Original subtitles

We had the place pretty much on our own.

Whatever was on top of the pile,

somebody grabbed it and said,

"let's do that for a while."

It was a kind of music that made you feel

that you were part of something very, very special,

and nobody else was a part of it.

And back then it was hard to get to.

A box of unknown, unfinished

Dylan lyrics had shown up,

and I thought the chance to collaborate

with a 27-year-old Bob Dylan

now with 50 years of hindsight

was...

Was interesting.

It's like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The most influential music figure of the 20th century

wrote some lyrics in 1967 and they just sat there.

You know, if this was in a movie, you'd never believe it.

This is like the big leagues, isn't it?

This monster of a building that we are gonna record in,

its monstrous history.

These monstrously talented people, you know...

I'm shit scared.

The basement tapes was just the coolest thing

that I could've imagined getting a hold of.

It's sort of like, "I've stumbled upon a secret that wasn't...

"That wasn't ever meant for me to hear."

It's just, kind of, one of those signposts for me

that's like, "you can be yourself."

You know, because that's what the basement tapes is to me.

It's like the sound of my musical heroes being themselves.

I mean, the basement tapes are an inspiration.

These are songs from that time, lyrically,

that have sat undisturbed.

And you can't imagine that the writer would leave it in a drawer

for 40 odd years, you know.

You can't record everything you wrote,

so it's understandable that a lot of this stuff

just fell by the wayside or...

I don't even know where it was kept all these years.

I have never seen these lyrics since the day they were written.

Never seen them.

- Is that what I think it is? - Have a look.

T bone called me in and told me

that he had these unpublished Dylan lyrics

from the time of the basement tapes.

I said, "what? What are they like?"

There is a lot of archaeological evidence in here

about what he was doing.

I like the one with the drawings on them.

- Yeah, there are a lot of those. - Yeah.

Look at the back of this.

It's like cool to get this gift of, like,

"here's some lyrics for your songs.

"Well, Bob Dylan wrote them. No big deal."

You know, it's like, that about as awesome as it gets.

Yeah.

In a way, I would have preferred to have opened them

not having to then go and help make a record around them.

I would have preferred to have just opened them, and just as a fan,

because I opened them and just got stressed.

I was like, "how are we gonna write songs for these?" You know.

So, there's no tunes for any of these?

- There's just poetry. - No, no, just all the lyrics.

You're gonna find two or three in here...

You're gonna write...

Because it's just... Because it's gotta happen.

There's some that may seem exactly right for you instantly, you know?

See this. What do you think of this one here? Look.

That's Spanish Mary.

I'm an interpreter. Even when I'm writing songs,

I am just a vehicle for the story.

Always. Even if it's a completely original piece

it's like, I'm writing it for a reason.

It's for the story to get out,

so what I try to do is go,

"well, okay, what's the song trying to say?"

- It's pretty, isn't it? It's really pretty. - It's really cool, yeah.

My knowledge of Dylan is pretty surface, and I kind of figured,

instead of going and doing a lot of research,

like, everybody else in this project

probably knows of this stuff and has heard this stuff,

maybe I could be a voice that's coming from, kind of, left field.

So what are the... I know that there was a tape of something that they...

That people, you know, did in the basement, right?

- Yeah, well... - So that... what was that?

Because when I hear people talk about basement tapes, like,

"it's the basement tapes."

Well, he was the most visible star in the world at the time,

and hejust disappeared.

How did I wind up in Woodstock?

I don't know.

It seems incredible

that an artist of Dylan's stature

and sheer commercial importance at that point,

could disappear from view.

The pressures that he was under,

the relentless touring...

He was up for three days, 72 hours straight.

He finishes this enormous tour

and he comes home and he has, god knows how many dates lined up.

Take that girl off our car, please.

Could you please take her off the car?

He realises he's got to get out of this

and the motorcycle accident provides him with that escape clause.

After Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident the rumours were out of hand.

Of course there was all kinds of speculation about whether he was a vegetable now.

He's replaced by a body double.

He's been completely disfigured.

He was assassinated by the CIA.

He's actually dead.

Dylan had gone over to the Cubans.

And was now in Castro's socialist paradise.

What it allowed him to do was stop.

That accident probably saved his life.

I've heard that maybe he really didn't have a big accident on the motorcycle.

Dylan is just one mystery after another,

and we'll never really know what the basement tapes story was.

All we know was that this man wrote more songs in 1967

than any other year of his career.

I started going through this process

of digging into all my piles of old four-track tapes,

so I just kind of started, like, listening to these songs,

and the vocal melodies...

Just kind of started coming out.

And then just trying some things like strings,

background vocals and stuff

and then to, like, trying out different harmonies,

which will be fun to hear the other people sing.

You're experiencing the magic of the monster clarity xd travel speaker.

This whole thing can turn into an endorsement.

Do you start with, like, a phone and a guitar, or do you start right off with this stuff?

You mean, well, like for an idea

often times I'll just get it on my phone.

Just to sing it...

Just to, you know, capture it real quick so I don't forget it.

I did it, like, on this thing,

and so I'm sitting in the seat,

like, making the track

I haven't got any reading glasses. I can't see any damn thing.

And then I got in the aeroplane bathroom and I just recorded it.

Most of the ideas you have come to you when you're alone.

I'm sure they thought I'm some sort of, you know, threat to the plane

'cause I kept going into the bathroom to sing,

like a demo of one of these songs, you know.

