drawn-out pauses after every verse, in which Dylan
sounds like a dying horse, meant to give the song impact, or draw applause, which is all they do?) Occasionally, the tunes generate an initial momentum; it’s dissipated almost immediately by the indifference of the performers. They sound as if they could, you know, care less. As a document of a tour where almost every show was taped, this makes no sense (and where are the songs introduced on the tour, like the old ballad “Railroad Boy,” “Going, Going, Gone,” or “Where Did Vincent Van Gogh?”).
The tour reportedly ended badly—wearing out, with audiences declining, money disappearing into ballooning expenses. You could think this album represents the resentment felt by the musicians toward a public that ultimately refused to salaam to them. Whether that’s so or not, what I hear in this music, in its dogged lack of charm or groove, is utter contempt for the audience. And that contempt may well be the other, duller side of Dylan’s nastiness, of that malicious intensity he exposed on television with “Idiot Wind.” Focused and revealed, that nastiness is at the heart of Dylan’s art. Unfocused—and disguised as camaraderie with busy, chattering music—it’s merely irritating, and, worse, it is empty.
Bob Dylan, Hard Rain (Columbia, 1976).
THAT TRAIN DON’T STOP HERE ANYMORE
Rolling Stone
30 December 1976
The late Junior Parker made the original recording of “Mystery Train” in 1953, taking the first lines—
Train I ride
Sixteen
Coaches long
—from the Carter Family’s “Worried Man Blues,” which dates from the twenties, though no one knows exactly where the Carter Family got it. It is a very old song. When the Band went after the tune an hour or so into their farewell concert at Winterland Thanksgiving night, the song sounded new. I had heard Parker sing it, and Elvis, and Paul Butterfield, and I had heard the Band’s version, with new lyrics, on Moondog Matinee, their oldies album; this was something else entirely. Both Levon Helm, singing lead, and Richard Manuel played drums; Paul Butterfield played harp; and together they began a jumping beat that kicked with greater force each time the tune turned a corner. I have never heard Butterfield play with such strength: his harmonica was a hoodoo night call hovering over the crowd, cutting through the event of the Band’s last performance to show why such a performance could have become an event in the first place. The Band held nothing back; they played with an intensity I’ve seen them attain only occasionally over the years—behind Dylan in 1965, on the second night of their debut performance at Winterland in 1969, with Dylan in 1974 on “Highway 61 Revisited” and “All Along the Watchtower”—an intensity I’ve never forgotten.
Come down to the station meet my baby at the gate
Ask the stationmaster if the train’s runnin’ late
He said if you’re a-waitin’ on that 4.44
I hate to tell you son that train don’t stop here anymore
Levon sang as if he were pleading for mercy—from God or from the devil, you couldn’t tell.
The concert was billed as the Last Waltz; the Band came up with a song of the same name, written mostly the day before the show and rehearsed backstage during the only break they took in their five-hour performance. As an event the affair was overblown, but the Band escaped the pretensions that surrounded it.
Over the years, the Band has become identified with a set of songs in a manner that distinguishes them, for good or ill, from all other rock groups: they are less their mystique, or their faces, than they are “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and other tunes from Music from Big Pink and The Band. The Band opened the show with such songs and they played them with greater precision and flair than I have seen in a long time. They came out of themselves; Rick Danko bopped across the stage, Robbie Robertson took extravagant
sounds like a dying horse, meant to give the song impact, or draw applause, which is all they do?) Occasionally, the tunes generate an initial momentum; it’s dissipated almost immediately by the indifference of the performers. They sound as if they could, you know, care less. As a document of a tour where almost every show was taped, this makes no sense (and where are the songs introduced on the tour, like the old ballad “Railroad Boy,” “Going, Going, Gone,” or “Where Did Vincent Van Gogh?”).
The tour reportedly ended badly—wearing out, with audiences declining, money disappearing into ballooning expenses. You could think this album represents the resentment felt by the musicians toward a public that ultimately refused to salaam to them. Whether that’s so or not, what I hear in this music, in its dogged lack of charm or groove, is utter contempt for the audience. And that contempt may well be the other, duller side of Dylan’s nastiness, of that malicious intensity he exposed on television with “Idiot Wind.” Focused and revealed, that nastiness is at the heart of Dylan’s art. Unfocused—and disguised as camaraderie with busy, chattering music—it’s merely irritating, and, worse, it is empty.
Bob Dylan, Hard Rain (Columbia, 1976).
THAT TRAIN DON’T STOP HERE ANYMORE
Rolling Stone
30 December 1976
The late Junior Parker made the original recording of “Mystery Train” in 1953, taking the first lines—
Train I ride
Sixteen
Coaches long
—from the Carter Family’s “Worried Man Blues,” which dates from the twenties, though no one knows exactly where the Carter Family got it. It is a very old song. When the Band went after the tune an hour or so into their farewell concert at Winterland Thanksgiving night, the song sounded new. I had heard Parker sing it, and Elvis, and Paul Butterfield, and I had heard the Band’s version, with new lyrics, on Moondog Matinee, their oldies album; this was something else entirely. Both Levon Helm, singing lead, and Richard Manuel played drums; Paul Butterfield played harp; and together they began a jumping beat that kicked with greater force each time the tune turned a corner. I have never heard Butterfield play with such strength: his harmonica was a hoodoo night call hovering over the crowd, cutting through the event of the Band’s last performance to show why such a performance could have become an event in the first place. The Band held nothing back; they played with an intensity I’ve seen them attain only occasionally over the years—behind Dylan in 1965, on the second night of their debut performance at Winterland in 1969, with Dylan in 1974 on “Highway 61 Revisited” and “All Along the Watchtower”—an intensity I’ve never forgotten.
Come down to the station meet my baby at the gate
Ask the stationmaster if the train’s runnin’ late
He said if you’re a-waitin’ on that 4.44
I hate to tell you son that train don’t stop here anymore
Levon sang as if he were pleading for mercy—from God or from the devil, you couldn’t tell.
The concert was billed as the Last Waltz; the Band came up with a song of the same name, written mostly the day before the show and rehearsed backstage during the only break they took in their five-hour performance. As an event the affair was overblown, but the Band escaped the pretensions that surrounded it.
Over the years, the Band has become identified with a set of songs in a manner that distinguishes them, for good or ill, from all other rock groups: they are less their mystique, or their faces, than they are “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and other tunes from Music from Big Pink and The Band. The Band opened the show with such songs and they played them with greater precision and flair than I have seen in a long time. They came out of themselves; Rick Danko bopped across the stage, Robbie Robertson took extravagant
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