Smiles
In the early 1980s, Bob Dylan wasn’t on my radar, really. I did have a hip Jewish grandmother who had me stay up late to watch Dylan’s one and only performance on Saturday Night Live in ’79 with her. It blew my eleven-year-old mind watching Dylan break out “Gotta Serve Somebody” on SNL, and I vaguely had the sense that it was a subversive performance—as the song goes, somewhere between holy and satanic. But for me, the early to mid-80s were about Zeppelin, The Doors, Skynyrd, and ACDC. And when The Police broke through in '79-'80 with “Regatta de Blanc” and “Zenyatta Mondatta,” everything changed.
For most people, Dylan’s early to mid-'80s music was indeed forgettable. His albums “Shot of Love,” “Infidels,” and “Empire Burlesque” drew the kind of criticism reserved for the Mili Vanili’s of the world. Dylan himself admitted he was lost and increasingly irrelevant. It wouldn’t be until ’89, when Dylan absconded to New Orleans to record “Oh Mercy” with Daniel Lanios and the Neville Brothers, that his cultural resurrection would be launched.
Now, the latest edition of Dylan’s bootleg series, Springtime in New York (1980-1985) has just dropped over the weekend. It obliterates everything that we thought about Dylan’s music of the period. Listening to the outtakes and rehearsals—the material that never made it on to “Shot of Love,” “Infidels,” and “Empire Burlesque”—may be one of the grandest mysteries of all when it comes to the bewildering bard. These tracks are astonishingly great.
“Price of Love,” an outtake from “Shot of Love,” is one of my favorites. And yes, Benmont Tench from the Heartbreakers plays keys on it. Play this LOUD: youtu.be/3EWQqqmXX_s
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