Bob Dylan
Self Portrait

THE REVIEW

An album to throw away or to reevaluate? Even listening to it today—with much more forgiving ears than when, at eighteen, it got stuck in my throat after I bought it “on trust”—I still can’t help but put this 1970 SELF PORTRAIT among the worst things dear Bobby has ever recorded. A mishmash of confused ideas. And then that almost unrecognizable voice, which in itself already betrayed the identity purpose of such an unfitting title.

How many times have I listened to it, trying to figure out “what could be behind” that blessed tracklist! A sum of a few of his own songs (but very few of them new), and many from other authors, mixed with some traditionals where country prevails, together with live versions of songs from his own repertoire (“Like a Rolling Stone”; “Quinn the Eskimo”; “Minstrel Boy” and “She Belongs To Me”) that truly seem to have been purposefully picked in some of the least successful versions (they all come from his lackluster performance at the Isle of Wight).

Moreover, the album’s inner booklet is absolutely lacking the most obvious information, so much so that you have to read the “credits” for each song directly on the record label, and for each side. That’s how you find some “strange things” like that opening fake-gospel mixed with strings (“All The Tired Horses”), where Dylan’s presence isn’t even noticeable; or, at the end, the almost-instrumental “Wigwam” (which was even released as a single, can you imagine!) with a brass accompaniment in a vaguely tex-mex style—a song for which his effort doesn’t go much beyond the “la-la-la-lee” of the vocalizing.

And then the covers: a bit sugary but acceptable those from the Everly Brothers (“Take A Message To Mary”; “Let It Be Me” and “Take Me As I Am”), and instead standing out is his dry and touching rendition of “In The Early Morning Rain” by Gordon Lightfoot, which seems to me the only real gem on this record. For me, the take on “Blue Moon” sung Elvis-style is a total flop, and “The Boxer” from Simon & Garfunkel doesn’t quite work either. Among the “traditional” numbers, “In Search Of Little Sadie” isn’t bad (though the same song appears twice—“Little Sadie”—albeit with a different arrangement); “Days Of 49” is alright, and so is “It Hurts Me Too”.

That’s it—and for a double album, I’d say that’s really too little. To complete the self-portrait—quite the right term—let’s mention even the cover art, where the neo-expressionist painting ambitions go far beyond the reality of the painting itself. So, do we throw it away? Despite all my frustrations, I’ve kept it for fifty years: I bought it in London—price sticker in shillings still on—and over time, I’ve become more accommodating, I’ve forgiven old Bobby his slips into Christian fundamentalism, the Christmas songs, even his senile ambitions as a would-be crooner, and in the end, for this much-maligned SELF PORTRAIT, I’ve come to accept that maybe he purposely made a bad record just to demolish his own myth and put an end to some of the “expectation anxiety” among his fans.

Who knows if that’s really how it was, but it’s a hypothesis that fits the character and… what does it matter? Every now and then, I still listen to it, ponder over it and smile, as all die-hard Dylan fans surely do. As for everyone else—it’s better if they look elsewhere!