Bob Dylan's "Street Legal" - Classic or Dud?

I have a show from LA on November 15, 1978 in the queue.

I also prefer Street Legal over Desire: someday I think Desire'll really click for me but even the live performances don't really do it for me (listened to Live 1975 last night---I like "Love Minus Zero / No Limit" and the other solo-ish numbers a lot, the whole band performances less).

whoa, Katey Sagal was in Dylan's band at the time? but she's not on the album, alas.

I definitely prefer it to Desire – it's weirder and unpleasanter in more interesting ways – but I don't want to listen too closely to find out.

another middle-aged perv

Not sure I'd describe Bob as middle-aged here. He was all of 37 when he made this.

This record is wildly uneven, but Changing of the Guard and Where Are You Tonight alone make it essential.

i think we talked about the LA 78 show on some other thread. It's killer. you don't like the band on Live 75? They're definitely weird sounding, but I dig it. Kinda glam-country-rock.

I think I need to put it on at the ~right~ kind of party because it (= Live 1975) never clicks for me in more, uh, casual listening.

I think Bob's shouty singing voice on Live 1975, Desire, & Before the Flood, is my second least favorite Bob voice: least favorite remains the The Times They Are A-Changing voice (which I listened to this morning with no new affection resulting).

woah, weird. rolling thunder dylan is high up for me on favorite live dylan. first track on 75 is mad joyous.

The "Hard Rain" on Live 1975 is pretty great; was Bob emulating Bryan Ferry's version?

and yeah, agree on preferring Street Legal to Desire. Higher highs (opener and closer for sure xp), and less grievous lows (no Joey)

ha, i like Joey, though I can see why some do not like it at all. I think it's too bad he didn't play it live on the Rolling Thunder tour, because most of those songs are improved upon live imo. There's an amazing version of "Mozambique" on a bootleg I have.

Yeah, the "Sara" on Live 1975 is terrific.

yeah Rolling Thunder 'Desire' takes are the definitive for me, coulda used Joey I suppose. Hurricane and One More Cup of Coffee and especially Isis are like woah on that tour

The first leg of the Rolling Thunder tour is second only to the 1966 shows in the Dylan tour book for me. Great stuff.

xpost yeah, I think One More Cup of Coffee is kind of a silly song, but Bob sells it on the Live 75 set!

1975 is interesting because I think it might be the only time in Dylan's career where he and his audience seemed to actually be in sync, where he delivered what people wanted of him ...

The Hard Rain live album has the best version of Shelter From The Storm. What a huge omission leaving that off the Bootleg Series Rolling Thunder set.

well, that was from the 1976 leg of the Rolling Thunder tour ... don't think they played it in 1975. but yeah, amazing version.

"Mozambique" is twaddle, ain't it?

yeah, it totally is! but it's fun on this live version ...

I love Mozambique

So, having it given a few years to sink in since my first post above, I would never rank Street Legal above Desire...but weirdly, lately it's the Dylan album I'm putting on most often. There's a long stretch in the middle that basically washes past without making any impression, but the big loud numbers are kind of wonderfully craggy and washed-up and grungey sounding. Yeah, I wish the vocals weren't so muffled and weak on "Changing of the Guard," but "Where Are You Tonight" really benefits from the "still drunk the next day" vibe of this whole thing. And yeah, "New Pony" is awesome. BROW-DANNNG! The only thing is I keep hearing it as "I had a pony / her name was Lucy-Poo" which isn't quite what he's going for but whatever.

revive inspired by this:

Street-Legal has a few stinkers, especially the one that goes -

Can you cook
can you sew
can you make flowers grow
can you understand my pain?

sung as if he were held at gunpoint.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 24, 2011 2:09 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is my new favorite Dylan album... it's very #based

Out of all the Dylan albums I've listened to, which includes many but not all of the supposedly bad ones, this is the ugliest and the hardest to understand.

i have a very half baked theory that this record is dylan's first born again record ... before he knew he was born again.

i don't even know what that means but ... hey is the Street Legal on this new Complete Albums thing the remixed version or a new remaster of the original mix? Important!
I feel like they could do an 'Another Self Portrait' style rehab of this period, tho, with cool rehearsal outtakes and live stuff.

