The Smiley Smile Message Board

Today I am having a great laugh listening to A Simple Desultory Philippic by S and G. This reminds me of a tradition which may have disappeared in the rock business, that of commenting on one's contemporaries. Any comments on that?

Also I have acquired the Basement Tapes, so any comments and advice are welcome here :-)

If I remember rightly from Robert Shelton's Dylan biography 'No Direction Home' - there was little love lost between Paul Simon and Dylan at the time.  Or to put it the way Shelton put it (again from memory) Simon was just plain jealous of Dylan's success.  If so, this song with it's "oh I've lost my harmonica Albert (Grossman)" and the sarcastic "he's so unhip that when you say 'Dylan' he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas!  The man ain't got no culture!" is surely an expression of that jealousy but quite amusing all the same.

Lennon did a parody of "You Gotta Serve Somebody" called "Serve Yourself" his reaction to Dylans conversion to Christianity.

My favourite basement tapes song, not on the official album, is ironically enough a song called 'The French Girl'.  Think it was originally by some people called Ian and Sylvia?  A very evocative song.

the first dylan song i ever heard was like a rolling stone...i loved it...changed my life.   gonna walk down that dirt road, tilll someone lets me ride, if i cant find my baby, im gonna run away and hide

Listening to Time Out of Mind.  I am also listening to Shine by Daniel Lanois, producer of the Time Out of Mind.  I like the music, the lyrics, the attitude, and production.

The vibe in Time Out of Mind is very delicate, less obvious than in Love and Theft, though less perfect. But it is a bit like comparing Dangerbird and Cortez, there is an unfinished in the former, which leaves it in a way more open.

I feel my ability to evaluate music has is vanishing. I feel elated and lost in Dylan, and don't know when I'll find my way back, don't even know if I want to. What I'll do now is go back to the individual tracks you all pointed out. I have a secret feeling that I am going to like Planet Waves no end.

Must admit I find Time Out Of Mind a difficult listen.  There's some stand out songs - Love Sick, Standing In The Doorway, Trying To Get To Heaven and Not Dark Yet but as an overall listening experience I find it hard going, depressing even.  Too much blues oriented material for my taste and a tone that is much too consistently bleak.  I much prefer the variety of styles and mood on Love and Theft, which is an album I really love.

When The Basement Tapes were finally released it was the most straightforward blueprint of how to make a great album I'd seen. Move into house, hang out, hunker down, eat, drink, write, play, record... Hey I must have been Nineteen, impressionable age, coz all the lyrics were burned onto my hard disk when hard disks were something on the top of an overcooked Fray Bentos pie. But so many songs are primal/primitive and steeped in the finest Americana Canadians can provide: Million Dollar Bash, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere, Goin' To Acapulco, Lo And Behold! Clothes Line Saga, Apple Suckling Tree, Please, Mrs. Henry, Yea! Heavy, Tears Of Rage, Tiny Montgomery... And, almost best of all, Richard Manuel's glorious dulcet tones on Katie's Been Gone and Orange Juice Blues (not to mention Garth's saxual organ). One of the best album covers of all time, all colour tones and composition and wood and Woodstock...

Rob, you know me I kinda of like the dark stuff, so yeah I also happen to think that On TOOM, Love Sick is one of the most bitter/sad songs ever. Love the way his voice is produced on that one, there is nearly something James Brownish about it in quiet way. And the transition with the next song Standing in the Doorway is beautiful. But Yeah Love and Theft sounds more "perfect".


And Henry, thanks for the feedback, seeeeee I am laaaaaaazy like Lily Von S. I much prefer if people tell me about things, so now I have an image of the way The Basement Tapes happened. Thanks.

I see a lot more threat in the Tapes. I see a mad vision of a forthcoming apocalypse. Lo And Behold and This Wheel's On Fire, in particular, point to this. Even Clothes Line Saga, his reply/reflection to Bobbie Gentry's Ode To Billie Joe, has an air of spooky menace.

Time Out of Mind was more accessible to me initially.  Tells you something about my personality.

Love and Theft came to me more slowly and I find it quite listenable on a sunny day.

Right on. Love the "Clothes Line Saga"


"Have you heard the news?" he said, with a grin,
"The Vice-President's gone mad"
"Where?" "Downtown."
"When?" "Last night."
"Hmm, say, that's too bad!"
"Well, there's nothin' we can do about it," said the neighbor,
"It's just somethin' we're gonna have to forget...."

Ominous indeed....



Yup. Ian Tyson also wrote "Four Strong Winds", the Folkie Canadian National Anthem.

There's a nice cover of "The French Girl" by Gene Clark, produced by Curt Boettcher.

Any news on Dylan's next album?  Producer, band, possible release date?

