bob dylan - self portrait

greil marcus is totally full of shit

maybe not all the time, but at least some of the time, and often when he's talking about dylan

even the different versions of 'like a rolling stone'/'she belongs to me' which are ripped on like crazy - i even think these are great and totally fit in this album. they're basically just more countryfied, rock n roll, barroom versions, not much else - which is great! like some dive band ripping into a cover and everyone's spilling drinks and singing along. it totally takes the bite out of the originals but fits completely w/ what dylan's doing with this whole album & playing around w/ the 'great american songbook' and all that in such a loose and unrefined way

same goes for the 'blue moon' cover, which also got ripped apart. i dunno, sounds just as warm and gorgeous as anything else on 'nashville skyline'

the 'blue moon' cover and what i think dylan's attitude was wrt singing it makes me think of that interview when dylan's talking about the 'anthology of american folk music' and all the greil marcus 'old weird america' cult status that was given to it, but then talks about how great the kingston trio was instead and how much he liked them too

sorry guys i'm just having one of those 'THE CRITICS ARE RONG' moments here

oh who knows, if I had been a hardcore Dylan fan or a critic in 1970, I mighta been as disappointed in Self Portrait as Greil was. I'd say he's only about 50% full of shit when it comes to Dylan. Which is a better percentage than a lot of writers! And yeah, I don't know why the live remakes of "she belongs to me" and "quinn the eskimo" aren't more praised. That's Dylan and the Band at the Isle of Wight -- they should seriously put that whole show out as a Bootleg Series. There are only audience tapes available bootleg-wise. Totally unique and fun show -- the only live appearance of Dylan's country croon.

Belle Isle is beautiful.

yea i would love to hear the rest of that

xp

I like this much more than New Morning which everyone hails as his return to form. It's fun, the covers are interesting, even when not all that great (though I always laugh at his version of "The Boxer"). However, keep in mind that I'm one of those people that finds Dylan a blast and wish it was in print. More people need to hear his "Mr. Bojangles."

yeah, seems a little unlikely they'll officially release it since it's sort of a weird show. great, but weird. Would be nice if Dylan started a "Dick's Picks" kinda thing, officially releasing some great live shows from his archives. Not that there aren't enough live bootlegs out there to last a lifetime, but I think a dozen or so well-chosen sets from over the years would be great.

btw if you like this era Dylan check out the comp of outtakes I posted on my blog here: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/100814102/winterlude-the-early-word-on-the-new-dylan-album i think the Johnny Cash covers are from the Self Portrait sessions actually.

xps - i love new morning too. i've basically just had a great time getting into this period of dylan lately - everything from JWH, NS, new morning, pat garrett, planet waves, - i often feel like there's some kind of weird position some people have that between 'blonde on blonde' and 'blood on the tracks' there's not a whole lot worth listening to, which is so, so wrong.

awesome, thanks tylerw!

downloaded that right away

also goddam, what a great cover
http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/b/bob-dylan/album-self-portrait.jpg
haha, do you think that is actually a self portrait?

haha i heard that it is, right? didn't he say he did it in like 5 minutes?

yeah: "And then I did this portrait for the cover. I mean, there was no title for that album. I knew somebody who had some paints and a square canvas, and I did the cover up in about five minutes. And I said, 'Well, I'm gonna call this album Self Portrait.'"

actually, the title probably has something to do with the super-negative reaction the record got when it came out. sounds so serious and soul-baring, but it must've felt like a big "fuck you" at the time.

Dylan's explanation of the album as his own bootleg is interesting too: "Self Portrait was a bunch of tracks that we'd done all the time I'd gone to Nashville. We did that stuff to get a studio sound. To open up we'd do two or three songs, just to get things right and then we'd go on and do what we were going to do. And then there was a lot of other stuff that was just on the shelf. But I was being bootlegged at the time and a lot of stuff that was worse was appearing on bootleg records. So I just figured I'd put all this stuff together and put it out, my own bootleg record, so to speak. You know, if it actually had been a bootleg record, people probably would have sneaked around to buy it and played it for each other secretly. Also, I wasn't going to be anybody's puppet and I figured this record would put an end to that...I was just so fed up with all that who people thought I was nonsense."

