The Funny Little Notebook Inside the Deluxe Edition of Bob Dylan's "Tempest"

Rock Turtleneck still enjoys its physical musical media, so yesterday I made the pilgrimage to Best Buy to pick up the deluxe edition of Bob Dylan’s Tempest. I don’t know if I would say it was the best buy, but it was a decent buy. 

The deluxe edition was $16.99, a full $7 more than the $9.99 standard CD. What did I get for that $7? A little Moleskine-style softcover notebook featuring an interesting assortment of obscure Dylan magazine covers in the 60s and 70s from titles like OK, Teen Beat and Hootenany. 

Next to each cover is a page to take notes and in the front of the book is a "THIS BOOK BELONGS TO:" section where you can fill out your contact info.

It’s a cute, funny little thing to include as a bonus, and by funny I mean odd. I would love to know who thought of it and how they came up with the idea. 

One of the covers in the booklet

Maybe they are just tempting you to write in it, since no one ever uses things that are so-called "collector's items." Maybe the notebook is a tempt-est. 

Then I started thinking maybe I should just write in it, after all it really isn’t worth anything in the sense that it will appreciate in value. Perhaps I should take notes on Tempest and scribe them in my Dylan notebook as I listen to it. Here are a few things I could see jotting down.

• "Duquesne Whistle" might be Bob's best album opener since "Hurricane"

• Of the 45 verses in Tempest’s title cut, which is about the sinking of the Titanic, my favorites are #12 and #35

• “Tempest” is easily the greatest epic song about a major nautical disaster since Gordon LIghtfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

 

• Several reviews I’ve read said that Dylan’s John Lennon tribute “Roll on John” was kind of lame, but I think it's lovely and poignant, though I wish it had a reference to their legendary stoned 1966 limousine ride

• "Pay in Blood" could be a big hit song if sung by someone like Keith Urban. For all of Dylan’s talents as a folkie, he still has a knack  for writing contemporary sounding hits, even when he sings a lyric like "I've got dogs that could tear you limb from limb." "Make You Feel My Love" from Time Out of Mind, for example, was a huge hit for both Garth Brooks and Adele

• Buy half & half and get the lawnmower fixed (the booklet is also handy for non-Tempest related notetaking)

Curious bonuses aside, Tempest is yet another work of genius from a true master, sonically similar to his recent long-players "Love & Theft," Modern Times, Tell Tale Signs and Together Through Life, but with a more foreboding edge and undercurrent of darkness. Good stuff for 2012.

It might be a little long, but who am I to judge? There are a lot of words and a lot of notes — more notes than I could ever fit in even my funny little Bob Dylan vintage magazine cover mini-notebook.

Order the $16.87 Deluxe Edition of Tempest on Amazon here. Or just get the $5.00 mp3 download right now.