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. WowBobWow

    WowBobWow Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas,USA
    Agreed. It's almost like Abandoned Love (the live version) is the victim of sounding too much like BOTT, (thematically) and not enough like the new flood of Desire songs.
     
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  2. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident

    Finishing up the set now.

    Spent all week playing this. One disc per day following the chronology all the way through the entire sessions. A really immensely satisfying, immersive set.

    The test pressing version of You're A Big Girl Now is probably the one take that I don't agree that they shelved. That original take is downright gorgeous. The version they cut in Minneapolis falls very short.

    By the time we get the final version of Tangled up in Blue recorded in Minneapolis you basically just want to stand up and give Bob and the band an ovation because it finally felt like the song---and maybe the album itself-- finally arrived in that one take.
     
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  3. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    I'm in step with this. My mind is exercising "sublunary." Good word.
     
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  4. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I really like "Desire" ... but is it greedy to wish he could have stayed in "that place" that he "visited" for a month of BOTT composition long enough to give "Abandoned Love" 9 little brothers and sisters? :)
     
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  5. BlindWillieMcZim

    BlindWillieMcZim Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manchester
    I'm getting increasingly angry and sad anout the liner notes. Would it have killed them to at least mark which takes are incomplete?
     
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  6. Rne

    Rne weltschmerz

    Location:
    Malaver
    That's what I was thinking yesterday. Pretty lazy and superficial liner notes this time.
     
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  7. cable hogue

    cable hogue Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona
    This may have been mentioned already, but the Take 1, Remake of You're a Big Girl features some of Dylan's finest singing EVER. Simply stunning.
     
  8. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    That's interesting. How many times can you exchange items before you get put on the “refunds only” list? Seems kind of silly, as you can always get your refund and order another one. I have a Vinyl Flat, so warps are no longer an issue for me, but I want to be able to exchange damaged items, without going through the refund and repurchase shenanigans.
     
  9. Reader

    Reader Senior Member

    Location:
    e.s.t. tenn.
    They'll usually let you return a specific item 2 times, the 3 return will get a refund but not a replacement.

    Even if the problem is not on your side of the fence they do this. I ordered a jazz album a couple years ago. It arrived in a LP mailer that stated what was inside, opened it up, wrong item, nothing even close to what I ordered. When I received a replacement, the mailer again stated what was inside, opened it, another wrong LP, again no relation to what I ordered. I sent it back but they would only refund the cost and would not send a 3rd replacement even though the item to this day is still available, they say, but at a higher price. I wonder if anyone ever got a copy?
     
  10. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    I sometimes sit somewhere between the literal and the "it's just for a rhyme" approach to lines like these (I guess that means I'm on the fence about them, but it's not a barbed wire fence, so it's OK).

    This bit has always struck me solid enough in terms of sense that it doesn't need to be explained just in terms of sound. It feels cinematic in the way it first suggests something in the distance and then something much closer. The fence-top and horizon look aligned at first (maybe due to something like Ray's uphill walking or simply because the fence at first is just far enough away to make the bird look like it's on the horizon line), then a closer approach makes it clear that, no, the bird is just on a fence, nearby and audible. Or maybe the bird is at first flying along the line of the horizon and then he lands on the fence. In any case, it never seemed weird or hard to visualize to me.

    In any case, rhyme ties "fence" and "expense" together here, not the horizon and the fence, and--who knows--but it seems to me more likely that the fence was there first and that "expense" had to be fetched to make the rhyme. But not too far-fetched.

    L.
     
  11. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Creating a dichotomy of "the meaningful part" and the "just to finish the rhyme part" seems like a pretty futile exercise to me.
     
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  12. Porkpie

    Porkpie Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Finally getting to listen to the vinyl release (it was delivered a week ago but due to work being done on the house my turntable was packed up for the week). Blown away by this and it just finished. Hopefully it hasn’t ruined the original version for me. What a fantastic release.
     
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  13. matt79rome89

    matt79rome89 Forum Resident

    I also love the intro guitar that's more intricate than any of the other takes.
     
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  14. SPARTACUS

    SPARTACUS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sheffield
    But doesn't each verse of YABGN start by taking a cliched or mundane image or phrase "Bird on the horizon", time as a jet plane, changes in the weather, love being simple and transform it into a more original/heartfelt thought?
    And at times, as in the dark, park, spark rhymes in STOF,almost like he's having the last laugh at the detractors who complained about all the moon spoon, June stuff in the Nasville Skyline era.
    The released album even starts with a variation on the blues tried and tested; "Woke up this morning"
     
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  15. onlyconnect

    onlyconnect The prose and the passion

    Location:
    Winchester, UK
    Yes; it doesn’t quite make sense but the combination of words is powerful, something intimate (a song for me) juxtaposed with something distant (horizon) and something divisive (a fence); you have to feel the significance of the words and not trouble yourself too much with the logic. I am sure there are many more examples!