See, it's kind of different, so that's the beauty of it.

And you did that in an aeroplane bathroom?

Yeah.

I feel like, now labels are what...

You know, it's a different thing with labels,

like, I don't think a young musician grows up dreaming of,

signing that record deal the way that I did.

And definitely the people before my generation did.

But that was still a very real dream when I was growing up, being like,

"man, someday we're gonna sign a record contract with a record label."

And that dream in my head

was always taking place at the capitol.

It was always like envisioning myself walking through those doors,

and walking out, like, cheering.

All right.

- Hi. - Capitol records, how can I help?

- My name is Taylor goldsmith. - Name's Taylor?

I think I have a drive-on thing or something.

Yeah, it's spot number 10, behind number 9, which is down there in the middle.

Cool.

It didn't even look like he checked.

I just have a trustworthy face.

Can't help it.

Which tunes have you worked on?

I don't really know.

I'd got this... I actually...

- Yesterday I did one for this one... - Jeez.

And I wrote, I...

I sort of, in the spirit of...

Actually, the...

Just so... I don't...

All of us are singing in the chorus. Like, we all take turns

- singing a different line and stuff. - Nice, nice.

I don't think anybody knew what we were coming into,

in terms of what to expect this album to become.

I thought we would all show each other

our different versions of the same songs with the same lyrics,

and then we would all pick certain versions to chase down.

But I did this weird thing like a...

Of course, you fucking did.

I didn't want to just write a bunch of stuff and force it on...

I'm really excited about the collaboration.

I'm really excited about what Rhiannon and I could write together,

or what, you know, fucking Elvis costello and I could write, you know.

I really want him to like what I do.

And I'm really excited to hear what he has to do.

I love that guitar, man.

This is a great guitar.

This is the same kind of guitar I wrote my first album on.

- Is it, really? Cool. - Yeah.

So, you can't get them,

because Jimmy page, I found out later,

also played one on stainnay to heaven.

So, every kid wants one of these. You know...

And I don't know how to play that, othennise I'd demonstrate.

How greatness sounds.

I'm just trying to work out what the term is.

I didn't want to come along and have nothing to offer,

you know, I thought, I'm sure everybody will write lots of great versions,

but we should all have a few,

and I think, you know,

ones that I've really heard is up-tempo,

couple of other people said they are balanced.

So, you know, obviously there isn't just one way to do it.

But I thought that was all just curious, you know.

Certain things reveal themselves

about the way the words unfolded on the page.

Dude, so, I had a hard time, like,

sometimes his inflection was implied,

or his notes were implied,

but sometimes it wasn't even that, sometimes it was just straight up, like...

- Like... - Right.

Yes, but I wonder if "every one" had an intention,

or if it was just words.

- Yeah. - Or didn't even have an intention.

I wonder if we'll ever find out. Or not.

How did the songs from the basement tapes come about?

Well, you know, I decided this...

I was gonna stay up in Woodstock for a while,

so my band from the tour we had done together.

Those guys all just came on up there. They liked it, too.

And Robbie called me up one day and said, "what's happening?"

You know. "What's happening?"

And I said, "nothing."

He said... well, he was in the mood for some nothing, too.

We went up there and we found this ugly pink house

out in west saugerties,

just in the outskirts of Woodstock.

The rent was, like, $250 a month.

And it sat in the middle of 100 acres,

and it had a pond and mountains, and a lot of privacy.

And it had a basement.

Typical basement, filled with pipes and a concrete floor, washer, dryer.

All of the things that you can't have

if you're trying to record something.

Dylan sees this and he says, "this is fantastic!"

And I thought, "well, the hell with it. Nobody's ever gonna hear this thing."

Who... was it Marx who said,

you know, he talks so much about the means of production,

who controlled the means of production, you know.

This was the beginning of that.

At this time, you gotta remember, nobody was doing this.

Back then, if you're gonna make a record,

you went and made a record where they make records.

There is something about going into somebody's studio

that has a huge clock on the wall

and the guys in the union, they're saying,

"hey, it's about dinner break," and everything.

As opposed to bringing the recording experience to you.

It reverberated throughout the record industry.

That's where you get the Beatles recording in the basement,

where they're all facing each other.

They were trying to imitate the basement tapes.

And to this day, it resonates.

That's recording formally where the artist feels at home.

Yeah.

That was one that I thought...

Well, I had those ideas for verse and chorus,

but then I also thought like, maybe we could write it together

'cause it feels a bit unfinished.

You know, the chorus lyrics feel a bit...

You know, when you do the...

Yeah.

You wanna try going to a g?

You know, sort of go to the g with a bit of...

That's great, yeah.

I love all of these musicians.

Not all of them know each other,

and they're trusting us

to make a safe place for them to have freedom.

- All right. - I like that a lot.

- Sweet. - Yeah.

That's sweet, yeah.

It's just kind of nice,

it's conversational.

It's like you're sort of...

I love the fact that the first two don't rhyme

'cause you're just sort of, like...

And then the rhyme comes in, it just kind of like...

- Yeah, yeah. - The whole...

So, you swap some of the lyrics, right?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- Totally fucking around. - Okay, great.

What we've been given the licence to do

is make songs out of these

unfinished texts.

Whether they were lyrics, or sketches for lyrics,

or games with words,

or very clearly,

you know, very identifiable, perfect lyrics,

and we have everything in that range.

And we are being given a huge Liberty.

And the licence to do, make music with it.

I think I feel slightly awkward about

the second line of the chorus being like,

"that woman she's funny she takes all my money"

I really think we should keep that in.

- Do you? - I mean, it's so truthful.

That's so common

- in the old blues songs, you know. - Maybe, maybe.

Yeah.

This is a special opportunity

to sort of have all this time with other creative people,

and, like, everybody's bringing a very specific

and defined idea of what songwriting is to the table.

We can all harmonise on that.

The next section is all on...

It's just c.

C, a, d.

And then it goes... Then I can throw things in.

And that's after the...

- Just staying on the kerb? - Yeah.

After "on the lawn," it goes back to...

- It goes back to the top. Yeah, that is... - Okay.

Oh, god. It's crazy being in Elvis's band.

Their songs are hilarious 'cause there's so many chords in them

and you know, and I...

Songs that I write usually don't have that many chords in them

and there's like 47 chords and you're like...

You know, trying to figure out all these things.

- What's the chord of the... - F sharp.

I've forgotten my dank bomb chord.

What was it? What is it?

He's calling this...

And he wrote it down.

Because I don't know, like, the notes, or anything like that.

Dank bomb. Dank bomb.

And I love t bone's swagger,

because he's like, "yeah, we'll just smash it out in two weeks, it'll be fine."

And I'm like, "I've never made anything in two weeks.

"Let alone a full record with people who we haven't played...

"You know, we haven't played together before."

Yeah, that's f sharp.

How could we possibly not be a band and then all of a sudden be a band,

and not only that but make a record in two weeks,

it's just not...

That's not how this happens.

That's not how music works, we can't do that.

What's that? A, a flat, g.

G, a... back to a again.

And then it does that weird...

All right, so let's start

- with the dank bomb. - Sorry, guys.

Just one more thing, what is this sequence that happens here?

- That's not a c7. That's a g. - A g. Okay.

- All right. - I'm not a musician, I'm a drummer.

- Here we go again. - So, where does dank bomb come?

All right, let's try this one.

We were just kind of, like, sitting around recording songs

and before we went down into the basement

to put it on tape.

They are bumping their way through a song that they don't know

or that doesn't really even exist until they are playing it for you.

Dylan's written this song, except he hasn't really written it.

And they just say, "well, to hell with it. We'll fill in the lines as we go."

You know, you ain't goin' nowhere.

They don't stick with the "head of lettuce" version.

There is a great reward in experimenting in that kind of way.

But you thought, "I could try anything."

And it takes shape.

You feel like, "I really like this."

It was like, one song after another,

you know, seldom make any changes.

This is taking place in an atmosphere of intimacy,

passion, fooling around.

No one's ever gonna hear this stuff,

so it doesn't matter how badly we fuck it up,

we can't fuck it up.

To me, the most important part of this,

and I think every one of the musicians has said this, too,

is that we remain true to the spirit of the original basement tapes.

Which is not that we are making some classic masterpiece,

or something like that,

even though they did that, they didn't set out to do that.

You wanna try it?

Yeah, let's just start recording,

and we'll just fuck around with it till we get it, all right?

Let's just do a whole one. Be free. Yes.

Can we just do a verse once real quick

so the, how could you...

Do you mean a verse, or a...

I mean, how could she reject me?

Let's just see what happens.

Yeah, we'll just do it straight through 140, okay?

You ready?

- 140, we're looking for 140, guys. - 140.

- Record time. - One, two, three.

The basement tapes for me, I guess was a realisation that

people can be funny with their music or...

And not take themselves too seriously.

The fun of this for me, it was just how fast everything happens

and quick and you're just barely learning the song and it's done. That's it.

- Good job, guys. - Flawless.

Zero mistakes.

One take only, gents.

Yeah, I mean, you know, let's restrict,

or give ourselves restrictions.

Until it goes wrong.

I was enjoying it too much.

As I listen to all these notes, it's so fucking cool

'cause it is like the spirit of the originals...

- Yeah. - But it's like you hear all the time,

somebody's like, "and here we go. Fuck, no, we don't!"

And here comes the chorus, and you're like, "okay, here we all go." It's like...

I came back off that really intense tour,

and it was, I think it was a huge relief to get it together and write.

And,

in a very different way, I think it's a relief for us all to be here,

and be able to write together and play together and...

So I think, they probably really enjoyed it,

so I think the central notion is that we gotta try and enjoy it somehow.

- How boisterous are you boys gonna be? - Pretty boisterous.

One, two, three!

It's ham.

- Ham? - Is that what it is?

- It's ham. - Really?

- It's ham, okay. Let's do it again. - Yeah.

What the fuck is going on?

Should we just do that one? We didn't get the word right.

- Is that okay? - Does that matter, really?

Okay, good. Cool.

This is exactly the thing we were looking for.

All right.

But it was enthusiastically not the right word.

T bone has such a graceful way of motivating people.

He's been so good at keeping all of us smiling,

all of us laughing,

and all of us proud and inspired.

T bone, he's like a master musician.

Who else could make sense of all these scraps of paper?

He knows song writing. He knows performing.

No part of making music that t bone's not familiar with and experienced,

and he knows performers that can perform all types of music,

I like to think of it as each member of this band

bringing a different strength,

a different quality that you're not gonna find in the other four.

Marcus mumford, he won album of the year,

he plays these huge stadiums.

The power that he has in connection to what resonates with people

is pretty unmatched.

With her background in more of a bluegrass,

or more of a traditional folk world,

that's going to set Rhiannon's songs apart in a big way,

and also the way Rhiannon sings is something

that few people on earth can do.

A guy like Jim James, I feel like he's not afraid

to work up a soundscape

to make sure it's always weird enough.

Not only has Jim done that within my morning jacket,

but he also has a lot of cool solo releases.

Really, every time he's involved with something

it always ends up being very special.

And then Elvis costello

who's one of the most accomplished songwriters of all time.

He's truly one of the heavyweights.

I feel like few guys have had such lasting careers.

Having them in a situation like this, I feel like it's gonna be essential.

It's so fun to see how different each of our song writing styles are.

And it's like being inside of a rainbow or something.

Seeing all the... how it works.

You know, it's like seeing the magician.

How does the magician really pull the rabbit out of the hat?

There are three or four great songs people have written.

You know, three or four people who've written versions.

- Right. - But what I wanna do is like this.

We can do two or three versions

'cause there's some of them I wanna do two or three versions of...

I haven't listened extensively 'cause I wanted to

approach it very much like they did in the first place which is...

I wanna just come in

- without a lot of preconceived ideas. - Yeah.

I used to try to make everything my idea. I used to arrange everything.

You know, every note, every drum note.

This will be the complete opposite of that, right?

The fun of it is seeing how two people interpret the same lyric.

And what choices they make.

One, two... one, two, three.

We were all given the same lyrics

and we all heard such different things from those lyrics.

And now that we've been talking about, like, what is the notion of a song?

What is a song?

The infinite possibility of a song.

I mean, a song is limitless.

Nice one.

We'd definitely get lost in that thing, in the ups and downs.

- You'd probably get lost in the river. - Yeah.

That was for sure lost. No doubt about that.

Yeah, well, 'cause I was like, "I'm playing over a g-chord.

"No, I'm actually probably playing over a d-chord."

So I start sounding like shit because...

What'd you think? Should we...

Let's just out another ending.

Some songs work great

if everybody's messy and it's all a big pile of chaos.

And other songs, just don't work that way.

And they deserve to be whittled on or carved out a little bit more.

When you're messing with eternity, it's really tempting to go fix everything.

You know, and to make everything perfect.

So when,

when the main parts of the song are going, it'd be great if it was moving more, you know.

But on the little Bridges it'd be cool if you guys were kinda circling.

- Okay, yeah, yeah. - Circling with no emotion

and when the song takes off...

You mean this? F-sharp.

Yeah, yeah.

So maybe just a little faster still.

Just a little faster.

Maybe a couple more snares, like a... Boom, crack, boom.

Crack, crack, boom, crack, boom, crack...

Yeah, if you could sing the third line

- in unison with me, maybe? - Sure.

'Cause I go up kinda high, but I can't really hit it.

Yeah, you can.

Could you also sing the normal lines with me just in unison,

when you're not singing the Harmony?

Just sing it in unison.

- Is this all right? - Yeah, think it's good. Yeah.

- It's nice. - You can say if you don't.

No, I would. Well, I'll mute it anyway.

No, I like it.

Goddamn.

- What is that buzz? - Your guitar.

- Me? What an asshole. - Yeah.

Okay, let's go.

- You on? - Yeah.

One, two.

I knew there were some things that were prepared

but I was unprepared for the amount of preparedness

that like Taylor and Elvis and Jim did.

I didn't know if people were gonna have written

six, seven, eight, 10 songs.

I was kinda like, "whoa."

This is... I was a little taken aback by that.

I'm a baby songwriter.

I'm really looking foward to just learning a lot.

Like, just sort of, bringing a novice view

because I've written a few. You know, I've written some songs

but like compared to, you know, some of these guys,

I haven't really written a whole lot.

So I was thinking of putting that in the middle, you know?

Sort of just transitioning to this,

and then transitioning back to the, you know, as it is in the lyrics.

That's one of the best lyrics

- in the whole pile. - Yeah.

Yeah, I'm sure...

I didn't write... Did you write something for it?

- I did, yeah. - It's such a great song.

- Yeah. - Just so we can find another groove.

What kind of arrangement do you have for it?

Just, I mean,

kinda going, just going...

Figuring out which verses to, sort of, do together,

and then transitioning to that.

Just sort of this...

You know, not really a... This kinda thing, but just kinda like...

You know, but that's where I'm coming from.

And instrumentation?

What if you played it like that by yourself,

and we all gathered around a microphone, just one microphone

and didn't do anything at all.

And you got the sound of that. Like, that was...

Like you just got our breath, listening.

That'd be pretty cool.

When I heard about the project

and the idea of these folks going in and just gonna...

You know, and to see what happens.

There's a lot of magic that can happen in that.

That's one of the reasons why I didn't do a lot of preparatory stuff.

That idea of what's happening right now

you know, that's what attracted me,

you know, more than anything to the project, was that idea.

Nice one.

I mean, if... I'm very hyper sensitive

to any kind of out of tune-ness in my voice,

but, it's not always noticeable to...

Some of the... 'Cause my voice is always out of tune and your...

Some of the times you went out of tune, it almost sounded intentional.

It almost sounded like you were doing some kind of fucked up improv.

Yeah, the key there is almost, though.

Yeah, well, now it sounded definitely intentional.

Certainly, self-consciousness ends the creative process, you know?

My job is to not let people get self-conscious in the first place.

And not feel like someone else is gonna take it away

or try to, you know, try to get ahead of them.

And that's a beautiful thing about collaborating.

When I was preparing, I was just going as far out as I could.

It was like, "okay, I have to have as much stuff prepared as I can."

I sort of, feel like, I just... I gotta come correct

because I'm lucky to be in the room.

We're all lucky to be in the room. But I'm especially lucky to be in the room.

I'm aware of the fact that...

You know, like even in a lot of the press stuff about it,

it's like, "Elvis costello, Marcus mumford, Jim James, t bone Burnett,

"and this guy from this band dawes in it."

Like it's... and I get it.

I realise that that's how this shit works. And that's okay.

But obviously, as anyone could imagine that does create a certain level of pressure.

- G... g-minor. - All right.

The essence of the basement tapes to me, is collaborative.

I was under the impression that's how this was gonna work.

But then I've heard people have been secretly scribbling away.

Writing mega hits.

It's been a big challenge to keep writing.

'Cause I'm not like Jim or Elvis who came in, or Taylor

who came in with pretty much 20 fully formed demos.

I came in with one song and one riff.

And so I'm falling behind a bit in terms of how many songs I've done, I think.

It's almost like a game.

It's almost like he passed the hat around and everyone has to write a song.

I've never written like that before.

I mean for me, things come quite sporadically.

So I write a song every six months

rather than having to write, like, a song a day.

I'm really interested in the collaborative process.

What it would be like to just kinda work with other people

and say, you know, "hey, let's just...

"You and me, just take this and just like make something."

You know, I think there's a lot of potential in that.

It's just a matter of how it's gonna happen.

Well, sometime, maybe later,

I've got a chorus and no song.

Oh, sick.

So, you know, I would love some help with that.

- Hell, yeah. - What key is it? Do you know?

- Let me see. - Do you play it on the guitar?

No, I just... Say, I did a chord progression vocally

- and then put the line on top. - Sweet. Let's do it.

Yeah, it just goes...

- Well, that's it. - Cool.

Yeah, try to sing it over there. Sing it.

Well, you know, if we do 23 more songs, we hit 50, right?

- Really? - Yeah.

We've done 27. We've done 27.

- Is that right? - Yeah.

We've got a few where we have already three,

if not four versions, potentially.

If we had endless amounts of time, we'd probably record them all,

but we are sort of rapidly having to come to some sort of agreement.

Certain takes on songs might not be heard

during these sessions, you know?

Lost on the river, of course,

has brought out lots of different types of songs.

Yeah!

And then a b-major.

Whatever you did there.

No. The... no, no. Not that one.

I don't know the fucking chords!

But... shit!

Sorry. I just, like, know when I hear it. Wish I could play.

I got... what's that?

- B-minor. - There! It goes there!

- Did I get the chord? - Yeah, yeah.

I'm just interested, you know, where Taylor's going.

And then where Marcus goes, and where I went.

We're all very different places.

You know, it was just like, "that's what I was hoping for."

Think we almost have one.

- Really? - Wanna hear it?

Yeah. I do.

We're gonna go from the slow one?

So just, just do that verse...

And so after that... so that we're clear...

Right after that we go straight to a-minor, right?

No. We go to e-minor.

Yeah.

- Cool. - You wanna do that first?

Well, no, I just wanna do it all a bit but...

I'm just trying...

- I'm going through everything. - Yeah.

I wanna do some titles we haven't done yet.

- This is like the third version of this. - But we have another one.

I understand that there's a record,

you know, and I understand that there's all these different songs,

and I know that, like, t bone's got an incredibly difficultjob.

I've had now, several different recording experiences

and it just, like, really highlights.

People try to emulate that whole idea of the basement tapes,

you know, gettin' a house, and puttin' people in it,

and just kinda, just chilling and making a record.

I mean, I think the key

more than house, being together,

is that they didn't think anybody was gonna listen to it.

So automatically, if you're making a recording to be heard

that changes the whole energy.

- Anyway... - That's awesome, man.

Thank you...

No, no. That was worth the price of admission right there.

That's what I came here for. Yeah.

I think the basement tapes from '67 were an amazing inspiration for this.

But I don't think similar artists go much further than that.

Woodstock was a, place where,

you could kind of go get your thoughts together.

It was an artist colony,

there were plenty of painters who lived in that area.

But very few musicians.

We certainly knew of nobody up there playing any music.

Later there was, but when we were up there middle 60's

we were pretty much by ourselves.

Should Bob Dylan have found himself walking around so many major cities

he would have been swamped within moments.

The only people who know he's up there and know where he is

are friends and confidants. No one else knows.

He can just be himself. Just Bob.

The events of the day, they were just happening

and they seemed to be a million miles away.

We weren't really participating in any of that stuff.

Wherever everybody else was going

that's the place that we weren't interested in.

It looked like, we were rebelling against the rebellion.

It was the summer of love

but, we weren't there, so,

you know, we did our thing, we wrote, million dollar bash,

you know, to go along with the summer of love.

Bob had been coming every day, for you know, six, seven days a week.

He'd show up around noon,

if we were sleeping he'd get us up

he'd make noise, you know, make some coffee.

It was such a great feeling to have a place,

you know, where everybody could come, you didn't have to make music.

And it just felt good to have, you know, the club house.