I don't think Bob wants to risk putting out a new album after what happened with Love And Theft - that came out on September 11, 2001.

Is that the CBS Basement Tapes or the 5 CD (not CBS - sorry, showing my age here - Colombia/Sony/whatever version)?

hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmm, this was a "present" from Mr Spinning instructor, so all I have I'm afraid is song titles, seems to have 25 songs on it. Dont be telling me there aredifferent types of Basement tapes.

BTW Eran also wrote to tell me about expectinggrain.com, which seems to have Dylan stuff by the thousands.

OK what does it tell you? Because I listend to L & T first,thought what the heck, I hate this old fashioned stuff, an impression which dsappeared on maybe third listen, after which I was dazzled and still am.

However, when I heard Love Sick the first time, it went to my gut straight away, so I got TOOM and fell in love with it straight away, what does it tell me about my personality, praetell, after al you ar the Freud of this board. Hi Donald!

Rob good morning and how you doing? I am still "in the thick of it"workwise, this doesn't mean there isn'tsome king of great literary t-shirt to be won in the near future. I hope you play the euro millions this week, I am!!!!!

FINAL DYLAN QUESTION OF THE DAY: when did the rising intonation live singing start? I think what I am reffering to is quite clear, you know the way he kind of rushes through the words and ends each phrase with a question mark, at the end, I love it, althought it may at time sound mechanical, but I think it's also a Brechtian device for reminding the audience what is going on. I am the singer, you are the audience, ya know, bla bla bla,my take on it,but perhaps there is a more objective/scientific explanation that some of you know, like I dunno, he has some chip implanted in his throat which prevents him from ending his sentences otherwise than by a rising tone?

An album that also included the line "Sky full of fire, pain falling down".  Yes, what next?!   Aaarggghhhhh!!!!!   :o

Good morning Daniele  :)

I think I remember someone else on a message board who was going to win the euro millions mega jackpot.  He was going to set us all up in some kind of luxury hippie 'Apple' type Beach Boys commune.  Actually it was somebody in Ireland who won it last time.  Hmmm...lightning strikes?!

I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to regarding Dylan's voice.  He has always been putting different nuances or whatever on the way he delivers a lyric as long as I've been seeing him live, (the last 22 years, eek!).  What I do know, however, is that in 1997 he was hospitalised with a serious chest problem called 'histoplasmosis'.  Here's a link:

http://edition.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9705/28/dylan.ill/

Having attended Dylan concerts in the years immediately previous to this and after, I did notice a change in his live performing voice.  He now seems less inclined to go for those long sort of dragged out notes on the end of verses - there's a more clipped and restrained quality to his singing as though he's trying to conserve something or else the former power just isn't there.  That's how it's struck me anyway.

Yes indeed. There are the official Basement Tapes that you have, and the extended motherload which you can indeed find at expecting rain, a site someone pointed me at the other day. Try and find 'A tree with roots' - that is all 5 CD's, but I found them elsewhere as the Genuine Basement Tapes vol 1-5. I'd get familiar with the original first though.

Good Hunting, let me know if you have problems!

Roots has more than Genuine does.

More? Not seen a track listing so I assumed they were the same. How much more is there?

Almost a whole disc!

Thanks - I'll check out Bobs boots for more....damn this is hard keeping up! Hoping to get the Band box finally in a few days so that will keep me occupied - especially if I go for the Richard Thompson set as well....thats a lot of music!

Oh Mercy hasn't left my car player for the last 2 weeks.  Something about driving around in all of this rain, with that music playing that just feels perfect.  To me, this album can stand right alongside anything else in the catalog.  Does anyone know if any of the outtakes from these sessions have been booted?  i've read that the masters for several of the songs contain multiple vocal tracks (some with completely different lyrics), and that Lanois just punched between them to create the final product.  If this is true (and it sounds dubious to me, as i cant imagine Dylan giving up so much lyrical control), I'd love to hear some of the complete vocal performances.

I haven't got any but they do exist - seen them on sites.

Thanks Alan.  Just went to Bobsboots.com, and it looks like I need to track down "Ring them Bells" and "Deeds of Mercy".

Oh Mercy is SOOO atmospheric, so eerie and unlike any other Dylan.  I love it and the vibe fits his voice to a T.

And improved sound quality, too. "Tree" is the way to go for the Basements.

Thanks to you, I know that!  ;D

Oh Boy am I in big trouble. Great references. 6 more lives needed!

OK....Lets talk a bit more about the Chronicles book.

Anybody read it...what do you think?

