Bob Dylan 11: Self Portrait

They dealt with John Wesley Harding. They endured Nashville Skyline. Now, with Self Portrait, diehard Dylan fans were at the end of their collective ropes. Roughly four years after one of the greatest double albums ever issued, here was another two-record set, filled not with that thin, wild mercury music and advanced prose worthy of the Summer of Love, but rather a cross between some old folk tunes and other tracks that sat squarely in the middle of the road.

That’s not to say that what was contained within wasn’t pleasant. But whether or not you liked the smooth sound of Nashville Skyline, chances are you weren’t ready for what came next. If you haven’t been prepared, strap yourself in for this one.
Some of the tracks came from the “crooner” aftermath of Nashville Skyline, a few were included from his appearance (with The Band) at the British version of Woodstock in the Isle of Wight, and others came from further sessions from the new decade. In many cases, he recorded basic tracks, and let the producer embellish them at will and at length.

Even though it’s probably the best song in the set, “All The Tired Horses” consists of the same two lines repeated by a bunch of women over a gentle acoustic and string backing. No Dylan nowhere. “Alberta #1” is a lazy rendition of a blues song, then “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know” ladles on the syrup. “Days Of 49” is a little raspier, but you’re allowed to be confused. (Oh my goodness indeed.) “Early Mornin’ Rain” is a Gordon Lightfoot song, and would have been fine if he’d written it himself. But then “In Search Of Little Sadie” loses her trail through every key imaginable, which should be proof enough he was doing it all on purpose.

“Let It Be Me” sucks the life out of the Everly Brothers song, then he pulls out the mandolins for a straight rendition of “Little Sadie” that somehow isn’t as much fun as the first side’s closer. “Woogie Boogie” is another instrumental that can’t have taken too much time to write. “Belle Isle” tries very hard to stay pretty, but “Living The Blues” is a boring Skyline refugee. The worst is yet to come: a lousy take of “Like A Rolling Stone” from the Isle of Wight, complete with flubbed words. The crowd cheers, amazingly.

“Copper Kettle” is a sweet moonshine ballad, but “Gotta Travel On” sounds too much like Elvis trying to be hip. To prove the point, “Blue Moon” sends the song back to Bing Crosby. “The Boxer” is a daring experiment, with its dueling vocals—the crooner with the raspy, not at all like Garfunkel and Garfunkel—and proof he could turn on that voice whenever he felt like it. “The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)” is his nod to the Manfred Mann hit version of his own song; too bad the Band couldn’t remember how to play it. “Take Me As I Am” ends side three with a tempting dare.

“Take A Message To Mary” relies too much on the women singing backup. In a foreboding of the 21st century, “It Hurts Me Too” is basically the old Elmore James song, but he takes full credit. “Minstrel Boy” is another experiment from the Isle Of Wight, and he hasn’t played it since. “She Belongs To Me” is the rousing opener from that set, the one that nearly got him killed by the crowd. “Wigwam” has a melody he didn’t bother to write words for, and it all comes screeching home with “Alberta #2”, only marginally better than the first all those sides ago.

So what’s it all about? Self Portrait endures as the first major middle finger from a major artist, except that it’s obvious that the perpetrator actually gave a crap about what he was laying down on tape. Given what else emerged at the time, Dylan was obviously amidst some kind of writers’ block. At the same time, it appeared he wanted to put something out to keep atop of the marketplace. By this time what would soon be known as “bootlegs” had become commonplace, complete with the same lack of chronological thematics as demonstrated here.

The question remains: how much did Dylan care about these tracks? As time went on, he insisted that it was all a ploy to get the fanatics off his trail (“Why was it a double album?” Kurt Loder asked; “If you’re gonna put a lot of crap on it, you might as well load it up!” replied Dylan), but there’s no mistaking the passion that he actually puts into (some of) these performances, especially considering that he’d still be performing a few of them twenty, thirty and forty years on. If you’re not expecting much, you won’t be disappointed. But if you’re expecting something truly lackluster, you won’t be disappointed either. Here in the modern CD age, some of these songs might be best served as bonus tracks on other albums, but it is what it is, and Bob wanted to it to stand. So he did. And it does. So much so that of all the albums he would go on to release over the next forty-plus years, this was the first to get an archeological treatment all its own. That actually helped the cause, but it’s another story for later.

Bob Dylan Self Portrait (1970)—2½