A Secret History of the 20th Century

Over dinner a few days ago, Matt and I briefly debated the foibles of A People's History of the United States, my thoughts on which are essentially that it would make a very good supplementary text in a classroom setting, but otherwise its arguments are often convoluted and substantially misrepresent a lot of history [I pretty much think this: Michael Kazin on Zinn]. Anyway, I eventually got frustrated with Matt and sent him an e-mail that said, "I hope that you die, and your death will come soon, and all the money you made will never buy back your soul." [a misquote from Masters of War.]

Moving along here, I like Bob Dylan; evidence of this can be found in the above paragraph. The Basement Tapes, in my opinion, is not Bob Dylan's best album nor the Band's best album, but it is really great. My appreciation for the album was at first cursory and then was significantly informed by my reading of Greil Marcus' book The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, which concerns itself with an expanded 5-disc version of the album and an old anthology of American folk music.

That all being said, here are two songs from standard issue of The Basement Tapes. Both are upbeat Bob songs; there are also subdued Bob songs, as well as songs that are much more The Band-y, and are neither really 'upbeat' nor 'subdued', just The Band-y. The album begins with some looser songs and then moves into more introspective territory; that is, you get to know the slower songs by hearing the faster ones first. Here we go:

Bob Dylan & the Band - Million Dollar Bash (from The Basement Tapes, 1975)
Bob Dylan & the Band - Please, Mrs. Henry (from The Basement Tapes, 1975)