bob dylan - self portrait

I'm conflicted about BD. I know he's a great songwriter--really I do--and when someone plays me his '70s/'80s stuff or even his last few things, I go, oh yeah, hmm, I almost like it, but then I just get dragged by the backing. I just like all the things that everyone else likes pre-motorcycle wreck, and I do like the basement tapes an awful lot. It's one of those things, I have a few artists I know I should like more I guess, like Van Morrison, but there's something so boring about them, to me...

Plus he's like the Beatles--I'm sick of people telling me he's great. To me Faron Young or Booker T. and the MGs are great, I don't really care one way or the other about Bob Dylan. That's just me--as I say, I recognize his achievement.

I like Nashville Skyline because it seems, musically at least, like a real engagement with country music. The arrangements are taut and well-thought-out, though of course the overall affect is fairly lazy.

Best suspension ever in a pop song: The Bailey Brothers' "Rattlesnake Daddy." You'll think your record is skipping!

1 track is offairly rough sound quality, the rest are Dylan of less intensity, but nothing is 'really bad' to my ears.

But nothing beats the "La la la la's" on Sarah Jane...a classic example of "so bad it's good."

from http://www.bsnpubs.com/elektra/asylumstory.html
-- o. nate (syne_wav...), September 10th, 2004.

interesting. perhaps I misunderstood the records Bob was referring to in Chronicle?

-- Amateurist (-m-t--r-s...), March 17th, 2003.

An excellent question. And, of course, the answer is yes! (Which is not to say that I own this thing.)

How good is "Copper Kettle"?

i hope that made sense.

why is 'self-portrait' so maligned? is just like, cuz greil marcus & 'what is this shit?' i dunno, when i first got into bob and hwy 61, blonde on blonde, and all that, and then finally heard it, i guess i had some fun going along w/ all the critics' laughter and derision. but the more i listen to it the more i'm really confused by its status as 'worst dylan album' (or one of em).

i feel like it just as easily could've been called this great, loose, sprawling work of americana/folk/country/nashville/rock/gospel/ genius - which is kind of what i think it is now! - and could've since become a classic album!

i mean it's a totally, totally different beast, but in terms of drawing from those influences in such a loose, laid-back, spontaneous and disparate way, i kind of see it in some ways as similar to 'exile on main street' - which received lukewarm/negative reviews at first but is now obv called a total classic. why hasn't the same happened to SP?

well, imho there are still some pretty bad tracks on SP. that's not a problem (for me) with Exile. i do get a kick out of a lot of the stuff there though. i do tend to skip tracks, but i've probably listened to Self Portrait more than John Wesley Harding

i do i do

yea i think ur right, it's probably a bit much to compare w/ Exile in that respect. there's a couple lousy tracks. but i just see this other possible universe where SP is an acknowledged classic...

also, i pretty much don't believe people (or even dylan himself) when they say it was a total piss-take to get crazy fans off his back. tho i don't doubt that he anticipated that maybe some of his fanbase might react negatively, i think dylan really put a lot of himself into it

and wouldn't 'nashville skyline', which came right before SP, have tempered people's reactions to this? the croon/smooth voiced dylan? the more country-inflected tone? on the NS poll thread i mentioned that i see this as a companion album to NS in a lot of ways, and it confuses me why one is considered a classic but the other a total misstep. i mean, take out a few of the weaker tracks, give it a little more polish maybe, and you basically have an album that's just as good. i mean 'take me as i am' a number of other tracks are pretty much perfect, and totally fit in w/ that NS style.

i think if Self Portrait hadn't been a double album, it would've been received differently, like a logical step after Nashville Skyline. As it stands, I think people were experiencing a post-60s hangover, where they were suddenly like "oh man, remember Blonde on Blonde? Now that was a double album!" If you put the more straightforward country rock stuff on a single disc and no one would be upset. But there are some songs on SP that would just feel insulting to somebody like Greil Marcus, who has invested so much time and effort into mythmaking with Dylan.

But there are some songs on SP that would just feel insulting to somebody like Greil Marcus, who has invested so much time and effort into mythmaking with Dylan.

haha, yea. admittedly i've read very little of him but am i wrong in saying that marcus can be full of shit? his quote about SP: "unless dylan returns to the marketplace, with a sense of vocation and the ambition to keep up with his own gifts..." keep up w/ his own gifts? man what a dick. what are you, his dad? fuck that shit

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.

I still don't get what's so unusual about The Boxer. Is it the fact that he's covering it at all? It sounds like bob Dylan covering The Boxer to me

I vastly overrate this album, totally love it

Re: the Boxer - it's the shitty overdubbed/doubled vocals

a side effect of getting really into self portrait is "days of '49" is stuck in my head forever

RIP Poker Bill

also another self portrait is def the best bootleg series installment i've heard

yeah, it really makes a strong case for that era

also another self portrait is def the best bootleg series installment i've heard

I was skeptical about that one, but it definitely salvaged this era for me, with enough stuff to improve both New Morning and especially Self Portrait. I think there's a total of 16 studio cuts that are genuine Self Portrait recordings - i.e. the actual master takes without the orchestral overdubs or outtakes that would have been up for consideration - and just programming those together created an album that I mostly enjoyed. Maybe not his best work, but a hell of a lot better than the album he did release.

The Isle of Wight show is fine, not one for the ages but much better than expected. The mixes released on Self Portrait sound incredibly shitty - they finally mixed it properly for the box set and it's a massive improvement. I'm not sure I'd listen to the whole thing again, but "Highway 61 Revisited" is the definite highlight. Greil Marcus's description of it is hilarious: "...[The Band] screamed “OUT ON HIGHWAY 61!” like PCP junkies hustling tourists into the worst whorehouse in Tijuana."

Nice caption on this official DylanCorp Insta post (if you can't beat 'em...).

Haha I thought this revive was gonna be about the guy who returned a 48-years-overdue copy of Self Portrait to the library

https://heightslibrary.org/better-late-than-never-san-francisco-man-returns-bob-dylan-album-48-years-late/

Chum finds Bob Dylan... then THIS happens pic.twitter.com/SXt86nzyfs

— Pawn Stars (@pawnstars) January 16, 2020

Here’s a little more background on that episode… I saw it when it first aired, it was pretty funny

ah 2010. was kinda surprised how spry BD looks. 12 years ago makes a little more sense

I like how this is obviously staged but Dylan does it so half-assed that you can almost believe they really did just randomly run into him on the street

i think all of us vinyl buyers in 2010 can remember how hard it was to buy a used copy for less than $50