I Climbed the Everest of Box Sets in One Day
Why? Because It Was There.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015 was an ordinary day in many respects. Kids went to school, work got done, bills got paid, did some shopping, did some cooking, went to the gym, watched some TV, etc. But one thing made the day unusual, and another thing made it extraordinary. First -- and, big-picture-wise, most importantly -- my wife Sharon was in the hospital following abdominal surgery. Months of pain and tests and consultations had resulted in an 80% guess that her appendix was to blame -- and sure enough, it was. It wasn’t your typical appendicitis -- it was described to me by her excellent surgeons as “angry” and “funky,” twisted and backwards, and poking things it shouldn’t be poking. Long story short: They had operated on Tuesday, everything went great, and she was recovering nicely.
So Tuesday was a long day, but ended well. The boredom of the waiting room was interrupted shortly before 1:00 pm: an email from Sony notified me that Bob Dylan’s epic, over-priced, normal-fans-need-not-apply The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge (Collector’s Edition) had been shipped! That ended any pretense of getting work done on my laptop. When the FedEx tracking number finally went live I got another surprise -- the 15.5-pound treasure chest would be delivered by “end of day” Wednesday! Release day wasn’t until Friday, so this sent a jolt of giddy joy straight to my brain. The only real “problem” was, this box set contains 18 CDs -- at LEAST 18 hours of music! -- and I couldn’t exactly put my life on hold to sit down and savor every minute of it. I had recently undergone a 40-day “fast” to prepare myself for this box set, so an ordinary reception just wouldn’t do. But how to best experience this once-in-a-lifetime event?
Some quick background: This box set -- which I’ll call “BS12” for short -- contains “every note recorded” during the 1965-1966 studio recording sessions that produced three of the most legendary albums in rock history: Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. This was a period of intense creativity and relentless touring and controversy for Bob, fueled by cigarettes, speed and God knows what else, as he searched for the “thin wild mercury sound” that he captured on these three albums. For a lot of fans, this is THE holy grail of box sets. What better way to honor the manic spirit on those silver discs than to incorporate their sounds into my own hectic life?
So I resolved to listen to the entire box in one uninterrupted stretch, no matter where I was or what I was doing on the day it arrived. The first thing I had to do on Wednesday morning was to make sure that NOTHING prevented the delivery of the box -- I could not bear the thought of seeing one of those “Sorry We Missed You!” notes stuck to my door. So I made sure that FedEx knew they were to leave the package no matter what:
Next I figured I’d better get my shit together, because I wanted to be able to give the box as much attention as possible, as quickly as possible. So as soon as the kids were off to school at 8 am I got to work. (I work at home, or else none of this would have been possible.) I get some stuff done quickly, and then decide maybe I should get the bills paid and in the mailbox before the mail arrives -- usually before 11am. And this is where the fun begins....
10:49 am: With a few more checks left to write out, I run to the mailbox to see if the mail had arrived yet. It hasn’t -- whew! -- but Sweet Baby Jesus, what is THIS?!
10:59 am: I’ve opened the outer box and gotten to the real deal. I try to find a safe place to balance it on my mess of a desk, and I open it gingerly.
11:02 am: Oh my God, this thing is frickin’ beautiful. I am actually trembling a little.
11:05 am: The box is intricately packed, with a sized sheet of tissue paper between each layer of product. Each of these protective sheets is filled with photos or news clippings -- nice touch, Sony. I’ve sent the missus a couple of photos to her phone, and she gamely pretends that this is anywhere near as interesting as what she’s going through. (She’s in the hospital, remember?)
11:10 am: I’ve finally made it to the bottom of the box, past the strip of cels from the classic 1965 documentary Don’t Look Back, past the huge photo book and the hard-cover liner notes, past the nine replica 45s,
and all the way down to the cherry on the bottom -- a leopard-skin 45 adaptor for the stereo:
11:12 am: All right stupid, this stuff is cool and all, but what about the MUSIC? Disc one is now in my iMac’s CD drive -- because I know that I will be listening to most of this on the go via my iPod Classic.
