I think there's a clear familial relationship between those songwriting periods, but the reason I think the accident / the basement tapes represent a significant break is that they gave Dylan the freedom to get off the industry treadmill he was on, with songs becoming longer and more elaborate (i.e. bigger and more obviously ambitious) and albums bearing a greater and greater expectation of having to be a 'grand statement'. Just the swelling running times of his first three 'electric' albums tell their own story: 47 minutes, 51 minutes, 72 minutes. With the Basement Tapes, you can hear Dylan relishing the opportunity to get as far away from that mode of production as he could, and when he does return to a professional recording studio he hits the reset button with a modest, stripped down, perfectly formed collection of songs (average song length = 3 mins, as opposed to 5+ minutes for Highway 61 and Blonde). Personally, I don't think John Wesley Harding sounds especially like the basement tracks, but the basement tracks do, in their own peculiar way, make a kind of sense as a circuitous pathway from Blonde on Blonde to that album.
Agreed. In the longest of long runs, I'd like to reach a time when the entire Vol. 1-3 is rendered redundant with every track or group of tracks ultimately spinning off into their respective comprehensive collections a la the Witmark and Basement tracks. Presumably those three Blood on the Tracks outtakes are going out the door next. Tell Tale Signs too for that matter (Oh Mercy+UTRS sessions, Bromberg, Supper Club, NET, soundtrack songs, TOOM, and beyond).
of course, that being said... when they did the Copyright extension sets, they did purposefully ignore any and all released tracks (save for a few odd omissions) and vol 10 did not take the Wallflower or If Not For You (opting for alternate and unreleased versions.) But yes, I wouldn't mind if the new BOTT set took those outtakes. And the outtakes from Biograph for that matter. I prefer them placed alongside similar tracks, rather than the grab-bag type like 1-3 or 8.
Do others agree that Levon's on '900 Miles'? That track is lacking a Band member or two, so I can't tell. I do know Levon came back in mid-October (around the same time as Dylan's first JWH session), and Dylan recorded the song 'John Wesley Harding' on November 6. At some time in the interim, Levon would've settled in and they moved the recording setup to Wittenberg Road; not to mention the Band were eager to get Levon working on their own songs, as he says in his book. There must have been some recording break, and I don't see a whole lot of time in there for recording '900 Miles.' (Though the whole process probably just took minutes...) If we were sure what the songs just before & after '900 Miles' on the reel were, that would help determine the chronology; but the reel box label is "Blues - 900 Miles - ? [blank spot]" which is not helpful at all, and on top of that it's a compilation reel so the songs might not be in recorded order anyway. As far as what I could determine, this was Levon's presence on the "reel #16" songs: Blowin' in the Wind - w/ Levon One Too Many Mornings - w/ Levon A Satisfied Mind – maybe w/ Levon It Ain't Me, Babe - w/ Levon If I Were a Carpenter – w/ Levon Ain't No More Cane My Woman She's a-Leavin' – w/ Levon Santa Fe Mary Lou, I Love You Too Dress It Up, Better Have It All Minstrel Boy Silent Weekend - w/ Levon What's It Gonna Be When It Comes Up – w/ Levon 900 Miles Wild Wolf - w/ Levon Maybe some of you can recognize his voice or drums on other tracks.
He's definitely on Ain't No More Cane and Minstrel Boy. I'd also say that 900 Miles sounds like it might be from the same session as Minstrel Boy, due to the similar high warbly backing vocals on both.
"One Man's Loss" ........ am I alone in thinking that this is one of the very best songs on the entire set? What a fantastic track. It's just as good as anything that was released on "Blonde on Blonde" or "John Wesley Harding", in my opinion.
Or maybe the second reel recorded at Big Pink ("Day 2"). I still can't see (hear) this being recorded before the Spanish Is The Loving Tongue reel.
Basement Noise 1. Bells of Rhymney - never cared for any version of this song 2. The Auld Triangle - too long 3. Be Careful of Stones that You Throw 4. Young But Daily Growing 5. Million Dollar Bash (Take 1) 6. Yeah Heavy (Take 1) 7. Lo and Behold (Take 1) 8. I Shall Be Released (Take 1) 9. Tears of Rage (Take 2) 10. Tears of Rage (Take 3) - I know many probably prefer this take, but I think Dylan's vocal is more heart-wrenching on take 1. 11. Open the Door Homer (Take 2) 12. Open the Door Homer (Take 3) 13. Nothing Was Delivered (Take 1) 14. Odds & Ends (Take 1) 15. Apple Suckling Tree (Take 1) 16. Blowin' In The Wind - I'll probably eventually split this into 2 tracks and enjoy it that way (I do that with a ton of Dylan's longer songs), but as for now 6 minutes is just too long for me. 17. A Satisfied Mind 18. Ain't No More Cane (Take 1) 19. All You Have to Do Is Dream (Take 1) 20. Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad 21. I Can't Come in with a Broken Heart 22. Love Is Only Mine 23. Silhouettes 24. Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies 25. 900 Miles From My Home/Confidential There were also 5 other tracks that I liked the least and wouldn't fit on the cdr: 1. King of France 2. French Girl (Take 1) 3. Spanish Is The Loving Tongue (much prefer the bootleg 10 piano version) 4. The Spanish Song (Take 1) 5. The Spanish Song (Take 2) So I immediately like 109 out of 139 tracks. I imagine several from my cdr compilation will grow on me.
So you don't like first takes or horrible audio, huh? Fair enough. I think I can see where you're coming from, EXCEPT for these three: "The Auld Triangle - too long" <-----( Whaaaat??) "Young But Daily Growing" (an old favorite of mine) "A Satisfied Mind" (a new favorite of mine)
How can anyone dislike a song that contains the lyrics: "In the female prison, there are 70 women, And it's with all of them where I'd like to dwell." Most guys in prison would be happy with ONE woman. Bob wants 70! (Which is even 55 more than the 15 swimmin' women he has in "Married To My Hack".)
But he did say he wrote "Million Dollar Bash" after seeing a news report on the Summer Of Love, so...
The line about "the vice-president's gone mad" in "Clothes Line Saga" jumps out as an (admittedly oblique) reference to the mood of the period.
We're having a party? We're all gonna meet. Though the characters seem more like barflys than hippies.
I've also thought about 1-3 becoming like a 'greatest hits' collection for the bootleg series eventually. I'd love a set with at least one version of every song from 62-64 that wasn't on an album, but I'd guess that's probably not much of a priority given how much of it is already out on proper releases and the 63 copyright set.
I can't find the source but I remember another interview with Robbie where he said at the time he and the band were pretty unimpressed with Dylan's rambling pseudo-intellectual epics, and made a strong argument for playing more concise, heartfelt songs. Robbie said he played Dylan a bunch of Impressions records, to show how much you could do with simple economy. Although I doubt Dylan needed to be "taught" that, and he was clearly burning out on his thin, wild, hipper-than-thou epics anyway - it's hard to imagine those guys didn't have some influence on helping him refresh artistically and change directions yet again.
Dylan getting off the speed/marijuana/alcohol/hallucinogens probably had a lot to do with the change of direction too - those stream of consciousness epics came less readily to his mind and pen, although he was still in that mode on some of the basement songs (Tiny Montgomery et al) but in shorter and more direct form.
The Hawks were pretty far from being able to relate to Rimbaud style stream of consciousness poetry and intellectual art-rock. Remember their background was pure working class bar band, not out of the intellectual and socially conscious and somewhat pretentious folk scene. Seems like Robbie was the first person to "get it" after hanging with Dylan through the 66 tour and in Woodstock - The Weight clearly was influenced by Dylan's lyrical style.