Two more audio clips from Bob Dylan’s show at the Brisbane, Astralia club, The Tivoli, on August 27, 2014.
Plus the clips I’ve previously posted in case you missed them.
“Lonesome Day Blues”:
“Trying To Get To Heaven”:
“Thunder On The Mountain”:
“Ballad Of A Thin Man”:
“All Along The Watchtower”:
“Blowin’ In The Wind”:
Setlist:
Things Have Changed
She Belongs to Me
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
Workingman’s Blues #2
Waiting for You
Duquesne Whistle
Pay in Blood
Tangled Up in Blue
Love Sick
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Girl From the North Country
Cry a While
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
Lonesome Day Blues
Tryin’ to Get to Heaven
Thunder on the Mountain
Ballad of a Thin Man
Encore:
All Along the Watchtower
Blowin’ in the Wind
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” There’s info about it here.]
Bob Dylan’s doodles on the piece of yellow, blue-lined paper on which he wrote the lyrics to “Married To My Hack” during the summer of 1967.
Elvis Costello made only the most minor changes to Bob Dylan’s 1967 lyrics for the song “Married To My Hack” that is included on the not-yet-released album, Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes — with one exception.
Bob Dylan’s handwritten lyrics to “Married To My Hack.” Note the unfinished final line.
On the copy I got of a piece of yellow, blue-lined paper on which Dylan wrote the lyrics, the final line of the song is incomplete.
Dylan wrote, “Just gimmie a bottle and the”
That’s it.
He never finished it.
But Costello sings, “Gimmie a bottle and someone to throttle ’cause I’d rather be married to my hack.”
It’s certainly a controversial line in an otherwise humorous song in which Dylan details all the many women who apparently want him.
He wrote that he’s “got 15 women,” and later on the page, that he’s “got loose eye’d ladies who never seen a man just waiting around out back.”
The punchline is, of course, the song’s title. Dylan repeatedly tells us throughout the song that he would “rather be married to my hack.”
But the song’s best lines comes early on.
“I move like the breeze, and the birds and the bees
I’m never known to look back…”
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” There’s info about it here.]
These new clips just went online. There’s “Long and Wasted Years” from the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on August 25, 2014, and then a nearly 9 and one half minute “Ballad Of A Think Man” from Dylan’s club show at The Tivoli on August 27, 2014.
Enjoy.
Bob Dylan, “Long And Wasted Years,” the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Brisbane, Australia, August 25, 2014:
Bob Dylan, “Ballad Of A Thin Man,” The Tivoli, Brisbane, Australia, August 27, 2014:
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A rare, previously unseen March 1967 photo of Rick Danko and Bob Dylan taken prior to the ‘Basement Tapes’ sessions. It’s “unknown” where the photo was taken, but it’s not from the actual sessions. “No photos exist of the actual basement tapes sessions,” said a source close to the “Basement Tapes” project. “It’s from earlier that year.” Photo courtesy Arie de Reus.
More than four decades after Bob Dylan and the musicians that would become The Band recorded a crazy mix of original compositions, standards and obscurities – recordings that became known as the ‘Basement Tapes’ – “every salvageable recording from the tapes” is finally being officially released on November 4, 2014, according to bobdylan.com.
Hear a version of “Odds & Ends” that will appear on the new set:
The six-CD deluxe set, titled The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11, will sell for $149.98 and will include a 120-page booklet with liner notes by Dylan expert Syd Griffin, author of “Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, the Band, and the Basement Tapes.”
Although bootlegs of many of the recordings have circulated since a batch of them were first released on the bootleg album, The Great White Wonder, in 1969, and most recently on an 11-CD bootleg, From the Reels – Complete Basement Tapes, the official boxed set will include at least 20 recordings that have not been previously released.
According to Larry Jenkins, who is involved with the project, determining what hasn’t been heard before is “kind of complicated, because this is the first time that all the original sources have been used. So, ultimately all of the recordings sound different.”
Rolling Stones’s Andy Greene writes:
The previously unknown tracks include an epic, apocalyptic rocker, “Wild Wolf”; an early draft of “I Shall Be Released” with slightly different lyrics; a cover of Hank Williams’ 1949 classic “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It”; and country-fied versions of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “It Ain’t Me Babe” and “One Too Many Mornings,” featuring Band keyboardist Richard Manuel handling lead vocals on the first verse.
In going through the tracks being released on the new set, and what has previously been released, I come up with this unverified list of previously unreleased ‘Basement Tapes’ recordings. Please let me know if any of these versions have seen the light of day before.
