TOMORROW WE ENTER THE TOWN OF MY BIRTH

Our memories create mirages, as we reshape our pasts by accident or design.

But art creates order out of chaos. The song remains the same, as it were.

This is by way of explaining how I was a little goosed by an impulse purchase I made while I was up in NY last week: the remastered edition of Morrison Hotel.

Now, I assumed that “remastered” meant that some audible impurities had been cleaned up. Maybe the faint voice that counts off during the false ending of Peace Frog had been removed. Maybe some tape hiss had been replaced by deep-space silence.

But this was no ordinary remastering. It seems that they’ve gone back to the source multitrack masters and resurrected pieces that had been excised from the original release.

It doesn’t amount to anything revelatory. John Sebastian’s harmonica line is more prominent in Roadhouse Blues, which now ends with Jim yelling “Yikes!” You Make Me Real opens with a catcall whistle. Ship of Fools starts with someone saying “16” (the number of that particular take?), and ends with a slightly different vocal.

Oh, and that voice counting off in Peace Frog? Gone.

I’m used to it by now, and I’ve filed the disc safely away on my iPod. I’ll probably get a once-a-year buzz to listen to it a couple of times.

But for a passing moment, Morrison Hotel created a mirage. It transcended art and became memory...