There's like a couple of really crazy distortions that I've had my whole life

about being in a band.

One was from growing up watching the monkees' television show.

And I thought that bands lived together

and, you know, the desire was to just

not have to work, and create together and have mad-cap adventures.

And the basement tapes, really played into that.

It allowed us some freedom

to figure out who an artist really is.

It's strange to think of big pink as Eden,

but, maybe, maybe it was.

Is Marcus writing one? Is that what he's doing?

- He's outside writing. - Just leave him be.

Yeah, well, leave him be then, maybe he'll come back.

T bone was like, "we'll just go round and we'll do a song each."

And I was like, "shit, I haven't got any songs at all."

So I really felt like urgency to go upstairs and write something.

These guys are such prolific writers and I'm not really.

I, like, edit before, you know, while I'm writing

so much that I don't have a lot of output.

Well should we play this one anyway,

- 'cause, I mean. Yeah? - Yeah.

And then we've got to get to it sometime, I mean...

Yeah, this'll teach him to go outside and write a song.

Yeah.

Here he is.

He's done already, he's all right, written a hit.

Let's see if he's got a... got a tune.

It's all finished, right?

Since it ain't, should we leave you alone to keep working on it?

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to waste people's time

'cause it may not lead anywhere, so...

- Okay. - Okay.

- We're not playing it. - He's not... yeah, he's not ready.

Are we doing another song or are we calling it?

We're going home.

- All right, Elvis, we'll see you. - We'll see you tomorrow, right, boys.

A lot of the stuff I write I just don't like at all.

So then finding stuff that I like, normally takes six months.

And here, I know that in the next 24 hours I'm gonna have to write a song.

Everybody's got their insecurities and vanities

and the things where they feel they are uneasy and you know.

And I appreciate that Marcus is very self-critical,

like, he wouldn't let us play one of the songs.

He doesn't think it's good enough. I'm astounded.

I've learnt that there is something to be had for...

Having that period and then recognising

that you can't actually sustain that forever.

I think it's good to have a timeframe

where you have to do it and it's kind of the older way.

I know, you know, plenty of songwriters who really treat it as a, sort of, job,

like, you sit down and you write.

I think you'll look at this stuff,

and you think, "well, this is a man who was at work,"

like he was at the office.

I had nothing else to do, so

I started writing a bunch of songs.

I'd write them in longhand and I'd write them on the typewriter.

Whatever was handy, pencil, pen, typewriter.

Bob sat at the typewriter and write a letter,

you know, and not mail it.

I never saw a man write so many letters to himself in my life.

Maybe 150 songs were composed in about a seven or eight month period.

And that is pretty mind boggling

when you consider, nothing officially came out at the time.

How do we go about writing those songs?

I'd know I wasn't going to write anything about myself.

I didn't have nothing to say about myself

that I figure anybody else would be interested in anyway.

You kind of look for ideas, and the TV would be on,

you know, like, as the world turns or dark shadows or something and...

Just any old thing would create a beginning to a song.

Names out of phonebooks and things.

When China first exploded that hydrogen bomb,

that just, kind of flashed across the headlines in newspapers,

so, you know, we just go in and write tears of rage.

Things were just happening, you know.

There was riots in the street.

They were... they were rioting in Rochester, New York

and that was, wasn't that far away,

so we write too much of nothing.

And just one thing led to another, you know.

The human heart.

That's the first time anybody'd ever heard of a human heart being transplanted.

That was incredible. It was a real breakthrough.

So we came up with a song

and then, after we got the lyrics down, we took the song to the basement.

Take three.

Three.

It's those, but with that change on.

It's "house," instead of "living room" there.

- Okay. - And then, I think this last verse,

if you're happy with that.

That one. Gypsy... what does it say?

"Gypsy woman, you know every place I go,

"even a thousand miles away from home." It's stealing things from his.

- Is that all right? - Yes, of course.

- Okay. - Hey.

Johnny, you can plug into this amp.

All right.

What's... what's the title of the song?

- Kansas City. - Kansas City.

What? I haven't even heard the song, yet.

Is it a minor after the f or the c?

- Which bit? - The verses.

Yeah, it's a minor.

A situation like this is really good for the creative force

because I think as creative people

we kind of, get in our rooms and we get really attached.

That's one of the reasons why being creative is so difficult because it is you.

It's a part of you.

But I think to be the, the...

To really let the art have a life of its own,

you have to detach from it.

Well, that might be nice. Let's do that.

That's a cool groove.

- All right, let's try that. - Here we go.

Roll tape, roll tape.

Take a marker.

One, two, one, two, three, four.

I think it's really good to have the fear, you know, of...

The fear of failure and the fear of not being able to do your job,

properly at all, I think you need it.

I've had, you know, all sorts of careers,

but in this one I think it's good to be just close to the edge all the time,

'cause it keeps you somewhat fresh and hungry,

'cause I think when people stop getting hungry, especially with songs,

then they start writing shit songs, you know.

Nice one.

It's cool. It feels like the '60s, you know, I think that's what they did.

You know, that's why their output was so massive.

You know, now we get so meticulous

because you know how many people are watching.

You know, with the Internet, whatever.

That you feel like you have to check yourself

and check yourself and check yourself.

Whereas back then, it was just, fucking cut it and see how it goes, you know.

- What's up, now? - Let's do another one.

Yeah, all right.

I wanted to represent

and, I felt like my voice was important.

