BOB DYLAN: SELF PORTRAIT (1970)
1) All The Tired Horses; 2)
Alberta #4; 3) I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know; 4) Days Of '49; 5) Early
Mornin' Rain; 6) In Search Of Little Sadie; 7) Let It Be Me; 8) Little Sadie;
9) Woogie Boogie; 10) Belle Isle; 11) Living The Blues; 12) Like A Rolling
Stone; 13) Copper Kettle; 14) Gotta Travel On; 15) Blue Moon; 16) The Boxer;
17) Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn); 18) Take Me As I Am; 19) Take A
Message To Mary; 20) It Hurts Me Too; 21) Minstrel Boy; 22) She Belongs To Me;
23) Wigwam; 24) Alberta #2.
«All the tired horses in the sun, how'm I
s'posed to get any writing done?» God
bless you, Bob Dylan, for always finding a way to make good use of those
uncomfortable phonetic mergers in the English language. He was joking, of
course, but this time around, people were not amused. They would tolerate an
electric Dylan, a psychedelic Dylan, a locked-up recuperating Dylan, a mystical
rootsy Dylan, even Dylan the country gentleman — but their patience exploded
when they got the evilest of 'em all: a singing,
but not songwriting Dylan.
Years later, Bob himself would cautiously
«disown» the record, saying that this was simply his most successful attempt at
fan alienation — surely, if ʽJohn Wesley Hardingʼ could not stop people from
regarding him as the Messiah, and if even ʽCountry Pieʼ was not enough, then at
least ʽBlue Moonʼ and a Gordon Lightfoot tribute would do the trick. But this
is not highly likely: Dylan was so well used to each of his unpredictable moves
perceived as yet another display of his eccentric brilliance that he must have expected a warm reception for Self Portrait as well; otherwise, if
he really got what he wanted with all
that backlash, why all the fuss to remedy the situation as quickly as possible
by releasing the self-penned New Morning
just a few months later, without letting all that disgust and disillusionment
«sink in» more properly?
I was fortunate enough to sit through my first Self Portrait experience with the Iron
Curtain still largely in place — open enough to let me hear the music, but
filtering out its Western reputation, so I had absolutely no idea of how much
the critical world, spearheaded by Greil Marcus, had set the people against it;
and even though I was probably about thirteen years old at the time, I could
detect nothing «fake» about it, even though, naturally, there seemed to be
plenty of humor and light-heartedness, which was A-OK by me — and, actually,
provided a bit of a relief after the «brain-heavy» stuff of the golden years.
And now, I'm happy to say, after all those years of putting Self Portrait in its proper
perspective, very little has changed. It is not a great Dylan album, but it...
wait, who am I actually kidding? It is
a fairly great Dylan album, albeit in an entirely different way from the
«classics».
Of course, Self
Portrait is a mess: most good
Dylan albums are. Recorded over a longer period than usual, and, on the whole
of it, probably involving more session musicians than the entire number of all
session musicians collected from all of Dylan's previous sessions, it features
only a tiny handful of original songs (some of them formal «throwaways», like
the one-line repetition of ʽAll The Tired Horsesʼ or the two instrumental
numbers — expanding the tradition launched with 'Nashville Skyline Rag' the previous year), mixed with
four tracks culled from the man's 1969 live appearance on the Isle of Wight and
tons and tons of «Americana» covers: some folk, some blues, some country, some
adult pop, some light jazz, and some Simon & Garfunkel. Bob's own Pin Ups, three years before Bowie came
out with his idea of this kind of
tribute album (and was also panned, though, as far as I remember, not nearly as
badly).
