The Never Ending Pool

Hey 4th Time, very interesting what you are writing here.
Did you read the interpretation of grizz on the shelter ?
Might be interesting for you too

I think it's overwrought rather than overproduced.

And that's exactly what I love about it!

Some of the words used here already describe it fine - passionate, sexy, romantic, searching, maybe add confused and conflicted...

And those tumbling dice (or words to us mere mortals), pouring out.

Funny, in summer (late) 78 we were driving around the beaches of southern Australia in a '57 Ford with a portable cassette player on the old bench seat between us - playing 'Some Girls' and 'Street Legal' on constant turnaround, the only cassettes we had. What a time!

szaffi wrote:

QUOTE:
Hey 4th Time, very interesting what you are writing here.
Did you read the interpretation of grizz on the shelter ?
Might be interesting for you too

I would like to read that, szaffi.
Can you provide a link?

I was trying to do so, but this post had disappeared somewhere in the depths of the shelter.
I asked grizz to repost it but until now he did not answer.
I will keep you updated as soon as he does

Definate good idea to get remastered version.Vocals clearer.Instruments much better seperation.Didnt buy SACD just normal remaster

Wow, some real insightful posts here. Just wanted to say I, too, like Street Legal alot. My view of it was colored by the fact that I purchased it after I knew of Bob's religious conversion, maybe even after I heard Slow Train and attended my first concert in 1980. It struck me as an album demonstrating the depths that Bob had descended to in the material world and fortold or even explained his conversion as a critically needed spiritual awakening. I always saw "No Time To Think" as the keystone song of this collection, not necessarily the "best," just the one that sums up the emotional place where the author was dwelling.

"No Time To Think" as the keystone song of this collection, not necessarily the "best," just the one that sums up the emotional place where the author was dwelling.

Right on.

'Your conscience betrayed you when some tyrant waylaid you
Where the lion lies down with the lamb.
I'd have paid off the traitor and killed him much later
But that's just the way that I am.'

Killin' off his other selves is a valuable tool in his creation process imo. He's done it so many times before.

Not Henry Porter wrote:

QUOTE:
... I always saw "No Time To Think" as the keystone song of this collection, not necessarily the "best," just the one that sums up the emotional place where the author was dwelling.

'No Time to Think' - what a brilliant song!

In death, you face life with a child and a wife
Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls.
You're a soldier of mercy, you're cold and you curse,
"He who cannot be trusted must fall."

Normally, the challenge is to face death in life. But here, it is the opposite. Is he anticipating the moment of his own death, when his past, and especially the most important people (there was still only one wife, Sara, in 1978) will flash before his eyes?

"a wife who sleep-walks ... into walls" - Walking, or sleep-walking, into walls is a sign of being either unconscious or, perhaps, unaware or uncaring. This may be a dig at Sara. Did he feel that she somehow stamped on or walked through his dreams? Certainly, the apparent 'domestic bliss' of the Woodstock years didn't last long. Maybe he actually felt miserable, stifled, trapped?

Interesting that the 'soldier of mercy' felt 'cold'. Outwardly 'nice Bob' may have been at war with an inwardly down-and-dirty Bob ('New Pony) who was screaming to be set free.

The curse, 'He who cannot be trusted must fall' is reminiscent, in both its form and its emphaticness, of 'He not busy being born is busy dying'. It sounds like something he has thought a lot about, and the conclusion is not up for discussion. Perhaps he felt that he could no longer trust himself, because of the false mask he was wearing (a recurring theme: the mask and white-face in Renaldo and Clara; the significance of the title chosen for 'Masked and Anonymous'

The last lines of the verses drive home the overall message of the song with a sledgehammer. Together, they could form a single poem, or a litany:

He who cannot be trusted must fall ...
And there's no time to think ...
And it makes you feel violent and strange ...
And you have no time to think ...
And I feel so depressed ...
And there's no time to think ...
But that's just the way I am ...
And there's no time to think ...
To survive it you play deaf and dumb ...
And there's no time to think ...
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere
But there's no time to think ...
They're not even sure you exist ...
But there's no time to think ...
You're stranded but with nothing to share ...
And there's no time to think ...
You can give but you cannot receive ...
And no time to think.

4th Time Around wrote:

QUOTE:
Not Henry Porter wrote:

QUOTE:
... I always saw "No Time To Think" as the keystone song of this collection, not necessarily the "best," just the one that sums up the emotional place where the author was dwelling.

'No Time to Think' - what a brilliant song!

In death, you face life with a child and a wife
Who sleep-walks through your dreams into walls.
You're a soldier of mercy, you're cold and you curse,
"He who cannot be trusted must fall."

