Artist	Song
Bob Dylan [Bootleg Vol. 3, outtake from Empire Burlesque]	When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky (5:37)
Bob Dylan [Infidels, 1983]	Jokerman (6:19)
Bob Dylan [Oh Mercy, 1989]	Where Teardrops Fall (2:32)
Bob Dylan [Real Live, 1984]	License To Kill [live] (3:45)
Bob Dylan [Knocked Out Loaded, 1986]	Brownsville Girl (11:04)
Bob Dylan [Bootleg Vol. 3, outtake from Infidels]	Foot of Pride (5:57)
Bob Dylan [Bootleg Vol. 3, outtake from Infidels]	Blind Willie McTell (5:52)
Bob Dylan [Oh Mercy, 1989]	Ring Them Bells (3:00)
Bob Dylan [Real Live, 1984]	Tangled Up In Blue [live] (7:02)
Bob Dylan [Greatest Hits Vol. 3, outtake from Oh Mercy]	Dignity (5:58)
Bob Dylan [Shot Of Love, 1981]	Every Grain of Sand (6:13)
Bob Dylan [Oh Mercy, 1989]	Man in the Long Black Coat (4:34)
Bob Dylan [Empire Burlesque, 1985]	Dark Eyes (5:06)
Bob Dylan [Infidels, 1983]	Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight (Big Question Ever Since You Put A Piece Of Soup In My Norman Rockwell) (5:54)

Comment:

Along with "Bob Dylan's Latter-Day Blue", here's another piece of my Dylan reclamation project: the years when no one was giving him any respect whatsoever, except as a living legend. This is actually the first mix CD I ever made (summer '03), not even realizing that what I was making was a mix CD but instead simply trying to replicate, in some way, the Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits concept for a woefully overlooked period in the man's career.Maybe the best way to describe Dylan's 80's on record is that it was his depressed period, bookended by the gospelly Saved (1980) and the downright bizarre Under The Red Sky (1990). In between, he created some of the most soul-searching songs ever recorded, containing a depth of feeling occurring absolutely nowhere else in his career. Let's start with "Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight" (the alternate title is a pure joke, something that came to me out of whole cloth in a dream): I claim, Dylan's greatest love song of all time. An immensely romantic song; and yet here love is finally, once and for all, stripped of all the tags that rock would try to force down its throat: pledges of eternity, reduction of the desired to metaphors, any placement of either lover on a pedestal. The truth of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, minus the cynicism, plus beatitudes of poetry only Dylan was ever capable of. "I ain't too good at conversation, girl / So you might not know exactly how I feel / But if I could I'd take you to the mountaintop, girl / And build you a house made out of stainless steel." It's an approach that reduced many of the listeners of the time to a state of.. befuddlement; and, as the 80's was also Dylan's experiment with the Rock Hero mask, many of his most universal songs of all were simply left on hold. Take "When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky": originally Bob's (really not half bad) experiment with disco on Empire Burlesque, the song in its original arrangement, with some crucial lyric differences, reduces the official version to a nonentity. Dave Marsh has written of Eric Clapton's "Layla" that "There are a few moments in the history of recorded rock where a singer or writer has reached so deeply into himself that the effect of hearing them is akin to witnessing a murder, or a suicide," and then proceeds to name "Layla" the greatest of all. Marsh gives Dylan "Like A Rolling Stone" for a contender; yet had he heard the Armageddon of "I gave to you my heart like buried treasure / The suffering seemed to fit you like a glove / I'm so tired of those who use you for their own measure / Who think they've got a monopoly on love" on Empire Burlesque, where it belonged, he may have been forced to revise his opinion on both counts.Compared with this, the replacement lyric -- "I sent to you my feelings in a letter / When you were gambling for support / This time tomorrow I'll know you better / When your memory is not so short" -- can only be interpreted as an attempt to water down something that might otherwise, heaven-forfend, make the 80's rock audience actually frightened of their souls, for once. It's a feeling that's all over this mix: from Nirvanic/suicidal escape ("Dark Eyes") to lingering amidst the collective-unconscious symbolism of it all ("Where Teardrops Fall") to utterly complicated formulas for salvation ("Every Grain Of Sand"), it turns out that no one may have ever explored the forbidden recesses of the soul in song like 80's Dylan did.And then there's his live reinvention of "Tangled Up In Blue". Though it eliminates one of the verses, the new lyrics Bob concocted for the Infidels tour are, yes, better than the original. "So now I'm going back again / Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year / I gotta find someone among the women and men / Whose destiny is unclear / Some are masters of illusion / Some are ministers of the trade / All under strong delusions / All of their beds are unmade." Listen once and it'll grow on you forever. Hope this mix is the same way.

Feedback: