Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - where we're currently at (Part 6)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by hodgo, Nov 8, 2014.

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  1. Bemagnus

    Bemagnus Music is fun

    Big River 2 I find another jaw - dropping vocal- perfomance from his Bobness. Definive one of Cash-s best songs and Dylans arrogant , aggressive way of tackling it does the song real justice
     
  2. lou

    lou Fast 'n Bulbous

    Location:
    Louisiana
    If indeed, as the quotes seem to indicate, the Big Pink sessions were almost a daily occurrence, that means very little of what was played was recorded. Or that a three hour session might produce only one or two recorded tracks, with the rest being rehearsals and fooling around? Because there should be a LOT more reels if they were taping everything.
     
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  3. Gordon Thomas

    Gordon Thomas New Member

    That ol’ Sign on the Cross is worrying me too. Somewhere Hudson has been quoted as remembering Dylan improvising the lyrics on the spot as the band played. Whether this is true or not, we do have an unfinished song here, in a performance not destined to be sent out on an acetate. But, as many have opined, it features one of Bob’s best ever vocals, until, that is, he swerves into the spoken sermon-like verse, which effectively has always split my experience of the song in two. Where Bob’s singing comes across as passionate and nakedly sincere (as in I’m Not There), his spoken, stand-up bit as an old time religion preacher is, to me, uncomfortably arch, especially as it comes from a guy we know now, in hindsight, would eventually convert to the same kind of fundamentalist Christian religion he appears to mock in the spoken verse of Sign on the Cross. Just like the vocal on this tune, much of singing during his Christian period was very committed and full of feeling, particularly, the song When He Returns, which, if my memory serves me well, was originally intended as merely a demo for a choir that would sing it instead of Bob. In other words, not intended to be heard, just like Sign on the Cross.
     
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  4. Thelonious_Cube

    Thelonious_Cube Epistrophe of Light

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    It's not as though the other 4 CDs worth of material is all breakdowns and false starts or distortion or even alternate takes of the other songs - there are plenty of great full-length renditions of both Dylan originals and covers. Lots of fun stuff.

    A few people have posted "best stuff not on the 2-disc set" lists earlier in this thread - I'd say listen to the online samples of some of those songs or any of the stuff not on your set (maybe not Disc 6, since the sound is rough) and see if you find stuff you like. Edge of the Ocean, Big River, Mary Lou, I'm A Fool For You, Roll On Train, Mr. Blue...all great stuff
     
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  5. Thelonious_Cube

    Thelonious_Cube Epistrophe of Light

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    I have a different reaction myself.

    I love the heartfelt singing, but I am a bit uncomfortable with the sentiments, so Bob's TV-preacher bit makes a perfect counterpoint to the opening song, releasing the tension, acknowledging that the sentiments expressed are not for everyone. What I like best is that he ends up with "I think you're strong....let your troubles pass right on through" which, in my mind at least, has now gone beyond parody and into genuine and heartfelt preaching - sending a (non-denominational) message of hope and reassurance. I feel as though he's expressing my own reactions to gospel music quite well by improvising his way through a complex set of emotional states.
     
  6. kreen

    kreen Forum Resident

    So you're saying, out of the 6 CDs, there's three CDs' worth of good material?
     
  7. Quincy

    Quincy Senior Member

    Location:
    Willamette Valley
    It’s a little tricky. The first disc 2 discs especially and disc 5 are full of fun stretches and some astonishing performances that didn’t make the 2-fer. There are a few songs on these discs such as the novelty songs that I could see one wanting to skip but I think the skip button would do as opposed to having to make a playlist or burn your own (however you handle your music consumption).

    However the 3rd & 4th discs, while they contain so many of my favorite songs that made the original album and the alternates are often very different in tempo and/or lyrics, having 2 to 3 versions of songs all stacked up might require more active skipping or making of playlists. These 2 have more of that academic feel similar to certain jazz reissue sets that line up alternate takes all in a row. So this is where I say “It depends” on how you tolerate having repeated songs and how active you are if this is a problem. Personally I am very happy to have all of the raw material and I do find it interesting how some of the songs were tackled in different ways, but I could see how sections of these 2 discs could be a drag for lazy listening. (Then again there's a chance at least on some days that you might get sucked in and not care about the repeats).