11:28 am: Disc 1 is ripped into iTunes, Disc 2 is in progress, so I create a playlist for BS12 and drop in the Disc 1 tracks. I hit “Stop” on my all-folk-Dylan playlist, which I’ve been listening to exclusively for 40 days in near-religious preparation, and I hit “Play” on Disc 1, Track 1. I hear the voice of Dylan’s producer, Tom Wilson, say “We got a good sound here” -- squee! -- and announce, “‘Dime Store,’ take one.” Here we go!
11:41 am: The Cutting Edge (BS12 for short) has debunked its first myth as I get to the acoustic run-through of “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.” On the album, Bob starts on acoustic and breaks down laughing after one line, causing Wilson to fall into hysterics before calling for take 2, which resumes immediately with the band. It was always assumed that the band had missed its cue and that’s why everyone was cracking up; but since this take was from the all-acoustic first day of the Bringing It All Back Home (BIABH for short) sessions, there was no band in sight. So we’ll never know what caused those giggles, but the album master is an edit of the acoustic false start and the full-band take a couple of days later.
11:48 am: Based on Disc 1 of BS12, BIABH could have easily been another acoustic “folk” album like 1964’s Another Side Of Bob Dylan. Only one track (“Maggie’s Farm”) wasn’t attempted as a solo recording, but all the others were, and it would have been ... fine. But Bob on Another Side was already starting to sound restless, like he was looking for a new direction and not particularly eager to stay in this place any longer. Adding the band to all the “Side 1” songs of BIABH transformed the songs and the album -- and changed the course of 1960s rock music. I don’t think any of what followed would have been the same if the electric blast of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” hadn’t broken the ice first.
12:08 pm: Bills are finally all paid; I’m reminded of how much I paid for BS12 ($680). I rush to the mailbox -- goddamn it, I missed the mailman! Oh well...
12:12 pm: OK, time to start getting some work done again -- hey, what’s that? The first take of the first song (“Love Minus Zero/No Limit”) with the band! Hooray! A wild “Outlaw Blues” done Bo Diddley style follows, and at 12:26 we hear the first “album master” of the set (“Love Minus Zero” again). Hearing the entire process of a song growing from a demo to a finished master is a thrill, and it’s what the Collector’s Edition of BS12 is all about. If you don’t love false starts, abandoned ideas, wrong turns and studio banter, you’re much better off with the 6-CD version.
12:31 pm: Trying to focus on work, but I’m too easily distracted by the sounds coming out of my computer speakers. The first electric “Subterranean Homesick Blues” pops up, and Bob is tripping all over the lyrics -- but can you blame him? Unlike a lot of the other songs on BIABH, this one doesn’t work at all as a “folk” song -- it was made to be fast, loud and HARD. Listening to Bob and Tom Wilson debate how to intro the song is the kind of “fly on the wall” moment that I love about this set, and I’m expecting many more.
12:44 pm: Disc 2 playing now. Disc 11 ripping. BACK TO WORK!!
12:52 pm: Oh, man, Bob just sang one of my all-time favorite lines: “They asked me for some collateral and I pulled down my pants”! People forget how hilarious Bob could be when he wanted to.
12:55 pm: All right -- back to work FOR REAL this time!
1:22 pm: My heart skips a beat as the immortal “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” almost never gets recorded. Wilson stops Take 1 for a technical issue, and Bob complains, “I really don’t feel like doing this song -- I have to do it, though. It’s such a long song.” His producer, to my surprise, almost seems to be discouraging him: “Suit yourself. I'm with you.” But fortunately it’s a song Dylan knows well; he’d been playing it live for months. He nails the master on the next take.
1:36 pm: More tension seems to stir between Dylan and his producer as they prepare to record “Mr. Tambourine Man” with the band.
BOB: “If you’d look at me, Tom...”
WILSON: “Haaah?”
BOB: “If you look at me, you’d see when I wave my hands, and you’d know!”
WILSON: “Well, I asked were you ready, and then I have to look down to write the take number, Bob...”
BOB: (five-second pause) ... OK ... hmph...”
1:40 pm: Bob protests after one failed attempt that the drums are distracting him, and after making it about halfway through another take, he halts the proceedings: “I can’t, I can’t -- the drumming is driving me mad! I’m going out of my brain!” The drums are dispensed with, and Bob quickly achieves the master take with just a gentle electric guitar accompaniment.
