Bootleg Series Vol. 7—No Direction Home:
The Soundtrack [2005] This 2-CD set’s title
claims to offer the soundtrack to what is the MARTIN
SCORSESE film No Direction Home: Bob Dylan,
2005 (and at Scorsese’s insistence the cover was
changed to add his name under that title). But of
course it doesn’t. These CDs draw on some of the
same material as the film, but offer complete
tracks, in roughly chronological order, beginning
with a previously unknown 1959 recording,
‘When I Got Troubles’, ending with ‘Like a Rolling
Stone’ live from Manchester, 1966 (already released
on the Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live
1966—The ‘‘Royal Albert Hall’’ Concert, 1998), but
including, in between, outtakes from Blonde on
Blonde, something never made available before—
indeed something most people never thought
they’d live to hear.
The rest of the collection is of varying rarity and
value. That 1959 track ‘When I Got Troubles’, were
it not by Bob Dylan, would be of no interest whatever:
but it is. After that comes ‘Rambler, Gambler’,
a track now said to be from August 1960
(accompanying booklet, p.19) or autumn 1960
(same booklet, p.50) and recorded at the University
of Minnesota by one Cleve Petterson (though it
sounds like a quality-upgraded version of a track
on the so-called Minnesota Party Tape of ‘Fall
1960’ always said to have been recorded by BONNIE
BEECHER).
Next is ‘This Land Is Your Land’, live from the
1961 Carnegie Chapter Hall concert, previously
known about but uncirculating; ‘Song to Woody’—
unhappily, the first album version, rather than, as
would have been more logical, the Carnegie Chapter
Hall version; ‘Dink’s Song’ and ‘I Was Young

‘BORN AGAIN’ PERIOD, THE
When I Left Home’, both informally recorded in
Minnesota in December 1961 and already widely
circulated, with the latter also included on various
‘official rarities’; and ‘Sally Gal’, an outtake from
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan not previously circulated
(five takes are known to exist but only one—
probably take 3—has previously been in circulation;
the one released here is reported to be take 1).
Then comes a Witmark Music Publishing demo
version of ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ from
1963, already circulating, and a ‘Man of Constant
Sorrow’ taken from the TV show ‘Folk Songs &
More Folk Songs’, Dylan’s first US network TV appearance,
made in New York City on March 4, 1963
(already circulating, as is video footage); then
‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ from the important New
York Town Hall concert of April 12, 1963, previously
uncirculating; ‘Masters of War’ from the
same concert (already circulating); ‘A Hard Rain’s
a-Gonna Fall’ from the Carnegie Hall concert of October
26, 1963 (previously known but uncirculating);
‘When the Ship Comes In’ from the same
concert (already circulating); the early version of
‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ recorded with RAMBLIN’
JACK ELLIOTT as part of the Another Side of Bob
Dylan session of June 9, 1964 (already circulating);
the wondrous ‘Chimes of Freedom’ performed live
at the NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL on July 26, 1964
(already circulating); an outtake version of ‘It’s All
Over Now, Baby Blue’ from the Bringing It All Back
Home sessions of January 1965; ditto for ‘She Belongs
to Me’; the historic de´but of ‘Maggie’s Farm’
live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965 (in circulation
from the film soundtrack, but now released
from the uncirculated Vanguard Records line recording);
previously uncirculated outtake versions
of ‘It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry’,
‘Tombstone Blues’ and ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s
Blues’ from the Highway 61 Revisited sessions of
June 1965; an outtake ‘Desolation Row’ from the
same sessions but previously circulated; and a previously
uncirculated outtake of the same album’s
title track. Then we get to the never-circulated
Blonde on Blonde outtakes: there’s a beautifully
slow, more conventionally bluesy ‘Leopard-Skin
Pill-Box Hat’ with much variant lyrics; an experimental
early version of ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile
with the Memphis Blues Again’ on which he
hasn’t even decided, at the beginning, that the
chorus formula will be ‘Oh Mama, can this really
be the end?’; and a ‘Visions of Johanna’ backed by
THE BAND.
The set finishes with ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ live
in Edinburgh on May 20, 1966 (three days after the
‘Judas!’ moment in Manchester), which has circulated
as an audience recording but not, as here,
from the official line recording; plus, because it
ties in with the No Direction Home film, the magnificent
Manchester ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.
With the set comes a booklet that includes the
odd choice of an unimpressive essay by Andrew
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Loog Oldham, which strives harder to be eccentric
than to justify its presence; a not wholly accurate
track-by-track guide by Eddie Gorodetsky, a Dylan
friend who appears in Masked & Anonymous and
was a writer on DHARMA & GREG, the sitcom,
when Dylan appeared on it in 1999; and a long,
fine piece from AL KOOPER, full of detail both
human and factual about the sessions for Highway
61 Revisited and for Blonde on Blonde.
Trivia: as well as adding ‘A Martin Scorsese Picture’
under the title, an alteration was made to
the registration number of the car in the CD-set
cover photograph by Barry Feinstein. Its real number,
clearly shown as 540 CYN, has been changed
to 1235 RD: a whimsical, quiet allusion to those
rainy day women . . . but on the inside, they
haven’t changed it . . . and they haven’t changed it
on the cover of the No Direction Home DVD either.
The car, a British-made Austin Princess, belonged
to the ROLLING STONES. The man leaning on it
was Dylan’s filmmaker friend HOWARD ALK. They
were awaiting the old Aust Ferry to take them
across the River Severn from England to Wales,
after the Bristol and before the Cardiff concerts.
In the background, still under construction, is the
Severn Bridge; it opened that September 8, replacing
the ferry.