This, lost on the river, you know, that I sat with Marcus and Taylor,

you know, I felt really good about that.

It's a beautiful tune, and I kind of felt like,

I had to keep sort of you know, pushing it through

and actually really where it started getting somewhere

is 'cause Marcus was a champion of the song.

Okay, let's try this intro and see if it will work.

Are we rolling?

Yes, we're rolling.

Then you start singing here.

- Okay, that's... - We're gonna pace the whole round.

You're going the whole round, okay.

- Yeah, it's kinda... - Yeah.

Close, but not.

I think it's not found the pocket.

No. Can we just try it one time like a more...

Like, so that we're leaving space

but we're playing the 6/8 but just not with a...

- Rhythm but more... - Yeah.

More, like, just following the voice, you know.

- Were we playing in 6/8? - I'm gonna try it.

Come in here.

Okay.

No, I'm sorry.

It's not... it's just...

The thing that I liked about the movement,

- it just feels like it's ploddy now. - Yeah.

Can we just try that one one more time

with, like, the same sort of feel, but slightly quicker.

I'm just gonna play drums.

- All right. - Let's try again.

- I'm going faster than that. - You mean dramatically, yeah.

One, two, three...

Okay, come in here.

Yeah.

We were not finding the top

- of the sequence there, yeah. - Yeah.

Sounds like we're trying to elevate something that doesn't need elevating.

What about the tempo you all were doing upstairs,

with you strumming the acoustic guitar,

- it's gone fon/vard... - Yeah...

I thought that was better, personally.

- Yeah, let's do that. - Let's do it from the same spot.

- Do the chorus. - You play acoustic. Yeah.

Okay, how about, let's try this. How about let's sing...

Let's sing, lost on the river and you respond to it.

One, two, three.

I don't know, it's... I don't know. No.

What do you think?

If it doesn't... if it doesn't tickle your fancy, that's all right.

That failure of agreement, that's less important

than trying to get a feeling in the moment

and to do it with a band that never played together before

while doing this, potentially...

Catastrophic thing, you know.

Can we hit that djump?

At a, like a little bit later?

And also, like, do the same chords for the verse and the chorus,

like a kind of galloping through.

Are we just gonna hold on the one?

Are we gonna hold on the one between...

Why don't we just try a chorus? Can we try a chorus?

- So we're all on the same page. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - What are we trying?

Just try a chorus like that.

I'm getting very, very confused.

- Why don't we go and hear... - Let's hear that.

Yeah, I know we didn't lock it at the very top...

Even when you've mixed a record and you compile it into a sequence

quite often the first playback, you'll go,

"that didn't actually work, that transitional." That...

That the energy of that track isn't quite what I thought it was

and then something else will surprise you

but obviously, you know, you wait to be disappointed.

I think we should move on.

I think we should move on.

No. Do another song.

I just...

It's like...

I don't know.

It sounded great when you guys were playing upstairs at the table.

Once you add the band it just doesn't...

- Yeah. - Yeah, I think the band makes it worse...

Okay.

Wait, the thing about this song is that

it's been... it's a real... Been a re-creation of...

- Yeah. - Everybody's kind of,

you know, which makes it harder to pin down, I think.

- Yeah, yeah. - But it's cool.

It's the only time we've failed to lock on a groove, really.

Would you, maybe, want to take a breath and come back to it?

Should we switch to another song and then come back to this?

- If you want to... - It's up to you.

- Liberty street? - Let's do Liberty street.

Yeah.

- Let's switch to something... - It'll be easy.

- Completely different. - What? Yeah.

You already know, like...

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Okay.

Each song that I write is like,

I put, like, every fucking ounce and heart and everything into it

because I don't... I just, you know...

I don't sit down and, like, write 10 songs,

you know, I, like, write one.

You know, and I put all my eggs

in that basket. Maybe I shouldn't do that,

but, like, right now that's the kind of songwriter I am and it's just like, you know...

So I just, I really could not deal with that.

You sang the first and last verse from that beautiful.

We should probably should just stop this one now.

Okay.

- Maybe one more time. - No, I'm willing to hear it.

Look, you know what, it ended, it was over.

- It sounded great... - Cool.

It started and it sounded great.

Cool.

The local post office was very good about not saying where he lived,

but you ask around enough and you find out.

It's not hard in a town of this size

to figure out where somebody's living.

So, his sense of security and privacy

started to get invaded more and more,

and it started getting more and more unnerving for him.

He found people on his roof,

he found people rooting around, looking for this or that

like, "did Bob drop that gum wrapper?"

They found a couple in his bed when they came home one time.

It must have been awful when he realised that it was ending.

That the public was too close to him again.

Bob just decided to leave and with very little ceremony he just left.

If the band hadn't come in and Dylan hadn't come in to that house

then you think, like, what wouldn't have happened after that.

You know, really the whole life of the band,

and most of Dylan's output for the next 10 years,

you know, used that kind of fusion and that collaboration.

Makes you realise what a crucial time it was for...

For both those artists.

So, what's the rhythm you want to do with that?

I don't know.

So, if we did like a...

I think I've got a certain confidence back that I might have lost a bit.

I got to the point where I felt like a...

You know, might not ever write a song again.

I think a lot of people go through that,

but I felt confident that, like, when push comes to shove,

I can sit down and write a song

and it not sound identical to the song before.

Rhiannon, that sounds so cool.

Marcus, tell me this, is this, is this too thick?

