Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since I last did a Dylan blog! Almost two years! Bob Dylan's fabulous The Complete Album Collection Vol. One CD box set has been in my possession for over three years and I haven't made my way through all of the albums yet. That's so like me. I like to savour, you see. I have books and albums and movies that I seem to save for The Right Time. Seeing as we just got tickets to see Dylan in August at the Perth Arena, it felt right to jump back in again.
17. THE BASEMENT TAPES (with The Band) (1975) (24/5/18)
Despite being released in 1975, the songs on this album were relentlessly bootlegged since they were recorded in 1967 and 1968. Apparently more than 100 songs were laid down during Dylan's time with The Band (still known as The Hawks at the time). I think the biggest collection of songs from those sessions were released as part of Dylan's official Bootleg Series in 2014.
Anyway, I find this album a little difficult to get into. In fact, it was listening to this that stopped me from continuing forward with these blog posts back in 2018. There are eight tracks that don't feature Dylan at all, echoing the shared track listing of Before The Flood, and that creates a bit of a mixed vibe. It was always going to be difficult to craft an album out of so many songs that people had shared among themselves for nearly a decade. But, even with that in mind, it comes across as being very disjointed. Maybe after more listens, I'll start to 'get it'.
I've never been a huge fan of Tears of Rage and This Wheel's On Fire anyway, and they're the most well-known songs on offer. Even You Ain't Goin' Nowhere is quite different, lyrically and musically, from the version that appeared on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II. I did enjoy Goin' To Acapulco, Long Distance Operator, Katie's Been Gone and Please, Mrs Henry however. The fact that Clothes Line Saga mentions the date January 30th (my birthday) is kinda cool too. One to revisit a little more, methinks.
18. DESIRE (1976) (24/5/18)
Interestingly, I listened to this album and The Basement Tapes on Dylan's 77th birthday. Another good reason for me to start spinning a little more of his work, I thought. Desire feels like a natural progression from Blood On The Tracks as far as production goes, with a prominent use of the violin, thanks to Scarlet Rivera and backing vocals from Emmylou Harris. Except for one song, the whole album was co-written by Dylan and Jacques Levy, which is quite unusual. Most of the tracks have a strong narrative style as a result, the album opening with arguably its most well-known song Hurricane. It's an epic tune outlining the wrongful imprisonment of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter for the crime of murder (Carter was eventually released in 1985). The eight and a half minute track is not the longest on this album though. That title goes to the twelve verse (count 'em, twelve!) ballad Joey, which details the events of gangster "Crazy Joey" Gallo clocking up eleven minutes. It's a pretty good album this one. It was my first listen, but I was already familiar with Oh, Sister, Hurricane and One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below), the latter being the one song Dylan penned on his own. I also dig Mozambique and Romance In Durango. During the recording of this album, Dylan also cut of my favourite tracks of his, Rita May. It was released as a single, and appeared on the 1978 three-album compilation Masterpieces, which is where I first heard it. The jaunty tune sounds like it should be here, like this is where it belongs, not adrift on a single.
19. HARD RAIN (1976) (25/5/18)
Like the documentary title, Dylan doesn't look back. If he chooses to revisit his older material in concert, he tends to change the arrangement significantly. This is definitely the case with this live album recorded during the Rolling Thunder Revue. The only songs that sound similar to the studio versions are the recent(ish) ones. Even the fairly new Shelter From The Storm gets a rollicking arrangement far removed from the acoustic treatment it received on Blood On The Tracks. The album opens with a raucous reworking of Maggie's Farm that I absolutely love. I only just learned that Mick Ronson (yes, THAT Mick Ronson) plays on the song too! It was actually the first version I heard, due to it being on the Masterpieces compilation. I didn't hear the original (from Bringing It All Back Home) until I was well into my twenties, possibly thirties. One Too Many Mornings gets a great rendition as does crowd favourite Lay Lady Lay, again presented quite differently to the Nashvillle Skyline recording. I'm not the biggest fan of Idiot Wind, but it's performance here is pretty apt closer for the album, and it's arguably more passionate than the studio version.
20. STREET-LEGAL (1978) (30/5/18)
Thanks to Rolling Stone magazine's Top 100 Dylan songs list a few years back, I was already familiar with three tracks on this album. If not for that, I would have flown into this one totally blind. While there's nothing hugely well-known here, it's pretty damn great. This marks another shift in Dylan's production as he enlists a full band complete with female backing vocals. My big highlights are Señor (Tales of Yankee Power), opening track Changing Of The Guards and the eight minute plus No Time To Think. The former is my absolute fave from this album, and bizarrely, No.100 in the aforementioned RS list. The album's closer Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat) is a good track too, and another of the three from that RS list.
