Thursday, September 10, 2009

Thursday Deep Thought

Bob Dylan's Self Portrait cover version of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" -- sung as a cacophonous duet between his early protest and later Nashville Skyline voices -- may be the most hideously awful record ever made.





Discuss.
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11 comments:

Mister Pleasant said...

I have a little vomit in the back of my mouth....

Talk about an unnecessary cover. Time to get out my Shagg's record to purge my mind.

9/10/2009 12:58 AM
steves said...

You seem to have a Dylan theme going here over the last couple of days...Anyway, I have to disagree. That distinction belongs to Guns 'n Roses cover of Dylan's own "Knockin' On Heaven's Door."

9/10/2009 9:38 AM
steve simels said...

Speaking of which, I'm posting an interesting cover of Knockin' next week. And yes, the GNR version is pretty hideous, but then again I'd rather hear a cat being disemboweled than Axl Rose sing anything.

9/10/2009 9:47 AM
Anonymous said...

i suppose i should try to do a little research, but i suspect that dylan's opinion of paul simon was not very high. which makes the rendition a cheap joke, still not worthy of putting on record, but have you seen the yo la tengo video dissing times new viking? time honored tradition, and nice david bromberg fills.

9/10/2009 10:21 AM
steve simels said...

I suspect you're right about it being a cheap joke, and the idea of a duet between his voices is actually kind of funny on a conceptual level.

But god, it's horrible...
:-)

9/10/2009 10:36 AM
Cleveland Bob said...

I only made :42 into the cut and had to quit. I find the arch of Dylan's career very depressing. The longer he has stayed around, the more it becomes clear that he's fairly untalented.

Or whatever gift he once possessed is like a leaking can of soda sitting idly on a shelf. It leaks and leaks slowly until it is revealed to be an awful an sticky mess surrounding an empty container thought to be full of something.

9/10/2009 12:25 PM
Wendy said...

I don't agree that Dylan is untalented. He wrote some of the most iconic and important lyrics of the 60s. But he sure does seem to have run out of ideas. And I have always hated the new voice.

9/10/2009 12:37 PM
steve simels said...

But his radio show is so damned good!
:-)

Seriously -- I find the above, about the current state of Dylan's art, somewhat baffling.

9/10/2009 1:08 PM
Anonymous said...

Current Dylan albums have been real good.

Dylan took great pleasure in fucking with our heads with this horrible album. But I have to admit once every 5 years or so I play Self Portrait to stare at the glorious car wreck on the side of the road and laugh at Dylan, laugh at us for listen and laugh at Dylan laughing at us for caring.

Huh?

ROTP(lumber)

9/10/2009 5:50 PM
Dutch Canuck said...

Jesus Christ on a bicycle, what a mess! I couldn't stop laughing.

It even starts out kinda nice, with some decent guitar work, and then ... WTF?! This has to be some sort of put-on, or a big "fuck you" to somebody, but who? Columbia Records? Paul Simon?

I've never heard this album. By the time I was buying Dylan LPs, Self Portrait already had a huge rep as "the one to avoid." I was curious about that, but not enough to spend money on the thing. Thanks for giving us a small clue. Is the rest of the album this ridiculous?

9/14/2009 7:38 PM
Anonymous said...

...it's not THAT bad...

7/14/2010 4:22 PM

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