Normally, the challenge is to face death in life. But here, it is the opposite. Is he anticipating the moment of his own death, when his past, and especially the most important people (there was still only one wife, Sara, in 1978) will flash before his eyes?

"a wife who sleep-walks ... into walls" - Walking, or sleep-walking, into walls is a sign of being either unconscious or, perhaps, unaware or uncaring. This may be a dig at Sara. Did he feel that she somehow stamped on or walked through his dreams? Certainly, the apparent 'domestic bliss' of the Woodstock years didn't last long. Maybe he actually felt miserable, stifled, trapped?

There's also a Thomas Hardy poem about an absent wife who "walks through walls" - Thomas Hardy is my other favourite poet, I wrote a college paper with these references a long time ago and now I can't remember the title of the poem. There's an element of haunting and guilt to the image, it doesn't seem to me hostile at all. The intimacy of the absent wife appearing in his room at night, while he dreams, is poignant. The physical world - walls and so on - are no barrier to the spectres of our past. Life (after his divorce, if you want to get autobiographical) is like a living death, perhaps, and he "lives" only in his dreams? He feels he has passed through some kind of "death" and must now face up to living the rest of his life, somehow?

>>>> No Time to Think' - what a brilliant song!<<<<<

Amen !
just wonder why so many people dislike it

but anyhow, the top of the top, the best ever, the noplusultra for me is the last one:

There's a long distance train, rolling through the rain
Tears on the letter that I write
...
sigh<br><br>Post edited by: szaffi, at: 2007/06/27 13:12

Celebrating this Street Legal thread I changed my MP3 page.

Here is the new link

You can find:
New Pony (Rehearsal) - 00/00/1978 [5.8 MB]
Baby Stop Crying - 7/6/1978 [7.8 MB]
True Love Tends To Forget - 7/6/1978 [6.3 MB]
No Time To Think - 7/12/1978 [3.5 MB]
Where Are You Tonight - 12/9/1978 [6.9 MB]
We Better Talk This Over - 12/10/1978 [4.7 MB]
Changing Of The Guards - 12/10/1978 [8.6 MB]

PS- No Time To Think is a very poor recording, but it is the only version I have.<br><br>Post edited by: Not Henry Porter, at: 2007/06/27 20:16

Much appreciated, ~NHP.



p.s.
Back in the days when mp3s were just beginning to circulate more widely (and before I had even heard of 'bit torrents', your page was a goldmine for me. Retrospective thanks for that also!<br><br>Post edited by: 4th Time Around, at: 2007/06/27 23:46

Not Henry Porter wrote:

QUOTE:

No Time To Think - 7/12/1978 [3.5 MB]

NHP ... does that really mean he performed this song live ?
where was that ?

szaffi, from the nature of the recording (e.g. how the song ends, and accompanying sounds), I assume this was a soundcheck.

If the date is correct, it was in Goteborg, Sweden (July 12, 1978).

He has never performed this song in concert (unfortunately ).

I cannot vouch for anything on the date. I think it being a soundcheck is a reasonable deduction from the circumstances. The song file got attached to that date somehow, probably when I downloaded it. This MP3 is not my creation, other than the naming convention.

But, see this from Olof's Yearly Chronicles:

4240
Scandinavium
Gothenburg, Sweden
12 July 1978

Soundcheck before concert.

1. Unidentified Instrumental

2. Love Her With A Feeling (Tampa Red)

3. Tomorrow Is A Long Time

4. Oh, Sister (Bob Dylan–Jacques Levy/Bob Dylan)

5. No Time To Think

6. We Better Talk This Over

7. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

8. Mr. Tambourine Man

9. Mr. Tambourine Man

10. Unidentified Blues

Bob Dylan (guitar), Billy Cross (lead guitar), Alan Pasqua (keyboards), Steven Soles (rhythm guitar, backup vocals), David Mansfield (violin &amp; mandolin), Steve Douglas (horns), Jerry Scheff (bass), Bobbye Hall (percussion), Ian Wallace (drums), Helena Springs, Jo Ann Harris, Carolyn Dennis (background vocals).

1 instrumental.

2-7, 9, 10 Bob Dylan (vocal).

8 Helena Springs (vocal).

Stereo recording, 40 minutes.

Session info updated 31 March 2003.

Post edited by: Not Henry Porter, at: 2007/06/28 00:59

Post edited by: Not Henry Porter, at: 2007/06/28 01:00<br><br>Post edited by: Not Henry Porter, at: 2007/06/28 01:01