1. Edge of the Ocean
2. My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It (written by Clarence Williams)
3. Roll on Train
4. Mr. Blue (written by Dewayne Blackwell)
5. I’m a Fool for You (Take 2)
6. Blowin’ in the Wind
7. One Too Many Mornings
8. A Satisfied Mind (written by Joe Hayes and Jack Rhodes)
9. It Ain’t Me, Babe
10. My Woman She’s A-Leavin’
11. Mary Lou, I Love You Too
12. Dress it up, Better Have it All
13. What’s it Gonna be When it Comes Up
14. Wild Wolf
15. If I Were A Carpenter (written by James Timothy Hardin)
16. 2 Dollars and 99 Cents
17. Jelly Bean
18. Any Time
19. Down by the Station
20. Hallelujah, I’ve Just Been Moved (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
21. That’s the Breaks
22. Pretty Mary
23. Will the Circle be Unbroken (written by A.P. Carter)
24. She’s on My Mind Again
25. Northern Claim
26. Love is Only Mine
What became know as the ‘Basement Tapes’ sessions began in the “red room” of Bob Dylan’s house, Hi Lo Ha, in upstate New York. “Oddly enough, it was referred to as the ‘red room’, but it was not red,” Jenkins said. ‘At one time, it was probably painted red and the name stuck.”
As for what color the now historic site of the beginnings of the ‘Basement Tapes’ was?
“That information is lost to the sands of time,” said another source close to the project.
For some reason Dylan and company decided to move the sessions to ‘Big Pink,’ the house shared by Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson in West Saugerties, New York. That’s where the rest of the sessions took place.
The musicians who are on these recordings: Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm.
Garth Hudson, who was keyboardist in The Band, and who played on most of the ‘Basement Tapes’ recordings, worked with Canadian music archivist and producer Jan Haust “to restore the deteriorating tapes to pristine sound, with much of this music preserved digitally for the first time,” according to bobdylan.com.
Greil Marcus wrote in his book “Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes”:
There is no common memory, let alone documentation, to provide the exact dates when Bob Dylan and the former Hawks began meeting to try their hand at old songs, or when old songs gave way to a long burst of mockery and novelty (“Bob would be running through an old song,” Robbie Robertson says, “and he’d say, ‘Maybe there’s anew song to be had here'”). Certainly they began playing, and occasionally taping the results, in the Red Room in Dylan’s house in Woodstock. Most of the commonplace or covered material, the least finished and sure, from Ian and Sylvia hits to “Johnny Todd,” from Johnny Cash classics to “Cool Water,” comes from there, beginning in the early summer of 1967. The basement of Big Pink, the house Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel were renting in West Saugerties, was more of a hideaway, or a hideout. Sessions there went on through the summer, then off and on through the rest of the year and into the next. The first few months produced most of the best-known basement originals, and the series of parodies and breakdowns that stretches from “Tupelo” through “I’m in the Mood” into “See You Later, Allen Ginsberg.”
The deluxe edition will include these songs:
BOB DYLAN – THE BASEMENT TAPES COMPLETE:
THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 11
(all songs written by Bob Dylan unless otherwise noted)
CD 1
1. Edge of the Ocean
2. My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It (written by Clarence Williams)
3. Roll on Train
4. Mr. Blue (written by Dewayne Blackwell)
5. Belshazzar (written by Johnny Cash)
6. I Forgot to Remember to Forget (written by Charlie A Feathers and Stanley A Kesler)
7. You Win Again (written by Hank Williams)
8. Still in Town (written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard)
9. Waltzing with Sin (written by Sonny Burns and Red Hayes)
10. Big River (Take 1) (written by Johnny Cash)
11. Big River (Take 2) (written by Johnny Cash)
12. Folsom Prison Blues (written by Johnny Cash)
13. Bells of Rhymney (written by Idris Davies and Peter Seeger)
14. Spanish is the Loving Tongue
15. Under Control
16. Ol’ Roison the Beau (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
17. I’m Guilty of Loving You
18. Cool Water (written by Bob Nolan)
19. The Auld Triangle (written by Brendan Francis Behan)
20. Po’ Lazarus (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
21. I’m a Fool for You (Take 1)
22. I’m a Fool for You (Take 2)
CD 2
1. Johnny Todd (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
2. Tupelo (written by John Lee Hooker)
3. Kickin’ My Dog Around (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
4. See You Later Allen Ginsberg (Take 1)
5. See You Later Allen Ginsberg (Take 2)
6. Tiny Montgomery
7. Big Dog
8. I’m Your Teenage Prayer
9. Four Strong Winds (written by Ian Tyson)
10. The French Girl (Take 1) (written by Ian Tyson and Sylvia Tyson)
11. The French Girl (Take 2) (written by Ian Tyson and Sylvia Tyson)
12. Joshua Gone Barbados (written by Eric Von Schmidt)
13. I’m in the Mood (written by Bernard Besman and John Lee Hooker)
14. Baby Ain’t That Fine (written by Dallas Frazier)
15. Rock, Salt and Nails (written by Bruce Phillips)
16. A Fool Such As I (written by William Marvin Trader)
