No artist better exemplifies the above ancient platitude, and I fully believe that the attitude of anybody towards Robert Zimmerman as a whole is strongly correlated to the degree one agrees with it. There are many people in this world for whom music is mostly based in technical features, and they think of music as merely a collection of notes, chord progressions, time signatures, whatever. If you take this approach, I'd estimate that there's a good 90-95% chance that you despise Dylan and consider him a talentless hack. You probably hate his "unlistenable" voice, you hate the fact that most of his songs are based in "simplistic" patterns, you hate his lyrics that don't make any real sense, and you hate the fact that he opened the door for anybody with a guitar and a desire to sing to make music, even if they weren't talented in a technical sense. You also probably think that Dylan songs are always made better when other people cover them, and while you admire the Byrds' version of Mr. Tambourine Man or Hendrix's version of All Along the Watchtower, you couldn't care less about Dylan's takes.
I do NOT fall into this category. This may surprise you - from my experiences, most people who enjoy art rock tend to despise Dylan, yet while a primary focus of this website is prog rock and the like, I have a GREAT love of Dylan as a whole. While I dislike a good number of Dylan's albums, particularly in the latter half of Dylan's career, my decision to give Bob the coveted five-star artist rating (which only the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who can claim in addition to Bob) is one of the easiest ones I have ever made with regards to this website. The question must then be raised - why??!!!
It all comes back to the beginning. For all my love (sometimes) of high technical proficiency or complexity or various things like that, I ultimately see music as more than just notes on a page. To me, music is primarily a medium by which an emotion, or a thought, or an atmosphere, or a mood (or whatever) is conveyed from the artist to the listener. Please note that I am not just talking about lyrics - while I do often find Dylan's lyrics fascinating, they are not the only aspect of Bob that draw me to him. What draws me (and I'm sure countless others) to Dylan is that he is able to span the whole spectrum of human emotion better and more completely than any other artist of whom I'm aware. Somehow, the combination of his every-person voice and his every-person melodies and, above all, his every-person unfettered emotive power elevate Dylan to a level that no other singer-songwriter could ever hope to reach, simply because he makes it so easy to empathize with him. Whether he's angry or happy or sad or giggly or just lazy or stoned, he manages to open up the vault of his soul in such a way that I completely understand where he's coming from. Moreover, when he does this, I feel like he is in the same room as me, going through the same experiences as I am, and this makes the experience of a Dylan album that much more poigniant.
This being said, I want to make it clear that I do NOT treat Dylan as infallible, and I do not go out of my way to convince myself of the greatness of every Dylan album by always arguing "well, it's emotional, therefore I need to consider it good." What differentiates a good Dylan album from a not-so-good Dylan album, for me at least, is what I can best refer to as "emotional independence." For me, Dylan is at his best when he shows a high level of inner strength and power, an ability to let his artistic direction come solely from within and NOT from outside sources or influences. Examples of albums I consider weak for this reason would be The Times They are A'Changing (where it sounds like he's completely beholden to the protest scene), Street Legal (where it seems he finally let his spirit be crushed by virtue of his advanced age, and let himself become a weak-willed old man) and Saved (where it sounds like he's become an automaton for Billy Graham). On the other hand, I find myself able to greatly enjoy some albums that are considered weak by the general Dylan fandom, such as Self-Portrait or New Morning, simply because he's making albums that fit his inner-inspired mood at the time and don't cave into conventional expectations (or whatever you want to call it).
In any case, you will find that I prefer much of the more obfuscated Dylan material to the more straightforward (in other words, Blonde on Blonde is getting a perfect score, and Blood on the Tracks isn't, though it will still get a very high grade). Dylan, for me, is at his best when he's messing with his fans' minds, taking his basic emotions and wrapping them in enigmatic imagery, rather than delivering more straightforward lyrics. Lyrics like those to Ballad of a Thin Man may not seem more powerful and piercing initially than those to, say, Idiot Wind (a great track in its own right), but unless you have a complete aversion to exerting the slightest bit of effort to gain greater enjoyment from a work of art, they will eventually dig under your skin like few other things can.
This, in turn, can be extrapolated to Dylan's whole career. It is entirely possible to dismiss Dylan for the "obvious" reasons - his voice, his lyrics, his simple melodies - but if you are willing to accept the possibility that he might be a good artist anyway, you will realize that his greatness comes from the fact that he's such a wonderful musician DESPITE these obvious flaws. If you don't believe this, well, that's your loss.
What do you think of Bob Dylan?
TheRubberCow@aol.com (6/25/02)
I was pleasantly surprised to see that you put Bob Dylan on your site,
not because I love him, and not because of any insult to you, but because
I think it takes a special person to appreciate both prog and Dylan. I
initially (well, technically not initially) come from the former's side,
and my first impression of Bob was bad. I didn't like how he sang off
key or without regard for melody, and I HATED his hamonica playing. It
wasn't as sophisticated as the folk I had heard before his, and it just
seemed to raw, sometimes in a hillbilly sort of way. I then was forced
to listen to over time, much of his catalogue, and was impressed (kind of
slowly, with some pain) by his lyrics and the overall final product of
some of his stuff. "Girl From the North Country" is one of my favorites,
along with the whole Desire album, but my favorite has to be "It! 's
Alright Ma." Even if I was determined to hate Dylan, I would not be able
to resist falling into this song. So I have grown to respect him very
much, and even enjoy some of this. But he is someone I cannot listen to
all the time. Not my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's not
drinkable tea.
Barry Stoller (barrystoller@utopia2000.org) (10/11/04)
Regarding Bob Dylan, you state 'The Most Important Part Of Music Is What
Isn't The Notes.' More so than even John Lennon, Dylan exemplifies the
trend, begun in the mid-60s and peaking in the early 70s, of youngsters
going to record stores to buy ... heroes. Dylan is certainly more hero
than music (thus the 'love em or hate em' response elicited from so
many). As it turned out, he was too cynical to have really merited the
hero worship thrown at him (which he so willingly cultivated). Alas,
going from 'Masters of War' to 'Neighborhood Bully,' Dylan shows what a
poor hero he was.