Everything works: despite the 24-track sprawl,
there is not a single misstep. Bob's vocal variety on the album is arguably
larger than anywhere else: some of the songs are delivered in his new-fangled
«croon», others give us back a more traditional Dylan, and, in a hilarious
move, both are overdubbed on Bob's
cover of ʽThe Boxerʼ — the «croon», I presume, homaging Art and the «rasp»
correlated with Paul, in what becomes a touching tribute and a clever parody at
the exact same time (well, depending on how well you know the original). His
phrasing is under perfect control — listen to all the subtle out-of-tempo moves
made on ʽDays Of '49ʼ that seem like mistakes
at first, but are eventually revealed as Bob's usual means of livelying up the
effect. The arrangements may occasionally be thrown off balance with some
excessive orchestration (e. g. the mock-Tchaikovsky grandeur on ʽBelle Isleʼ),
but more often than not, they are tasteful and inventive. And the choice of
covers?..
Just a few examples will suffice. ʽTake A
Message To Maryʼ was never among my favorites from the Everly Brothers — too
much pathos, too much inadequacy between the lyrics (which, after all, tell a
rather gruesome tale of manslaughter and imprisonment) and the delivery (which
is more of a moonlight serenade than a jail song). Dylan uses his croon, not
his rasp, for the song, but even his croon is twenty times «earthier» and more
believable than Phil and Don's cooing — and he also has the bright idea to
spice the song up with a gritty electric blues-rock line: no doubt, every
connoisseur of the original must have been a little bit shocked back in 1970,
hearing that electric guitar grumble its way in after the predictable «sissy
acoustic» intro at 0:15 into the song. Are the final results «great»? Well, as
far as I am concerned, what the man did here was take a well-written, but
inadequately performed, folk-pop tune and correct its errors — I find no flaws
in this performance. But yes, it's no ʽBallad Of A Thin Manʼ, if that is what Greil Marcus wants to hear
from me. It doesn't bother me, either.
Lightfoot's ʽEarly Mornin' Rainʼ, on the other
hand, is deconstructed almost à la
Leon Redbone (speaking of which, Bob later became a Redbone fan himself) — all
the overt emotion and aching pathos taken out of the original and replaced with
a quiet, untroubled acceptance of one's fate, making the title character more
intriguing and thought-provoking: the song, in my opinion, works better in this
interpretation than when one is openly wearing one's heart on one's sleeve.
The old folk standard ʽCopper Kettleʼ, which
Bob used to sing with Joan Baez in his younger days at the Village, is remade
here with a lush arrangement — strings, keyboards, backup vocals, the works —
yet somehow, in the end, feels more intimate and ascetic than in Joan's
version. Maybe it has something to do with the backups: Bob has the girls doing
this little series of quick one-note "aah"s and "ooh"s,
crystal clear to the point of sounding like water droplets plunging into
little mountain pools — enhancing the «naturalistic» aura of the song.
Throwaway? Exercise in alienation? Not with all this obvious care for detail,
it isn't.
The Isle of Wight tracks were most likely the
catalysts: «disinterested» versions of ʽLike A Rolling Stoneʼ and ʽShe Belongs
To Meʼ, with even The Band, standing at Bob's side, unable to rectify the
situation, must have pissed the fans off more than anything. And it is true: it
takes a monster effort to take this whiny, powerless, poor sound quality version
of ʽStoneʼ seriously after either the studio original or any inspired
performance from the «Judas» era of 1966. It is probable that Bob only sang some of his 1965-66 classics with
reluctance at the event, being more interested in his «rootsy» avatar at the
time — but even so, the performance is notable for curiosity reasons (for
instance, all the crazy phrasing decisions). And, in stark contrast, the band's
performance of ʽQuinn The Eskimoʼ, sound quality issues aside, is ripping — this is where Bob totally
launches into action, and Robbie lends him a good hand, too, with arguably the
fiercest guitar solo he'd had a chance to play in 1969.
Fortunately, time has been kind to Self Portrait. As the «contextual» mist
slowly dissipated, as, later on, Bob would start releasing albums that were
occasionally blatantly worse than Self Portrait (Knocked Out Loaded, anyone?), as people's feelings towards new
Dylan albums gradually became less sharp and demanding, the tide seems to have
finally turned — these days, you can find more and more people digging into the
past and taking the album for what it is: a sincere, diverse, light-heartedly
charming experience at worst, and at best, a little infusion of classic Dylan
magic into a set of simple songs. (For what it's worth, ʽLet It Be Meʼ and
ʽBlue Moonʼ, the way they are captured here, are among my favorite versions of
these songs — I'll give Billie Holiday the edge on ʽBlue Moonʼ for fear of
being crucified for tastelessness, but that fiddle solo in the middle is totally
awesome anyway).
