A curate's egg.
I've been mulling over this LP for the past month and that's the best I can come up with. A veritable curate's egg.
I'm not sure what the point of Self Portrait is, what Dylan was really trying to do. Depending on which interview you read, it was either an attempt to bring out something so different (read toe-curlingly awful) that it would persuade all the Dylan-heads turning up at his home to finally push off and bother someone like Gilbert O'Sullivan instead or an effort to put one over on all the bootleggers by releasing album outtakes and curios before they did.
The first of those explanations certainly doesn't wash; it just isn't that terrible an album. There are some right stinkers on it but there is also a fair bit of worthwhile material here as well. And even if it was the worst album in the world, the cult of Dylan had gone too far to let something as trivial as a bad record make the hardcore Bobcats go away. He could fart in a bottle, release it and still have unwashed strangers turning up on his doorstep asking what it means. The LP as early part of the bootleg series has more of a ring of truth to it given the number of cover versions here but, really, if you have the time to worry about tapes of Bob warbling Blue Moon doing the rounds you need a hobby. It would explain the 24 tracks here - 'sod it, just stick it all on, whatever it sounds like'. You can kind of see it.
To the music. Hit and miss doesn't do this LP justice. We start with All The Tired Horses, just the backing singers (I think the first time he has used backing singers?) warbling about, well, tired horses. It's odd but I like it. It works in a hypnotic, cinematic sort of way. Then into the first song proper, Alberta #1. On my copy it's credited as a Dylan composition but let's cough politely and call it "trad arr. Dylan". It's got a nice Nashville Skyline type swing to it - this album is looking up.
Third track, I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know. Hmm... Dylan becomes Pat Boone and croons his way through the first (of many) cover versions on the album. If this was on an Elvis Vegas comeback LP you'd sigh, blame Colonel Tom Parker and forgive him because of that voice. But Bob? I loved the country twang of Skyline but this is a dirge. Never mind, let's move on.
Days of 49. See, that's better. A cover but a quality tune that wouldn't have been out of place on John Wesley Harding. Good, good, and then straight on to Early Morning Rain, another cover but a good choice again and nicely delivered.
At last, a Dylan composition. In Search of Little Sadie. Oh my, this is terrible. I don't know - others will - but I think I hear The Band on this (Levon Helm's mandolin perhaps?). I love Dylan, I love The Band, but this wouldn't deserve a place on The Basement Tapes. It sounds like a first take of a sketchy idea and, while we all know Dylan didn't like to do too many takes of any song, surely even Bob could say "let's try that again" once in a while. Next, please. Let It Be Me. Oh god, Pat Boone/Elvis comeback again.
So it goes on. Decent cover, decent cover, Boone, crap, Boone. Of the remaining Dylan originals we have the good - Living The Blues, The Mighty Quinn - the bad - Belle Isle, Wigwam - and the meh - Little Sadie, Woogie Boogie, It Hurts Me Too, Minstrel Boy. That's not a great strike rate.
[And if you thought he couldn't harmonise with Johnny Cash, his cover of Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer shows that it wasn't Cash's fault - here Dylan spectacularly fails to harmonise with himself.]
The shame is that there is a half-decent album here drowning in mediocrity. Take it down to ten or so tracks and you could make yourself a worthy release - it would just be an LP of mostly covers, that's all. By a fluke of MP3 shuffling, I'd listened to Self Portrait for the umteenth time, trying to work out what on earth to say about it, worrying about being too harsh, when To Ramona from Another Side came on. The contrast in quality was sobering. If I'm having to pick and choose between the tracks of a Dylan album to find something worthwhile then we have reached a low - whatever the reason for it. Let's move on shall we?
Out of five?
Two.
Favourite track?
Days of 49
Next up?
New Morning.
