Bob Dylan sends fans on treasure hunt by secretly releasing CD of 1973 studio outtakes in record stores across Europe

20 December, 2023

Bob Dylan performs on a double bill with Neil Young at Hyde Park on July 12, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images for ABA)

Bob Dylan has secretly released a 50th Anniversary Collection 1973 CD in record stores scattered across Europe.

The 28-track collection consists of studio outtakes taken from the 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid soundtrack sessions. The release of the CD has sent devoted Dylan fans into a frenzy, with copies of the disc receiving bids over $500 on eBay.

Dylan’s 50th Anniversary Collection features an alternative rendition of ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ along with multiple takes of tracks ‘Billy Surrenders’, ‘And He Killed Me Too’ and ‘Final Theme’.

The release of the CD was due to a stipulation within European copyrights which states that all sound recordings will be sent into the public domain if they aren’t released 50 years after their creation. This stipulation has led to the tradition for artists to share studio rarities to avoid having them enter the public domain.

This is not the first time Dylan’s team have handled this issue. When the copyright deadline was near for the musician’s first three electric albums – consisting of ‘Bringing It All Back Home’, ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ and ‘Blonde On Blonde’ – the combined the three LPs into a box-set. He has also pressed a small batch of CDs and sent them to various record shops in the EU with no notice as a way to technically comply with the law.

In other Bob Dylan news, earlier this year, the musician voiced his support for Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner at a show in New York, amid a series of controversies surrounding the writer.

“All right, l’d like to say hello to Jann Wenner, who’s in the house. Jann Wenner, surely everybody’s heard of him,” Dylan said. “Anyway, he just got booted out of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame – and we don’t think that’s right. We’re trying to get him back in.”

The pair’s longstanding relationship dates back to 1969, when Wenner first interviewed the songwriter for Rolling Stone.

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