I am not even appalled by the album's length —
on the contrary, expanding the selection to 24 tracks, in a special way, makes Self Portrait reminiscent of The White Album as an unpredictable
journey through styles, forms, and moods, where no two tracks standing next to
each other are truly alike. «Great» or not, they still show a unique brain
shooting off miriads of impulses per second, a mind that shows not the least
signs of staleness or tiredness. This is the work of a person who, still at
the peak of his abilities, intentionally chose to limit these abilities to
«atypical» and, admittedly, «inferior» material — but I'd always take a Dylan
at the peak of his powers, fussing around with ʽBlue Moonʼ and old Skeeter
Davis tunes, over 90% of other artists at the peak of their powers, trying to come out with something bloody original and
world-shaking.
In short, this is clearly a thumbs up,
and I insist that it belongs in the catalog of everybody with more than just a
passing interest in the Bobster. These days, you actually have an alternative: Another Self Portrait, released as the
10th installation in «The Bootleg Series», offers us an alternate series of
outtakes, demos, and early mixes from the 1969-70 sessions, often removing the
orchestral and brass overdubs from the finished versions (think Let It Be Naked? but, of course, the
analogy would not be complete because the original overdubs were all made under
Bob's own supervision and reflect his original ideas). For that matter, did the
critics pan it this time? Hate it? Spit on it? Nope — they gave the release glowing reviews and even dragged out old
Greil Marcus' bones to offer a semi-apology for the original «What Is This Shit?...»
review. Well, from a certain perspective, come to think of it, shit is good — helps plants grow and everything.
Anyway, another thumbs up here for fair justice, sweet revenge, and the wonders
of time, but more on that later, in the addenda section.
Check "Self Portrait" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Self Portrait" (MP3) on Amazon
Great review, couldn't agree more, and actually this review is more sparkling than your original. Time has been kind to Self-Portrait, and the overdubbed versions and the slightly dodgy-sounding IOW takes (HW61 revisited, Baby to tonight on Another SP prove that the performance was actually very good) are totally charming.
ReplyDeleteA good album indeed. There are more great songs than on 'Skyline', but also more filler, and some tracks are downright embarrassing, which might explain all the hate. I mean, the live cuts are really average (except for 'Quinn' of course), 'The Boxer' sounds horribly out-of key and 'In Search Of Little Sadie' is simply awful. The rest of the record ranges from okay to great, though, so the overall impression is clearly positive.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that they finally released the "Another Self Portrait" album. I wonder how much of it is the same material that was released without Bob's consent on the "Dylan" album in 1973, after Bob had temporarily decamped to David Geffen's Asylum label. That album was critically savaged, even more so than "Self Portrait", and was seen as Columbia's revenge on Bob for not resigning with them. If memory served, it contained material so horrid and inconsequential (such as a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi") that, upon Bob's return to the label, it became the only Dylan release to be deleted.
ReplyDeleteOnly one of the tracks from the "Dylan" album is on it, "Spanish is the Loving Tongue". It's not completely deleted either. There's a 1991 European CD re-release under the name "Bob Dylan (A Fool Such As I)", and apparently a career-encompassing boxset, with all his studio albums, some live albums and some remaining non-album tracks (I think mostly from Greatest Hits II, I could be wrong), will be the first official North American CD release.
DeleteI would agree that time has been kind to 'Self Portrait', but: "there is not a single misstep". Uh... no.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the suggestion that Dylan's wimpy take on 'Early Morning Rain' works better than the original is just... uh, no.
Oh, more thing: It should be noted that the recording of 'New Morning' was well underway before Self Portrait's release and horrible reception.
ReplyDelete