things you have learned from Bob Dylan

It's Christmas time in Hollis Queens
Mom's cooking chicken and collard greens
Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese
And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees
Decorate the house with lights at night
Snow's on the ground, snow white so bright
In the fireplace is the yule log
Beneath the mistle toe as we drink egg nog
The rhymes you hear are the rhymes of Darryl's
But each and every year we bust Christmas carols

Rhymes so loud and proud you hear it
It's Christmas time and we got the spirit
Jack Frost chillin, the hawk is out
And that's what Christmas is all about
The time is now, the place is here
And the whole wide world is filled with cheer

My name's D.M.C. with the mic in my hand
And I'm chilling and coolin just like a snowman
So open your eyes, lend us an ear
We want to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

"I nver gotten used to it
I just learned to turn it off"

and also, and most importanly "when you ain't got nothin, you got nothin to lose"

...from Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre...

i think thats probably the last most of you will here from me forever, bye

(NB the 'Patriotism is the last refuge. . .' line that precedes the above is better, but that one didn't originate with Bob.)

been doing a fairly exhaustive listen to long-70s dylan (that is, post-Accident), including the full 900-disc basement tapes and blood on the tracks sessions (the latter possibly the least essential release in dylan history, including dylan (1972) and the bootleg series w the cash sessions). haven't heard more of the rolling thunder era than bootleg vol 5 + hard rain-- don't have the recent big RT box because remain a lil skeptical of the band (not the band)'s ramshackle carousel as compared to the band (the actual band)'s platonic tightness on before the flood or the street legal assembly's deranged project on at budokan (the most beautiful music in the world some days)-- but don't have any actual challops as the rolling thunder shows are great and i'd like to have that box.

planet waves pretty underrated, by me at least, tho the double "forever young" remains difficult to get past. the heylin bio blames a "dumb broad"(!) girlfriend of a childhood friend of dylan's, visiting the studio, for killing Bob's confidence by saying of a playback of the slow version "cmon, bob, are you getting mushy in your old age?", hence the inclusion of the peppy version. but she was right, and dylan's weird solution to the problem-- tho admirably dylanesque; and revealing of an instinctive understanding, lacked by clinton heylin, that a problem existed-- was still the wrong move imo when set against the option of cutting the song from the album and never thinking about it again, like it was blind willie mctell.

interesting tho that this destructive intervention (destructive from the perspective of clinton heylin, his source the engineer, and presumably many fans) comes from a hibbing connection. the same thing happens in 1975, when it's dylan's brother david who says the blood on the tracks recordings from new york don't have a "commercial sound" (like he's f murray abraham as fake albert grossman and his rock star brother is nervous supplicant oscar isaac as fake not-bob-dylan) and arranges the minneapolis re-recordings. this too is not a total success-- the minneapolis arrangement benefits "tangled" imo because extra layers of distance and embroidery are only fuel to that song, and playing "idiot wind" angry adds friction that isn't there when playing the mostly-rueful lyrics straight; but polishing up "you're a big girl now" makes it sleazier, and while i get being nervous about "jack of hearts" as unaccompanied nine-minute ballad that relentless eight-minute ONE-two-ONE-two just wasn't the answer. but what frustrates heylin types as an inexplicable moment of (in-character) insecure self-sabotage while in the very act of painting his masterpiece makes more sense as (in-character) instinctive understanding that some final swerve is necessary to finish it. once again the imperfect solution he goes with comes from someone who grew up with him. this kind of last-minute openness to the awareness that something needs to change even if the change is partly destructive is something i'm trying to learn from bob dylan.

sorry-- dylan (1973).

Heylin's a classic example of a thorough reporter trapped in the shell of a third-rate thinker.

yeah-- the book is v good-- comprehensive, as interested in noncanonical periods as in blood on the tracks or blanchett-dylan, full of quotes and conflicting POVs and readings (not just in oral-history-style blocks but constantly woven thru the functional and effective narrative prose). then, constantly, at the same time, alongside all that: clinton heylin's opinions

I love that moment during Empire Burlesque where he essentially shrieks at the possibility that Arthur Baker's turning Bobby into New Order.

found myself moved (again educationally) by this description from the a&r exec he (dylan not heylin) was shacked up w on the outs from sara:

He would do his writing early in the morning and then kinda materialize around midday... It was in the notebook, but he would play it, and ask me what I thought, and it was always different, every single time, he would just change it and change it and change it.

"he would just change it and change it and change it" obv a dylan fan's core/heart music, but also funny to think about as a realization in context, while listening to the songs your boyfriend spends all morning every morning writing about his wife.

That last reminds me: over on Is Bob Dylan Overrated?, I mentioned some things about BOTT reported by Ray Padgett, who runs the Flagging Down The Double E e-newsletter (frequently incl. free downloads, though more if you subscribe):for inst, his contact at the Guthrie-Dylan Center says that they have a set of little notebooks with revealing early drafts of lyrics.
Sounds like you did learn something from comparative listening, even if More Blood, More Tracks dis his least necessary release ever/so far.
Also on that thread: good comments, esp. from Lily Dale, on some of those Tracks tracks, and though I still don't like the way "Lily, Rosemary..." actually sounds, I love what LD says about it, and am reminded of a passing mention by Dylan of being influenced by what he learned in recent art classes, considering the sense of time in paintings, and somebody else picks up on that, also recent good related comments by her and pinefox

Heylin's a classic example of a thorough reporter trapped in the shell of a third-rate thinker.

LMAO. Pretty much. Some of his books can be essential references simply for the amount of data they collect, but the writing can be very frustrating, especially as Heylin has grown more and more petty, feeling a constant need to lash out at other writers for no apparent reason.

His Welles book I threw against the wall enough times for my neighbors to worry.

Hah! I agree, not a good book. I think the only non-Dylan Heylin book I can recommend is From the Velvets to the Voidoids. IIRC, it's like 90% oral history, which helps, and there's a thorough discography that was probably very useful at the time since it lists a lot of lesser-known records.

Re: the RTR shows, if you get the box or simply want to try one show, December 4, 1975 is the one to listen to.

Personally, I think the Bootleg Series Vol. 5 compilation does an excellent job gathering the best performances. The two exceptions are "Isis" and "Romance in Durango" - the Dec. 4, 1975 performances are definitive, but as mentioned in the liner notes, they were previously released on Biograph which is why for Bootleg Series Vol. 5 they selected earlier performances. Still good, just not quite on part with the Dec. 4 performances.

Planet Waves is underrated. I'm surprised how harsh some of the latter day assessments have been. It's not one of his masterpieces, but the Band sounds terrific. I only wish "You Angel You" had been swapped out for "Nobody 'Cept You," but it's possible the latter never got a satisfactory recording in the studio. (The solo renditions that were done early in the earliest weeks of the 1974 tour were amazing - unfortunately, I don't think a soundboard recording may exist for those performances, only poor quality audience recordings.)

(Forgot to quote dlh before listing those RTR recommendations)

Also should be "on par" not "on part"

Re: Dylan's notebooks and More Blood, More Tracks, the scans in the box's book/liner notes are pretty cool. IIRC there's a page or two missing, which they offered as download, but they never corrected it in print. Let me see if I can find a link.

Turns out, it was actually FOUR missing pages:

News Flash – we are not perfect! Due to a printing error, four pages were left out of the handwritten lyric notebook included in the Deluxe Edition of ‘More Blood, More Tracks.’

Seems to be a later draft - given how his writing habits have been described elsewhere, I think Dylan will often have a lot of working bits on either scrap paper or literally a pile of paper strips, basically a form in which he can edit and re-edit mercilessly, and once he gets to something like a coherent draft, he'll copy that on to a fresh page. What's in these notebook scans seems to be the latter, with some small updates applied.

https://cdn.smehost.net/bobdylancom-uscolumbiaprod/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/BobDylan_MBMT_pages.pdf

But in short, it never fails to impress me how laborious writing used to be, and how some stick with older methods when computers are now ubiquitous.

It's not an uncommon method with these dudes. I watched a YouTube interview with Don Henley, who mentioned he and John Prine would write lines on scraps of paper and throw them in a box. When it's time To Write an Album they put the scraps together.

Paul Morley in YOU LOSE YOURSELF, YOU REAPPEAR says that PLANET WAVES was the first Dylan lp he ever bought and he liked and likes it a lot.

Planet Waves is my favorite Dylan album; I’ve never met anyone who shares this opinion, but I don’t consider it a challop for whatever… it’s just so great and magical to me.

I'm so fortunate I'm not a boomer, hence devoid of received opinions about Dylan's majesty -- I grew up with the Wilburys, Oh Mercy, like that. I never listen to the '60s albums other than JWH, close to my favorite these days. New Morning, Planet Waves, and the albums after "Love and Theft" dominate my listening.

Yeah, Planet Waves is a good one. I always liked the variety of approaches on there.
(All that recently posted on the Loretta Lynn thread about her keeping tons of writing scraps in the fridge, getting some out for Elvis Costello to work with!)
There are some good and not so good passages in Philosophy of Modern Song that def seem to involve the joy of typing, and I've seen pix of his olde manual typescript, with single words, phrases, lines, sometimes a whole verse, pencilled in or out. But I'm sure there have been many scraps and matchbooks along the way as well.

Speaking of Dylan taking advice, bird mentioned on Is Bob Dylan Overrated? that he fired longtime drummer Winston after Van Morrison said to, with Winston standing right there. Which made me think of and mention all the advice he s gets in and acts on in Chronicles. Meetings with remarkable men!

Incl. The Croz and Bono. Bono sends him to Lanois, and Dylan describes how frustrating their studio work could be for all concerned. He admits that he sometimes goes in with scraps of words and a few chords, or possible chords. So input, response, back and forth and back and forth, etc. in studio can be crucial as The Cutting Edge indicates.
(Could imagine that extended co-writes could be credited on some of his stuff, but that could be a given in studio work of some eras, re what I've read.)

Dylan does seem pretty open to input, even if he doesn't always listen or agree. His engineer (and co-producer?) Chris Shaw mentioned suggesting Pro Tools to Dylan, which they finally used on "'Cross the Green Mountain." Up until then everything was done via tape, even the editing and splicing, and it sounds like Dylan went along with it because it was a one-off for a movie rather than an album session. I got the impression it really changed things for Dylan, because he couldn't believe how fast it made things - IIRC he asked Shaw to move an entire stanza, went out for a smoke, and a polished edit had been done, ready for listening. The downside was it changed his expectations where he expected things much faster, hah.

One of the funniest moments on More Blood, More Tracks is when Mick Jagger stops by and suggests using a slide. Dylan puts down the idea, and then he "tries" it for a few seconds in sloppy fashion, as if to get his point across.

what do you all think is the best book about dylan? i haven't read any, except for Chronicles, if that counts.

here is a roundup from a 2014 Slate article, just to provide a foil of sorts:

Dylan’s Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks. I once had a chance to talk Dylan over breakfast with Ricks, the great English literature scholar, so I’m biased perhaps, but I loved this book’s take on Dylan’s lyrics. It also introduced me to lots of other great poetry.

Song and Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan by Michael Gray. A meticulous tour through Dylan’s lyrics with lots of great context.

Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968-2010. Some of the best Dylan criticism. Not every entry a gem but some of my copy is so marked up it looks like a ransom note.

Behind the Shades by Clinton Heylin. I loved this 1991 biography. It was updated 10 years later. Heylin has written quite a lot about Dylan and almost has his own section on my shelf—everything from biography to a meticulous detailing of Dylan recording sessions and tours. He has a strong ego, but he’s a good provocative read.

No Direction Home by Robert Shelton. This is the straight-ahead Dylan bio by the New York Times critic who first wrote about Dylan for the paper. It’s not flashy, but it was the first Dylan book I read and a good place to start.

Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown by David Yaffe. The essay “The Cawing, Derisive Voice” at the start of this thin volume is great.

The Ballad of Bob Dylan by Daniel Mark Epstein. This has a great account of Dylan’s rebirth later in his career and puts it in perspective with 50 years of Dylan’s risk-taking.

Positively 4th Street by David Hajdu. A nicely told story of the early Dylan years and the culture that surrounded his arrival on the Greenwich Village scene.

https://slate.com/culture/2014/05/the-best-books-about-bob-dylan.html

the Ricks book I found a real laff, unintentionally so. Ricks, a lit crit who wrote a useful book on Tennyson, takes Dylan (and Dylan's lyrics) waaaay too seriously.

as Heylin has grown more and more petty, feeling a constant need to lash out at other writers for no apparent reason.

I haven’t read a ton of Heylin, but didn’t he dickishly make a point of excluding Dave Marsh from The Penguin Book Of Rock & Roll Writing?

he also dismisses Kael in the Dylan (and Welles!) book on sexist terms.

Speaking of Dylan books, pinefox has been reading and commenting on Paul Morley's You Lose Yourself, You Reappear over on The (S)word in the Autumn Stone: What Are You Reading, Fall 2022? and I asked him

pinefox, do you know Michael Gray's Song and Dance Man III? Third edition, which only brings it up to 1999, but this was the first one I ever heard of (haven't read it) that really considers. Dylan's writing with performance in mind: voice of the writer and the singer, on record and live. This description is from Google Books, so I'll invoke fair use:

his third edition provides a definitive retrospective appraisal of almost 40 years of work by one of the 20th century's most significant artists. The author provides, in this new edition, fresh material and analysis. The material both updates the book through 1999 and offers major new studies of Dylan's entire oeuvre: notably a vast study of Dylan's use of the huge body of pre-war blues lyric poetry, a major chapter on his adept and knowledgable use of nursery rhyme and a substantial scrutiny of Dylan's prolific use of the Bible. The album-by-album guide has been updated and extended.
The Bible is as performative as blues and nursery rhymes, if Gray does consider that aspect.
His latest might be even more relevant sometimes, with reports from concerts he's attended as well as essays etc.
From Amazon:
Outtakes on Bob Dylan Selected Writings 1967-2021 Hardcover – January 1, 2021
by GRAY Michael (Author)
Michael Gray wrote his first article on Bob Dylan for the counterculture magazine OZ in 1967 when its editor asked him to 'Do an F.R. Leavis on Bob Dylans songs.' Hes been writing about those songs ever since. Alongside his groundbreaking Song & Dance Man trilogy and the massive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, Gray has been bringing his acuity to Dylan's career for newspapers, magazines and journals from the 1960s to the present day. Here we have eye-witness accounts of concerts: from a mercurial 1966 show in Liverpool through to bulletins from glorious, and not so glorious, shows on the Never-Ending Tour. Dylan's blues roots are explored in train rides through Mississippi. On a trip to Hibbing, Gray gets to play the same piano in the same school hall where Dylan hammered out Little Richard numbers in the 1950s. Throughout, Gray turns his critical attention to Dylan's work as it appears, from his immediate perceptive take on 1975's Blood On The Tracks up to a new, extended essay on 2020's Rough And Rowdy Ways. Ever since the pioneering Song & Dance Man in 1972, Michael Gray has been the go-to critic for Dylan fans in search of serious analysis of this most elusive artist's work. In Outtakes On Bob Dylan, we get Gray the man as well as a unique measure of Dylan's long career as it unfolds, not in retrospect but in real time.

Should at least be good for information, whether or not the authors opinionating/attitude sometimes gets in the way, as happens sometimes with Dylan expert Clayton Heylin.

― dow, Saturday, December 24, 2022 2:59 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't have those books by Gray but I have Gray's DYLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA and I actually consult it very often. You could reasonably almost say that it is to Dylan what Thomson's BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY is to film. I don't like all its opinions, though.

― the pinefox, Saturday, December 24, 2022 3:01 PM

oops, not meant to be in italics and bold; it's my comment:

The Bible is as performative as blues and nursery rhymes, if Gray does consider that aspect.
His latest might be even more relevant sometimes, with reports from concerts he's attended as well as essays etc.

THE DYLAN COMPANION

Mike Marqusee's variously named book CHIMES OF FREEDOM

Greil Marcus's INVISIBLE REPUBLIC

I also have Paul Williams' 3 volumes of rapturous responses over the years.

Think it was Heylin who wrote REVOLUTION IN THE AIR: a song by song guide that can be useful.

Tim Riley's book also useful.

have always loved "can you please crawl out your window?" but only just clocked that the boyfriend he wants you to cheat on is your ego

he sits in your room
(his tomb)
with a fistful of tacks,
preoccupied with his vengance,
cursing the dead
that can't answer him back.
you know that he has no intentions
of looking your way,
unless it's to say
that he needs you to test his inventions.

hey.
come crawl out your window.
use your hands and legs. it won't ruin you.
how can you say he will haunt you?
you can go back to him anytime you want to.

he looks so truthful--
is this how he feels?
trying to peel the moon and expose it?
with his businesslike anger,
and his bloodhounds that kneel;
if he needs a third eye he just grows it.
he just needs you to talk,
or to hand him his chalk,
or pick it up after he throws it.

hey.
please crawl out your window.
oh, use your hands and legs. it won't ruin you.
how can you say he will haunt you?
you can go back to him anytime you want to.

he looks so righteous,
while your face is so changed,
as you sit on the box you keep him in;
while his genocide fools
(and his friends) rearrange
their religion of the little tin women,
that backs up their views--
but your face is so bruised.
crawl out.
the dark is just beginning.

hey.
please come out your window.
oh, use your hands and legs.
it won't ruin you.
how can you say he will haunt you
when you can go back to him
anytime that you want to?

you got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
if you won't come out your window

just come out your window

oh my god

Hurricane was probably the first song I heard that really tackled institutional racism.

don't forget that you are whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite

Hurricane was probably the first song I heard that really tackled institutional racism.

― ian, Sunday, February 26, 2023 7:55 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also: it tackled shouting, out-of-tune fiddles, and giving hope to French lyricists.

That son of a bitch is brave and gettin' braver
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim

ACAB

xpost

I love the fiddle so that makes a lot of sense.

we want to pin this triple mur-
-der
on him!

yes, that is the correct phrasing.

realized while listening to rolling thunder stuff the other day that he's playing hattie carroll because its combination of frame-by-frame cinema with entire parenthetical verses of exposition about the characters / their society is what he's doing again (for just about the first time since?) in hurricane-- tho on the other side of an extra decade of alienation, so his protag now has to be a wronged "champion", instead of a maid

hurricane's cinema is more ambitious tho, all those scenes, time jumps, dialogue etc

Hurricane shouldn't work as well as it does. It's like how people used to say a bumble bee doesn't make sense on paper and shouldn't fly, but it does.

I'm watching Harley on HBOmax and there's a gag about a movie being made depicting the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents. It's called "A Hard Wayne's Gonna Fall."

"Hurricane" absorbs Godard-indebted ci-ne-mah better than (the clips I've seen of) Renata and Clara, and I'll give it credit for being strident during a soporific era, but it don't do much for me.

