Culturespill

Bob Dylan: Outtakes and Oversights

19th June 2008

Bob Dylan’s recording career is replete with tragic omissions that might have turned mediocre albums into masterpieces–and sometimes at the least likely points of his career. In a fit of indulgent self-pity amid his now-infamous period of artistic oblivion in the 1980s, Dylan willfully refused to release some of the greatest songs he ever recorded–songs that might have established the 1980s as one of the most peculiarly fertile moments in his creative life. Many Dylan dorks (myself included) know that he kept from the public such sublimities as “Blind Willie McTell and “Foot of Pride,” recorded during the sessions for 1983’s Infidels with Mark Knopfler on guitar. He similarly refused to allow the great “Series of Dreams” to be included on 1989’s Oh Mercy–despite producer Daniel Lanois’s impassioned arguments to the contrary–taking the attitude that one more Bob Dylan song really doesn’t matter much in the scheme of things, a callous indifference that lends credence to one of two possibilities: 1.) artists really aren’t great judges of their own work, or 2.) Dylan struggled mightily to overcome the deliberate destruction of his reputation that he began after becoming disgusted with his fame in the late 1960s, a disgust that produced Self Portrait in 1969, probably the most famous “fuck you” album ever made (right up there with Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music and Neil Young’s Everybody’s Rockin’).

It was a disgust that Dylan transformed into a concerted and enduring project of public self-destruction. In Chronicles, Vol. 1, Dylan describes going to such lengths as pouring bottles of liquor over his head and wandering around in public wreaking of alcohol to perpetuate the myth that he was little more than a hopeless and washed-up drunk, an artifact of a dead era to be swept under the unclean rug of American culture. In that fabulously written–if occasionally strange–memoir, we also watch Dylan wince on a car ride with Band guitarist R0obbie Robertson as Robbie asks Dylan where he will “take the whole scene,” never considering for a minute whether Dylan had any interest in being nominated Cultural Czar of the world–he clearly did not; and that, more than anything, is exactly the disdainful reluctance that contributed to so many mediocre albums Dylan produced in the wake of his creative renaissance in the 1960s. The music sucked because he wanted it to suck. He wanted to be left alone, and damaging his own reputation as persistently as he did with garbage like Down in the Groove offered him the most likely path to that desired infamy.

Throughout the book he recalls time and again a feeling that the world really did not need another Bob Dylan song, a conviction that made it rather difficult for him to turn what he called “pieces of songs” into the full-fledged comeback album they became in 1997: the brilliant Time out of Mind. Only when he saw fans thirty years his junior sing along to “Love Sick” and “Cold Irons Bound” did he realize that, yes, the world really did need more Bob Dylan songs. More to the point–the world craved them, helping Dylan rediscover an inspiration he’d left behind so long ago.

Some say that the Oh Mercy and Infidels omissions were ultimately of little consequence, because they were eventually released on the 3-disc Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 in 1991. That, of course, is totally beside the point: not only did the electric version of “Blind Willie” never see the light of day, but the withholding of these tracks kept two decent albums from ranking among his very finest at exactly the moment in his career when the world had damn-near left him for dead (and perhaps with good reason.) You only get one chance to make a masterpiece; many great bands fail to produce even one. But to hold one in your hands and send it down the trash-shoot is both inconceivable and tragic.

Bob Dylan: “Band of the Hand,” Band of the Hand (1986)

But the Infidels and Oh Mercy outtakes are merely the better-known instances of this sad pattern in Dylan’s creative life. Other work is scattered across bootlegs, obscure soundtracks and tribute albums–work which proves that, contrary to popular belief, Dylan was still operating on all cylinders in his creative dark ages from the late 1970s and through the 80s–he just didn’t want anyone to know that. Until Columbia Records decides to avail the world of these performances, a full understanding of why Dylan’s name is engraved in the American consciousness is impossible. Just listen to the work he recorded with the Traveling Wilburys–particularly “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”–and tell me he was washed up in the late 80s. To the contrary, the man remained in full possession of his faculties throughout that period, but he chose instead to take a torch to his reputation and stand by watching while it burned.

“Band of the Hand,” a track recorded for a forgotten movie of the same name from 1986, is a devastating tune produced by Tom Petty that Dylan recorded around his Knocked Out Loaded period–it is, predictably, a million times more powerful than anything that unfortunate album offers, and yet it only saw the light of day on the soundtrack to a film nobody remembers. His early-80s masterpiece, “Caribbean Wind” is, in its original form, quite simply one of the best songs the man ever put to tape. But he murdered it later on with Joan Baez and released that pathetic byproduct on Biograph after trying–and failing–to redo the song long after the fire that produced it had faded.

But perhaps no album more thoroughly illustrates this unfortunate mishandling of Dylan’s most inspired recordings than 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Dozens of tracks were recorded for the album, and while only a fraction made the cut and some of those songs went on to define his legacy (”Masters of War,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” or “Blowin’ in the Wind”) a score of absolutely devastating acoustic blues numbers–tracks that foreshadow an early and growing affinity for rock ‘n roll–was tossed to a scrap heap of genius that would grow over the decades. We’re proud to offer a few glimpses of those gems here. Check out these unreleased cuts from the Freewheelin’ sessions, material that Dylan’s label bafflingly allows to languish in the vaults while releasing one inconsequential live set after another (like the 1964 Halloween concert which, compared to the Freewheelin’ outtakes, is an utter bore.) Sadly, the only way to get your hands on this stuff is if you’re lucky enough to live near an indie record shop somewhere in a large city (like NYC) that carries bootlegs (also remember that ebay is your friend.) Click on any of the titles below to hear for yourself . . .

Hero Blues (includes a false start)

Goin’ Down to New Orleans

Witchita

Baby Please Don’t Go

Quit Your Lowdown Ways

That’s Alright Mama (with full band)

Watcha Gonna Do (includes a false start)

Posted in The Spill | Tags: Band of the Hand, Blind Willie McTell, Bob Dylan, Foot of Pride, Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Freewheelin' Outtakes, Mark Knopfler, Tom Petty