owns the town" story to be put forth, one doesnt have to know. In fact, its better if the details slip through your hands. Thats the way the Jack Of Hearts would want it. Its suppose to be a "what exactly happened here tragedy" not a "well Mr Dylan, this here is what happened". However, when dissected, its the easiest of songs on the album to find a fairly direct plot.

    The main thing I think is what is the bigger picture considering the details. That relationships are complicated. There is the heart (the jack of hearts) wrapped up in all of the mistrust, betrayl, passion etc. Just like in real life. In metasymbology the Jack=youthful, next in line to the crown. The heart suit represents how we love and emotions. All those symbols of "diamonds", "jacks", "hearts" and "queens" should be considered when looking for meaning in the song also.

    Probably subconsciously led by Dylan being the Jack of Hearts, Joan being Lily and Sarah being Rosemary. Or at least a wiff of that in his mind. Kind of seen in the "Renaldo And Clara" backstage scenes. After all Dylan is the missing jack and ace and the thief in "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands". But thats just my take.

    The song reminds me of a twist on "Visions Of Johanna" where the scene and feel of the characters play more part into understanding them than the actual storyline making sense. In fact the entire BOTTs album is Dylan's exercise in presenting songs as a painting. Where scenes are of a time and place yet are out of time, place and structure at times. This song is no exception. You proceed through the song like a nickelodeon flip book, not a usual beginning middle and end in the conventional sense. Although when analyzed the song does tell a pretty straight forward story. Though veiled in cloak and dagger.

    Edit: spelling errors hopefully all corrected
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2018
    Dflow, trd, dee and 4 others like this.
  13. Walking Antique

    Walking Antique Nothing is incomprehensible

    Location:
    usa
    Using Audacity (sound editing software) to compare the New York tracks on the 1975 album to the same tracks on “More Blood” I determined that the album tracks were sped up by:

    Simple Twist Of Fate +1.799
    You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome +1.799
    Meet Me In The Morning +1.799
    Buckets Of Rain +1.517
    Shelter From The Storm = no change
     
  14. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    If I have any sense it sounds like Dylan is actually having 'FUN' with both the lyrics and the performance. Giddy even. That kind of enthusiasm or whimsy I hear also makes it interesting to me when reading about that backstory of him reading the lyrics to Baez in a long distance call from a phone booth.
     
  15. sjaca

    sjaca Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto ON, Canada
  16. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Still sampling the samples but I am fascinated to hear and try to pick out influences of what seem
    like past songs (cadence, accent, style, etc.) that creep into the new ones at the time. The upbeat versions of You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome on disc 2 reminds me of You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (kind of funny to me how the titles seem nearly the inverse of one another too) and the sample of Idiot Wind Take 3 reminds me of My Back Pages and Shelter From The Storm for When The Ship Comes In. Enjoying that part of the listening process too.

    It was an Electric Ladyland weekend for me, but fwiw I'm going for More Blood now.
     
    arcamsono and streetlegal like this.
  17. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    The wizardry of Bob is so evident here. He doesn't fill in every hole. the things he deliberately leaves out allows the listener to fill things in on their own. Bob gives you just enough details. You make up the pictures in your head. "She didn't even blink!" and you can picture Lily back to her normal hair color, packing up her trunk, and pausing...........
     
  18. warewolf95

    warewolf95 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Greenville, SC
    Do we know why they were sped up? I've noticed loads of 70's albums have material slighty sharp or slightly flat. Was this an artistic choice or something happenned in the recording/mastering process?
     
  19. Walking Antique

    Walking Antique Nothing is incomprehensible

    Location:
    usa
    I think it's been said that it was artistic choice. What I find strange is that they weren't sped up all the same speed. I assumed that they assembled their master tape for the album and just sped the whole thing up. I checked the Minneapolis "Tangled Up In Blue" also - it was sped up a whopping +2.545% (this and all the other tracks on "More Blood" all run at the normal speed).
     
    JohnKale, dee and warewolf95 like this.
  20. Rne

    Rne weltschmerz

    Location:
    Malaver
    In this case, it was an artistic choice.
     
    warewolf95 likes this.
  21. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    She didn't even blink and she also has "steady in her eyes". Her mind seems long made up to rid the world of Big Jim, and she clearly has no regrets. This, apparently, is her "one good deed before she dies" even though it is murder.
     
  22. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    There was no actor, anywhere, better than the Jack of Hearts...
    :righton:


     
    lschwart likes this.
  23. JohnKale

    JohnKale Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hurley, NY
    I assume this +2.545% is for the LP version of Tangled. I wonder then how much more they sped it up for the single because it's definitely faster. Chipmunk Dylan!
     
    DeeThomaz likes this.
  24. Walking Antique

    Walking Antique Nothing is incomprehensible

    Location:
    usa
    Yes, the LP version (or CD more specifically).
     
    JohnKale likes this.
  25. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Of course memory is fluid and unreliable, and it's as likely that her recollection has some poetic license. Bob calling her from a phone booth in the Midwest (i.e. "the middle of nowhere") is a better story, and implies that he desperately needed to connect with her at that very moment when he'd just finished the lyrics, than if she had called him at home that summer or something. It's also possible that they spoke in December while Bob was in Minneapolis, she asked what he was working on, and he happened to be preparing for another run at "Lily." Joan recorded Diamonds & Rust in January 1975. Perhaps she rewrote the title track just before her sessions began.
     
    Percy Song likes this.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine