But, while one of us was working on questioning the songs sexual content, the other was concerned with the overall feel of this wealth of songs. This suggested one reason why Dylan had shown so little interest in releasing The Tapes as an album which would bridge the change in his work from Blonde On Blonde to John Wesley HardinвЂ™, of which the latter suggested, to some, that Dylan had undergone what Clinton Heylin reports as вЂa personality changeвЂ™ (Note 1) вЂ“ a rather radical expression for achieving maturity.

In the case of one of us, we heard many of the songs as containing sexually explicit lyrics, veiled by innuendo, slang and metaphor, and referring to sexual deviations as diverse as male homosexuality, lesbianism, anal intercourse, transvestitism and fellatio. It is our belief that the songs which appear on The Genuine Basement Tapes give a unique insight into the way Dylan perceived of the madness of his fame, the toll it took and the lifestyle it had led him into. This effectively gave him time to reappraise his life during the вЂretirementвЂ™ he had been talking about at the time of the 1966 tour. The following is the fruit of two very different approaches to the songs performed and recorded by Dylan and The Band in the period June to October/November 1967, after a year of вЂpublic silenceвЂ™ from Dylan following his вЂMotorcycle AccidentвЂ™.

The lost tapes bob dylan