3 missing Dylan tracks: You’re just a child to me; My Oriental Home; I want you to know I love you

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by Tony Attwood, with many thanks to Aaron Gailbraith for the links.

These three tracks are taken from the Shot of Love outtakes.   Only the third one gives me a feeling that we could have been listening to a song that might have gone somewhere rather exciting, but (at least as far as I know) it didn’t.

The recordings were made in March and April 1981, and the list of recordings from that era gives us these reviews so far…

  1. Is it worth it?
  2. On a Rocking Boat
  3. Hallelujah 
  4. High Away (Ah ah ah)
  5. Wind Blows on the Water
  6. Magic
  7. Dead Man Dead Man
  8. Trouble
  9. Don’t ever take yourself away

So now we have three more, starting with “You’re still a child to me”

There is a clearly worked out chord sequence in the song but nothing much happens save the attempt at a plucked out melody and then to our complete surprise the vocals start around 1 minute 42… but then sadly they too go nowhere.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FDHg_AjY9fI

My Oriental Love uses a technique we’ve got used to from these sessions.  Dylan starts playing a riff or a chord sequence and then everyone else joins in, wondering where Bob is going.
The problem is, Bob is wondering this at the same time and so unless he is feeling totally inspired, nothing happens at all.
Everyone gives it their best shot to make something out of these four bars of music, but really Bob would have had to be on top form to make a decent song out of – a song that could go on to be worthy of a place on an album.   And we are pretty much grateful when the whole thing just disintegrates at the end.   There were no lyrics, nothing moved.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S3HLf4OjW5s

Moving on we have the not very promising title of “I want you to know I love you”.  But to my surprise, at least, this one really does move along.

I am not sure if it is the female vocalists who come up with the lyrics, or if Dylan has had a previous run through.  It sounds like the latter because when Dylan comes in with his line everything really is pounding along just fine.

Indeed the variations in the chord sequence make it clear that this has been sorted before, and I get the very clear impression that this could indeed have been a real crowd pleaser on stage had it ever made it past this outtake stage.  But it doesn’t.  It goes no further.

So there we are, three more songs to add to the March / April sessions.  There are a couple of instrumentals left which we haven’t reviewed, but I don’t feel too moved to review them since I can’t find much to say of a positive nature.  However if you would like to have a go please do write in, with a link to where the songs can be found on line.

Send your review to Tony@schools.co.uk and at the top of the review please write your name so I can give you full recognition.

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