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The Bootleg Series Vol 8: Tell Tale Signs – Rare and Unreleased 1989 – 2006 by Bob Dylan
I have had a love/hate relationship with Dylan for quite some time now. I love Bob Dylan for all the obvious reasons, and some more personal and not so obvious. I hate Bob Dylan for the same reasons most in my position do – I have seen him live, twice. He didn't so much as touch a guitar once either time, although he did sing – allegedly. Songs that are little short of sacrosanct to me, were completely destroyed and rebuilt in ways that made them barely recognizable (particularly due to the nature of the “singing”). The second time I saw him was as one of the headliners at Austin City Limits a few years back. Google the official review of that show and the phrases “bad joke” and “sounded like a dying goat” will appear more than once. The majority of people, who couldn't see the stage, laughed through the first and second song, thinking it was a joke – then it kept on going...
Remember I, and most of them too, LOVE Dylan. But we also HATE him.
This latest album came about 2 + years since my last live encounter, and I, wearily, was ready to try to love again. The material, as indicated by the title, comes on the tail end of his creative supernova that occurred at the end of the 80s through the end of 2006. There are multiple versions of multiple tracks, several of which are superior to those actually released on their respective albums. And those tracks particularly brought me a sense of transcendent peace.
It was like walking a mile in his shoes - a small piece of insight into this man, who seems not only unwilling but unable to do the same thing twice, even if it makes us hate him. He remains true to himself, and his vision of what the music should be according to his mood at that very moment. A moment that we can relive a hundred, a thousand times, but has already come and gone for him.
My CD sampler 3 tracks are:
Born in Time
Everything is Broken
and Series of Dreams
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