17. Song for Canada (written by Pete Gzowski and Ian Tyson)
18. People Get Ready (written by Curtis L Mayfield)
19. I Don’t Hurt Anymore (written By Donald I Robertson and Walter E Rollins)
20. Be Careful of Stones That You Throw (written by Benjamin Lee Blankenship)
21. One Man’s Loss
22. Lock Your Door
23. Baby, Won’t You be My Baby
24. Try Me Little Girl
25. I Can’t Make it Alone
26. Don’t You Try Me Now
CD 3
1. Young but Daily Growing (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
2. Bonnie Ship the Diamond (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
3. The Hills of Mexico (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
4. Down on Me (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
5. One for the Road
6. I’m Alright
7. Million Dollar Bash (Take 1)
8. Million Dollar Bash (Take 2)
9. Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread (Take 1)
10. Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread (Take 2)
11. I’m Not There
12. Please Mrs. Henry
13. Crash on the Levee (Take 1)
14. Crash on the Levee (Take 2)
15. Lo and Behold! (Take 1)
16. Lo and Behold! (Take 2)
17. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Take 1)
18. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (Take 2)
19. I Shall be Released (Take 1)
20. I Shall be Released (Take 2)
21. This Wheel’s on Fire (written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko)
22. Too Much of Nothing (Take 1)
23. Too Much of Nothing (Take 2)
CD 4
1. Tears of Rage (Take 1) (written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel)
2. Tears of Rage (Take 2) (written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel)
3. Tears of Rage (Take 3) (written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel)
4. Quinn the Eskimo (Take 1)
5. Quinn the Eskimo (Take 2)
6. Open the Door Homer (Take 1)
7. Open the Door Homer (Take 2)
8. Open the Door Homer (Take 3)
9. Nothing Was Delivered (Take 1)
10. Nothing Was Delivered (Take 2)
11. Nothing Was Delivered (Take 3)
12. All American Boy (written by Bobby Bare)
13. Sign on the Cross
14. Odds and Ends (Take 1)
15. Odds and Ends (Take 2)
16. Get Your Rocks Off
17. Clothes Line Saga
18. Apple Suckling Tree (Take 1)
19. Apple Suckling Tree (Take 2)
20. Don’t Ya Tell Henry
21. Bourbon Street
CD 5
1. Blowin’ in the Wind
2. One Too Many Mornings
3. A Satisfied Mind (written by Joe Hayes and Jack Rhodes)
4. It Ain’t Me, Babe
5. Ain’t No More Cane (Take 1) (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
6. Ain’t No More Cane (Take 2) (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
7. My Woman She’s A-Leavin’
8. Santa-Fe
9. Mary Lou, I Love You Too
10. Dress it up, Better Have it All
11. Minstrel Boy
12. Silent Weekend
13. What’s it Gonna be When it Comes Up
14. 900 Miles from My Home (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
15. Wildwood Flower (written by A.P. Carter)
16. One Kind Favor (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
17. She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
18. It’s the Flight of the Bumblebee
19. Wild Wolf
20. Goin’ to Acapulco
21. Gonna Get You Now
22. If I Were A Carpenter (written by James Timothy Hardin)
23. Confidential (written by Dorina Morgan)
24. All You Have to do is Dream (Take 1)
25. All You Have to do is Dream (Take 2)
CD 6
1. 2 Dollars and 99 Cents
2. Jelly Bean
3. Any Time
4. Down by the Station
5. Hallelujah, I’ve Just Been Moved (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
6. That’s the Breaks
7. Pretty Mary
8. Will the Circle be Unbroken (written by A.P. Carter)
9. King of France
10. She’s on My Mind Again
11. Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
12. On a Rainy Afternoon
13. I Can’t Come in with a Broken Heart
14. Next Time on the Highway
15. Northern Claim
16. Love is Only Mine
17. Silhouettes (written by Bob Crewe and Frank C Slay Jr.)
18. Bring it on Home
19. Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies (Traditional, arranged by Bob Dylan)
20. The Spanish Song (Take 1)
21. The Spanish Song (Take 2)
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On August 28, 1963 Bob Dylan was at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. for the “March On Washington,” performing “When The Ship Comes In” with Joan Baez and “Only A Pawn In Their Game” solo before Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his remarkable “I have a dream” speech.
The video below not only shows Dylan performing the first song with Baez and the second alone, but lets us get a sense of what the event was like.
This was “one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history,” according to Wikipedia.
Peter, Paul & Mary sing “Blowin’ In The Wind” at the March On Washington”:
Peter, Paul & Mary sing “If I Had a Hammer”:
This video includes some of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous speech:
If you just want to hear Dylan’s songs, here they are:
“When The Ship Comes In,” August 28, 1963 (performed with Joan Baez at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.):
“Only A Pawn In Their Game,” August 28, 1963 (performed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.):
A year ago, on August 26 in Europe, and on August 27 in the U.S., a masterpiece comprised of recordings Bob Dylan made in 1969, 1970 and 1971 was released.
It was such a joy to hear the songs on Another Self Portrait, (1969-1971) – The Bootleg Series Vol. 10, which included an amazing version of the old folk song, “Pretty Saro,” wonderful demos of “I Went To See The Gypsy” and “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” and so many more.
While I always liked the original Self Portrait, Another Self Portrait is the better album. Of the songs that appeared on Self Portrait, for Another Self Portrait the Nashville overdubs were removed. Overall, what we get are much more intimate versions of those songs, plus many songs that Dylan chose not to release on Self Portrait. Plus a previously unreleased (officially, anyway) ‘Basement Tapes’ gem, “Minstrel Boy.”
But really, we don’t have to choose between those albums, as they both now exist.
I wrote a lengthy review of Another Self Portrait which you can read here.
For me, “Pretty Saro” remains the standout track because of both how Dylan’s voice sounds, and the way he sings the song.
“Pretty Saro”:
Below is a very cool 11 minute mini-documentary on the making of Another Self Portrait. If you haven’t yet seen it, now is the time.
OK, so I’ve posted this landmark set before, but someone just uploaded most of it again yesterday so why not give it another listen.
This never gets old for me.
This was Bob Dylan’s first public electric performance (OK, of course he played rock ‘n’ roll as a teenager, but after he started making records as a folk singer, this was the first electric show).
This took place on Sunday, July 25, 1965.
Here’s audio for the set opener, “Maggie’s Farm”:
This clip is the audio with the exception of “Maggie’s Farm.”
0:00 – Pre-show/Intro
2:20 – Maggie’s Farm (BLOCKED – Can be seen in “The Other Side of the Mirror”)
8:07 – Like a Rolling Stone
14:39 – Phantom Engineer (It Takes a lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry)
18:00 – Intermission/Intro
22:04 – It’s all Over Now, Baby Blue
29:34 – Mr. Tambourine Man
Here’s some of the video but no audio:
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Copy of the handwritten lyrics to ‘Nothing To It.’
Last year a box of lyrics that Bob Dylan had written during the summer of 1967 for songs that he never wrote music for, or recorded, was given to producer T Bone Burnett.
Now, for the first time, we get to see what the original page on which Dylan wrote the lyrics to one of the songs that will appear on the Burnett-produced album Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes, looks like.
That song, “Nothing To It,” was released as a lyric video the other day.
Examining Dylan’s page of lyrics, we can see how Jim James rearranged the order of the verses and chorus for his version of the song.
The lyrics, as written by Bob Dylan:
You don’t have to turn your pockets inside out
But I’m sure you can give me something
You don’t have to go into your bank account
but I’m sure you don’t have to give me nothing
I knew that I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
for I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
There was no organization I wanted to join
So I stayed by myself and took out a coin
There I saw sat in with my eyes in my hand –
contemplating killing a man – for
Greed was one thing I just couldn’t stand
If I was you, I’d put back what I took
A guilty man has got a guilty look
Heads I will and tails I won’t
So the decision wouldn’t be my own
The lyrics as sung by Jim James:
Well I knew I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
‘Cause I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
There was no organization I wanted to join
So I stayed by myself and took out a coin
There I sat with my eyes in my hand –
just contemplating killing a man – for
Greed was one thing I just couldn’t stand
If I was you, I’d put back what I took
A guilty man’s got a guilty look
Heads I will and tails I won’t
Long as the call wouldn’t be my own
Well you don’t have to turn your pockets inside out
But I’m sure you can give me something
Well you don’t have to go into your bank account
but I’m sure you can give me something
Well I knew I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
‘Cause I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
Well I knew I was young enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
‘Cause I’d already seen it done enough
And I knew there was nothing to it
And I knew there was nothing to it
And I knew there was nothing to it
And I knew there was nothing to it
And I knew there was nothing to it
So the changes Jim James made amount to starting the song with the chorus, then singing what follows after the chorus, then singing what for Dylan is the first verse, and then a return to the chorus.
And there’s one other change.
As Dylan wrote it, the first verse ends with the line:
but I’m sure you don’t have to give me nothing
But James repeats the second line of the first verse instead:
but I’m sure you can give me something
Check it out:
I’m looking forward to seeing what Burnett and his crew did with the rest of the lyrics. This one is an auspicious first song.
[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” I’ve got a Goodreads. book giveaway going right now. Click here and enter.]
T Bone Burnett has produced an album based on unfinished lyrics Bob Dylan write while recording the songs that became known as the ‘Basement Tapes’ in 1967.
This song is called “Nothing To It.”
Jim James sings with musical help from Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford.
