Production
The motives behind Self Portrait have been subject to wild speculation and great debate. Over the years, a few credible theories have emerged from those familiar with the project.
Critic Robert Shelton was under the impression that Self Portrait was intended as a serious release. "I told Dylan that Self Portrait confused me," Shelton wrote in 1986. "Why had he recorded 'Blue Moon'? He wouldn't be drawn out, although obviously he had been stung by the criticism. 'It was an expression,' he said. He indicated that if the album had come from Presley or The Everly Brothers, who veered toward the middle of the road, it wouldn't have shocked so many."
However, in a Rolling Stone interview taken in 1984, Dylan gave a different reason for the album's release:
| “ | At the time, I was in Woodstock, and I was getting a great degree of notoriety for doing nothing. Then I had that motorcycle accident, which put me out of commission. Then, when I woke up and caught my senses, I realized that I was workin' for all these leeches. And I didn't wanna do that. Plus, I had a family, and I just wanted to see my kids.
I'd also seen that I was representing all these things that I didn't know anything about. Like I was supposed to be on acid. It was all storm-the-embassy kind of stuff—Abbie Hoffman in the streets—and they sorta figured me as the kingpin of all that. I said, 'Wait a minute, I'm just a musician. So my songs are about this and that. So what?' But people need a leader. People need a leader more than a leader needs people, really. I mean, anybody can step up and be a leader, if he's got the people there that want one. I didn't want that, though. But then came the big news about Woodstock, about musicians goin' up there, and it was like a wave of insanity breakin' loose around the house day and night. You'd come in the house and find people there, people comin' through the woods, at all hours of the day and night, knockin' on your door. It was really dark and depressing. And there was no way to respond to all this, you know? It was as if they were suckin' your very blood out. I said, 'Now wait, these people can't be my fans. They just can't be.' And they kept comin'. We had to get out of there. This was just about the time of that Woodstock festival, which was the sum total of all this bullshit. And it seemed to have something to do with me, this Woodstock Nation, and everything it represented. So we couldn't breathe. I couldn't get any space for myself and my family, and there was no help, nowhere. I got very resentful about the whole thing, and we got outta there. We moved to New York. Lookin' back, it really was a stupid thing to do. But there was a house available on MacDougal Street, and I always remembered that as a nice place. So I just bought this house, sight unseen. But it wasn't the same when we got back. The Woodstock Nation had overtaken MacDougal Street also. There'd be crowds outside my house. And I said, 'Well, fuck it. I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can't possibly like, they can't relate to. They'll see it, and they'll listen, and they'll say, 'Well, let's get on to the next person. He ain't sayin' it no more. He ain't given' us what we want,' you know? They'll go on to somebody else. But the whole idea backfired. Because the album went out there, and the people said, 'This ain't what we want,' and they got more resentful. And then I did this portrait for the cover. I mean, there was no title for that album. I knew somebody who had some paints and a square canvas, and I did the cover up in about five minutes. And I said, 'Well, I'm gonna call this album Self Portrait.' |
” |
As to why he chose to release a double album, Dylan replied, "Well, it wouldn't have held up as a single album—then it really would've been bad, you know. I mean, if you're gonna put a lot of crap on it, you might as well load it up!"
Later, Cameron Crowe interviewed Dylan for his liner notes to 1985's Biograph, a boxed-set retrospective of Dylan's career. When asked about Self Portrait, Dylan added more details to the story:
| “ | Self Portrait was a bunch of tracks that we'd done all the time I'd gone to Nashville. We did that stuff to get a sound. To open up we'd do two or three songs, just to get things right and then we'd go on and do what we were going to do. And then there was a lot of other stuff that was just on the shelf. But I was being bootlegged at the time and a lot of stuff that was worse was appearing on bootleg records. So I just figured I'd put all this stuff together and put it out, my own bootleg record, so to speak. You know, if it actually had been a bootleg record, people probably would have sneaked around to buy it and played it for each other secretly. Also, I wasn't going to be anybody's puppet and I figured this record would put an end to that...I was just so fed up with all that who people thought I was nonsense. | ” |
Later interviews only echoed the sentiments expressed to Crowe.
Read more about this topic: Self Portrait (Bob Dylan Album)
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