1:51 pm: One of my favorite songs from the BIABH period is one that didn’t even make the album -- “If You Gotta Go, Go Now.” Utilized as a comic-relief breather in his protest-heavy late-1964 concerts, Bob aims for a pure pop single here, and he and the band charge their way through four spirited takes, all complete. An edit of Takes 1 and 2 eventually got released as a single (in Holland!) in 1967, and Take 4 had already been released on The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3: Rare And Unreleased. Just a fun song, and the last one worked on during the BIABH sessions. And now I’ve gotta go -- to the grocery store!
2:03 pm: I’ve loaded all 18 CDs onto my iPod, and I’m pulling into the Stop & Shop parking lot as the Highway 61 Revisited (H61 for short) sessions start. I have to pick up my 13-year-old, Brian, from school in an hour. I grab a cart, consult my shopping list and start grabbing stuff. I realize I haven’t eaten anything all day and pick up a pre-made sandwich from the Deli.
2:23 pm: I’m in the cereal aisle when I realize how different the H61 sessions were from the BIABH. On that first “rock” album, recorded just six months previously, Bob was essentially still a folk musician, playing with a band. The failure to pull of an electric “Mr. Tambourine Man” showed that he was still adapting to playing with other musicians, when he was used to only having to worry about his own performance. But the H61 sessions (starting on June 15, 1965) are a different animal altogether -- this is blues-rock, hard and uncompromising. Bob is all-in, and the players around him no longer sound like they’re playing “around” him -- they’re all in this together, full steam ahead.
2:50 pm: Unpacking groceries, scarfing down some lunch, and listening to several takes of the H61 outtake “Sitting On A Barbed Wire Fence.” A fun song, ultimately a throwaway, but it sounds like it was a blast to be at that session.
3:06 pm: Pick up Brian at school. His 17-year-old brother, Carter, has his own car, so we won’t see him for awhile. Do I tell Brian what I’m attempting to do today? Nah -- he already thinks I’m weird.
3:12 pm: We start what for many people will be the centerpiece of the entire set -- the sessions for Bob’s career-defining hit, “Like A Rolling Stone.” Sixteen takes were attempted, totaling 41 minutes on CDs 3 and 4. Dylan and producer Tom Wilson -- in the last song he will record with Bob -- struggle with the arrangement, attempting it a few times as a waltz, before Bob throws in the towel, complaining that his voice is shot. They reconvene the next day, and the song starts to take shape. The rehearsal of the remake (Disc 4, Track 1) sounds not unlike the arrangement they will play at Newport the following month, but they still can’t get through an entire take.
3:28 pm: Remake Take 2 starts to sound familiar, Take 3 is almost there, and then ... Take 4 ... remarkably, the first (and only) complete take of the 15 attempts -- but it’s perfect. They caught lightning in a bottle just long enough to get that one magical take on tape, and that was all they needed. This is the track that would etch Bob Dylan permanently in rock history, and we’re hearing its birth “live.” The rest of the session is anti-climactic, as they struggle to get a “better” take. Someone must say something about Bob’s inability to get all the way through the song again, because we hear him protest, “It's six minutes long, man.” After another collapsed take, Bob is getting frustrated: “Why can’t we get that RIGHT?” Ultimately, out of wisdom or exhaustion, they realize there is no point in trying. Perfection was sitting there all along, in Take 4.
3:45 pm: OK, this is where my day gets a little crazy. I’ve got a chicken in the oven -- so I can make chicken soup for Sharon -- remember Sharon? -- when she comes home from the hospital. Now that all the CDs are ripped and I’m just listening and taking notes, I actually am getting some work done. In 45 minutes I have to drive Brian to CCD (“Sunday School” for heathen Catholic children who go to public school), and after that it’s going to be a whirlwind for several hours.
4:32 pm: Driving Brian to CCD; listening again on the iPod in the car. The affable Texan Bob Johnston has assumed control of the H61 sessions -- no real explanation is ever given for Tom Wilson’s departure -- but a change in tone is felt when, after a couple of muffed takes of “Tombstone Blues,” he exhorts Bob and the band: “Don’t play it, FEEL it!” Possibly the most perfect advice ever given in rock history.
