Sophia Michaels
Ahead of the release of Bob Dylan’s Fragments — the 17th installment of The Bootleg Series, focusing on his Time Out of Mind sessions — the singer has unearthed “Version One” of that album’s “Not Dark Yet.”
Unlike its released counterpart, the first run-through of the track — recorded Jan. 11, 1997 at Miami’s Criteria Studios — has a looser, quicker and more upbeat feel than what would become a Time Out of Mind slow-burner.
Dylan, one of Rolling Stone’s 200 Greatest Singers of All Time, previously shared “Version 2” of Time Out of Mind’s standout “Love Sick” from the massive reissue.
Available as both a 5-CD or 10-LP set — Dylan’s preferred method of listening to music — on Jan. 27, Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series Vol.17 boasts a freshly remixed version of the 1997 LP — which earned Dylan his first solo Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards in 1998 — as well as outtakes, unreleased songs, alternate versions, and live recordings from the era.
Among the other unreleased tracks featured on Fragments are four songs — the traditional “The Water Is Wide,” “Dreamin’ of You,” “Red River Shore,” and “Til I Fell in Love With You” — that Dylan and his band at the time laid down at Teatro studio in Oxnard, California in 1996 before recording shifted to Miami’s Criteria Studios the following year.
