Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8 | Bob Dylan | SURPRISINGLY STUNNING, HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL

Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8 | Bob Dylan | At first...

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	Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8 Bob Dylan Sony BMG, 2008 average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

2 CDs with 27 songs in a brilliant box with a 60 page booklet.

SURPRISINGLY STUNNING, HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL

There's not much I can add to the other reviews that preceded me. I just want to add my voice to the growing chorus about the superlative quality of this release. I was stunned. This quiet acoustic numbers are Dylan Unplugged with a purity never captured by the MTV special of the same name. It's like having Bob in your living room singing to you.

The unadorned arrangements bring new life to the songs that have already been released. Those that are on disc for the first time are stunning (ie, Across The Green Mountain) and solidify Dylan's emerging stature as a colossus of American music. The Kennedy Arts Center award was well deserved indeed.

The stripped down Oh Mercy tracks in particular are revelatory - especially if you've only heard them on bootlegs of mediocre quality. Dignity 1, with Dylan singing alone with piano is capable of inducing goose bumps.

Don't hesitate - buy this disc. If you enjoy Dylan at all - especially Time Out Of Mind and Love & Theft you will get immense pleasure from this disc. These are most definately NOT re=packaged retreads that have been released to milk more money from an adulating public. This is music of the highest order. Think you know Somedaya Baby from its over use in the iPod commercials? Wait till you hear it in its original version. Talk about an iPod shuffle. I can't get these discs off the player.

Revelatory. Truly revelatory.

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At first...

At first few listens I enjoyed it but wasn't overly impressed. Worth having I figured, being the Dylan completist that I am. I left on repeat in my car for a few days and slowly began to realize what a fantastic collection this really is. I've come to prefer many of the alternate versions to the originals. Yeah there are a few on there that don't really grab ya, but others like High Water and Lonesome River make the collection worthwhile all on their own.

Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol 8

This is the best of Dylan I have heard in years. A lot blues & rock.

another side of bob dylan

this set confirms dylan as a prolific artist.it confirms his ability to interpret his own songs in so many wonderful ways that each and every one is a new discovery,almost a different story,although the lyrics is well known,by now.in fact,the treasure that lies within this set is so rich that one may unconditionally recommend it to the uninitiated as an entrance to dylan's work.i am also certain that it would entice the listener enough to go back to the classic dylan albums and delve deeper into what is one of the corner stones of modern music and poetry.
i for one will be forever gratefull to dylan for allowing the bootleg series to be published.this stands proudly next to any of his best work.

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Great stuff....but a scholarship oversight

I recall a NY Times article around the time of "Love and Theft" called "Plagiarism in Dylan, or a Cultural Collage?", discussing Dylan's use of many lines from a Japanese historical memoir in his song "Floater (Too Much To Ask)." It went on to side with Dylan's borrowings, citing his longtime fondness for "dipping into a shared cultural heritage."

I have no problem with Dylan 'sampling', as it were. I DO have a problem with Larry "Ratso" Sloman in his otherwise excellent liner notes to the Bootleg Series 8. He ends his description of "'Cross The Green Mountain" with this: "But has Dylan ever delivered any lines better than: 'A letter to Mother came today/Gun shot wound to the breast is what it did say/But he'll be better soon he's in a hospital bed/But he'll never be better, he's already dead?" Great, moving lines, but they were nearly all written by Walt Whitman in "Leaves of Grass."

The relevant text from Whitman's poem, "Come Up From The Fields, Father":
"And come to the front door, mother, here's a letter from thy dear son..."
"Sentences broken,'gunshot wound in the breast,....taken to hospital, at present low, but will soon be better...'"
"Alas, poor boy, he will never be better,..."
"While they stand at the door he is dead already..."

I can excuse Mr. Dylan for going once again to the shared well of cultural heritage, and he did paraphrase somewhat, turning Whitman's narrative into a great lyric. But someone should have told Mr. Sloman--he could've excerpted a dozen worthy lines on this great disc that were wholly Dylan's own.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Tracks
Mississippi 6:04 (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind) | Most of the Time 3:46 (Alternate version, Oh Mercy) | Dignity 2:09 (Piano demo, Oh Mercy) | Someday Baby 5:56 (Alternate version, Modern Times) | Red River Shore 7:36 (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind) | Tell Ol' Bill 5:31 (Alternate version, North Country soundtrack) | Born in Time 4:10 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy) | Can't Wait 5:45 (Alternate version, Time Out of Mind) | Everything is Broken 3:27 (Alternate version, Oh Mercy) | Dreamin' of You 6:23 (Unreleased, Time Out Of Mind) | Huck's Tune 4:09 (From Lucky You soundtrack) | Marchin' to the City 6:36 (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind) | High Water (For Charley Patton) 6:40 (Live, August 23, 2003, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada) | Mississippi 6:24 (Unreleased version #2, Time Out of Mind) | 32-20 Blues 4:22 (Unreleased, World Gone Wrong) | Series of Dreams 6:27 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy) | God Knows 3:12 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy) | Can't Escape from You 5:22 (Unreleased, December 2005) | Dignity 5:25 (Unreleased, Oh Mercy) | Ring Them Bells 4:59 (Live at The Supper Club, November 17, 1993, New York, NY) | Cocaine Blues 5:30 (Live, August 24, 1997, Vienna, VA) | Ain't Talkin' 6:13 (Alternate version, Modern Times) | The Girl on the Greenbriar Shore 2:51 (Live, June 30, 1992,Dunkerque, France) | Lonesome Day Blues 7:37 (Live, February 1, 2002, Sunrise, FL) | Miss the Mississippi 3:20 (Unreleased, 1992) | The Lonesome River 3:04 (With Ralph Stanley, from the album Clinch Mountain Country) | 'Cross the Green Mountain 8:15 (From Gods and Generals Soundtrack)

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