Of course, Dylan invented much that is popular music; the 20th century
wouldn't be the same without his many contributions. Unfortunately, many
of his inventions (embraced by so many other artists) were artistic
shortcuts and set-backs: meaningless 'poetics' masquerading as profundity
(ever read his novel Tarantula?), blatant plagarisms of obscure folk
melodies (Dylan didn't really write the music to Freelwheelin'), hostility
and self-centeredness disguised as hipness (the famous electric albums)
and, most importantly, a reactionary impulse in much his music (rejecting
psychedelic, heavy and prog tendencies in favor of ... Nashville). And,
of course, his politics - as his religious beliefs - reek of opportunism.
I would heartily suggest a better - and more musically adventurous - hero
in Dylan's place. Phil Ochs. Listen to his folk masterpiece Phil Ochs In
Concert and then his pyschedelic-art-prog tour-de-force Pleasures of the
Harbor - those two albums surpass the entire Dylan canon. And... he'll
never be seen on a Victoria's Secret advertisement, either.
RyanM2251@aol.com (07/21/05)
Bob Dylan is a great, and very well known musician, for good reason.
I love his early folk work when he was more acoustic folk-rock. I
have never heard a lot of his stuff from the mid seventies onward,
because like a lot of artists I believe his earlier work is much
better, but that is just my opinion. After Dylan went electric he
still had his touch ( Just listen to Blonde on Blonde, in which
Dylan lays down some of his finest harmonica work ). Anyway, Dylan is
a skilled song writer and talented musician, no matter what anyone
says. These facts are clear. While some people may criticize the way
that Dylan sings, anyone who has real taste and is not just caught up
in cheap pop music can truly appreciate soulfull way that Dylans
singing perfectly compliments his words and music. This is my own
opinion of the music of the man known as Bob Dylan.
Calculon (calculon@interfree.it) (07/15/06)
Hi, I don't know you but I'd like to write my thought.
I'm Italian, and I grew up with Dylan's voic in my head (as Bono Vox
said once).
At the age of one, my family and I travelled in Europe with a
caravan.
The car-musciplayer played Dylan.
During my first 10 years of life I was used to falling asleep with a
Bob Dylan song (maybe Desolation Row ;-)) during a journey in
Scotland or Norway.
My father has always been a bloody fan of dylan and the musci was
that one.
I received an imprinting.
Comin'up the age of "ribellion", at 14 years old I started to listen
to punk rock, hard rock and heavy metal.
WoW :-DDDD!!!! What a power! What a hard sound! What a breaking of
rules!!!! :-DDDDDD
No no no no I was older then..........
5 years later, tired to listen to celebrations of the genius of the
person who I listen to just born,
I really started to study Bob Dylan.
Beginning from The Freewheelin' I listened to all his songs reading
the lyrics.
I'm a '78 class.
Today I'm 28 and I still can't understand how he managed to make what
he made.
People tell me: Yes but have you ever listen to Neil Young, to the
Beatles, to this and that...."
I smile.
Everyone of those great artists, songwriters, musiscians has started
to make his job because before them there was been Bob Dylan, with
his dynamic changing uncatchable ideas and inventions.
I'm sorry Frank Zappa.........you didn't invented nothing of so great
and revolutionary.
I put up a band to play a "replica" of '65-'66 Dylan songs to make
italian people to know that sound: THE SOUND.
Bye
Best song: House Of The Rising Sun
As nice an album of folk and blues covers as one can probably find from the early 60's. It's always an interesting proposition to rate early albums of prominent 60's artists, since they're often cover-heavy, and there's always a sneering naysayer around to say I'm overrating such albums on the grounds that, if the famous artist in question hadn't recorded the album, I wouldn't care much about it. In a way, this critic would be right in regard to this album, though not in the way he/she probably intended. The track listing, after all, is very nice and all (if you like traditional folk and blues, of course), but were I to just get a compilation with these songs done by other artists, I'd regard it as ok, but nothing particularly special.
The fact remains, though, that it is Dylan who is doing these songs here, and the way he tackles them really brings a smile to my face. The instrumentation, of course, is very simple, with just harmonica and acoustic (plus, and I don't know if this is just from the remastering or if it was always this way, but the vocals and harmonica are always in my left speaker and the acoustic is in the right), but Dylan's vocal approach is anything but "typical." He sounds OLD and GRIZZLED and GRUFF, and the "unlistenablity" of his voice adds an unbelievable amount of power to the proceedings.
Two of the songs, in particular, jump out at me in such a way that I enjoy them far more than the more famous covers by other artists. One, his runthrough of In My Time of Dyin' (later done by Led Zeppelin on Physical Graffiti, there stretched out into oblivion with an awful interminable jam), really takes me to an old prospector in an old mining town in Appalachia, waiting for Jesus to grab his spirit. Again, I must ask how any other 20-something singer at the time could have pulled off such a perfect imitation of an old dying man (the way he sings "in my time of DYIN'" really freaks me out in this respect).
My favorite by far, though, is his cover of House of the Rising Sun, which for me blows away the Animals' cover. Sure, the Animals made it into a nice, memorable pop song, but they made it singalongey and relatively happy and all that. That doesn't fit the song, though! No, it's an utterly depressing number, focusing on unbelievable regret with bad decisions made in life and only wanting to keep others from meeting the same fate. In his delivery, Bob seemingly takes on all the pain and depression of the whole world on his shoulders, and he makes no attempt to mask the crippling bitterness shown within the lyrics. It's utterly incredible in its cathartic power, in case you haven't gathered yet.
Elsewhere, the songs aren't quite as striking, but they're all nice. Freight Train Blues stands out from the rest, thanks to a neat vocal trick that Dylan pulls off (I can only imagine what people's reactions were when they first heard that sound in 1962), but I can basically say that I enjoy all the numbers on here to some degree. Some are particularly depressing (Fixin' to Die, See That My Grave is Kept Clean), some are particularly happy and bouncy (You're No Good), but at worst they're pleasant. The only song that doesn't really strike me as great is the original composition Song to Woodie, but even then Bob makes it up with the brilliantly funny Talkin' New York, so I won't gripe.
