#82 "Going to Acapulco" by Bob Dylan and The Band

Bob Dylan and The Band's "Basement Tapes" is exactly the kind of collection I enjoy. It's loose and laid-back. The recording quality is sub-par at best, but it feels totally real... free of studio wizardry and over-dubs and multiple takes to get it right. The performances on "The Basement Tapes" sound like ones you could do yourself, and in that sense they're tremendously inspiring.

Originally I thought Bob Dylan's collaboration with The Band up in Woodstock, NY was nothing more than some guys jamming around. There were covers, some silly one-offs that were interrupted by the tape running out or the guys breaking into laughs, and some excellent originals too. I later read that the bootlegged versions of these sessions were really influential on the music that was released by a variety of artists in its wake. If you look at the recordings of The Beatles and The Stones and a lot of other popular musicians of the day prior to The Basement Tapes coming out, a lot of it is over-the-top psychedelia with tons of experimentation as the various players tried to expand the art form. But apparently when guys like George Harrison and Mick Jagger heard The Basement Tapes, they were completely transformed. The Stones suddenly went from "Her Majesty's Satanic Requests" to the stripped down rootsy blues of "Exile on Main Street" and "Let It Bleed." The Beatles went from the studio laboratory of "Sgt Peppers" to the more basic "Let It Be." It's fascinating to trace the connections, but these little numbers in the basement of the house called "The Big Pink" were much more than just casual listening material.

One of my favorite songs off the collection is "Going To Acapulco." It's really nothing more than a dirty little tune about going to visit a prostitute, but I like the backing job The Band do for Dylan here. You can snicker at the innuendos about "pumping the well" and "scratching my meat," but I love the extended "yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh" in the chorus after Dylan sings "Going to have some fun." It's just cool and sounds like real artistic peers working together and having a good time.

"Going to Acapulco" is from "The Basement Tapes." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.