Tell Tale Signs

Hello. How are you? Yes, you!

Me? Doing all right. The Autumn colors are bursting, my wife Josephine is back from Kenya and the new Dylan CD arrived in yesterday’s mail…all in the same week! I’m not sure Jo would want me to put her picture up (I’ll ask…we’ll see) so I guess it’ll have to be Bob for now.

Q: Dale, how did you get the anxiously awaited Tell Tale Signs (Bootleg Series #8) three days before its official release?

A: I’m either very important, or I ordered it off BobDylan.com some time back. “It’s either one or the other, or neither of the two.”

One problem with me “reviewing” a Dylan CD is that I’d likely love anything  he put out. Please bear this in mind as I attempt to be unbiased here:

This is simply the best CD of the year 

While several of the Dylan bootleg series releases could be recommended for a wider audience –particularly those that feature entire live tour recordings (ala Bootleg Series #5/Rolling Thunder Review Live ’75)– Tell Tale Signs would probably be of most interest to Bobophiles. Containing 27 songs on 2 disks, more than half of the tracks here are alternate/outtakes from Dylan’s last 4 or 5 albums. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, but I feel most would agree that the cuts that “made the cut” on the original albums were probably the best choices, if you get my drift. If you’re into hearing a song’s progress, or what it sounded like as a demo before being fully fleshed out with the band (as I happen to be, for some odd reason), Tell Tale Signs is for you.

Don’t stop reading yet, though! The remaining 10 tunes are what make Bootleg Series Vol. 8 worthy of its title. Four great live performances, including “Ring Them Bells” from Dylan’s acclaimed NY Supper Club shows, and a 1992 rendition of “The Girl On The Greenbriar Shore” begin to make this a buy. A couple of songs Bob wrote exclusively for movies (like “Huck’s Tune” for the Lucky You soundtrack), and a few never-before-heard songs that I’ll leave you to discover, and this 2 disk set settles right into this series well. Overall, it plays like an addendum to the earliest set “Vols 1-3″ in its hodge-podge of selections. It would have been a much better single disk, but I love every bit of it. Does that help?

Oh, and Tell Tale Signs does feature an unreleased version of the song “Series of Dreams”, making it a must-purchase for all avid readers…so “Into the path you are hurled”.