4:51 pm: Hey, it’s the Chamber Brothers! “Tombstone Blues” was never a favorite song of mine, but I first started to love it when I heard an outtake version with the Chamber Brothers on backing vocals (released on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: No Direction Home in 2005). The BS7 version was incomplete, though, and I was hoping for a complete Chamber Brothers version here. All incomplete takes, unfortunately, but still a blast to hear.
4:58 pm: Back home. Throwing some steaks on the grill before it gets too dark. I have two teenage boys, and that chicken wouldn’t last one night in this house. Listening to Disc 5 on the CD player in the breakfast room.“It Takes A Lot To Laugh” -- after many takes and remakes -- is finally the slow, smoky blues it was meant to be. Squeeze in a little more work in between checking the steaks.
5:19 pm: “What’s the name of this one, Bobby?” It’s a question asked many times on this box set, and you never know what the answer is going to be. “I’ll Keep It With Mine” is introduced as “Alcatraz To The 9th Power” and then promptly changed to “Bank Account Blues.” “Love Minus Zero / No Limit” started out simply as “Dime Store,” and even the unflappable Bob Johnston has to laugh as he calls for a take of “Phantom Engineer Number Cloudy.” That song was released with the equally inscrutable title “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry.” At the moment, however, Dylan’s answer to the question above is, “Black Dally Roo” -- no, make that “Black Dally Rue” or “Crimson Dally Rue” ... “Take your pick,” Bob says. The song turns out to in fact be the hit follow-up to “Like A Rolling Stone,” the vitriolic “Positively 4th Street.” Here, though, at the beginning, it’s almost sorrowful, wistful, like “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” To say it changes considerably over 12 takes would be an understatement.
5:30 pm: Steaks are done, and I didn’t burn ’em! It’s pretty dark outside now.
5:41 pm: “Desolation Row” Take 1! Previously released on BS7. Just Bob on acoustic, a bass player and an electric guitar. Sounds pretty damn awesome for a first take...
5:48 pm: Leaving to get Brian at CCD; listening again in the car via iPod. The brief session for “From A Buick 6” is starting. It’s never been a favorite of mine, but it’s still remarkable to hear in real-time how they got from a tentative first stab to a fully realized performance in just two takes. Amazing.
6:01 pm: Sitting in the parking lot, waiting for Brian to get out. The first sessions for the goofy-but-maybe-not-so-goofy “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” are held. (It’s introduced by Dylan as “Look At Barry Run,” because, why not?) Bob seems to be in high spirits, and when after a couple of quick flubbed takes Johnston calls for Take 3, Bob protests laughingly, “Let’s go! Take 1 again! Let’s start at the beginning -- Take 1, not Take 3!” They start over with Take 1, and by Take 17 they’ve taped a “master” -- but only by accident. This take got pressed onto the first batch of singles in place of “Positively 4th Street” and all those 45s had to be recalled. Some of them didn’t of course, and Take 17 had long ago been bootlegged. This is its first official release on CD, and therefore a highlight of the entire box for me.
6:27 pm: Home for a FAST dinner with Brian. Carter is at band practice, so we won’t see him until later. “Highway 61 Revisited” (the song) is just getting started.
6:46 pm: Brian and I leave for the hospital to visit Sharon. Take 6 of “Highway 61” is playing. A few minutes later, Bob’s police whistle is introduced to the proceedings, and a fairly average song becomes a classic. Traffic is a bitch; Brian asks why I’m scribbling notes on the back of a map while we sit at a train stop. I tell him not to worry about it. By the time we finally get to where we’re going, we’ve listened to all 16 takes of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”
7:20 pm: We arrive at the hospital and park. I take my first break from listening in eight hours. Why? (a) I’m not a monster, and (b) I think listening on headphones while visiting my bed-ridden wife would not have gone over so well. I’ve listened to the first 7 hours of this box set in just under 8 hours -- not bad, but I have a long way to go.