    Tim
     
  16. onlyconnect

    onlyconnect The prose and the passion

    Location:
    Winchester, UK
    These first two phrases may seem cliched or mundane but they are not. It would be interesting to search the entirety of literature and see if anyone ever put these words together before!

    Tim
     
  17. HardTimesRoughLines

    HardTimesRoughLines She learned me life is sweet and God is good

    Location:
    Oslo, Norway
    Enjoying all the petty bickering and digressions, boys n gals. It is best to not talk about how great this music is even if the presentation and quality control sometimes verge on the shambolic side from time to time.

    Because if we had to talk about that, there wouldn't be much to talk about. This album still has the ability to make me nearly speechless. Luckily my tongue have been loosened up ever so slightly by a few social lubricants tonight. At least enough to dare sing its praises.

    Having spent most of the time I had available today listening to the (mostly fantastic) The Beatles box set and letting it fill me with joy. But. As much as I love that album, it sure ain't no Blood on the Tracks. And for me, complaining about the quality of the music contained in this set would be nothing less than ridiculous. It is, without going into any discussion about any exception or oversight (perceived or real) by the Artist or his henchmen, STUPENDOUSLY wonderful. You might say that YMMV and I do believe in that concept with all of my heart of hearts. All other times, that is.

    Kisses 'n' bruises,

    HTRL
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2018
  18. Hotel@mnesia

    Hotel@mnesia Well-Known Member

    Location:
    UK
    'Bird on the horizon, sitting on a fence
    He's singing a song for me, at his own expense'

    I've always heard Thomas Hardy's 'The Darkling Thrush' in there - maybe because few other examples of intuiting a bird's feelings come to mind (apart from the rooster in 'Meet Me in the Morning'). In other words, the singer is being positive about the future even if there's little apparent cause for carolling - I can make it through, and you too.

    I also like the distance involved between the singer and any listener (almost comic) and the way almost any statement is qualified ('sitting on a fence'). Michael Gray puts it well in describing the attention to detail in 'Call Letter Blues' in which the line 'my heart's just not in it' perfectly accords with a call-girl's services.
     
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  19. Regandron

    Regandron Forum Resident

    hi... i was away for a week.. did i miss anything????????

    So.. I just picked up from my doormat the vinyl and 6CD box....

    I'm gonna come to the rhyme issue in a minute... in the meantime sorry if this has already been covered but

    a. this is amazing. Idiot Wind just blows my mind away. If all we had of Dylan was the NY Idiot Wind, and the slow 'steel guitar' version Of Caribbean Wind then we'd still be elevating him over everyone in rock history...... bravo to the Bootleg Series

    b. I see that in the notebook Lily is spelled "Lilly'. This is an entirely legitimate spelling.. i've known Lilys and Lillys in my time . So who changed it for the album cover and the songbooks, lyrics books etc?? What does Christopher Ricks think???
     
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  20. SPARTACUS

    SPARTACUS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sheffield
    Yes this bit:
    "In other words, the singer is being positive about the future even if there's little apparent cause forcarolling - I can make it through, and you too"

    It's the belief that love lives on, the varied shades of humour and equal measures of darkness and light that ensures the impact of the Blood on the Tracks sessions never dimishes.
    And I've got to have my say on Idiot Wind. 28 years ago as a 15yr old obsessive it would have been the live Hard Rain version every time. I listened many a time respectfully through the BS1-3 version patiently waiting for it to finish so I could get on with Disc 3 but not really getting it. These days it's only the NY takes that really hit home.
     
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  21. lschwart

    lschwart Senior Member

    Location:
    Richmond, VA
    Yes. When Dylan is working at his best the elements don't separate--and I don't think they do in this particular case.

    L.
     
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  22. musicaner

    musicaner Forum Resident

    if High Water is high comedy so is Thunder on the Mountain and When the Levee Breaks.
     
  23. highway

    highway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    I think he hears them as convent bells because he just had a chaste reaction to call girls - he had a nun like reaction. It’s kind of self-deprecatory. I picture him emerging from the club with all the groupies and guitar sound ringing in his ears and wondering why he didn’t have his normal reaction to beautiful girls. He’s kind of in a funk. But maybe that’s a reach on my part. Maybe my bardolatry (bardylatry?) is showing?
     
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  24. RandyP

    RandyP Forum Resident

    Let's see - Splicegate, spooky organ music, speed corrected, missing notebook pages???
    I'm in. Ordered the Deluxe version today.
     
  25. HardTimesRoughLines

    HardTimesRoughLines She learned me life is sweet and God is good

    Location:
    Oslo, Norway
    At the very least, there is comedy there. And lots of contextual layers, most of them added to confuse and amuse.

    As per usual then:


    "I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying
    When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line
    I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
    I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee

    Feel like my soul is beginning to expand
    Look into my heart and you will sort of understand
    You brought me here, now you're trying to run me away
    The writing's on the wall, come read it, come see what it say"


    Best regards,

    HTRL
     
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