Bob Dylan – The Things That Remain: Unreleased Live Recordings Review

A monumental turning point for the sound Bob Dylan would make for the rest of his career is heard here. The Things That Remain is an impressive, unofficial bootleg for it brings in the overhaul of the live set. Dylan was no longer keen on the works which brought him to the bright pools of brilliance he kicked around in but the new era. His religious affection and the lessons he would learn were imparted onto his audience, which dwindled in numbers yet still drifted into his live performances. Perhaps then, when we could not harness the goodwill of Setlist FM, there were hopes of Maggie’s Farm or Ballad of a Thin Man. No more. Well, more now than The Things That Remain, certainly. 1980 was a wicked time for Dylan – an exciting experience in hindsight but a troublesome occasion for the troubadour. 

He sets out to prove he is not just the electrified target of chart-topping charms. Hurricane and the latter portions of Desire should prove this enough but with the change of pace heard on Street Legal, something like Gotta Serve Somebody should have been expected. Listen to that heavy sound. Incredible. This is an audience who are both receptive to the new Dylan and expectant of those hits. They will be disappointed by the latter and not likely won over by the former. Even when the likes of Covenant Woman hold the same instrumental force as Blood on the Tracks and all those best moments, Dylan fails to make the popular connection with his listeners. That is no fault, though. The beauty of being removed from these recordings, listening in on a dark Friday night nursing some gruesome beverage, is the isolation. These are songs to listen to alone.  

Not just for their booming experiences but for the personal flair Dylan has. He struggles to question or confirm the religious learnings he was given in the lead-up to this work but there are a few songs which nail the feeling. The Things That Remain does well to seek those moments out, those enlightened passages which hear Dylan come to terms with the movement of his sound. The repetitive pull of When You Gonna Wake Up will be known to those who have slogged through Trouble No More, it appears there. More than enough. And yet it feels like a different artist entirely. A man moved by the plague of Vietnam warfare and its seismic aftereffects, the musician who turned to God and felt a new wave of influence. Art is personal and writing for yourself is the greatest act of self-respect and service available. Dylan turns inward and disregards acclaim. 

It helps that the more these religious-oriented tracks are reflected on, the better they sound. What comes through is conviction, a hard trait to find in many musicians of the time or even today. Dylan is hellbent on experiencing the world with new eyes and can do so. Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody is a clear example of that. Yet What Can I Do For You later in this compilation showcases the divide. A soul torn between preservation and participation in the wider world. A fascinating listen, most certainly, and a far better, sleeker opportunity to engage with the religious intertextuality of Dylan’s work than the official bootlegs. The Things That Remain nails the very fundamentals of Dylan as a revised artist with one hand on the Bible and another tightening around a microphone. He sings with conviction and the instrumentals aren’t half bad either.