Bob Dylan: "Trouble No More 1979 - 1981" - The Bootleg Series Vol. 13

Besides "Covenant Woman," without doubt the extended, nightmarish "Dead Man, Dead Man." I also like the piano-based out-take of "Gotta Serve Somebody" a lot. That's a song I never took to until this collection. I really enjoy it now. Dylan seems to like it because he can hang so much on it, in terms of lyrics and rhythm.

 

I have finished listening to the 2xCD.
I enjoyed the album.
I liked the a lot of the songs I knew from Slow Train Coming and Shot Of Love better live.
His band is great and Bob Dylan is the best I have heard him live.
People who enjoyed his 'Gospel period' (like myself) will enjoy this and could make others believers.

 

I really enjoyed the sound quality of this CD.
According to the liner notes most of the tracks were taken from cassettes on the soundboard.

 

As for the material in the Basement Tapes Box, I mostly listen to a collection called Mixin´Up The Medicine ....

 

Here are some tracks that I think are outstanding in a very good live selection on the 2xCD

Disc 1
1. Slow Train (first track hits you with an amazing live version) 'but the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency'
2. Gotta Serve Somebody
4. When You Gonna Wake Up?
5. When He Returns
6. Man Gave Names To All The Animals
7. Precious Angel
9. Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking

Disc2
9. Pressing On
10. Shot Of Love

 

Also
Disc 1
13. Saved

 

Ive been listening to this album everyday since I bought it 3 days ago.
This album has really strengthened and uplifted me.

 

It has some fascinating performances and there is something different about it than Dylan's other live material.

 

I found this song to be my go to song and one of the highlights of the disc.

 

You might enjoy the 6 disc version, then?

A small niggle for me is that I find the '79 vocal is a bit reedy and wasp-like at times, like Bob has a cold. I don't know the tour well enough to know how representative the particular selections are.

One of the few songs that I think they made bad choices on throughout is "What Can I Do For You?" which remains better on the original album. The take from Toronto is the wrong one--the widely released one (from another night) is much more moving. This is a song that has the potential to really affect me, yet all the selections here just kind of pass by.

Anyway, you got me playing this again, which is a good thing!

 

One great performance after another, all of it pure. Glad they released it. We needed it.

 

I am thinking of buying the deluxe edition.
Which disc or show is your favourite?

 

For me, probably the 1980 Toronto performance (discs 5 and 6), which is the same band as the 1979 shows that you like, but beautifully recorded and, for me, a warmer vocal (others prefer the '79 performances). If you really enjoy the first two discs, you are sure to love the Toronto performance.

Discs 3 and 4 are somewhat erratic, as is to be expected from the wide mix of concert performances, rehearsals, and studio out-takes, but there are some wonderful performances. They are somewhat frustrating as there were other studio performances that should have been on there.

I love the 1981 tour, but the selection from Earls Court is not the best. I would have preferred a more curated piece, like the Toronto selections above. That said, there are some fabulous moments.

 

I'm glad to get you playing it again!

 

I can't remember anyone transcribing the lyrics for "Dead Man, Dead Man" (nor are they available online, to my best knowledge), so I thought I would give it a shot (I might be mishearing some lines . . . ):

Uttering idle words from a reprobate mind
Clinging to strange promises, dying on the vine
Never being able to separate the good from the bad
Ooh, I can't stand it, I can't stand it
It's making me feel so sad

Dead man, dead man
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind
Dust upon your eyes

As a child you knew all there was to know that just could not be expressed
Now it hurts me to see what you accept is good and one time you wouldn’t have settled for less than the best
The race of the engine that overrules your heart
Ooh, I can't stand it, I can't stand it
Pretending that you're so smart

The glamor and the bright lights and the politics of sin
The ghetto that you build for me is the one you’re living in
The silver spade that waits for you to throw dirt upon your tomb
Ooh I can’t stand it I can’t stand it you’re running out of room

What are you trying to overpower me with, a doctrine or a gun?
My back is already to the wall, where can I run?
The tuxedo that you're wearing, and the flower in your lapel
Ooh, I can't stand it, I can't stand it
You want to take me down to hell

Killed his body someplace else and dumped it into a long black limousine
They arrested him for breaking and entering into a place that he’s never seen
The filthiest girl that they could find to make it look like a bitter queen
Ooh, I can't stand it, I can't stand it the way they make it look so clean


And the verse that is in on the Shot of Love version but not on BS 13:

Satan got you by the heel, there's a bird's nest in your hair
Do you have any faith at all? Do you have any love to share?
The way that you hold your head, cursing God with every move
Ooh, I can't stand it, I can't stand it
What are you trying to prove?

 

Dead Man, Dead Man | The Official Bob Dylan Site

 

Like I said, that's the Shot of Love version, and different to the one I transcribed.

 

My bad - didn't read the whole post, obviously.

Carry on

 

That Dead Man Dead Man outtake may be the highlight of the whole set for me. Love it! So raw and those harmonica breaks!

 

My deluxe version is still in the bag that I bought last Thanksgiving. Nearly a year has gone by but I'm waiting to listen when my mind, heart, and spirit are open and ready to receive.

 

The lyrics from BS 13, albeit awkward at times, place the song as a fairly close cousin of “Making a Liar Out of Me.” I like the way it makes good on the "zombie" premise of the title, certainly more sinisterly descriptive than the original release. As with "Making a Liar," there is the sense that those who regards themselves as "chosen," the select and the successful, are walking dead—“you must have been beautiful when you were living.” As a "child," he couldn’t express in words the truths that he knew; as a corrupted adult, “idle words” come too easy.

The line “Killed his body someplace else and dumped it into a long black limousine” sounds a bit strange at first (“Killed his body?”) until you recognize that the guy is living-dead, zombified; the limousine (perhaps recalling the “black Mercedes” in “Angelina”) represents both the trappings (trap) of success and a hearse on its way to the passenger’s own funeral--“The silver spade that waits for you to throw dirt upon your tomb” (and, again, I like how the line contains dual images of hollow power and mortality, embodied in “silver spoon” transmogrified to a “silver spade”). It also seems that the dead man is actually set up and framed, his reputation soiled by others; those who “throw dirt” also “make it look so clean.” I quite like how “tomb” and “running out room” follow each other.

Lyrically, it might not be top drawer Dylan, but put with the music, it’s pretty damn effective. It has that sinister, seedy, urban edge that marks the best of the Shot of Love brand, a soulful secularity. I think it is this song Dylan said was really about himself looking back at himself in a mirror (the doubled titular “Dead Man?”).

 

And your ears!
Some music comes along at the right time for us.
I have always liked his three gospel albums (1979 - 1981) so this album was easy for me. But it did come along at the right time.

 

Which disc for Dead Man, Dead Man are you referring to?
I just have the 2CD at the moment.

 

'Dead Man, Dead Man' was a track that took me a while to like on Shot Of Love.
I think I like the live version on Disc2 of the 2CD better. It sounds apocalyptic.

 

Well done. I have a few suggested corrections, mostly minor.