Talkin’ The Basement Tapes, Part 2: The Dylan Originals

A Million $ Bash Roundtable

Last time we discussed just the covers that Bob Dylan and the members of what would become The Band recorded during the 1967 Basement Tapes sessions. Be sure to check out part 1 if you missed it.

Today we are back with part 2 to explore the Bob Dylan originals recorded during those sessions.

The common explanation is that Dylan was cranking out new compositions during what was otherwise his bucolic hiatus in Woodstock, NY, in order to sell them to others to record. If that is true, then the recordings we have scattered across various bootlegs, Columbia’s 1975 release entitled The Basement Tapes, and 2014’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete consist largely of rehearsals and demos. Of course, both Dylan and the Band released some of the numbers themselves on separately recorded albums, including The Band’s debut, Music from Big Pink.

Whatever the rational for composing these songs, performing them, and even recording them, we are fortunate to have this trove of musical delights. The songs range from the pretty but treacly "All You Have to Do is Dream" (takes 1 and 2) to the deceptively traditional-feeling  "Apple Suckling Tree” (takes 1 and 2) to the silly “Get Your Rocks Off” to the playful “See You Later Allen Ginsberg” to the magnificent yet incomprehensible “I’m Not There” to the magical “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” to the surreal “Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread” (takes 1 and 2) to the magisterial “I Shall Be Released” and on and on.

As I list these songs, each jingles about my head, and I am sure they are rattling around the noggins of most of our listeners now.

So, you’re welcome.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the evident influence these songs had on Todd Haynes’ 2007 meta-biopic, I’m Not There. Haynes has reportedly claimed his movie was greatly inspired by listening to a Basement Tapes bootleg over and over during a cross-country road trip, and many themes, snippets of dialogue, settings, and imagery directly evoke the Big Pink sessions.

MDB Roundtable Panelists:

• Rob “Rockin’ Rob” Reginio teaches modern literature at Alfred University.  He's currently at work on a book about Dylan's album John Wesley Harding.
• Nina Goss is Editor of or contributor to the volumes Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the 21st Century and Dylan at Play. She is a contributor to various anthologies and presented at the first World of Bob Dylan conference (2019), and Dylan and the Beats conference in Tulsa (2022). She teaches at Fordham University.
• Erin Callahan lives in the Houston, Texas, area where she teaches English at San Jacinto College. She has presented and published on Dylan and is currently co-editing a volume with Court Carney on interpretations of Dylan’s setlists for Routledge.
• Graley Herren is an English professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he regularly teaches a first-year seminar on Bob Dylan. He is author of the book Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and he has a Substack newsletter devoted to Dylan called Shadow Chasing.
• Jim Salvucci is the founder and keeper of The Dylantantes.

Let us know what you think!

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