8:30 pm: We’re back in the car, heading home. We had a very nice visit, took Sharon for a couple of walks -- always important the day after surgery -- and chatted about our days. She’s pretty wiped out, so we leave so she can get some rest. After about five straight takes of “Queen Jane Approximately,” Brian finally looks up from his phone and comments on the music: “I like these things, where you hear them working on the songs.” (YES!) I don’t push my musical obsessions on my kids, so it’s great to get positive feedback once in a while. Brian has heard me play stuff like this before -- notably by the Beatles and the Beach Boys -- so he’s not unfamiliar with false starts and studio chatter. We talk about how Bob worked in the studio and I describe the scope of the 18-CD set we’ve been listening to. His eyes widen with a “Wow” -- and that just about sums it up, doesn’t it?
8:52 pm: We return home, to the sounds of take 7 of “Queen Jane.” I take another break from the music -- not because I need to, but because “Survivor” is on Wednesdays and some family rituals are beyond my veto. Besides, Brian has had a crazy afternoon himself, and this is a good way for us both to unwind.
9:53 pm: I’m heading to the gym. It closes at 11pm, so I only have an hour. I figure if I’m going to pull an all-nighter with this box set, maybe I should refresh myself and get the blood pumping a little first. I really hate going to the gym; it’s one of those things I do because it’s “good for me” -- like eating spinach. Just about the only thing that makes it bearable is that I can listen to music the whole time, and tonight this is especially true. The irony of hearing “Desolation Row” pop up again, while I'm toiling away in an otherwise-empty aisle of ellipticals, is not lost on me. But WOW -- what a version of “Desolation Row”! If this was an instrumental, I’d swear it was the Velvet Underground. An incredible, raw version of this song.
10:28 pm: Sweating my ass off on the ARC Trainer, another unexpected surprise -- over five hours after I thought I’d heard the last of it, we get the final album master of “Tombstone Blues” WITH the Chamber Brothers vocal overdubs! What a treat!
10:42 pm: As I trudge off to the showers, Bob taunts me with some more “Desolation Row” -- this time, a stripped-down, piano-and-harmonica demo. It’s only two minutes long, but it I wish they had attempted a full take this way. If you listen to the bass here, you can hear the roots of the jauntier version Bob would perform thirty years later on MTV’s Unplugged. Wow.
11:01 pm: Home from the gym. Second chicken is in the oven, and I’m doing the dishes. I hear the master take of “Desolation Row” and realize how important Charlie McCoys’s spanish guitar overdub is to the song. The boys are both in bed now, and the rest of the night belongs to me.
11:17 pm: Checking emails. Time to get back to work -- but first I’m going to check in at the Steve Hoffman Music Forums to see how my fellow Bob fans are holding up. Surely a few of them got their sets early like I did, and the others are chewing their nails down to the first knuckle by now. I’m two-thirds through Disc 8, and I’ve listened to 8 hours and 41 minutes of the set in the first 12 hours since I got it. By the time we get to “Medicine Sunday” (Take 1) -- and early version of “Temporary Like Achilles” -- we are finally at the cusp of the legendary Blonde On Blonde sessions.
12:07 am: After making it through the “I Wanna Be Your Lover” session -- more fun than I expected -- and a couple of takes of a nice mid-tempo instrumental, we have finally arrived at the doorstep of one of the crown jewels of this set, and indeed of Bob’s entire career -- the majestic “Visions Of Johanna.” The song seems completely composed from the start, but the players -- mostly members of the Hawks (eventually The Band) -- have no idea what they have on their hands here. Bob warns them early on, “I don’t wanna get it too fast; it’s gonna be strong enough, you know?” But they bash through it a few times, with Bob constantly stopping them to slow things down. “No! That’s not the song -- that’s not it.” They try to rein it in, and Rehearsal Take 4 starts off interestingly, with shakers substituting for full drums at the start; but they can’t seem to help themselves, and they gallop through Take 5 at full speed.
12:29 am: Work on “Visions Of Johanna” continues. My work, meanwhile, has ground to a halt as I am transfixed by these sessions. Rehearsal Take 6 introduces a harpsichord -- in an apparent attempt to find the delicacy that Dylan is looking for -- but by Take 7 it is already shoved in the background. Take 8 was released on BS7 back in 2005, so we can see that as the “best” version of the “rock” “Visions.”
12:47 am: When we hear the honeyed drawl of Bob Johnston inform Bob (and us) that “We’re rollin’ on 9,” we’ve entered Phase Two in the development of “Visions Of Johanna.” Bob and the Hawks are finally getting onto the same page, and the song starts to achieve the gentleness and grace that it clearly needs. Harmonica, organ, harpsichord and finger cymbals are leading the way now, keeping the guitars and drums in the background, and they finally complete a take with number 14. Is it perfect? For now it is.
