Reopening Dylan discussions of all kinds

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

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 :-)

[Sir Rob]

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.

[wind chime]

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

[Sir Rob]

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 :-)

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.

[sugarandspice]

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

[donald]

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.

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

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.

[Sir Rob]

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.

[henrymoon]

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

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...

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

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. Spaceman]

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.

[donald]

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.

[Lester Byrd]

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.

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....

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.

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.

[Sheriff John Stone]

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

[Jason]

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.

[al]

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 :-)

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

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

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 :-)

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.

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

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.

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?

[Sir Rob]

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.

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

[Sir Rob]

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.

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?

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.

[al]

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 :-)

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.

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!

[I. Spaceman]

Roots has more than Genuine does.

[al]

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

[I. Spaceman]

Almost a whole disc!

[al]

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!