    As far as the 6th disc give it little weight in your calculations. You may find a couple of songs that you’ll go to but I don’t see myself playing this disc straight through very often (and it’s not just because of the audio quality but the performances themselves).

    I love this stuff but you are right to suspect that half of the discs are not "like a regular record". But at least 1/3 and possibly half of it allows fairly lazy listening with minimal skipping.
     
  8. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    No, I am saying that there's 3 CDs worth of great material. And another CD worth of good material. The sound on CD6 is distorted, but I am glad they included it. But I don't this set can be measured in these terms. Listening to the 6CD set is an experience. My first time through, I thought, "meh, sounds kind of the same to me, I don't really get it!" The second time things started to click and by the third time I was really enjoying it. It's like entering a whole other world, like learning a new language. I can now see why others value this material so highly. There really isn't anything like it, not just in Dylan's catalog, but in anyone else's that I have heard.
     
  9. Bemagnus

    Bemagnus Music is fun

    Thats entirely up to you-imo there is incredible music not on the 2-album. But that s something only one - self can decide. I find most tracks on disc 1-5 stunnibg-disc 6 is more for completists
     
  10. Gordon Thomas

    Gordon Thomas New Member

    I understand your reasoning here, but for me the verse and chorus lyrics of Sign on the Cross are far too sketchy to advance any kind of theology. As we know, the sign on the cross was the inscribed tablet ordered by Pilate to be nailed at the top of the cross (Jesus, King of the Jews, or, INRI as a Latin acronym). The singer isn't venerating the sign--he's worried about it--but what bothers him is never explored. Indeed, I don't think Dylan meant much by the image anyway; at this stage the half-coherent lyrics are just an armature to carry the vocal. Other than mentioning the sign and the keys of the kingdom, the sung portion avoids specific devotional imagery, much less that of a specific denomination; the song only carries the tint of Christian religion via the hymn-like melody and Garth's organ. So, as far as I'm concerned, that portion of the song carries a nonspecific, yearning expression, which clashes badly with the mostly wise-ass spoken verse. I agree, though, that Bob brings the song to a nice conclusion with the idea of troubles passing through as you sing your song.
     
  11. kreen

    kreen Forum Resident

    From what I understand, there are no track-by-track comments in the deluxe edition of the liner notes?
     
  12. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Correct, but there are comments on BobDylan.com for discs 1-5.
     
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  13. Gordon Thomas

    Gordon Thomas New Member

    On the other hand, the songs of his Christian period are full of very specific fire and brimstone doctrine, and the song I mentioned, When He Returns, contains the line, "Don’t you cry and don’t you die and don’t you burn," which always makes me wince. But Dylan's vocal is magnificent--as disturbing as this may be, he believes what he's singing. We're in different territory in Sign of the Cross, but his vocal is similarly authentic and sincere.
     
  14. Bemagnus

    Bemagnus Music is fun

    Sign. on the cross always have been one of my favorite BT-tracks-maybe one of my favourite Dylan songs all in all. The talkin piece have the feeling of a preacher. However I would guess Hank Williams Luke the drifter persona is the real inspiration for this masterpiece. Cant believe this has. not been commercially released until now
     
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  15. Gordon Thomas

    Gordon Thomas New Member

    One of my favorites, too, in spite of some conflicted feelings about the spoken verse. I hadn't thought of a Luke the Drifter connection!
     
  16. Gordon Thomas

    Gordon Thomas New Member

    Just listened to some Luke the Drifter. I think you nailed it. These songs could very possibly be an inspiration for Sign on the Cross, especially when Hank does his spoken bits. Dylan loves Williams, so a nod to this material would not be surprising, and it puts a different angle on Dylan's spoken verse as being perhaps a lighthearted, affectionate take on William's Luke the Drifter business, rather than a puzzling mock of fundamentalist religion.
     
    Last edited: Nov 14, 2014
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  17. Noel

    Noel Well-Known Member

    I hear strong phasing issues on Tears of Rage (Take 3). Could this really be an error of the BTC-producers? What a shame!
     
