POLLING THUNDER REVUE: The Bob Dylan Poll Results Thread (He Acts Like We Never Have Met)

Sometimes I do think about how you could create an entire “alternative Dylan canon” solely out of the Bootleg Series releases, and how it would dominate almost as (or even more?) strongly as his “official” canon.

If I had to choose to only listen to one for the rest of my life I would 100% choose the Bootleg series

Telltale Signs!

Honestly, just the Vol. 1-3 set alone is like the #1 Dylan thing to own.

Those are both great

Bob had really terrible judgment about what he left off records

can you understand his pain?

No

I love Desire. It's Dylan's 'turn' west, a sure sign that a writer is running out of ideas, and it's hokey as hell but that's fine. The rhythm section is fucking great.

It’s a short step from the limo to the gutter

Bob had really terrible judgment about what he left off records

Nah, it’s an embarrassment of riches.

I mean you couldn't drop Neighborhood Bully or Union Sundown off Infidels for, oh I don't know, maybe Blind Willie McTell

Infidels is sort of a special case; I imagine most Dylan fans would indeed have liked to see “Willie” and “Foot of Pride” remain on the album. (Wikipedia quotes someone writing that Dylan cut “Willie” because “he didn't feel his tribute lived up to its sources”... I dunno.)

Dylan cut “Willie” and added “Union Sundown,” which was also the lead single; guess he was in a political mood, or someone thought it’d be a hit.

lol at "union sundown" being the lead single. Dylan's back, baby!

Hmm... just did a little digging, and Wikipedia's list of singles may be misleading -- looks like "Union Sundown" may have been a UK single only, and "Sweetheart Like You" was the first U.S. single (w/"Union Sundown" on the B side).

(Honestly, that's even weirder -- why would UK listeners care about "Union Sundown"?)

yes "Sweetheart Like You" was the single -- got a video too iirc.

It reached #55 on the Hot 100 (not... bad?)

his last top sixty single

Blind Willie would have towered weirdly over the rest of Infidels, threatening to dwarf Jokerman

I like the sound of that record and the outtakes but man there are some embarrassing songs

in a way Brownsville Girl would've been better on a bootleg collection

I'm actually ok with "Blind Willie" being a bootleg thing, but probably would prefer "Foot of Pride" on the LP.

(And yet, that song's obscurity made it all the more awesome when Lou Reed performed it on that TV concert.)

^^^ exactly

foot of pride has so many outrageous lines:

Well they'll choose a man for you to meet tonight
You'll play the fool and learn how to walk through doors
How to enter into the gates of paradise
How to carry a burden too heavy to be yours
Yeah, from the stage they'll be tryin' to get water outta rocks
A whore will pass the hat, collect a hundred grand and say thanks
They like to take all this money from sin, build big universities to study in
Sing "Amazing Grace" all the way to the Swiss banks

I love paranoid/post-Christian, crypto-political Bob.

They used to grow food in Kansas
Now they want to grow it on the moon and eat it raw
I can see the day coming when even your home garden
Is gonna be against the law

How to carry a burden too heavy to be yours

The sneer at the end of the verse

Wow for someone who thinks No Direction Home is literally the best rock documentary ever made, this is pretty tasty news

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/bob-dylan-martin-scorsese-rolling-thunder-film-netflix-1203104499/amp/