I'm trying to thin it right.

Yeah, just so, so there's something playing the chord.

Yeah, but no real... Nothing else, you know.

Yeah.

Some, some pressures that I came in with,

I still feel the same way and I always will,

and may that always be the case, I guess.

'Cause you look at Marcus who just came in as a...

An assassin and just whatever, whatever he picked up,

hejust turned into an incredible track.

Cool, the way you waited for that.

You kind of crushed it, Marcus.

- Sang it great, man! - Yeah.

I don't think, I don't think that third verse works.

I think maybe it should just be two verses.

I don't know.

That was...

I wrote that third verse. It feels...

- No, it... - No, man, it's great.

Oh, man, it's saying, like when I come home to you.

See this... this is the...

Go hear it.

You know, I suppose after a while

maybe some of your fundamental insecurities can,

can be... like I would be way more insecure about this if this was two years ago.

Not because I am a better musician, but just because,

maybe I've had a bit more experience.

But there are some insecurities that never go away

and I guess, your question is whether,

you know, as an artist, you need to have insecurity.

I don't know. Maybe.

What do you think?

You know, you treat like this... It's like it's... it's sad.

But the point of the chorus is not drowning and not giving up.

I fully admit that I bring a lot of my own baggage,

you know, but I can contribute

and I think the more that I

have confidence in that

and it's getting better and better,

but the, you know, and this, this was...

I mean, it's amazing what the difference

in having somebody believe in you

will do.

Do you think... do you think it sits okay?

- Yeah, I think... I think it's amazing. - Okay.

Yeah, I... when your voice goes that low,

the kind of texture of it, it's ridiculous.

Okay.

And I don't know, if you want to sing with girls.

We'll have girls sing on it as well.

The best thing about this bunch of people is that

there is so much acceptance and there is so much support.

Every single version of every song,

we all feel so motivated to do right by them, you know?

To not let them down.

Go all the way.

Why are we waiting? Let's just go and record one over there, just like this.

- Okay. - 'Cause I think it's sick!

All right. What, the whole thing or just the...

All right.

Words.

You know, we've struggled through a couple of our songs.

There's moments where you think,

"is this gonna shift into walking away from it?"

But that didn't happen with this group. It never happened once.

This song, it certainly grows out of life around us

and when there's a song that resonates

it's hard to know. It is a mystery, it is metaphysical.

This is fucking gorgeous.

It's gonna make me cry.

I feel better now, but it's, it's, you know... it was really hard.

I learnt I can sit down and,

you know, write a really good piece of music.

I'm just finding my way to it and everything is a step in that direction.

I think this was a big step.

Yeah, this was supposed to be a rehearsal.

And then Marcus was like, "let's just cut it right here

"while they're working in the other room."

I didn't really do much, I just used the guitar as an excuse

to sit in the room while they did it.

- Good job! - Oh, man!

That was so fun, doing that.

See, that's... that's the way it was set to be.

When you guys are all in the room together.

- Yeah, we're just like vibin' and... - Yeah.

That's how it goes you know, 'cause then you relax

- and you're not thinkin' about it. - Yeah.

I feel like any pressure, head-trip things

that any of us had going in

were removed because everybody did carry their weight.

Yeah, thanks man.

I'm happy with all of the songs,

but I guess time will be the ultimate judge.

You know, there's still so much that remains to be seen

with how, how the record's released.

I don't remember when I became aware of these songs being bootlegged.

Some enterprising young men out here in California

turned these tunes into an album called the great white wonder.

I had no intention of putting them out.

I don't even...

I wouldn't know where to get this record.

I guess they were selling them in record stores.

And it becomes the first rock and roll bootleg record ever.

These things spread like wildfire through the underground,

but it was just like, people wanted to buy it

and more people want to buy it, now more people want to buy it,

now somebody else is bootlegging the bootleg.

You are talking 300,000 or 400,000 copies.

Eventually coming to the attention of rolling stone

for them to write "Dylan's basement tapes should be released."

A rehearsal tape is really what the basement tapes are.

They are not gonna turn it into Columbia records,

but they are great demos

to send out to other bands and other singers

who are going to cover Bob's songs.

There's a great Bob Dylan song, it goes like this...

It's always interesting when someone takes a song of yours and re-records it.

But these songs weren't tailor made for anybody.

I just wrote what I felt like writing.

All right, let's do it, y'all.

Let's see if we can blow some stuff off.

The only word that always comes to mind

when I listen to the basement tapes is "joy."

And as someone growing up wanting to write songs

and wanting to believe that it wasn't just about getting famous,

or it wasn'tjust about making a career.

I pictured them, if none of them had ever become famous

maybe doing the same thing.

You know, when somebody is singing something

into a microphone and they smile, you can hear it.

And that's the thing that I feel like you can hear so clearly in the recordings.

I mean, it's really like made me step back and think

the recordings aren't the project, you know.

It's like, it's this process that is.

This feels like the basement tapes a lot

'cause I think we've tried to stick to that same spirit

you know, and we've been having so much fun

outside of any musical context as well

which you get that spirit from the original basement tape.

Those guys just had fun cuttin' up and hangin' out.

We're not trying to copy that, but we're trying to enjoy ourselves

with what's a unique opportunity.

Somebody's gonna want to pick an argument with this.

To hell with that. You've missed the point.

This has been one of the mostjoyful things I've ever done

and it's most surprising and I couldn't have had a better time.