In any case, this is a solid debut, and while it doesn't have as many instant classics as do later albums, it has enough to make you come back to it repeatedly. At the very least, it gives good insight into the sort of songs from which Bob drew his later creative influence, and that gives it a nice historical edge in addition.
Nicolas De Lille (nicolas.de.lille@pandora.be) (10/27/06)
Aha, you missed the positive, light-hearted Baby Let Me Follow You
Down. It has an uncommon folk chord progression (think of Lyle
Lovett-style) that Dylan can pull off easily. Musically it's really
a gem that gives the album an extra spark. it also shows another,
more sunny side of Dylan, often neglected. It also has a sexual
connotation, which is funny coming from a reverend. Just a
"not-so-simple" but "simple" love song.
David Andino (davidandino83@msn.com) (10/13/07)
hey it's me again. in 1962 the year in which nobody recorded an album
worth of material that was dominating the singles market it was
all.... shall we say ELVIS PRESLEY!!!!!!!!. but not to dismiss the
king of rock and roll but ever since he went into movies he lost his
audience. bob was a 20 year old guy with an acoustic guitar and no
experience in recording until the record company singed him. even
though the man was just getting started he was shy but boy he was
ready to rock. this album is a history in the making. 12. remember I
told you about the mob rules review? well I am here.
Best song: A Hard Rain's A'Gonna Fall
Dylan's debut may have been very good, but it was still more of a prelude, an introduction to the world than anything else. On this album, Dylan springs forth in all his splendor, bursting with confidence and a demeanor that suggests he can take on the whole world with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. Almost unquestionably, this is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) "singer-songwriter" albums ever, and it's so flabbergasting that I have no problems giving it the highest overall score available.
The most common complaint people have with regards to this album, as you might imagine, is the "monotony" of it all. After all, this album does consist of 50 minutes of only the most basic instrumentation (with the exception of a bit fuller arrangement in his cover of Corrina Corrina), and if you have a weak attention span, this will make the album difficult to sit through. My opinion, though, is that criticizing this album for this is kinda like bashing clam chowder for consisting of nothing but soup and seafood - you KNOW what you're getting in advance, and if you're in the mood for plugged-in music, listen to something else. As far as 50 minutes of acoustic goes, I can't think of anything I'd take in place of this album.
Besides, the "it's too montonous" argument really doesn't work on this album, because this is by far the most diverse monotonous album I've ever heard. Sure, sure, the instrumentation is constant throughout, but this album is unquestionably diverse in terms of mood and (I insist) style. For all its monotony, Freewheelin manages to provide a sort of encapsulation of Dylan's future career, touching on many of the modes of which Dylan would prove himself a master. We have anthemic Dylan (Blowin' in the Wind), epic Dylan (A Hard Rain's A'Gonna Fall), angry protest Dylan (Masters of War), soft protest Dylan (Oxford Town), soft mysoginist Dylan (Don't Think Twice, It's Alright), storyteller Dylan (Talking World War III Blues), creative folk-rearranger Dylan (Down the Highway), moody rambler Dylan (Bob Dylan's Blues), folk love song Dylan (Girl From the North Country), really introspective Dylan (Bob Dylan's Dream) and silly Dylan (Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance, I Shall Be Free). Not bad for a "montonous" album, huh?
Now, with all these styles, there's bound to be something on the album you don't really like. Many people tend towards disliking the opening Blowin' in the Wind, dismissing with epithets like "cliche," but the reason it's at all cliche is because it created the cliche. I'd be very hardpressed to find any folk song before this that provided imagery like this to stir the listener, imagery that seems like it's been in your mind forever yet has never been introduced to it beforehand. In other words, the fact that bazillions of street musicians have taken it upon themselves to try and squeeze money out of pedestrians by playing this on their acoustic guitar should not be taken as an indictment against the song.
Another popular choice for bashing is the protest anthem Masters of War, which some dismiss as dated and/or overly mean. I find the former argument somewhat difficult to understand - yes, I'm sure it was inspired by specific events of the early 60's, but Bob doesn't specifically mention them or the players involved by name. By not doing so, he takes the song from the realm of specific event protest and brings it into railing all of those who create and use war as a means to further their own desires and ambitions. In this way, the song is actually timeless - you could never convince me that the "Masters of War" no longer exist, not in this day and age. Now, as for the second argument, there is a point - after all, in no other song would Bob ever sing a lyric so blatant as "And I hope that you die, and your death will come soon." Then again, he's set up the song in such a way that he's not wishing for the death of any individual, but rather ALL of the unnamed MoW's, and that with their death the world will be a better place. I, for one, see nothing dated or excessive about that sentiment.
Fortunately, Bob is not all about heavyhanded and bitter protest on this album (a good thing - see the next album for what happens when he is). The other sides explored on this album, after all, are no less valid in their artistry, and certainly provide a great deal of relief to the listener. A Hard Rain's A'Gonna Fall introduces us to the wonderful world of Dylan epics, where Bob manages to combine beautiful imagery, simple (yet lovely) melodies and the power of his voice into a magic-filled concoction unlike anything else in the music world. Can you even begin to imagine what an effect this piece must have had on the music world back in 1963?? It has no respect for standard notions of ideal time limit, its muse is more Shakespeare than Seeger, and it hypnotizes the listener like nothing else to date. I could go through the lyrics, but why? This is truly one of the songs that cannot receive justice through a line-by-line analytical critique.
Elsewhere, pretty much everything has something particularly interesting to offer. Girl From the North Country, for instance, does borrow a line from Scarborough Fair, but the mood is much different from that piece - there's a subtle arrogance hidden throughout, a tinge of disdain to go along with the superficial longing of the verses. Likewise, Don't Think Twice, It's Alright manages to take on a substantially different mood than renditions by others - according to the liner notes, most singers of the day treated it as a regular love song, but Dylan manages to come through with a small dose of bitterness in his address to the unnamed woman, making lines like "I wanted her heart, she wanted my soul. Don't think twice - it's alright" more vitriolic than they might seem on first glance.