12:59 am: Is that a cowbell I hear? Must be the “Crawl Out Your Window” remake. I prefer the original version, but the single master here (Take 10) sounds great, and the fadeout is longer -- and uncensored, so we hear Bob’s full “Oh my God” at the end. I think I’ve got a nice balance of listening and working going on here.
1:14 am: Never mind. I hear the slate call for Take 1 of “Just A Little Glass Of Water” and I know that I’m about to hear my single most anticipated sequence of the entire behemoth 18-disc box: the tragic, heart-breaking story of my favorite “Electric Bob” song of them all, “She’s Your Lover Now.” Over the course of 16 takes, in an hour’s worth of recordings, we hear a would-be classic spring to life, struggle to become whole, and collapse under its own weight. If there was a single reason why I spent the outrageous amount of money that this set commanded, it was to hear THESE tracks. If they had all been on the 6-CD set, or were available as individual downloads, I probably would have passed on this, and I’d be getting some much-needed sleep right now.
1:26 am: Early takes of “She’s Your Lover Now” are more like a wounded yelp than the brutal takedown it would become towards the end of its life in the studio. Take 6 finds a groove of sorts, and Dylan gets a good chunk of the lyrics in, but the slow, marching beat just doesn’t conjure the anger the song seems to be reaching for. We do get one of Bob’s oddest lyrical variations, though, when he sings, “What are you, some kinda moose? Is there nothin’ you can say?”
1:45 am: The song starts to feel appropriately accusatory by Take 9, but Bob stops it short, puzzled. “It’s not right.” He switches to piano, afraid that he’s “losing” the song, and leads the band through some rehearsal takes. After slowing it WAY down, trying to find his way back into the song, things start to pick up during Takes 12 and 13. The tempo picks up in Take 13 and Bob starts howling the words, and they feel ready for a proper take.
1:51 am: They are SO close on Take 14, but Bob still seems hesitant about some of the lyrics. It breaks down after three minutes. Take 15 of “She’s Your Lover Now” threatens to become what Take 4 of “Like A Rolling Stone” was -- the one perfect take that captures the song’s glory for all time. Everything falls into place, Bob is ripping through the song, and they finally get to the final verse, and ... and ... something goes wrong. It sounds like the bass guitar falls out of tune, but they might have plowed through it if Bob hadn’t stopped singing. Take 15 was a highlight of the very first Bootleg Series release in 1991, and it’s been a favorite of mine ever since. But on that night it was over, like a dead man’s last pistol shot, baby.
2:02 am: Bob is beyond frustrated now: “Ahhh, it’s ugly!” They slow it down again and shamble through four minutes of rehearsals, before he finally gives up. “I can’t ... I can’t hear it.” [Music Nerd Note: I paused here to fix the terrible split between Take 15 and the rehearsal take that followed it. They actually faded out Take 15 DURING the breakdown, and then started the next track in the middle of the breakdown before going to the rehearsal! WTF? Fortunately, all the music was there and the edit was simple. There, that’s better.]
2:11 am: It’s painful to listen to that final rehearsal track; all the spirit has been drained from the room. At one point Dylan snaps at Richard Manuel, “Hey, do that, Richard. Please do that -- PLEASE. Just do THAT.” Johnston suggests they take a break -- maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But after a few more attempts, Dylan waves the white flag: “I can’t hear the song anymore.”
2:16 am: The band is either sent home or told that they were done for the night. Bob feels the song slipping away from him, maybe forever. Johnston agrees to one “last take” and what follows is the legendary, long-bootlegged solo-piano recording of “She’s Your Lover Now.” I’ve never loved this version -- always preferring the blistering (if incomplete) Take 15 -- but it’s never sounded this good before, and in its complete context for the first time, it’s devastating. “It’s not gonna be exactly really right,” Bob pre-apologizes, but there’s no need -- he salvages the song by transforming it completely. Gone is the anger and confrontation, replaced by sadness and regret; it’s like the reverse of what happened to “Idiot Wind” in 1974 when Bob replaced the mournful New York take with a bilious Minnesota remake. With just tack piano and voice, it’s like the post-breakup flip side to “I’ll Keep It With Mine.” He finally gets the full song on tape and mutters "huh" in resigned surprise. “Did you get that down?” They did, but Dylan would never return to the song in any form, in the studio or live. Everything that went right with “Like A Rolling Stone” went wrong for “She’s Your Lover Now,” and just like that, a great song was cast into the abyss, never to be heard again. Thank God for the Bootleg Series, and thank God for this set for preserving the whole session.
