I immediately go into fanboy mode when a new Dylan "Bootleg Series" entry such as Tell Tale Signs (or album proper) drops. Then, after devouring the fresh product, I start rifling through my piles of genuine bootlegs because, like any Dylan junkie, once you've tasted the forbidden fruit, you just can't get enough.
I've compiled a list and decided to write about some of my favorite Dylan rare and unreleased cuts. In part, to justify all the hours/money I've spent over the years, especially my college years, gathering all these gems. Not sure how often these entries will pop up, probably a couple per month. Most likely on slow music news day, like today. Here ya go:
"If You See Her, Say Hello" (live; alternate lyrics) 4/18/1976, from the bootleg Acoustic Thunder
This is the meanest I have ever heard Dylan. Recorded at the Lakeland Civic Center during the messy end of the famed Rolling Thunder Revue Tour, it finds a feisty Bobcat performing solo with acoustic guitar and harmonica, recasting a once gentle Blood on the Tracks goodbye-to-his wife number as a vicious screed. Almost every line is rewritten and laced with deadly venom.
“If you see her, say hello, she might be in North San Juan,” Dylan snarls on the opening line. “She left here in a hurry, I don’t know what she was on.”
His bitterness, with borderlines on hatred, grows with each verse.
“If you’re making love to her, watch it from the rear, you never know when I’ll be back or liable to appear," he threatens. "For it’s as natural to dream of things as it is for things to break, and right now I ain’t got much to lose, so you better stay away.”
The most crushing lines arrive at the end: “My head can’t understand no more what my heart don’t tolerate/Well, she’ll be back someday, of that there is no doubt/And when that moment comes, Lord, give me the strength to keep her out.”
A far cry from the original performance/lyrics. Gripping stuff. If you can stomach it.
UPDATE 10/28: Here's the clip.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2008.