It's not just suprises in mood and demeanor that characterize all of the songs, though. Down the Highway, as an example, manages to take a standard blues pattern and make it interesting through Bob's inventive singing and strumming. Between each verse, he throws in a non-standard fast fill, and at the end of each stanza he uses his voice as a vehicle of dissonance (see: "I really miss my babyyEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"). Tracks like this, you see, do a good job of demonstrating Dylan's genius - he manages to take trivial music patterns, augment them with other seemingly "obvious" ideas, and create music that merely makes you scratch your head and go "hmm, that's pretty obvious, so WHY didn't anybody else come up with it first??!" Take that all you Dylan bashers ...
Oh, where was I? Ah yes - the three "funny" tracks on this album are gutbusting, and amply show that Dylan was good for more than just condemming Masters of War to death. Talking World War III Blues is a man relating a bad dream he had to his psychiatrist, and it conveys the general paranoia people had about nuclear war and communism to a tee. It manages to take "normal" events and make them surreal, just like in a typical dream, and the way Bob intones lines like "thought I was a communist" just makes the experience that much more intriguing. A cynical person will find this dated, of course, but I don't mind - social paranoia is as fascinating now as ever, and besides, Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite movies, so there.
I also find it interesting and symbolic that Bob decided to close out the album with two funnier numbers, rather than something like the perfectly acceptable protest cover Oxford Town. On Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance, Bob takes on a sort of "clown" persona, making an upbeat number that much more ear-catching by making his intonations as goofy as possible. Of course, this probably bugged the hell out protest folkies - I can only imagine the eyebrows raised when they heard their "folk champion" singing the line "just a one-time favor I-uh ask of YOUUUUUUUUUU" - but I say to hell with them. Likewise, the closing I Shall Be Free is about as perfect a close as one could ask for in this case, if only because it is virtualy guaranteed to leave a smile on your face. Indeed, I'd hardly be able to think of a more surreal and humorous way to close an album than "I hunt dinosaurs, make love to Elizabeth Taylor, catch hell from Richard Burton."
And there's your album. It's certainly brave of me to give this album a perfect score - I could have chickened out and settled on a 14, but I simply can't. This is simply the Bible of singer-songwriting, an album that aptly demonstrates all the possibilities of acoustic folk and then some. I can understand that some will see too many potential weaknesses, but as far as I'm concerned, most of those weaknesses can easily be disregarded, and once I remove any biases, it's hard not to love the finished product.
J Mickel (jmickel1@austin.rr.com) (4/07/04)
This was the first album I ever bought. In 1982 at the age of twelve I
bought freewheelin on cassette tape for a mere $5.00. My older brother had
a Dylan hits album with blowin in the wind on it and I liked the song.
Little did I know that this album was such a masterpiece (my opinion). I
loved it. Sad to say that it finally died recently. That cassette
convinced many college friends that Dylan was indeed great.
James Mickel
Trfesok@aol.com (05/12/06)
The most telling comment, for me, is when I played it for an old
roommate, who asked if it was a greatest hits record! I agree, the
amazing range of moods more than comprensates for the sparse
instrumentation. The album takes a bit of a dip after "Don't Think
Twice..", mainly because the melodies sound somewhat more derivative
of his folk influences. Still, it is indeed his first classic album.
Best song: The Times They Are A-Changin'
An unexpected, unfortunate and unncessary disappointment after the last one. See, the protest movement was big at the time, and they (the bigshots of protest music) made no secret of their preference of "protest Dylan" over, say, "epic Dylan." Well, the people running Bob's label made this fact loud and clear to him, and they cajoled him into giving up that "art crap" and "needless humor" for more songs in the vein of Blowin' in the Wind. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my introduction, Dylan has never been anywhere near as powerful or enjoyable when he allows himself to be buffetted by outside forces, and this is no exception. The songs are as uniform as can be (no humor or love balladry or introspection here), the lyrics are DUMB and totally cliched in their straight-forward nature, and the music doesn't make any serious attempt at doing anything interesting, since the emphasis is obviously on the lyrics.
After all this, then, it's astounding that I give the album as high a grade as I do, but I have my reasons. For all the uniformity, only a couple of the songs are outright ROTTEN (the excessively self-righteous With God On Our Side, Only A Pawn In Their Game), and some are halfway decent. The title track, of course, is an all-time protest classic, one of the truly defining songs of the mid 1960's, and while it certainly hasn't aged well, it's a fine way to start off the album. Elsewhere, there's the nice, downbeat (but in a good way) One Too Many Mornings, a song that would only really come to life on stage but is still ok here, and the decent Boots of Spanish Leather (where the music sounds suspiciously like a straight ripoff of Girl From the North Country) is a decent reprieve from the endless depression. And hey, When the Ship Comes In at least mixes the depressing lyrics with upbeat instrumentation, providing a badly needed dose of wry irony.
Elsewhere, though, it's all just standard folkie protest fare. Were they mixed in with other Dylan numbers (read: some non-protest oriented Dylan numbers), they'd probably stand out that much more. In this case, though, the songs all sound so much alike and so dreary that I can't get myself to care about them. And please note that my problem is not so much with the fact that the album is all protest songs - it's the fact that protest folk was only ONE SIDE of Bob Dylan, and the record company bosses created an artificial representation of Dylan by only showing this one side of Dylan on this LP. Few things are more obnoxious then somebody other than the artist himself/herself determining what should be presented to the public, and given the fact that Bob would return to Freewheelin' mode immediately after this album, I will never be convinced that Bob was an actively willing party in this charade. No thank you.
Best song: My Back Pages
Now that's more like it. If you look upon Times as one of the great albums of all time, chances are pretty good that you'll despise this one - goodness knows that releasing this album was an extremely brave move on the part of Dylan back in '64, as it contains virtually nothing in the way of generic folkie protest. To that, though, I say "yippee" - Times has always sounded like a mistake to me, and I'm glad that this album, which shows Bob turning his back on that legacy, shows Dylan following the natural course of his instincts. The album was actually recorded in the course of one evening, and the resulting product, aside from having an expected feeling of spontaneity throughout, has a very warm, cozy and inviting feel. There are some bits of seriousness, sure, but they are interspersed with giddiness and silliness and sadness, and as a result the bleak tedium of Times never rears its ugly head here.
