Bob Dylan Bootleg Series 7: No Direction Home

The alternate takes on disc 2 are incredible. Some, like Stuck Inside Mobile are radically different. Leopard skin has a different verse at the end, and Desolation row sounds much different, too.

On the whole, I'd say it's better than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be pretty goddamn good.

"They're spoon-feeding Cassanova/to get him to feel more assured"

on the Bootleg Series 7 version, it's:

"They're spoonfeeding Cassanova/the boiled guts of birds"

i can't find the standard "she belongs to me" and can't remember if the electric guitar was similar...but has anyone noticed how much the electic guitar in this version is the exact same sound as sterling morrison's "on pale blue eyes"? evn the phrasing is very similar.

i had read about this months back but had sillily forgotten. thank you to thread starter for reminding me!

it's kind of boggles the mind how much more of this stuff there is--even with 7 volumes of the bootleg series thus far....when Bob dies, he's going to give Miles Davis a run for his money in terms of posthumous releases.

All three tracks of it?

Actually, I agree with you ... if "Maggie's Farm" was already on there, why not include the other two songs as well?

I heard some of Disc 2 yesterday ... I forget his exact words, but the guy who introduced them at Newport did announce that they wouldn't be playing for very long. I hadn't realized that announcement was made -- the oft-repeated story is that the crowd hated the performance because it was electric, but they were equally (if not more) upset that they'd waited all day to see Dylan and he only played for 15 minutes.

The film remains fantastically compelling.

Just saw the movie a few weeks back and got the CD last week. Both are great.

I think my favorite thing is the rocking version of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry". I love that song and I don't think it is necessarily the best take, but the song really works well both ways.

The podcast version of this takes the cake. Longer interviews, less Scorcese bullshit.

huh haven't heard the podcast...where do you get it?
i love this movie, but can't help wishing that they'd let pennebaker go back and do the definitive 1966 tour doc. that footage is mesmerizing.

They had it on iTunes when the show aired. I doubt it is up there anymore.

watch eat the document...if you can stay awake

ha, i like eat the document, at least as a glimpse into dylan's psyche at the time. but it just seems like someone could do a really amazing 66 tour doc with all the footage in the vaults. maybe the best of it was used in no direction home, i dunno.

No Direction Home sucked. WHY did they focus only on Dylan in the sixties?? Everybody already knows what happened to him in the sixties. They couldn't have gone into the Self Portrait disaster?? His divorce inspiring Blood on the Tracks?? His teaming up with Jacques Levy and writing "Hurricane" and "Joey"?? His bizarre Christian phase? His godawful '80s albums?? His critical resurgence from 97-now?? Such a missed opportunity. Maybe there'll be a sequel some day.

the clip of Dylan outside the pet store rearranging the words on all the signs always cracks me up

Watched the first half of that last night on VH1C (& loved ^^^ that scene), but couldn't commit to staying up until 2:30 for the 2nd half.

Most songwriters will never pen one song as good as I Was Young When I Left Home, which Dylan put to tape at age 20 and didn't even bother to include on an album.

It's all true.

His trajectory always amazes me. Any artist who could conjure those really affecting performances like "I Was Young When I Left Home" or his versions of "Barbara Allen" and "House Carpenter" or several dozen other songs from 1960/61/62 would have been content to simply perform in that guise for an entire career. And it would have been an important career. But that he went in a hundred different directions from those early years is simply astonishing to me. Such a brave artist.