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

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

oh my goodness

that is awesome

yeahhhh. i would love to see a whole show ... seems weird that there wouldn't have been some kind of film of at least one show.

he's in really good form there! surprising, most of what i've read about that time is that he was pretty miserable (pre-born again years which 'renewed' him)

also i just want a put in a little plug for 'baby stop crying'

it is terrible but also really wonderful

also i don't know how often it is acknowledged but his background singers from this period through the eighties are all really great imo, even the shitty songs they just do a marvelous job

idk what version of this I have in terms of remastering or not but ... mmm the backing vocals all over this are really awkward. not all the way through it yet (had to go to a meeting)

feel like the work better on the gospel stuff

they

that's a terrible clip! The horns, Dylan's stepping on the backup singers' lines, the hair.

He got better at employing the backup singers....but not on SL.

that's a tremendous clip! The horns, Dylan's stepping on the backup singers' lines, the hair.

i kind of love that the backup singers have to sing bizarro/awkward things in changing of the guards -- "RENEGADE PRIESTS!"

without collapsing into laughter

oh yea that is so great

it's like he's backed by the Saturday Night Live band n that clip

you know what this is reminding me of is not so much "Death of a Ladies' Man" as Lou Reed's "Take No Prisoners", or maybe "Rock n Roll Heart". the old lyricism is there but so are the saxophones, the r&b backup singers, the air of exhaustion. basically it sounds like the late 70s boomer experience.

is Senor typically cited as the standout track cuz it sure feels like it