Indeed, the opening All I Really Want To Do sets the tone of enjoyability right off, and immediately gets a smile on the listener's face. The rhymes are hilarious, as Dylan is often purposefully mocking his power over the English language, and the chorus basically says it all - "All I really wanna doOOOOOOOOOOO is, baby, be friends with you." He doesn't want to preach or make people mad or get their blood boiling with this album - he just wants them to come over, sit down, and have a fun giggle with him for a few minutes. Again, not what fans of With God On Our Side were looking for, but I guess they never reckoned that their 'protest hero' would have a sense of humor ...
Speaking of humor, I'd like to call everybody's attention to the utterly gut-busting I Shall Be Free No. 10. Yes, yes, the melody is simpler than simple can be, I'll give possible detractors that. But the lyrics, oh my goodness, the lyrics. "I set my monkey on the log in order for him to do the dog - he looked at me and shook his head and went and did the cat instead. He's a weird monkey, very funky." There are other incredible gems within, of course, but if I write them all, I'll kinda be giving away the entire song - it is, after all, basically poetry spoken over some acoustic guitar with bits of harmonica between 'verses.' Yet it's the best comedic poetry I've heard in my life, and you'll have to pardon me if I have the overwhelming urge to listen to it again very soon.
And then there's Motopsycho Nightmare, the story of a man's encounter with a farmer and his escape from the wiles of the farmer's daughter thanks to communist paranoia. This is certainly one of the best examples of black humor I've ever heard in music, and given that dark comedy is my favorite movie genre, this track can't help but be an utter favorite of mine. I of course have my favorite lines ("I like Fidel Castro and his beard," hehe) but they're all gems and a half. Utter hilarity, that's what this is.
The album isn't ALL straightforward humor, though - as wonderful a side of Dylan his sense of humor is, the man could do other things as well. In particular, the epic power first showed in A Hard Rain's ... (that unfortunately vanished on Times) has returned with a vengeance, and as a result both Chimes of Freedom and My Back Pages are enough to make this album an utter necessity all by their lonesome. I'm normally very skeptical about songs that have 'Freedom' in their title, as they usually manage to sound ridiculously pompous and boring at the same time (see Yes: On the Silent Wings of Freedom or Pink Floyd: A Great Day For Freedom for two examples), but Chimes manages to be the exception that proves the rule. The lyrics are simply incredible, calling on clever wordplay and powerfully epic imagery without losing touch with reality, with Dylan delivering them with a sense of "I'm only the messenger, not the creator." Kinda like Moses, actually - I've always liked Moses more than other OT figures because he managed to be part of so many powerful events and miracles while almost always remaining ridiculously humble, and Dylan really strikes me in a similar way. But I digress ...
The monster epic of the album, you see, is My Back Pages. It's so powerful, so moving, that I'm really at a loss of how to describe my feelings about it. The chorus "but I was so much older then - I'm younger than that now" opens up a floodgate of irony and meta-irony about looking back on one's past that I find quite overwhelming, and the implications it holds about youthful idealism vs. accepting the 'status quo' as an old, 'mature' member of society are only just the beginning. And once again, it has that air of bombastic humility that makes Dylan so overwhelmingly appealing in the first place - I adore the cover that The Byrds did on Younger Than Yesterday, but Dylan's rough singing and voice give just that much extra oomph to the proceedings to make it simply amazing.
Another side of Dylan to be found on the album is a nod towards love balladry, but these are not typical love songs. I Don't Believe You manages to have the best melody on the album, but the main appeal is the lyrics, which are completely bitter towards the woman who now pretends nothing happened between her and him. Sure, the thematics are a bit 'primitive' for Dylan, but the track is a well-done look at a well-worn genre. Besides, if you aren't satisfied with this, but want a sad love song with a heavy Dylan tinge nonetheless, you can just flip to the closing It Ain't Me, Babe. There's a strong sense of despair in the song, but it's not the result of Dylan being mad at the woman in question - rather, Dylan seems mad at himself for being unable to be the person the woman wants him to be and the person HE wants to be for the woman. He knows he's gonna lose her, and he knows that it's for the best, but it still eats him up a bit. Or something.
Anyway, that's seven tracks, mostly spectacular, but the other four are a bit of a letdown. Two of them are ok - Black Crow Blues, with an interesting piano part, and Spanish Harlem Incident, which is good but also improved by The Byrds (one of the very few times you'll see me saying I prefer a Dylan cover to the original) - and two just kinda stink. To Ramona continues to elude me each time I hear it, and the eight-minute Ballad in Plain D is just a total bore through and through. The lyrics are ok, but the music is so primitive and dragging that the track would require divine lyrics to save it, and that just doesn't happen.
Still, a VERY good album. It's on the low end of a 13, but the high points are so unbelievably high that I can't help but give a grade like this. And also - if you prefer the covers of All I Really Want To Do and Chimes of Freedom to the originals, that's fine for you, but I will never agree. The harsh, strident vocals are a necessity, giving the songs a power and edge that's lacking in the (still excellent) Byrds' covers. But that's just a minor aside. Onto the electric Dylan era!
Trfesok@aol.com (09/20/06)
It''s really more of a lyrics album than a music album, and does
require a fair amount of attention. But it's worth the effort. It
reminds me of Freewheeling, with some moody breakup songs ("To
Ramona", "Ballad in Plain D", "It Ain't Me, Babe", "I Don't Believe
You"), humor ("Motorpsycho Nitemare", "I Shall Be Free No. 10", which
is musically identical to No. 1 on Freewheeling -- wonder what
happened to 2 through 9?) and social commentary ("Chimes of Freedom",
"My Back Pages"), but handled in a much more poetic and surrealistic
fashion. Really a radical change lyrically, but it was a good thing
that he held off trying to change the music, or he might have lost
too many fans too soon. With the wonderful covers by the Byrds and
the Turtles emphasizing the melodies more, this did give the album
more attention. But you do need this one to get all the great lyrics.
But it's clear that, muscially, he was at a dead end, so
change was coming.
