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

Right, now you are talking

Tim

 

Listening to "Jack Of Hearts" and reading about production starting on the Deadwood movie. I hear the song playing out on the set of that show, with a little less blood.

 

I am still intrigued (as my “I’m Tired” post clearly shows), with @Percy Song ’s suggestion that the germ for this song came not from acting in a Western himself, but from Dylan going to see “Blazing Saddles” (which opened during the last week of Tour ‘74). Set partly in a Western cabaret, the song features a Lili (Kahn) and a Jim (Gene Wilder).

 

Big Jim has the wife and mistress but Dylan is the Jack of Hearts. Jack of Hearts just wants to rob.

 

Seems people are pretty set on their opinions regarding acoustic NY takes vs their full band MN counterparts, but would you have chosen Simple Twist 1A full band over the acoustic album version?

1A is perfect. You can tell Bob didn't take any time to teach the band "Lonesome," hence all the fumbling, but here it's clear that's not the case because someone (assuming Eric Weissberg?) has fully taken over and expanded upon the guitar solo Bob developed for Simple Twist in his earlier solo passes.

 

Excellenft observation, since there’s almost no chance that piece could have come about organically. Maybe they got a stealth listen to a solo performance while Bob was in the bathroom.

 

I'm confused: there's a Minneapolis version of "Simple Twist of Fate"?

 

Dylan’s cinematic attention to detail in “Lily” is amazing. Jim has seen Jack before (he thinks so anyway), and other lyrics suggest that Lily having a picture of Jack (clearly an old flame that she still carries) on display somewhere is the probable answer.

 

Some of the song really invokes cinematic imagery or technique, too (for me): after the houselights dim and it's 'only Jim and him', I always imagine just enough ambient light on the Jack of Hearts, while those around are engulfed into shadow, the sound track (stamping feet) falls away to near silence as the camera slowly zooms in through the smokey murkiness of the room, occasionally cutting back to a close up of Big Jim, also in the shadows, before returning. We also see flickers of shadows across the two men's faces - maybe caused by the butterfly?!

It's just brilliantly evocative and I can't overstate what an excellent song I think this is in both versions. I'd go with NY if forced to.

 

No I'm saying everyone has strong opinions about, say, Idiot Wind NY vs Idiot Wind MN

But Simple Twist is a rare example where we have a well fleshed out full band and acoustic take both happening in NY. The selection for the record could have gone either way IMO

 

Yeah, I think it's another time much like Spanish Tongue when Phil must've left off the mono reel; otherwise we'd have heard them rehearsing Simple Twist full band because take 1A is incredibly slick.

 

Dunno but I'm glad it's there, it's one of my favorite Dylan tracks period. BTW, I can't be the only one that over the years that cast the song as a movie in my head.

Directed by the Coen Brothers
Lily - Brie Larson
Rosemary - Cher
Jack - Ryan Reynolds
Big Jim - John Goodman
Hanging Judge - Willem Dafoe

 

I may have missed here in the thread but has Columbia released any statements about the pages of Dylan's lyrics that they messed up and didn't include in the book? I saw they were available online, but I hadn't seen anything since then.

 

They are hoping everyone just forgets about it.

 

Missing Notebook Pages | The Official Bob Dylan Site

 

Oh, the version on the single-disc release - got it!

 

No I meant for the released BOTT. If they had chosen take 1A I think it would have been every bit as good as the acoustic take

 

Yes, and the take you're talking about is the version included on the single-disc More Blood, More Tracks release.

 

No take 3A (full band) is on the sampler (different than the 1CD). Take 1 is an acoustic solo take on the 1CD.

 

I’ve been wallowing in the first two disks and having a hard time moving on, but I cheated and listened to just the Minneapolis takes off the last disc. They sound a lot better to me here, warmer, more natural, less brittle. It makes the whole N.Y. vs MN thing more complicated. I think I like them all. But if I was making a comp that included the MN takes I would use them from here, not the album,

 

What's the difference - new mixes?

 

Yes, they are remixed for this set, and at the "correct" speed.

 

Without reading 414 pages of threads —how’s the sound on all these discs? Is it warm, analog, dynamic? Or dry, digital, and compressed?

 

IMO the cds are not really "warm" but are clear and open and dynamic. (Not dry digital, or compressed).

 

Agreed