Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home Review

Assembling a documentary on the vast career of Bob Dylan is no small feat – though piecing together the soundtrack seems like an easy home run. Dylan has more than a few songs which lend itself to documentaries on his life. Usually a director, in this case, Martin Scorsese, would just nab the songs of this era and move on. But such a move would be too simplistic and with the rise in Bootleg Tapes and extra recordings uncovered from long-forgotten files and vaults, No Direction Home becomes a similar piece of importance to the first three volumes. Essential listens dug up from this place or that, compiled into a titan of a two-hour and twenty-minute experience. What more could fans ask for than an independent accompaniment to a four-hour documentary from one of the great filmmakers of our time? 

From the late 1950s and onwards, the selections here range from absolute essentials to everyday bits of scrap which were better off buried. Like any good soundtrack, No Direction Home has plenty of amicable bits and pieces. All the usual moments where the attention span is tapped, early on with Song to Woody, later with When the Ship Comes In. Home recordings and the usual onslaught of alternative takes and outtakes are featured within – there is much to be said for the consistencies with which this series is taken through. They lend themselves well here to Dink’s Song among others. Charming intimacies from those recordings, particularly on I Was Young When I Left Home, are a real treat. What became of these songs, forgotten and later uncovered, is unknowable. What can be heard is the sincere quality of these acoustic pieces, which feel so rooted and welcoming of their folk influences.  

These are not the strained and struggling bits and pieces which make up the outtakes and other bits, this is a fully-fledged compilation of solid tracks. They never feel quite as exceptional as the other Bootleg offerings, but this collection of songs is decent. When the Ship Comes In and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, both live rips from the Carnegie Hall concert, mark a nice mid-section to this one. Alternative and live takes continue to the second disc too, plenty of hits to love from this selection including a particularly refined Visions of Johanna. Sharp alternatives of She Belongs to Me and Tombstone Blues can be found too – a series of songs which features the quality endurance of a powerful voice. This is Dylan at his spritely best, and it shows.  

Clunky at times as the difference between compilation and soundtrack is never made clear, this dark horse of the Bootleg Tapes series is more of the same. Rare cuts and uncovered gems which will no doubt delight the seasoned Dylan fan. One of the finest Desolation Row interpretations can be found on No Direction Home, an initially spotty but eventually essential piece of work from Dylan. Lower tones on deep cuts like Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again are a late-stage treat for No Direction Home, a collection of rarities which does warrant a listen or two. These recordings and subsequent polish are of a studio quality, of course, they are – but they can hang with the best of them.