2:31 am: If we can assume that Bob and co. needed something lighter to ease the sense of failure from the previous session, then “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” might be the song that saved the Blonde On Blonde (BoB for short) album. So far, they had attempted two “major” songs for the new album, and hadn’t come up with a satisfactory master for either one. Four days after the exhausting “Lover” session, a loose, silly blues may have been the perfect palate-cleanser. Although on the surface they also ended up “laboring” over this one too (working on it on four separate occasions before nailing the master take), it never threatens to disrupt the sessions as a whole. They amble through two takes of the song, not really sweating it, and not seemingly attempting anything triumphant.
2:40 am: With the warm-ups of “Pill-Box Hat” out of the way, Bob and the Hawks dive right into another hard-born classic: “One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later).” But in a reversal of their recent failed efforts, in 24 takes over 50 minutes they build a great song from the ground up, from almost nothing. It’s so incomplete when they start that I’m tempted to think that Bob wrote it as an “answer song” to “She’s Your Lover Now.” It’s a break-up song, but less angry, more willing to share the blame. Did Bob write this to fill the void that “Lover” had left in him? I tend to resist fanboy “interpretations,” but these songs just seem to be like fraternal twins to me -- linked, but different.
3:13 am: Time starts to drag around 3 am. It’s not the hardest stretch of an all-nighter -- that would be between 6 and 7 am -- but it gets tough around now. “One Of Us Must Know” finally starts to sound recognizable around Take 16, and it is evident that it was going to be something special by Take 19.
3:49 am: Oh shit, I nodded off at my desk sometime during Take 24 of “One Of Us Must Know”! Looks like I slept through the four “stem” extractions of the final master -- no big loss, really. I’ll go back to them. Let’s just pretend I slept through the plane ride, because after finishing that song Dylan and Johnston moved the whole project from New York City to Nashville, in the hopes that the consummate pros working the sessions down there would bring some better results. It turned out to be just what they all needed.
4:17 am: Unlike many of the BoB songs, “Fourth Time Around” seems to have arrived at the studio fully formed; it was just a matter of capturing a winning performance of the delicate arrangement. Take 11 is nice, but Take 19 is the keeper.
4:30 am: Finally -- the Nashville “Visions of Johanna”! Immediately the vibe is right, and the Nashville cats know exactly how to handle this song. Two quick false starts and a breakdown later, and perfection is achieved.
4:47 am: Oh my, I’ve been waiting for this one -- the “doorbell” version of “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat.” It was one of the preview tracks, but since I was “fasting” I never got to hear it. Bob and the boys sound as loopy as I feel right now. Amazing that they put so much effort into a throwaway version of the song!
5:12 am: Damn, I nodded off again ... [checks playlist] ... I’ve missed most of the instrumental takes of the so-called “I’ll Keep It With Mine” -- a pretty track, no doubt, but it sounds like Bob’s not even on it. At least I’m timing my naps well...
5:16 am: Uh-oh, here comes “Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands” -- love the song, but it’s practically a sleeping pill right now at pre-dawn. Such a great song, though. Legend has it that the band was laughing amongst themselves during the first take, because they weren’t expecting a 12-minute song and thought they had “peaked” too soon. But I don’t hear it. This song was recorded in the wee hours of the night -- not much earlier than it is right now -- and it sounds like it. Probably couldn’t have been pulled off quite the same during the day -- it needs that bleary-eyed world weariness.
6:15 am: As I said above, when you’re pulling an all-nighter, it’s the hours between 6 and 7 am that are the toughest. The sun comes up, it starts to feel like “day” again -- and it starts to hit you that you haven’t slept and probably won’t for another 18 hours or so. Second wind time doesn’t usually hit me until around 9:00. For now, I have several more takes of “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” to keep me company. Honestly, this isn’t helping me right now.