To me its like reading his lyrics....at least to some extent.  I'm left with a series of abstract images and remain as puzzled as ever about the Zimmerman behind the mask.

one of the stranger things in the book is his repeated mentioning of his interest in touring heavily and appearing in the same market 2 or 3 times in a year in order to get it "right"..as if he could detect improvement of some sort by gauging the reaction of the same audience on multiple performances....not necessarily weird but certainly revealing of some insecurities or obsessions...

Just another mind-foda veil. Maybe his best.

Donald, I remember that part about touring the same markets three years in a row as involving his desire to win over a new fan base.  The idea was that his old fans would probably only come the first year, and he wanted word of mouth to spread among his newer, younger fans in the second and third year. 

I love Chronicles.  I'd really love to hear Bob reading it out loud, as I can already imagine him saying most of the lines in the book.  I mean, there are so many things in that book that ONLY Dylan could have written.  His phrasing is amazing.

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't take most of his stories to be, you know, the truth.  Revealing was the part where Bob and Bono were sitting around drinking Guiness, and Bob says when they didn't know about something they would just make it up.  I felt like a lot of the book was like that.

Ian, as a musician, did his whole explanation of his guitar playing and singing method based on the number 3 make any sense to you?  I don't play, and I couldn't really follow it.

Nope. I even tried it. No luck.

Yeah, that bit about playing..........what the hell was that anyway?  I'm a long time amateur guitarist and I really didn't understand.....

donald,
      Either I'm having hallucinations or your avatar was briefly a photograph of a very sophisticated-looking Curly Howard from The Three Stooges...

Coupla things about Chronicles.

His telling of how he went to Woody Guthrie's house is possibly one of the most emotioanlly evocative narrative I have ever read. I was with him on that last train station and in the mud, man.

And of course his realtionshi with the audience, which I think he barely touches upon and surely is a major concrn for any artist and one which is unwritten about.

Now people say Dylan has become a "cold" performer, and he is aware of that. The artist has an imeasurable impact on his audience, one he cant control and has to come to terms with that. Scary stuff. I would be foolish to think artist never think or feel this. So in the book he explains constantly how the effect of fame affected his personal life (and BTW cue Kurt Cobain, it drives people to extremes). And paradoxically he says he had to stop performing at one stage out of respect for his audience. Fascinating stuff, until he found the meaning of  performing again by watching other people  perform. So yeah, in my limited experience, when I saw Dylan, it was probably a "cold"performance, but a meaningful one, because I think the way he entertained the audience is by letting the music speak and not be disturbed by the personality behind it, a thing he is comfortable with, a form of truth from a person who knows he is hiding behind many layers and who knows, I think, that by showing that he is always hiding, allows us to have a glimpse of the truth, if this makes sense, lol. No, no one knows Bob Dylan, so what, does it count? What counts is that we are able to listen to his music. My conclusion is that yes he does show a great respect for his audience, by not deluding them, if they chose to delude themselves fine, but at least he does not promote it. There is commercial experience behind it all, thats the way the world works, unfair as it may be.

and a funny thought has just come in my mind, how come a Beach Boys/BW board thinks so much about Bob Dylan, I'd be curious to see if Bob Dylan people think so much about BW, lol.

I'd think there's a lot of crossover between the two audiences - I know I've always been one such person. 

I think people will always be intrigued by mystery and Dylan, to my mind, has always cultivated a sense of mystery around himself.  One only has to think of how he was telling people as soon as he arrived in NYC that he'd grown up in Gallup New Mexico and had been riding railroads and travelling funfairs etc.   For that reason, I think he protesteth a little too much in 'Chronicles' about people's curiosity.  He can't have it both ways!

Here's another tiny example - everyone knows (or assumes?) that Dylan was born on the 24th May 1941.  Yet the cover of the lyrics booklet which accompanies the Bootleg Series box set is taken up with a picture of (presumably?) Dylan's hand resting on a table next to an open copy of his passport(?) containing his photograph.  Only thing is a different day is given as his birth date and also, if I remember rightly, there was some speculation about whether the height given was correct.  I think it makes him out to be a few inches taller than he actually is. 

And in the overall scheme of things, does this count, since the person we see we have no means of knowing anyway. I think what Dylan does is is revealing the whole "artificiality" of the relationship between an artist and his audience. The gap that neither party can cross, and by recognizing this it has the effect of making us closer, more genuine? Just an idea, y know I have to keep my mind busy, but maybe these are just words.

I must admit I never think too deeply about these matters other than to think:  "Mystery = public interest = money."  But maybe you're right - maybe in everything he does he's exploring the relationship between an artist, his celebrity and his audience. 

Well seeing that he seems to have the pulse on the absurdities of life, I guess this might be or have been an issue of concern to him, just one that artists rarely reveal perhaps.

Sheriff John, you were not hallucinating......you did see a certain Mr. Howard as my avatar for a moment