Best song: Impossible To Determine
But first, let's enjoy this terrific summary of Bob's early acoustic work. This is yet another great entry in the Bootleg Series, a recording of Bob's 1964 Halloween show, and proof that even an hour and a half of just vocals, guitar and harmonica can be made enjoyable if done the right way. Bob makes a joke early on about him wearing his "Bob Dylan mask," and it's actually quite good symbolism of how he performs on this album. He isn't just wearing his silly boy mask, he isn't just wearing his protest folkie mask, and he isn't just wearing his hallucinogenic word-machine mask; he's wearing his Bob Dylan mask, which encapsulates all of these and so much more.
Now, unlike on later live albums, where he'd mess with the arrangements of pretty much all of his songs and turn albums into "Name That Tune" games, there isn't a tremendous amount of deviation from the studio arrangements, so if you're into that aspect of his live albums, you won't be particularly thrilled here. But that's not to say he makes these songs into carbon copies of the originals, either. The yet-to-be-released (at the time) It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) is slowed down significantly, giving Bob the chance to make sure the audience caught every single last one of the syllables pouring out of his amazing yapper. Don't Think Twice, It's Alright takes the low-key bitterness and vitriol of the original and intersperses it with nearly screaming vocals at the end of each line. And so on; for all of the predictability in the arrangements, there's actually a solid dose of spontaneity in the vocals, and that helps things a lot.
What really makes the show great, though, is the overall feeling that Bob is in complete control, and that he's already mastered his ability to play his listeners like puppets. He throws in just enough protest songs (five out of nineteen) to conceal the fact that he is no longer the "Great Protest Hero" (and he leads in with Times They Are A'Changin' to cover his tracks all the more), even as he leaves out Blowin' in the Wind (ha!). He constantly takes witty jabs at himself, his songs and his image, all of which leave the audience in stitches (an accomplishment given how earnest most of his audience was reputed to be back then), even as it becomes obvious 40+ years later that he was making fun of the audience with every one of those barbs. And heck, he manages to be funny even when he has Joan Baez, Ms. Hyper-Earnest herself, come on stage with him for four songs (one of which only has Bob on harmonica and Joan singing, and one of which is, unfortunately, With God On Our Side). If you're interested in hearing just one track from this album before listening to the whole, head over to disc 2 and take in the duet of It Ain't Me, Babe; the contrast between Dylan and Baez is amazing.
In the end, this may not have the historical importance of the 1966 album, and it may not have quite as much power as the 1975 album, but it's still one heck of a good time and a necessity for any Dylan fan. Grab it the next time you see it.
Best song: Subterranean Homesick Blues or It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
It finally happened. Maybe Bob just got bored with traditional folk music, or maybe he wanted to piss off his former fans as much as possible, or maybe the Almighty himself came to Bob in a dream, who knows. Whatever may be, Dylan decided to pick up an electric guitar and record an entire side of plugged-in music, death threats be damned, and as a result the music world has never been the same since. To put it simply - without this album, The Beatles would not have done Rubber Soul. Without RS, The Beach Boys would not have done Pet Sounds. Without PS, The Beatles would not have made Sgt. Pepper, and I don't think I need to say what the impact would have been with no Pepper. If any single album can claim to be the most important revolutionary breakthrough in rock history, then Bringing It All Back Home can make as legitimate a claim to that title as anything else.
That said, I must confess - my incredible admiration of the electric side is somewhat more based in respect than in actual enjoyment. The songs are based around electric guitar, sure, but in a VERY primitive and conservative way. For the most part, the songs are basically the simplest level of garage rock, and the actual melodies seem virtually naught at times. For this reason, songs like Outlaw Blues and On the Road Again, which have the most excessively simple melodies of the first side AND don't even necessarily have that great of lyrics, jump out and scream FILLER at me loud and clear.
Ah, but let's be fair - the melodies aren't what make this side so special. No, it's the fact that, for the first time, the utterly brilliant lyrics that Dylan had mastered are set to an electric rather than acoustic backing, showing that 'intelligence' and 'depth' weren't meant to be the product of folkies alone. The other five tracks on the first side indeed have some of the best lyrics of Dylan's career to this point, only with that much more of an 'edge' due to Bob (at least, according to everything I've ever read on the subject) taking up pot around this time. The imagery isn't just powerful, it's downright BIZARRE at times, and this really makes things fascinating.
Indeed, bizarre is pretty much the best way to describe the opening Subterranean Homesick Blues. Essentially, it's a paranoid rap over occasional bursts of electric guitar, with four long verses each cramming in as much absurd (yet completely vivid) imagery as possible. As usual, I have my favorite lines, which probably differ from your favorite lines ("you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows" is my definite favorite), but there are so dang many brilliant one-liners to be dug out here that I really don't know where to begin.
The next two tracks aren't as frantic in their delivery, but the lyrics are still quite enjoyable. She Belongs To Me is a very simple blues-rock tune about a girl, but the lyrics are as far from traditional themes as imaginable, as usual. The verse that begins "Bow down to her on Sunday..." is my favorite, but they're all winners, giving a weird uneasy feeling about the hero's relationship to the girl. As for Maggie's Farm, it's a great piece of protest rock, with Maggie and all her relatives seemingly representing all manner of oppressive forces in the world. The protagonist is very defiant in his declaration of independence from all these forces, and his putdowns are naturally brilliant. Interestingly enough, it seems that there about a bazillion versions of this song on various live albums, and it gets many interesting looks, but none of them match the simple defiance found here.
Now, the other two tracks on this side couldn't really be more different. Love Minus Zero/No Limit is BEAUTIFUL, featuring by far the best melody of the side and lyrics that almost make me cry ("there's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all") and scratch my head at the same time. Strangely, though, I have a great deal of trouble trying to put my finger on the nature of the person about which Dylan is singing, as I want to suspect that he has deep affection for her but I can't say for sure. Ah well.
Bob Dylan's 115th Dream, on the other hand, is an utter crackup. The melody is basically the same as that for Motopsycho Nightmare, sure, but the lyrics are even better, and the song even features a false start with Dylan breaking into pot-induced giggling. Essentially, Dylan is comparing himself to Columbus and other New World explorers, thought to be crazy in their venture into the unknown, but the song is filled with enough weird imagery that this main point is simultaneously embellished and obfuscated. That's ok - the part where he takes off his pants in the bank is enough to make the whole thing worth it, heh.
