Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - where we're at currently (Part 2)...

"Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," with its swelling organ crescendoes, perhaps comes closest to the sound we think of as psychedelic, although even that's a stretch, but I agree that Dylan's lyrical influence on psychedelia was immense: didn't Lennon say of "I am the Walrus" that "if Dylan could get away with that kind of [free-association] nonsense, I thought, 'Why can't I get away with it, too'"?

 

I don't disagree that "those tapes of Dylan's" are The Basement Tapes (they most certainly are, since George's question comes right after his short version of "Please Mrs. Henry"). I just kind of figured that the Beatles would have rated an acetate a piece, rather than getting tapes (and well after the fact). "Music From Big Pink" clearly made an immense impression on George, but it doesn't seem to have been much more than a blip on the radar for the other three (apart from the fact that they are all familiar with "I Shall Be Released").

 

I shook his hand and said goodbye
Ran out to the street

When a bowling ball came down the road
And knocked me off my feet

A pay phone was ringing
It just about blew my mind

When I picked it up and said hello
This foot came through the line!

 

That's more Homer & Jethro than Strawberry Alarm Clock ("in my estimation" -- I have to be careful. )

 

Well, to paraphrase Paul Cable, I think that if Mannfred Mann and Julie Driscoll got copies of the acetates in '67-'68, then I'm sure the Fabs got them, too.

EDIT: I would imagine that the songs weren't passed around in acetate form only -- someone would have made tape copies early on.

 

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it


Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn’t pay it any mind
It’s just a shadow you’re seein’ that he’s chasing

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow


Maybe not far out musically, but them's some pretty psychedelic lyrics if you ask me!

 

Earlier Dylan works, like Lay Down Your Weary Tune and Chimes of Freedom, utilized that lyrical style but with Mr. Tambourine Man, he made a real breakthrough.

 

Dylan Psychedelia: 1966 Tour....

 

Dylan didn't need goofy sonic effects to blows people's minds...

 

Maybe Rocky Raccoon but I hear Beach Boys, Donovan, Tiny Tim, British blues boom and yes, Yoko Ono...The White Album seems like a sprawling pysch/prog opus than it does American roadhouse. Beggar's, I hear Dylan on Jigsaw but not Basement Bob. More Blonde Bob. Jack Flash, Sympathy sound like Big Pink?
Besides, I'm going with Steve Howe's notion that Prog was the child of Psychedelia..and up until Punk, Prog/hard rock ruled for millions.
I can't agree that there was this huge and complete revolution toward American roots music with the advent of Woodstock Bob.
Jimi's psych hard rock take on All Along the Watchtower was the biggest hit from that 67 Dylan time. Still is. Telling, very telling.
One more thing...The Incredible String Band in 1966 had a massive effect on Britain for their roots thing.

 

Wow..I'm not hearing anything of the Band in 3/4 of your list. Your conclusion would be that those songs would not exist without Big Pink?

 

In all matters Beatles, I trust the Nagras first and everything else second

George plays about 45 seconds of "Please Mrs. Henry".
Ringo: (Unfamiliar with "Please Mrs. Henry") "You been listening to some blues?"
George: "Did you play those?"
Ringo: "No."
George: "No, those tapes of Dylan's."
Ringo: "Oh yeah. I played ... no, only the one I played."
George: "Great ... the words are too much."

Imagine HAVING The Basement Tapes and choosing not to listen to them all the way through?

 

I suspect that Ringo wasn't maybe the kind of super-obsessive Dylan fan that most here are (or that George was).

 

I never understood that song until the first time I got stoned.

 

My conclusion is that those songs were influenced in some way by the Basement demos that were in circulation by the early part of 1968, not necessarily the individual lyrics or instrumentation, but their free-form, wacky spirit and organic sound, as opposed to the grand productions of the Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour albums that came before.

I'm willing to let this issue die now. Anybody got more lyrics for The King of France?

 

While it is certainly plausible that something like "Rocky Raccoon" was influenced by the Basement demos or acetates, again, I don't know whether Paul was the same sort of Dylanophile that George was, or whether Paul had even heard the Basement Tapes by the time he wrote "Rocky Raccoon," I think a lot of the acoustic numbers on the White Album sprang from the fact that, during their India trip, the Beatles only had acoustic guitars to play. Temporarily isolated in Rishikesh from Western technology and the pressures of their career, it's almost like they were "down in the basement" themselves, so to speak, and as free as Bob and the Band to just goof around and play whatever popped into their head. And, after "I Am the Walrus," where was there left to go? A return to roots was inevitable, all trains of all the major artists of the period were running on the same track, and Wild Honey certainly happened independent of the Basement Tapes, and I suspect "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Mother Nature's Son" would have too.

 

Mike Love in India with Beatles: the makings of white Beatles album du jour.

 

And don't forget that during the Hey Jude performance on the David Frost Show, Paul does throw in an ad-lib about "take the load off Annie" during the long fade-out. So I think all of the Fabs had their ears tuned in to Music From Big Pink. It really was an important album.

Arnie

 

Good point ... I was tunnel-visioning on the "Get Back" period. I stand corrected.

 

Wow, that's interesting, because when I listen to A Tree with Roots, I almost always play all four discs. Not in one sitting necessarily, because yeah, time blocks, but I very seldom listen to one disc or part of one disc and then put it away.

 

Am I the only one who wishes they did a third set, compiling all the songs with only take each?

 

I have no knowledge that could add anything of value to this juncture of the conversational thread, but I just wanted to say this discussion is fascinating reading.

Is there a definitive answer as to why Dylan did not record an actual album with the Band until Planet Waves (unreleased/aborted 1965/6 sessions, and some of the Band Members playing on BoB, aside)?

 

If you buy the box, you'll be able to make a collection like that yourself, at a cost savings of twenty bucks or so. I'm confident that nearly everyone will make their own playlists, and we'll probably have a whole new thread on that subject within hours of the box set's release.

 

I think there's basement and later material (and certainly the composition style/process) that's still in the trippy stripped-down acoustic psychedelic, surrealistic? elliptical? compressed and imagistic in the Poundian sense? tradition of " "Visions of Johanna" or "Desolation Row." "I'm Not There" would be an example, maybe "Nothing Was Delivered" (which always seems like a song version of "Waiting for Godot" or something), certainly "Quinn the Eskimo," "All Along the Watchtower." I have long thought "Abandoned Love" is one of the trippiest break-up songs ever.

I just always dig a song where you get to the end, and it has an impact on you, but you can't actually articulate what, if anything, the song is "about."

 

According to Victor, re his raw audio tapes, there is such a thing as the Post 4th Street album. Victor, the Philosopher.

Only thing is that Bob wouldnt get caught writing something like I Am the Walrus.