The world seems to be passing through a bleak midwinter of the soul right now, but there’s a Christmas song for times like that, too.

With thanks to Jessica Ritchey . . .

. . . for Christmas In the Heart.

Do you hear what I hear?

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If the original official release in 1975 of some songs from The Basement Tapes was the dressed-up-for-Sunday version, and the release of The Basement Tapes Complete was the crazy-drunken-Friday-night-party version, then this three-LP set, The Basement Tapes Raw, is the Saturday-night-barn-dance version — a program worked up for friends who plan to pass the hat for the entertainment.

The songs selected are loose enough to be fun but finished enough to provide several sets of remarkable and memorable music.  It immediately takes its place as one of Dylan’s greatest albums.

Own it on vinyl — if you don’t have a turntable to play it on, get a turntable to play it on.

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Thanksgiving at my house always means clog dancing — clog dancing from dawn to dusk and on into the middle watches of the night.

Here’s some footage from last year’s shindy (via Laura Leivick) — expecting an even wilder time this year.

The soundtrack to Magical Mystery Tour, originally released as a double EP set in England, is an enjoyable suite of songs.  The title track and “I Am the Walrus” are classics — in between are some lesser but delightful Beatles tunes.

When the soundtrack was issued as one side of an LP in America, the second side was made up of a collection of Beatles singles, and this is one of the best of all Beatles album sides.  “Hello Goodbye” followed by “Strawberry Fields” followed by “Penny Lane” followed by “Baby, You’re A Rich Man” followed by “All you Need Is Love”.

If The Beatles had never released anything but that one side, they’d be recognized as one of the greatest pop bands of all time.

It all sounds terrific in mono on vinyl but I think “I Am the Walrus” probably works better in stereo.

I was there, out in the middle of The Mojave Desert, when Dylan sang this — the sort of treasure you can take with you into the great beyond.

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Brought to mind by Eddie Pensier of Uncouth Reflections . . .

In contrast to Revolver, the mono mix of this landmark album is stupendous, clean and bright, showing off all the studio experimentation The Beatles were starting to conduct without drawing attention to the individual elements layered into the mixes.

I think it might be better than the stereo mix, packing more of a punch track for track.

This 4-LP set was part of a Time-Life series called The Story Of Great Music.  My friend Hugh McCarten brought it to prep school in our junior year, when we were roommates, and we played it to death.

The longer pieces are abridged, and the performances are not always superlative, but it’s a fine selection of music and served for me as an excellent introduction to the Baroque era.

A highlight is one of the only performances of Couperin’s Les Barricades Mystérieuses on harpsichord (by Ingrid Heiler) which doesn’t sound showy or rushed.  I’ve had a special feeling for the piece ever since I heard it on this collection.

I was recently gripped by a longing to hear the collection again, after 44 years.  It’s not available on CD but I found an excellent vinyl set online, cheap.  It’s a source of joy to me once again.

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I’ve heard people dismiss The Basement Tapes as a bunch of stoned guys goofing around musically.  That’s sort of true, in the sense that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a great tragedian goofing around with a comedy.

The Basement Tapes are more accurately described as a bunch of musical geniuses exercising their genius as a kind of everyday exercise — the sort of practice and exploration that every virtuoso engages in as a tune-up for finished work.

It gives us a privileged glimpse of creation as a practical vocation — as though we had a record of the songs Shakespeare sang to himself, the poems he memorized, the jokes that made him laugh, in between bouts of writing his plays.

The genius of America resides in its Constitution, now defunct, and its music, still alive — and the genius of American music is investigated and celebrated in The Basement Tapes.  It’s one of the central documents of our culture.

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