6:35 am: “Absolutely Sweet Marie” -- now that’s more like it! Pretty much intact from Take 1, with Take three being the master. We must have entered the period where Bob would demo the songs for Al Kooper in his hotel room, and then Kooper would teach the musicians the arrangements before Bob got to the studio. Not as much experimentation at this point, but quicker, more efficient recordings.
7:05 am: “Just Like A Woman” takes a little longer to gel. More complete takes than usual here, with Take 3 being a nice one, and Take 4 a faster, more “garage-y” version. They take a break, bang out “Pledging My Time” (7:23 am), and resume work on “Woman.” Takes 8 and 16 are nice (and complete), but Take 18 is the winner.
7:50 am: Another favorite of mine helps me keep my eyes (and ears) open -- “Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine.” Only two complete takes out of six, but they knew what they were doing early on here. I do wish the trumpet and organ were featured more in the final mix, though.
8:15 am: Oh dear, I must have slipped into la-la land again. Looks like I missed most of “Temporary Like Achilles.” But it’s past 8 am now, the sun is fully up, and I should be able to power through the rest of this. We’re at the very end of Disc 16 -- over 17 hours down, less than 2 hours to go!
8:20 am: Hey, it’s the perfect wake-me-up song -- “A Long Haired Mule And A Porcupine Here” ... otherwise known by the perfectly logical title “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” ... otherwise known to stoners everywhere as “Everybody Must Get Stoned.” The “rehearsal track” is shorter than I’d hoped, but still perfect -- and the song is another one-take wonder, with this new mix being just a tad more out of control than the regular album mix. Lots of fun, and now I’m starting to see the light at the end of this box set tunnel.
8:30 am: Brian gets up early -- no school today -- to watch golf. Yes, golf. On the Golf Channel. Yeah, that’s a real thing -- just ask your dad, or maybe your grandfather.
8:41 am: “What’s the name of this one, Bob?” “I Want You.” And finally, after about 18 hours of crazy titles, sarcasm and irony, anger and regret, Bob gives the simplest possible song title and delivers the song with complete sincerity. The first takes are a little rough, but once the drums adopt more of a shuffle beat it started to come together, and a new Bob Dylan single was born.
8:58 am: The “hotel recordings” are playing, so that means the first 17 discs of The Cutting Edge (Collector’s Edition) are done, and now we’re on the “bonus disc” of hotel recordings. For the first time in nearly a day, I’m hearing tracks that I have NO relationship with. I know some of them were excerpted in the documentary Don’t Look Back, but I don’t remember most of them.
9:06 am: After all the madness of the studio sessions, suddenly we’re back in Bonnie Beecher’s apartment, with Bob holding court and playing favorites for his friends. Right now it’s “Lost Highway.” We get to a Dylan original, “I Can’t Leave Her Behind,” and it’s his prettiest love ballad in a long time -- maybe since “One Too Many Mornings” in 1963. Is this and indication of where he might have gone without that fateful motorcycle accident? We’ll never know.
9:33 am: My God, the Denver hotel tape still sounds awful.
2:31 am: If we can assume that Bob and co. needed something lighter to ease the sense of failure from the previous session, then “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” might be the song that saved the Blonde On Blonde (BoB for short) album. So far, they had attempted two “major” songs for the new album, and hadn’t come up with a satisfactory master for either one. Four days after the exhausting “Lover” session, a loose, silly blues may have been the perfect palate-cleanser. Although on the surface they also ended up “laboring” over this one too (working on it on four separate occasions before nailing the master take), it never threatens to disrupt the sessions as a whole. They amble through two takes of the song, not really sweating it, and not seemingly attempting anything triumphant.
10:08 am: With the final notes of a hotel demo of “Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands” fading away, I am done. Was it worth it it? Hard to say. I really didn’t get THAT much work done overnight, and honestly I barely made it through the final hours -- I’m going to need to re-listen to a lot of this stuff later today. But you can’t get an 18-CD box set and not see it as a challenge, a dare -- a mountain to climb. I climbed it, and the view was great. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I find myself at the bottom again, and it’s time to start climbing back up.
