Photographer: Al Clayton. Let's establish one important fact first: SELF PORTRAIT's not as bad as people make it out to be. So the prospect of an album full of outtakes from that unjustly denigrated Dylan album shouldn't be such an unpleasant prospect after all. In 1973, Dylan was between deals with Columbia, and decided to release PLANET WAVES on Asylum. With no new Dylan material to release, Columbia responding by putting out DYLAN, full of songs that got left off of SELF PORTRAIT. There are no original Dylan tunes here, just a wide assortment of covers that are all over the musical map (Dylan was apparently in a flighty mood). Dylan nods to his folksinging contemporaries with unusual versions of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," Native American folkie Pete La Farge's classic "Ballad of Ira Hayes" and Jerry Jeff Walker's evergreen "Mr. Bojangles." Dylan's early rock & roll fixation is in evidence as well, on a distinctive cover of the romantic Elvis hit "Can't Help Falling in Love." Ultimately, DYLAN is just another example of Zimmy following wherever his muse led him, even if it was in a direction of no immediately discernible logic to his followers.