"Tangled Up in Blue" as Möbius strip where Joan Baez, Rimbaud, fishing villages, and the laaaaces of his shooooes turns into Ford-era anomie also convincing.

the movie is called renaldo and clara, jacques levy was a guy from new york named jacques, new orleans is a large city, and ci-ne-mah is just how it's pronounced

second half of hurricane kind of wobbles and blurs into pomposity for me-- "the palm of some fool's hand", "rubin sits like buddha", the interlude where bob describes rubin carter's personal private idyll and it's being in the mountains by a stream riding a horse and you're like surely that's you, bob, you are thinking of you, again-- but man the action+dialogue in the first half.

(the best dylan movies are all from the late 80s for some reason: "brownsville girl", "tweeter and the monkey man", "dignity". i think he was watching a lot of tv.)

Renata and Clara is about a would-be second-tier experimental novelist and her ungrateful daughter; Allen Ginsberg co-stars as the lover they share.

i really learned a lot
i really learned a lot

I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too

you'll find out when you reach the top
you're on the bottom

remember some concert where van morrison speaks these lines in awe

have always loved "can you please crawl out your window?" but only just clocked that the boyfriend he wants you to cheat on is your ego

― difficult listening hour, Sunday, February 26, 2023 7:48 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Still kind of blown away by this, thanks.

Also one of many examples of Dylan's three-way shifting perspective songs (Tangled up in Blue, She's Your Love Now, Like a Rolling Stone) where he's ostensibly talking to a woman/former lover and/or her new love but one of people is really Dylan himself.

making love to his ego

So, Dylan is "Napoleon in rags" with the language...

I saw what you did there, Alfred.

Still kind of blown away by this, thanks.

had always taken this anecdote as being about nothing more than amphetamines and a specific already well-displayed brand of personal assholism: but now it actually makes a lot of sense to me that this is the song phil ochs got thrown out of the car and called a "journalist" for failing to sufficiently appreciate lol

xp Zimmy played guitar

how are you? he said to me
so I said back to him

^BARS

I always follow his advice not to put on any airs when I'm down on Rue Morgue Avenue

a good tip about the cops in that one too

how are you? he said to me
so I said back to him

this is a real textbook made-by-delivery (+ placement in the melody) one-- the gypsy speaks in a grandiose howl and bob w rapid self-effacement: HOW AAAAARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU HEEEEEEEEEEE SAID TO MEEEE III saiditbacktohim

You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you.

A rare post-folk-era, pre-Christian-era instance of Dylan putting something like a moral code into explicit words.

I don’t know who the “he” is in “…Window”; but I’d probably also throw someone out of my car if I had written it, and they didn’t appreciate it. I think it has a few of Dylan’s most remarkable lines (even by the standards of this period).

A rare post-folk-era, pre-Christian-era instance of Dylan putting something like a moral code into explicit words.

another classic along these lines is "to live outside the law you must be honest"-- appreciate that almost alone amongst his bartlettsisms this is not from a counterculture anthem (whether early-60s-earnest or mid-60s-hip) but from a country-rock crooner about blueballs

"Can you cook and sew, make flowers grow/Do you understand my pain?" reminded me that the heterosexual brain is pretty fucked up.

spent the last month listening to the whole 18-disc cutting edge for the second time. incredible how much the vibe changes the instant they move the blonde on blonde sessions to nashville. a lot of it seems down to (or at least reflected in) bob johnston, who in NYC is just rolling tape and saying take numbers but on his home turf is shouting out arrangement advice all the time. dylan too goes from miserable and bitchy to ooh let's-try-this let's-try-that; it's nice. of course it makes sense that music row ultrapros would be helpful for a guy who needs to wander around in the studio making up lyrics and distending his structures on a dime (the only time he ever gets pissy in nashville is at the very end, his expectations raised, calling off a take of "obviously 5 believers": "what the fuck. this is very easy, man. it's very easy to do") but it's still surprising it's his soulmates the hawks he can't gel with in NYC! and then he'll come back from nashville and do the 66 tour and the basement tapes w them back-to-back. weird. gotta stay flexible is the lesson here.

