Even a passing fan of Bob Dylan will know just how many songs he has. Unreleased efforts are banded together on unofficial compilations so often that Dylan began releasing them himself with The Bootleg Series. Even then those are just scratching the surface. We must instead turn to the dedicated facilities of the bootlegger, the humble profession where other artists’ works are their greatest output. This compilation of Dylan numbers not released but written in 1964, I’ll Keep It With Mine, is an inevitable treat. From The House of the Rising Sun with overdubs to a Ramlbin’ Jack Elliott-featuring Mr. Tambourine Man, the crisp qualities of the studio are heard well on I’ll Keep It With Mine. A tremendous compilation of songs from an era when Dylan was fast approaching a peak which would last a decade. His first great period. Wanting more of that is understandable. Here it is.
Opener Mama, You Been on My Mind may ring through with a recognisable tone for those who remember the Jeff Buckley and George Harrison covers to come after its sort-of release. Those warm acoustic moments suggest a song which is halfway to greatness. It never made it. Nor did Denise, the follow-up piece on this compilation. Rambling songs like this are great fun but within I’ll Keep It With Mine is a continuing sense of why these songs never made it onto albums at the time. They are enjoyable snapshots of one genre’s influence here or the instrumental tools there, but none of it amounts to anything of extreme or immediate necessity. Songs where Dylan is moved by culture, rather than moving it himself. Dr. Strangelove Blues has Stanley Kubrick to thank for its title and theme, while The House of the Rising Sun, by this point, was a steady stay of The Animals.
A shame about the latter as this electrified piece for The House of the Rising Sun has a cool edge to it. Then comes the maudlin-like pieces of I’ll Keep it With Mine, a song thankfully lost in the flood of better materials but still maintaining a fascinating listening experience. But then the sentimentality Dylan would approach here is a rarity and hearing it on I’ll Keep it With Mine, where this bootleg derives its name, is a stunning example of why it would never work for his sound. There is too much intimacy too it, the danger of revealing a little more than initially comfortable with. Skippable pieces like Stoned on the Mountain, an Eric Von Schmidt-featuring piece, as are Dr. Strangelove Blues and More and More, feel more like jam sessions rather than anything to be released.
Those Glasgow hotel sessions with Robbie Robertson spring to mind when listening to this. Another in a long series of moments which could have been. Guess I’m Doing Fine is a delightful piece which could have made it, had it been another time. Same goes for an early version of Mr. Tambourine Man which, with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott in the mix, feels like a passing of the torch. Folk essentials pairing a voice of real power with the hangers-on, the legends, of the time. It makes all the difference when listening to I’ll Keep It With Mine to know where Dylan was headed. The politically charged power of his works would boom time and again, far removed from acoustics just a few short years after these songs were trialled and tucked away in the archives.