So that's your electric side - great, don't get me wrong, but more for the historical value than for the (still good) music. If it's great music you're in the mood for, I mean REALLY great music, side two is your best bet. The acoustic side on this album is completely and totally BRILLIANT, and by BRILLIANT I mean damn near flawless with incredible acoustic melodies. Mr. Tambourine Man is of course the most famous of these, and you probably prefer the cover that The Byrds made so famous. Too bad - I most definitely prefer this original version, as I fully identify with George Starostin's idea of the song conveying a slightly drunk person coming home from an enjoyable party. Bob's slight slurring vocals may hurt your ears, but I got used to those long ago (as I hope you would too), and they help paint the picture that much more clearly. Simply put, regardless, this version is one of those songs that basically defines the term "timeless classic," one of those songs that seems like it's existed forever but only became expressed recently.
The MAJOR highlight of this side, though, is It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). The melody is based around a wonderful acoustic riff, and the lyrics, oh man, the lyrics. You could practically make an entire chapter of Bartlett's Quotations from this song alone, it's so totally jampacked with one-liners that have long become part of common culture. "Even the president of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked." "Money doesn't talk, it swears." "He not busy being born is busy dying." And there are MORE, dang it.
The other two aren't as immediately powerful for me, but that's only because they're in competition with two of the best songs ever. Gates of Eden has Bob at his best in terms of spilling Biblical imagery, taking a bunch of disparate images that are actually much more cohesive than on first listen and weaving them together under the Eden motif. Of course, it's possible you might not like them (Jeff Blehar, for instance, ripped into them harshly on both George Starostin's site AND the amazon.com reviews for this album), but I don't mind them.
Closing things out, then, is the lovely lovely It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. I could REALLY see where a hater of Dylan's voice would consider this song almost unlistenable, as his whining almost gets to even me at times, but the melody is simply pretty beyond words. Besides, as many have pointed out, it works symbolically too, like he's saying goodbye to his life of being a folkie. The line, "Forget the dead, they will not follow you," in particular, strikes me as Dylan acknowledging the need to make a clean break, and it's fascinating to listen and realize that he had what was coming next at least somewhat planned out.
Anyway, that's your great great album. It's a VERY high 13, and while I don't want to give it anything higher because of the annoying level of rawness at times on the first side, it's still a necessity in the collection of any decent rock historian. And besides, it provided a springboard to two of the greatest albums of all time, so that should be worth something.
Ryan Boyce (rboyce73@hotmail.com) (6/25/02)
Excellent review.
I always thought this was a little bit inferior to the next two
masterpieces. But historically, it is huge. Did Dylan invent rap/rock with
Subterranean Homesick Blues?? Sounds silly, but think about it!
A couple of things:
At the end of Easy Rider, Roger McGuinn sings "It's Alright Ma" and it
perfectly sums up the movie.
Nice work,
Simon B. (slb23@shaw.ca) (10/26/04)
A lot of people compare this album to Highway 61 Revisited, but i think
it's nowhere near as good as HWY 61 Rev. except for...
Best songs: "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Bob
Dylan's 115th Dream".
Ben Valerius (brv@uwm.edu) (08/06/06)
Before I get the subject at hand, there are a couple things I must say
first; I
LOVE your site. I've been reading it for over a year, and return to it
frequently. Your factual, long-form approach works very well, and you put a
lot
of thought into your writing.
I generally agree with you on your review of Bringing it all Back Home. To
me,
it's one of the most powerful statements ever put together. I can only
imagine
what a *shock* this must have been in 1965. Not only was it an exellent
collection of songs in itself, it was a sneer of derision to the
folkie-crowd
that Dylan used to run with. That being said (by many others, indeed), there
are a couple of things I want to say about it. I disagree with you when you
call "On the Road Again" and "Outlaw Blues" filler. True, both songs are
basic
12-bar garage rock. Yes, there isn't much of a melody in those two songs.
BUT,
"On the Road Again" has some of the funniest lines I've ever heard in a
Dylan
song, or ANY song for that matter. "There's fist-fights in the kitchen/it's
enough to make me cry/the mailman steps in, even he's got to take a side"
cracks me up every time I hear it. Not only that, but the bizarre life of
the
girlfriend's family get me every time.
"Outlaw Blues" shows that Dylan could rock out like the Stones and still
deliver
with his trademark wit. "Don't ask me nothing about nothing, I just might
tell
you the truth."
In context of the album though, I will agree that "Outlaw" and "Road," when
compared the the MONUMENTAL "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "It's All Right,
Ma"
(or hell, the whole second side), do seem to be pretty slight, lesser songs.
But
they are funny, and they do rock. Perhaps that's the point, they're joke
songs.
In the end, I love BIABH. It's responsible for my Dylan addiction, and I
listen
to frequently. It's one of the most quotable, serious, and humorous albums
I've
come across. I love it.
Best song: Like A Rolling Stone or Desolation Row
In some ways, this can be considered Bringing It All Back Home Vol. 2, but this is one of those cases where the sequel is better than the (still great) original (like with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back). The basic premise of the album is very much the same, with Dylan setting increasingly psycho lyrics to electric backing, but the main difference from before is that this time around, he's not just using the electric backing in an experimental yet cautious manner. Rather than wading into the pool of rock'n'roll and not letting the water go much past his knees, he's gone over to the deep end and jumped headfirst into a liquid fiesta of organs, guitars and whatever (man, can you tell I'm heavily caffinated for this review?). The songs are still largely in the vein of 60's garage rock, but it's professional and thickly arranged garage rock, thus eliminating much of the rawness that slightly dragged down BIABH.
As for the songs themselves, well, I can stretch myself and name two of the nine tracks as slightly weaker than the rest, and even then they're ridiculously good. From a Buick 6 is a LOT like the songs on the first side of the last album, but this time there's a rollicking organ in the background interacting with the simple yet effective bassline to create an impeccable groove (topped off by some nice harmonica at the end), and the vocal delivery really brings it all home. There's an incredible level of confidence in the way Dylan sings lines like "She walks like Bo Diddley and she don't need no crutch," and for me the whole piece really matches the title - it strikes me as a man cruising down a highway in his wheels, watching the world go by and feeling like nothing can take away the feeling of exhiliration he feels at that moment.