It's a number I've been seeing a lot lately.
Thanks to pop culture, I know Douglas Adams wrote that 42 was the answer to life, the universe and everything. I've never read a Douglas Adams book, but I know that. It's like some sort of societal osmosis.
The Australian Red Cross Blood Service have recently launched a wonderful campaign about the number 42. It shares that the red blood cells inside donated blood only lasts for 42 days. It's a pretty awesome concept, which asks you to be life, the universe and everything to someone else. Bizarrely, I have only just started giving blood again. My donation on February 20th this year was my first one in about five years, I reckon. I've now become a plasma donor, as my veins are apparently awesome, and my blood flow rocks.
Rhones and I recently saw Jackson Browne at the Leeuwin Estate concert last weekend. When I went to get us some eats from a local vendor, the ticket number I was given was 42. The concert was on March 24th...42 backwards.
Today would be called 4/2 in the US, rather than 2/4, as the rest of the world notates.
42 was the age that my mother would have been the year she died. She was only two and a half months away.
42 is how old I am at the time of writing this blog. I've been 42 for about 60 days now. How weird would that have been if I'd been 42 for 42 days?!?! You can't have everything, I guess.
Not sure what it all means, but I'm finding an odd comfort in the number.
And did you make the decision yourself? Or was it made for you? Did you wake up with a song in your head? Was it in a dream?
I'm not talking about the twenty second snippet you used for your alarm this morning. Or even that flash of song that came up during a segment on Sunrise or the ABC news. Not that song that was halfway through when you got into the car and switched your radio on either.
The first full song that started your day. What was it? Do you remember?
Did you wake up wanting to hear a particular track? Was it in your head when you got out of bed? Did you know what you wanted to hear? Did you run your thumb over the wheel of your iPod looking for it? Or did you pull a record out?
The first song I heard today was Sting's Shape Of My Heart from his 1993 album Ten Summoner's Tales. I opened up Spotify on my phone and looked through the six Daily Mixes on offer for the day. I could have picked a song by Elbow or Eels or Blur or Jackson Browne or Catatonia or Fleetwood Mac or Flaming Lips or Amy Winehouse or The Style Council, but the Sting song caught my eye.
It's a great song. I like the usage of the four card suites in the lyrics. It's easy to listen to. Not too intrusive, but quite engaging at the same time. I think it started my day off pretty well. The family came and had breakfast and everyone seemed to be in good form.
What if a different song had kicked off my morning? What if was too sad, or just too noisy for that time of the day? What if my song choice caused an argument? But, what if it went the other way? What if the song was so infectious and groovy that everyone had to dance when they got into the kitchen?
It's only a song, but your first one can pull an awful lot of threads.
I love music.
Physical Graffiti LED ZEPPELIN (1975)
Week: Tue 9th Jan to Mon 15th Jan 2018
Format: CD
Producer: Jimmy Page
Track listing:
CD 1:
1. Custard Pie
2. The Rover
3. In My Time of Dying *
4. Houses of the Holy *
5. Trampled Underfoot *
6. Kashmir *
CD 2:
1. In the Light
2. Bron-Y-Aur *
3. Down by the Seaside *
4. Ten Years Gone
5. Night Flight
6. The Wanton Song
7. Boogie With Stu
8. Black Country Woman
9. Sick Again
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 82:45
My listening of this album kicked off because January 9th was Jimmy Page's 74th birthday. I don't know if I picked this particular Zeppelin album because of the length or because I just really dig the tunes. I only learned recently that the record was extended into a double album by adding outtakes from previous Led Zep efforts. So, without those tracks, Physical Graffiti might have looked something like this:
In the Light
Custard Pie
Ten Years Gone
In My Time of Dying
Trampled Underfoot
Kashmir
The Wanton Song
Sick Again
That's a total guess, of course. I have no idea what order the band would have chosen. In the Light just seems like a better opener for the whole album. Works great kicking of the second disc though.
