Outtakes from the electric trilogy are now, thanks to a pilfering of the archives, well documented. The Bootleg Series has collected those moments of interest from recording a miraculous trilogy of albums and released them. There is still more to hear from those glory days for Bob Dylan, though, as Now Your Mouth Cries Wolf highlights. A collection of alternative versions of deeper cuts which featured on his all-time greatest albums in one form or another, but great songs with changes to them all the same. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window opens the second side of the album, which is where this compilation upload begins. Who knows why? Nobody. It’s a minor mystery of the bootlegging community. Incredible versions of these all-time great songs are on offer with this compilation, though, that much is clear. It’s a magnificent set of alternates worth hearing at least a few times.
Cooler grooves to the likes of It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry and Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence are a welcome change. The latter is labelled Killing Me Alive, though the name makes little difference. What is offered here is a scorching version with some exceptional guitar work. That is the constant found on Now Your Mouth Cries Wolf. Pieces which should have been released yet never were are also featured here. If You Gotta Go, Go Now was a staple of Dylan’s set during the mid-60s, but it was never released. Now Your Mouth Cries Wolf features it, and, in this quality, it would have fit perfectly well on Bringing It All Back Home. Hearing these songs in their original, electrified context is a delight. Some of these tracks are available on compilation albums, live efforts have overwhelmed the original context, and such is the importance of bootlegs like this.
Now Your Mouth Cries Wolf is a chance to hear the early context of these classic Dylan tracks. I Wanna Be Your Lover, Baby is a surprise for this compilation. Not because Dylan covering The Rolling Stones’ hit, gifted to them by The Beatles, is a surprise, but because it gives listeners a chance to directly compare the trio. Dylan has an instrumental style which blends the rock and roll form with frequent keyboard use. That is what defines his tone around this time, and what separates him from his peers across the pond. Pair it with another rendition of Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window and you get a feel for how those rock and roll standards were affecting Dylan, and how he was overhauling them.
A brilliant, unofficial bootleg which gets to grips with the strengths of the instrumental overhaul Dylan made in the mid-60s. Now Your Mouth Cries Wolf is a wild opportunity to connect with the early versions of some of Dylan’s very best songs. These are the rocked-out, harmonica-featuring spillovers which would inform his studio works over the next few years. It’s a surprise, with hindsight, these moments caused such controversy. But consider the transition from folk artist to rock and roll pursuant, and the large difference in sound alone is enough to enrage the right people. Some exceptional versions of some all-time great songs are what Now Your Mouth Cries Wolf offers. Some of these versions are still not available on official releases. That’s the ongoing necessity of bootleg tapes at play.
