I'm probably not supposed to write in any detail about the new Nick Hornby novel, 'Juliet, Naked,' which I read over the weekend, so I'll reserve extended commentary for a later date (the book comes out in September), and stick to what you could easily find out on Amazon, or any number of other websites: it's about a certain strain of musical fanaticism, the poring over an artist's work with microscopic scrutiny, the championing of the rare and obscure, exclusivity vs popularity. In other words, it's a novel that MOG people will want to read. In the book, the release of a reclusive singer-songwriter's raw demos sets off a chain reaction of cultural and domestic repercussions.

I wish I could quote some passages here, because they will ring bells with anyone who's scoured the internet and other sources for bootlegs of a favored artist, or anyone who visits websites to see what some band played in concert in some far-off city. It also got me thinking about Bob Dylan, and the version of 'Blood On The Tracks' that was originally going to be released (and made it to test-pressings), until Dylan had second thoughts about some of the takes, and re-recorded a bunch of the songs with different musicians. So there is 'Blood On The Tracks,' as we know it, and 'Blood On The Tracks,' the 'New York Sessions,' and there is some overlap between the two, and many, many live versions of the songs from 'Blood On The Tracks,' some of which have vastly different lyrics (and certainly different arrangements) than any officially or illegally released studio performances. So, what is 'Blood On The Tracks'? Today, 35 years after its first appearance, you can throw all the 'BOTT' variations (and there are more than I mentioned) into one playlist, hit 'shuffle,' and depending on the mood of your MP3 device or computer, the album changes shape each time. Or you can play the original vinyl.

'Juliet, Naked' is also the name of the album within the novel, the original demos of an album called 'Juliet,' and Hornby (I'm going to comment here, so if anyone wants me to delete this post because I've broken some publishing-world rule, i will) pinpoints how some fanatics will always insist that the more unadorned, more raw, and most importantly, less familiar version trumps the finished product, that an artist's first instinct (or the work that is 'lost' or 'hidden') has more value.

I love bootlegs, and demos, because they give me more information about the creative process, more camera angles, and sometimes, a revelatory version. And if Columbia Records would like, at some point, to do a Deluxe Edition of 'Blood On The Tracks' that has all the alternate stuff, I will be calling for a copy. But most of the time, I'm going to play the 10 songs, in order, the way they were delivered into my hands on the LP I bought when it came out.