That's not a piss-take: it's from the notoriously bad Isle of Wight performance.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, March 17, 2003 9:40 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

I kind of like the four Isle of Wight songs..i thought i read somewhere that the show is great

I'm kinda glad I never really read a whole lot about this album before I finally got around to hearing it for the first time tonight, because I quite like it! Yeah, obviously nowhere near as good as any of his previous albums, but not at all deserving of the bad rep imho.

copper kettle's the best. contains essential fire building advise:

Build you a fire with hickory, hickory, ash and oak
Don't use no green or rotten wood, they'll get you by the smoke

I forgot more
than you
'll ever know
about her

this mighty Quinn is the one. i mean I like some of the others but

this record is sooo good it's ridiculous. i swear i'm not trying to be contrarian, but i've never liked blood on the tracks, except for 'you're a big girl now'. why was this viewed as his intentionally bad record? yeh, the live cuts of quinn and rolling stone are goofy takes, but man there are some amazing cuts on this record. totally rivals nashville skyline imo. the song about moonshine is to die for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nSkhxA7FPg

insanely good

also totally didn't read this thread so sorry if i'm retreading old ground

whatevs! \O/

o wait mighty quinn is a goof on this? :(

bob dylan's most stridently earnest moments have fickle twists he is the mobius soft pretzel of american song

mighty quinn is good on this, from the isle of wight show with the band. the rolling stone is pretty hilarious though, probably the worst performance from that show!
i'd love it if columbia put the whole wight show out though, there's some great stuff.

Still love this album. So good.

An ex-girlfriend's parents had this as their only Dylan CD. It keeps on popping into my mind. They were kind of into music without being really into music. We even went to a Dylan show together, the four of us. I hated seeing that one Dylan CD they owned. I felt like saying, "You know this is supposed to be really bad don't you?" but I didn't do it. Maybe I would've sounded like a dick. Maybe they didn't even play it anyway. Sometimes I am disproportionately afraid that I too have spoiled my record collection by having other artists' equivalents of Self Portrait as my only selection by them.

hah

hee hee that's great. dylan would probably be pleased that it was the only CD they had of his. it's presented so seriously, with that arty cover and the name "self portrait." i can kind of see someone who was a little clueless thinking it was like a greatest hits or something. and if they saw that "like a rolling stone" was included...

I like 'Copper Kettle' too, especially the vocal on the last verse & chorus, and the weird solemnity/archaism of some of the lyrics - 'and nevermore you'll toil', etc.

"it's presented so seriously, with that arty cover and the name "self portrait."'

my mom bought Cpowers "The Greatest" under the assumption that it was indeed a greatest hits. also, wondered why 'moonshiner' wasnt on it

my mom bought Cpowers "The Greatest" under the assumption that it was indeed a greatest hits.

good grief, i am so old!!

30 here

mama likes her records though

hers as in the ones in her house not nec chan marshall one

this is a great record to appreciate with a lot of distance from all the "meaning" dylan was weighted with at the time (and according to him, that's part of why he did the record, to try to shake off some of that meaning). Some of the covers hold up very nicely against the sort of country-folk-rock "rarities" of the era that have garnered attention since then, and some of the originals are good too. All the Tired Horses is cool as shit imo, and sounds 10-15 years ahead of its time.

here's that RSD self portrait outtake -- not mindblowing but pretty good! http://xzyoe.tumblr.com/post/48617452950/thirsty-boots-bob-dylan

i did that song!

excited for this upcoming bootleg series i want all kindsa mellowed out piano dylan stuff for summer day listening

goddamn i shoulda bought this on RSD

guess you can get it for kinda cheap here: http://www.amazon.com/Bob-Dylan-Thirsty-Exclusive-Release/dp/B00CF6XCW0
yeah, i feel like this is the dylan i actually want to listen to because now i am a mellowed out dude in my mid-30s in colorado.

it took me a while to accept New Morning as my personal favorite Dylan album, though i know many others are objectively better i haven't wanted to listen to them for a long time really, only other ones i pull out much besides new morning is desire and the rolling thunder bootleg series live one

i'm pretty much all about john wesley harding through planet waves these days. with some dips into street legal and the gospel years. i'm in deep!

nashville skyline has been my personal fave for a long time.

i sound intelligent upthread; that will probably never happen again.

i should listen to john wesley harding

i kinda stan for infidels for some reason even though i know it's not that great really