So, where did the other songs come from, I hear you ask? Kinda. Well, the devout Led Zep fan will probably know this. The earliest track here is Jimmy Page's lovely instrumental Bron-Y-Aur, which was recorded during the Led Zeppelin III sessions in 1970. I first heard the song as it played in a sequence in their concert film The Song Remains The Same. I was in my mid-teens and had just been getting into Zeppelin, and I was only familiar with the first four albums. My dad and I bought them on CD after I returned from a jaunt to NZ with the youth theatre company I was in (he bought II and IV, whilst I got I and III). Anyway, I loved the piece of music, and it wasn't until I got given a taped copy of Physical Graffiti that I knew what it was. This was pre-internet, okay?
From the sessions for Led Zeppelin IV, came these songs:
- Night Flight
- Boogie With Stu (named for Ian Stewart - pianist, road manager and co-founder of the Rolling Stones - who plays on the jammed track)
- Down By the Seaside
I can see why they didn't make the album. They would have messed with the flow a bit. Even though Four Sticks and Black Dog sound like fun, they're pretty intricate pieces of music. The loose blues of Boogie With Stu would clash against nearly every other track. I guess it would also be hard to imagine those three songs in that album with nearly fifty years of hindsight. Or is that hindhearing?
The remaining outtakes, The Rover, Black Country Woman and Houses of the Holy all came out of the Houses of the Holy sessions, of course. I find it bizarre when a band has a song that shares its name with an album, but it isn't on the same album! I may be remembering this incorrectly, but I heard tell that Bon Scott was so enamoured with the title of AC/DC's High Voltage album, that he felt that they should have a song of the same name. It would appear on their TNT album. I think Houses of the Holy might have been a better song choice over, say, The Crunge on that album. However, it does fit on Physical Graffiti quite nicely.
This is one of the few double albums that seems to benefit from its length, rather than buckle under the weight of the material. Sure, some songs feel like loose jams, but they're still extremely listenable, and sit well amongst everything else.
While the first four albums (quite rightly) get a lot of praise and preference, I think this gets overlooked because it's a double. With bonafide Zep classics like Kashmir, Trampled Underfoot and Houses of the Holy on offer, it's timeless seventies English rock you can gorge on without filling up on bread.
The new year brings the feeling of a new beginning to me. A fresh slate, if you'll pardon the cliché. I no longer make New Year Resolutions, but I do try to make an effort to improve myself in a few areas. Lose weight seems to be at the top of my list every year. And to write more. I always endeavour to use blogging or tweeting to get the creative juices flowing, hoping to get inspired for more songwriting, but it's been a pretty dry few years.
Some people go down the 'new year, new me' road and try super hard to be the person that they wish they could be. I get quite tickled at how full gyms are in the first coupla weeks of January, before they start to get sparse again by February.
Others cry 'arbitrary this' and 'time marker that', but I think I sit somewhere in the middle. There's something about January 1st and December 31st that just cries out 'bookends' to me.
I've had little projects that take up a year, and I always tend to confine them to the traditional 365 (or 366) day time constraint. They've started on Jan 1 and ended on Dec 31...one year.
Of course, I realise that a year can commence by using any date as a starting point. Some may do this with birthdays. If I ever do a year-long project, I always start on Jan 1st. Things like tweeting birthdays/album releases of musicians. Or logging a list of movies I've watched, or albums I've listened to.
Weird. I could start at any time really, couldn't I? Must be the autistic in me.
One of my favourite things about January is the opportunity to celebrate David Bowie anniversaries, or Bowie-versaries, if you will.
Today is a big one, January 8th, because it's his birthday. It's also Elvis Presley's birthday, so if you're a fan of The King and The Thin White Duke, it's a doubly good day for you. Rounding out this random trifecta is Mr Paul Hester, who among other things, was the drummer for Crowded House. Sadly, like the aforementioned rock royalty icons, he has also left the building.
Anyway, back to David Bowie.
January 8th is also the release date of Bowie's last studio album, ★ (pronounced Blackstar), which came out in 2016. On his birthday in 2013, he released the single Where Are We Now? from his upcoming album The Next Day. This would be his first studio album of original material since 2003's Reality.
If you're a bit of a Bowie fan, here's a few choice dates to mark in your iDiaries:
Jan 8th - Happy birthday Bowie!
★ (2016)
Where Are We Now? single (2013)
Jan 14th - Low (1977)
Jan 23rd - Station to Station (1976)
Feb 3rd - Earthling (1997)
Mar 7th - Young Americans (1975)
Mar 8th - The Next Day (2013)
Well, that will do for the first quarter of the year. April is a big one for Bowie too! I'll try to remember to post another Bowie-versary post!
18. DESIRE (1976) (24/5/18)
