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Rating: 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!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 All the Tired Horses (03:12)
All the tired horses in the sun
How'm I supposed to get any ridin' done? Hmm.
02 Alberta #1 (02:57)
Alberta let your hair hang low
Alberta let your hair hang low
I'll give you more gold
Than your apron can hold
If you'd only let your hair hang low
Alberta what's on your mind
Alberta what's on your mind
You keep me worried and bothered
All of the time
Alberta what's on your mind
Alberta don't you treat me unkind
Alberta don't you treat me unkind
Oh my heart is so sad
Cause I want you so bad
Alberta don't you treat me unkind
Alberta let your hair hang low
Alberta let your hair hang low
I'll give you more gold
Than your apron can hold
If you'll only let your hair hang low
10 Belle Isle (02:30)
One evening for pleasure I rambled to view
The fair fields all alone
Down by the banks of Loch Eiron
Where beauty and pleasure were known.
I spied a fair maid at her labour
Which caused me to stay for a while
And I thought of a goddess to beauty
Bloomin' bright star of Bright Isle.
I humbled myself to her beauty
"Fair maiden, where do you belong ?
Are you from heaven descended
Abiding in Cupid's fair throne ?".
"Young man, I will tell you a secret
It's true I'm a maid that is poor
And to part from my vows and my promise
Is more than my heart can endure.
Therefore I remain at my service
And go through all my hardship and toil
And wait for the lad that has left me
All alone on the banks of Belle Isle".
"Young maiden I wish not to banter
It's true I come here in disguise
I came here to fulfill our last promise
And hope to give you a surprise.
I've known you're a maid I love dearly
And you've been in my heart all the while
For me there is no other damsel
Than my bloomin' bright star of Belle Isle".
13 Copper Kettle (03:34)
Get you a copper kettle, get you a copper coil, Fill it with new-made corn mash and never more you'll toil. You'll just lay there by the juniper while the moon is bright, Watch them jugs a-filling In the pale moonlight. Build you a fire with hickory, hickory, ash and oak, Don't use no green or rotten wood; they'll get you by the smoke. We'll just lay there by the juniper... etc. My daddy, he made whiskey; my granddaddy, he did too. We ain't paid no whiskey tax since 1792. We just lay there by the juniper... etc. (LAST LINE REPEATED)
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Other reviews
By ilsuonatorejones
"What is this crap?", said Rolling Stone magazine when this album was released.
"I picked up 'Self Portrait' this morning. 11.99 dollars and 74 minutes of my life that I'll never get back."
By Almotasim
Instead of trying to pass, once more, through the narrow gate of artistic creation, he chooses another path: sarcasm and distraction.
A joke, a quarrel? Or an enigma? Not a poet, not a bard, not a prophet, not a revolutionary, not a utopian. What Dylan is this?
