Loaded Couch Potatoes

Thought I’d forgotten about that series of Dylan album reviews, dintcha?  Well, Honk Mahfah never forgets; he merely procrastinates.

Bob Dylan — released March 19, 1962

(1)  “You’re No Good” (Jesse Fuller):  I don’t know anything about Jesse Fuller, or about most of the other artists Dylan covered on his debut album, so I don’t have much to say about this song as a cover … or about this album as a series of covers.  What I’ll say about this song is that there’s not a lot in it that would betray Dylan’s future status as pop culture icon; as lead-off songs for an entire recorded career go, this is fairly inauspicious.  That said, it’s a rollicking little tune that shows off Dylan’s skill on the guitar and finds him in seemingly good spirits here at the beginning of it all.

(2)  “Talkin’ New York”:  A Dylan composition, this song is one of the undoubted highlights of Bob Dylan.  It’s not quite as lyrically sharp as some of the songs that would follow in the next few years … actually, it’s not as lyrically sharp as most of those songs, but that’s hardly an insult, is it?  Dylan’s early-years wit is on full display, though, in verses like this one: “Well, I got a harmonica job, begun to play/Blowin’ my lungs out for a dollar a day/I blowed inside out and upside down/The man there said he loved my sound/He was ravin’ about he loved my sound/Dollar a day’s worth.”  The downside to this song is that it sounds like Dylan just stopped playing it before it was actually finished, or quit writing it … and knowing Dylan, that just might be what happened.  Either way, it sounds like it’s just getting wound up when it fades out, and that can be a bit jarring.

(3)  “In My Time of Dyin’ ” (traditional, arr. Dylan):  Dylan does his best to sound like an 80-year-old black man, and does a passable job at it.  One of Dylan’s great strengths as a cover artist has been his good taste in music.  This is a great song, and while Dylan might not bring anything earthshaking or particularly revelatory to the table in interpreting it, that doesn’t make it any less fun to listen to.

(4)  “Man of Constant Sorrow” (traditional, arr. Dylan):  I must confess that I knew this song from the Soggy Bottom Boys version in O Brother, Where Art Thou? before I ever heard Dylan’s version, so it’s hard for me to listen to this one without imagining George Clooney lip-syncing.  Once again, it’s a great song, and Dylan does a fine job playing it … but there’s nothing special going on here.

(5)  “Fixin’ to Die” (Bukka White):  I’ve never heard another version of this song, but Dylan’s version takes flight for me in a way some of the other covers on this album never do.  Dylan plays it ferociously, and so much so that the song — about a dying man who is terrified of leaving his children destitute — sounds totally natural coming out of the mouth of a then-twenty-year-old who had had few of the life experiences such a song implies.  As such, this song stands as a fine early example of Dylan’s acting ability behind the microphone.  He would spend his entire career playing one character or another, often disappearing utterly into the part … after all, lest we forget, “Bob Dylan” is a character.

(6)  “Pretty Peggy-O” (traditional, arr. Dylan):  I kinda love this song.  Dylan — both at this point in his career and, popularly, even today — is most frequently referred to as a folk musician, but the truth is, most of the songs on Bob Dylan are retooled blues numbers.  “Pretty Peggy-O,” on the other hand, definitely comes out of the folk tradition (check out the song’s Wikipedia page if you want to know more about where Dylan’s version comes from).  Dylan plays and sings with an intensity on this song that sounds, in places, almost like some early form of punk rock.

(7)  “Highway 51 Blues” (Curtis Jones):  Dylan’s guitar playing here is intense, but ragged, and unfocused; so are the vocals.  In short, this is one of the least persuasive songs on the album.  It’s not bad, but it’s definitely weak compared to some of the others (not to mention how it compares to some of the songs recorded for, but not included on, the album).

(8)  “Gospel Plow” (traditional, arr. by Reverend Gary Davis):  Dylan plays with pure ferociousness on this track, zipping through the song in a way that, again, makes me think of punk; it clocks in at a mere 1:47, and I can imagine the Ramones being somewhat envious of its energy.  I loved the way Dylan crams into a single line the words “Well I never been to Heaven but I been told,” and does it with such aplomb that it sounds like machine gun fire but makes it sound completely natural.  Good stuff.

(9)  “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down” (traditional, arr. Eric Von Schmidt):  Dylan’s voice is actually a bit too pure for this song.  It’s a song that probably sounds best when performed by someone like Tom Waits, or Leonard Cohen, or even Nick Cave; since the moral of the lyrics is “mama, when you goan lemme fuck?”, the singer ought to sound like the nastiest, most depraved sumbitch in history.  Or, at least, he ought to sound horny.  Dylan is just playing the song, more or less straightforwardly.  Again, it’s not bad, but it’s a clear instance of Dylan not quite being up to the material.

(10)  “House of the Risin’ Sun” (traditional, arr. Dave Van Ronk):  Now this material…?  Dylan does just fine by it.  There’s a famous story in which Dylan borrowed the arrangement from Dave Van Ronk, who had planned to record it himself, and put it on record; henceforth, every time Van Ronk performed his version of the song, people assumed he was getting it from Dylan!  Oh, well.  Dylan again is playing a character, this time a female prostitute, and when he sings the line “Oh tell my baby sister not to do what I have done,” listen to the way he’s got anger, despair, resignation, and hope in his voice all at the same time.  I’m not sure he could possibly have gotten all of that from Van Ronk.  This is one of the songs I’d point to any time I’m in a conversation with someone who claims that Dylan “could not sing.”

(11)  “Freight Train Blues” (Elizabeth Cotten, arr. Dylan):  Dylan here appears to be doing country music by way of Buddy Holly, with the same intensity that he exhibited on several other tracks on this album.  The results are fairly mediocre, though; this is probably my least favorite track on the record.

(12)  “Song to Woody”:  A fairly simple little song, it’s a heartfelt paean to Woody Guthrie that doesn’t sound a whole heck of a lot different from the others songs on this album.  Is that because Dylan was writing in that mode…?  Or is it a testament to his skill as a performer that he was able to take blues, folk, country, and gospel and mash it all up, filter it through his personality, and churn it back out in a fashion that sounded like it was all coming from the same place?  Maybe a little bit of both.  I’m intrigued by the last couple of lines: “The very last thing that I’d want to do/Is to say I’ve been hittin’ some hard travelin’ too.”  With those lines, Dylan seems to be acknowledging that while he might be walking in Guthrie’s footsteps, he could never wear Guthrie’s shoes; that a humbleness that you don’t often find in Dylan’s music, and it’s kinda refreshing.

(13)  “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” (Blind Lemon Jefferson):  Dylan again takes on the guise of an elderly black man, but I don’t think he quite nailed this one.  It’s a good song, and Dylan does alright by it, but there’s a bit too much intensity in his voice, where there probably ought to have been quiet despair instead.  Why this made the album where “House Carpenter” and “He Was a Friend of Mine” were left off will remain a mystery to me.

FINAL THOUGHTS:  This is a better album than a lot of people give it credit for being.  Starting with his next album, Dylan quickly took on the guise of folk prophet/voice of a generation, and all other facets of his art were subsumed, but Bob Dylan gives you the impression that he could have had a good, long — if not especially fruitful — career as an interpreter of other people’s work.  There are no flat-out classics on this album (with the possible exception of “House of the Risin’ Sun”), but of the thirteen tracks, I’d say at least nine of them range from good to very good.

Honk Mahfah’s rating:  3/5 spuds