bob dylan - self portrait

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.

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!!