  18. fangedesire

    fangedesire Well-Known Member

    I also think Luke the Drifter was a partial inspiration for 'Sign on the Cross' - 'Be Careful of Stones That You Throw' is also, of course, a straight Luke the Drifter cover with a spoken section, and Dylan also does that one very tongue-in-cheek.
    (Heylin suggests Dylan was high when he sang 'Sign on the Cross,' but that seems like needless conjecture to me.)
    I also consider Dylan's singing on 'Sign on the Cross' to be his best ever, but the two halves do differ as he veers from heartfelt sincerity to joking parody, leaving an emotional ambivalence. I think he's parodying the style, though (as does Garth's organ), not the content. It seems he's intentionally adopting two voices - the lonely worrier, and the 'preacher' who comforts him.
    The lyrics are obviously not finished (probably all improvised) and are pretty vague, but they're clearly speaking to the same sense of personal weakness he tackled in later songs. I don't even think the "sign on the cross" is meant to be the literal sign, it's just something about the cross and its meaning that worries him.
    You might compare it to 'I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine' from a few months later - he doesn't literally mean "St. Augustine" (who was not put out to death - Dylan was actually thinking of Joe Hill), but he just evokes the figure of an ancient saint who humbles and frightens him - the same general idea that's in 'Sign on the Cross.' In that sense 'Sign' seems to start the biblical explorations that Dylan continues on the JWH album.
    Despite the hazy lyrics in 'Sign,' I think they're great and evocative, in kind of the same slippery not-quite-meaning sense as 'I'm Not There' where the lines don't quite connect: "we're all so misled," "when I was just a bawlin' lad, I saw what I wanted to be," "I was lost on the land, as I heard the front door slam," "I hold my head up high, as I see my old friends go by." (Note that the "offical" lyrics indulge in some harmful rewriting.)
    Heylin points out one possible biblical reference as well, when Dylan talks about the door "you might want to enter, but of course the door might be closed." He may refer to Luke 13:25: "When the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' then he will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.'"
     
  19. cc--

    cc-- Forum Resident

    Location:
    brooklyn
    yeah, this occurred to me, too. I feel that the regularity of the sessions are probably being significantly exaggerated in the haze of time past and in the, to me, somewhat odd desire to see Dylan at this stage as "family Bob."
     
  20. davenav

    davenav High Plains Grifter

    Location:
    Louisville, KY USA
    Well, there are literally no accounts that veer off of that portrait of the time.
     
  21. soniclovenoize

    soniclovenoize Forum Resident

    Location:
    Minneapolis, MN
    Yeah, unfortunately this is not my own user-error in collapsing the stereo, it's on the CD itself.

    This is an issue with azimuth misalignment, something that was never corrected by the producers of the box. I don't believe it can be fixed at this point.... Funny thing, I had received a comment regarding this for my own centralized stereo mix of this years ago, and never looked into it. Neither did the producers apparently.
     
  22. Gordon Thomas

    Gordon Thomas New Member

    Excellent post. I like the characterization "lonely worrier" and the idea that the song has something to do with "personal weakness," which the vocal seems to express, not through the lyrics, but through the ache in Dylan's delivery--a certain yearning for something or someone missing. The door imagery, and its possible biblical source, point far ahead to a couplet in Forgetful Heart from Together Through Life that I'd like to think Bob, not Hunter, wrote:

    The door has closed forevermore
    If indeed there ever was a door
     
  23. Thelonious_Cube

    Thelonious_Cube Epistrophe of Light

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    It's not the specifics of the theology that bother me, but the Christian faith in general. To a Christian, perhaps it carries only "a tint of religion," but to my non-Christian ears, it's a pretty religious song. So for me it sets up some pretty strong tensions because the performance draws me in, but I disagree with what I see as a pretty strong message.
     
  24. cc--

    cc-- Forum Resident

    Location:
    brooklyn
    I guess... but how many independent sources are there for the account? At some point they may all just be echoing off a handful. In any case, even if "family Bob" is real (though personally, I'm unsatisfied with the counter-countercultural narrative that plays into), I still would bet that the "disciplined craftsman Bob" of the "3 hours a day for 6 months" narrative is an exaggeration... probably like when friends reminisce "remember when we used to..." about stuff they did only a couple of times (though of course in this case it was more substantial than that).

    anyway, my BT box finally arrived, so I gotta go... or else...
     
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  25. Thelonious_Cube

    Thelonious_Cube Epistrophe of Light

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    That could be, but didn't that version of the story start pretty early? And Aronowitz's contemporary account has Dylan writing 10 songs a week.

    Memories are notoriously unreliable (and PR introduces spin into everything) but it's not as though this story was created decades after the fact.
     
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