If it means it shows his contempt for other people, then yes.

this music makes me uncomfortable

.... I'm ready when you are, senor

I feel like they could do an 'Another Self Portrait' style rehab of this period, tho, with cool rehearsal outtakes and live stuff.
― tylerw, Sunday, December 29, 2013 8:50 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oops haha I meant I agree and I'm seeing signs that since New Morning/SP are officially critically rehabbed via the bootleg series that Street Legal is the hippest Dylan album right now in the underground

Changing of the Guards is my favorite Bob Dylan song of all.

It's hard to dismiss any record with songs like Changing Of The Guard and Where Are You Tonight.

yeah I've dug this record since that remaster

I have it on old vinyl, sounds great to me, was it the CD that was bad or something?

It's generally considered to be the beginning of his long schlocky period. Some of the songs are real bad. But some aren't.

Changing Of The Guard is in my Top 10 Bob songs. Never get tired of hearing it. The Jack White band Dead Weather actually did a very credible job covering New Pony.

This is the mid-life crisis album after his divorce was finalized. Where Desire was filled with hope-against-hope and a romanticizing of The Past (outlaws, love in far-off lands/times, and of course "Sara, Sara, don't ever leave me, don't ever go"), Street-Legal is a lot more miserable, self-loathing and looking for a way out. I totally agree with tyler about it being the first of the "born-again" albums, it's leading directly into the religious trilogy.

I have it on old vinyl, sounds great to me, was it the CD that was bad or something?
i guess the OG mix was a rush job for one reason or another -- the producer phil ramone went in and re-did it in the late 90s. it was definitely an improvement, did more justice to the bog-ness of the band.

is street legal remaster CD available for single purchase or is it only as a part of the complete albums box set?

i think the remix has been used in all reissues from 1999 or so on (also it was don devito not phil ramone, my badddd)

Actually I'm listening to this on my better stereo now and it is a little ragged sounding.. Though I don't necessarily mind

O
M
G

amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrDr7wKp-Ss

the guy dress up as dylan on the cover is amazing, not to mention that this is a opera metal cover of "senor (tales of yankee power)"

My take, from the thread Dylan's Christian Period, incl. some points made earlier in this thread, which I've never seen before, but def. see he needed and knew he needed some kinda change from this state of mind--still, it's listenable, and yet another nobody-but-Dylan type experience, in this case, his own kind of midlife crisis ("Middle-Age Crazy," as a country song of that era put it):

I finally listened to Changing of the Guard: good singing (the choral group is used effectively, for the most part), good music (except for the drums); but lyrics incl brain of homeless prophetic imagery and serenades which start suavely but quickly go so wrong ("Can ya cook and sew, make the flowers grow," he sounds like even he knows this is hopeless as soon as he hears it--and/or he already knew it, but it's still like,) "No? Course not, but come 'ere and show me what you can do, then.") Performance-wise, the most successful (and stylistically, the most unusual here) is "New Pony," which morphs into bizarre bluesoid porn, though not in a good way (to my taste). Overall, sounds like he's really moving toward some desperate change.
(Before this album came out, Renaldo and Clara incl Dyl paying much attention as Ginsberg tells him about Jesus and the ladies---think some of this was from the Apocrypha, but some from the Protestant-approved Gospels).

― dow, Friday, April 11, 2014 5:27 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

brain *stew* of homeless, Ah meant to say.

― dow, Friday, April 11, 2014 5:28 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not that all the lyrics are bad, but this set incl. recurring, off-putting syndromes.

― dow, Friday, April 11, 2014 5:31 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oops, I should've read this whole thread---my repost is superflous--sorry.

I might have said this before, but holy shit "changing of the guards" is terrifying and insane and amazing

The whole album is, really. Forensic carnival fun.

Roky and Daniel got nothin on him.

Actually, they do at their best, but, considering how far from his best this is, its amazingness is even more amazing. it may be his best bad album. Is it? I haven't heard them all.

listening to this for the first time

see you on the other side!

señor

godspeed!
not much footage of the 78 tour -- this is a blast though, you get a good sense of the weird vibes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsgHi_DvmM8