"to live outside the law you must be honest"

Memorably used by DC Comics in a 1980s print ad for Batman and the Outsiders

xp I listening to the 18-disc Cutting Edge from end to end during lockdown and it was indeed revelatory. And I always wondered why he didn't use the Hawks for all of Blonde on Blonde because they were so great on the 1966 tour and on the few cuts that he did put out with them...there was no question that he made the right decision after hearing those sessions, and I felt sorry but Richard Manuel because he seemed to get the brunt of Dylan's complaints. "Like THIS! Play it like THIS Richard!!"

lol yes

tbh i gasped when (and despite my lovvvvvvvvving take 8 of visions of johanna-- it's still "wrong" but the rave-up sound is so good) he stops a take to be like "no, it's softer, there's nothing hard in it, the only thing that's hard is robbie": they can't give him what he wants but he can already hear the nashville version in his head

btw per yr earlier recc:

Re: the RTR shows, if you get the box or simply want to try one show, December 4, 1975 is the one to listen to.

i did end up getting the box lol and it is just pure ecstasy, i went to a diff rolling thunder show every night for a week-- but yes you were otm, "just listen to 12/4" is what i'd say to all but the most hopeless sickos.

a lot of copy in the box+advertising like wow it's incredible to hear these songs evolve night-to-night-- but it isn't rly lol; they don't, much. (the rehearsals are kinda interesting.) as i said tho no complaints whatever.

Yeah, not that I can remember either - at least for those shows, they just have the one arrangement for any given song, so really the only thing different is how they execute it. Dylan's phrasing will change, there may be different guitar solos, tempos can vary, but I wouldn't say the music was evolving. They do get better as they spend more time together - the first show in the set sounds a bit tentative compared to the later shows.

appreciated the varying setlist in the baez duet + small-band sections tho (another reason the swollen 12/4 show is ideal). "i dreamed i saw st. augustine"!!

feeling myself sliding towards the 66 box sigh.

It's actually a good time to buy the 66 box set. Every once in a while I'll see a listing for a used copy in excellent shape for $50. I think it retailed for well over $100.

Yeah looking at Discogs (avoid the counterfeits - the ones from China are probably pirated copies) you can get mint copies in the U.S. shipped for $70. If you're patient and don't need a mint copy, I'm sure you can find them for much less.

gonna save my money and rip it up

dlh, I love you always and forever, but 15 hours of Dylan is not Sátántangó

xp LOL, even better. The electric set from Liverpool is my favorite FWIW, even better than the famous "Judas" show (though it's mono only since it was recorded on D A Pennebaker's Nagra reels - no multi-track recording was done for that show).

Alfred's right though. (Sátántangó is a favorite - even saw it at Lincoln Center in 35mm! They were nice enough to program a one-hour dinner break.)

oh yeah the cutting edge is impossible to recommend tbh: it's only the full sweep of it that's really interesting and anyone interested in the full sweep of it doesn't need you to tell them about it. back to the thread remit tho one of the few moments i'd recommend to civilians is:

"okay i'll do the bridge here." "you know, i can't-- i'm not getting the bridge." "okay, the bridge is this." "i-- what's the second verse in?" "G." "are you playing in G?" "i'm playing this here chord here. i dunno what it is. no. it's not that. it's a minor chord. you can play it! ah, forget it. forget it until you hear it. you can play in F until-- that's it! what was that! that's it!!"

I'll be honest with you, I never thought I'd get through the 18 CD set. The most I had heard was maybe a few hours in the background while I was on a train (alone in a night train car). It wasn't until lockdown when I had a LOT of time to fill that I played it all straight and it surprisingly went down easy. It's an eye opener and it tells you everything you'd want to know about how these albums came together. I hope to do it again someday, but the one time may have been enough.

Yeah, same here...

But, I did have form having obtained the "Fun House Sessions" Stooges box, played it through at least three times!