The other "weaker" track is the title track, which still rules incessantly. My favorite verse of the piece is the first, of course, but they're all winners, and the song itself is just a great piece of thickly arranged garage rock (I LOVE that slide guitar that keeps popping upwards). Overall, it seems to me that Highway 61 itself is, as you might expect, a metaphor for life and the march through time and all that, but with a jaded perspective that meshes nicely with the upbeat music. From the initial encounter with the Old Testament God ("God before he got religion") to all sorts of brief looks at events gone awry, there's the slight feeling of trepidation that seems to come up whenever the character in question is told to go down that road, as if it's known in advance that things won't be all hunky dory. Or something like that - bless Dylan and his oblique imagery.
It should tell you something, then, that I'm able to come up with such praise for these two tracks and still call them the weakest on the album by far. The other seven tracks are utterly stunning, so shattering that to give the album anything less than a perfect score would be a travesty and a half. The only one of these that's musically "raw" is Tombstone Blues, but even then it still manages to be better than anything off of the electric side of BIABH. It's garage rock to the extreme, but it's "salvaged" by (a) VICIOUS guitar breaks between the verses and (b) more of the greatest lyrics ever penned by mortal man. I mean, it's THIS song that first got me seriously interested in Dylan in the first place - in particular, the brilliant line, "The sun's not yellow, it's CHICKEN" is the pun that sucked me in at all, and probably remains my single favorite Dylan line. But that's hardly the only gem, and if you consider the various lines jibberish, I suggest you step back and listen again. Think of the verse about Paul Revere's horse, and then think about the government telling us to live our lives normally while they go to extreme measures to stop terrorists, and tell me that it doesn't resonate with you then. And of course, there's the BRILLIANT line about "selling roadmaps for the soul to the old-folks home in the college" - I could go on and on and on about just that, but I'd rather not, as that would take up too much of my time.
The rest of the songs, then, aren't just great lyrically - the melodies are utterly super, showing that Dylan could really set his good melodies to solid electric backing. One of the ways in which Dylan shows his newly found musical maturity, oddly enough, is in the way he handles the traditional blues pattern on this album. It may seem very easy to just listen to those tracks once or twice and dismiss them without a second thought as boring, dragging blues, especially if you have a strong disdain for blues as a whole. To be fair, I can understand this approach, but one of the benefits of running a site like this is that, because I have forced myself to try and overcome initial biases and to never dismiss any genre out of hand, and instead try to determine what makes a genre good or bad, merely going by an initial "this isn't exciting, therefore it sucks" reaction has really become something I like to avoid. What makes It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry and Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues so fascinating is the way they are so defiantly slow, sluggish and mellow, ESPECIALLY for the blues genre, and while you may hate them, I've found they work astoundingly well. Both have a piano-driven foundation, and if nothing else, they simply sound like no other blues I've ever heard in my life. They both convey a wonderful feeling of wanting to nod off, with Train painting a picture of nodding off into pleasant dreams while Tom Thumb just shows you wanting to pass out into a deep, dreamless sleep. If you hate them, that's your business, and not mine.
And then there's the other four. Queen Jane Approximately might be considered filler by some, but I cannot understand that for even a second - the lyrics are slightly more impenetrable than elsewhere, but the melody is one of the most stunning that had yet come from the mind of Bob, and that should be enough. As is common with the rest of the album, there's a lot of organ, and it does a fine job of giving that much more depth to the piece, bringing tears to my eyes almost by reflex. The only thing tangible that I can really say about the imagery is that it strikes me as melancholy, what with the dying clowns and all, and that the plea, "won't you come see me Queen Jane," really complements the dry sense of hopelessness that subtlely occupies much of the rest of the album. Of course, for all I know, you think the song is happy and bouncy, so what do I know ...
And then there's THE big three. I probably don't need to introduce Like A Rolling Stone, the powerful album opener that unveils the defiant, angry and plugged-in Dylan in all his glory, all the while sneering at the fall from grace of the main female character. If you haven't heard it, well, no words of mine will do it proper justice - the only thing I'd want to point out is that I continue to find it very interesting that Dylan would have the organ part be played by somebody who'd never before played organ. Supposedly, he would do things like this, as well as prefer to put down his recordings on the first take, to add an extra edge to his songs, and all I can say is that he it most definitely works in this case.
Now, Ballad of a Thin Man is one of those songs that (I would imagine, at least) drives Dylan-haters up a wall, causing them to dismiss his lyrics as nothing but disjointed nonsensical meaningless crap. My advice, simply put, is this - listen to the lyrics AS A WHOLE, NOT AS INDIVIDUAL LINES UNCONNECTED WITH EACH OTHER. Suddenly, lines like, "You're a cow! Gimmee some milk or else go home!" will make sense, even though it doesn't seem like vicious protest imagery on the surface. Think about how Mr. Jones is portrayed in this song - an upper-class snob who thinks he has life all figured out but has done nothing but earn the disdain and hatred of those below him. Now, think about what a cow is - a big stupid creature whose purpose in life is basically to provide milk and nothing else (until it dies and becomes beef). Mr. Jones is somebody who is worthless to the underlings in every way but one, some mundane task he performs, and if he doesn't perform that task (ie give milk) then the rest of the people want nothing to do with him, because as far as they're concerned, he has no intrinsic worth in his humanity. THIS is the manner with which you must think if you want to get full utility out of the lyrics here - when you realize how detached Mr. Jones is from the rest of humanity, and consequently how detached the rest of humanity is from Mr. Jones, the sneering derision of the line, "There's something happening but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?" becomes that much more piercing.
For all the anger and pissitude that Bob shows on the album, it is then fitting that he ends it on a significantly different note. Desolation Row, of course, isn't a happy piece or anything, but it's not angry either - rather, it's an outside observation of sadness and despair, set to one of the best acoustic melodies you will ever hear in your life. For eleven minutes, Bob pours epic imagery on the heads of his listeners as only he can, pulling out so many perfect lyrics that I don't even know where to begin. Yet as usual, the lyrics are only the capstone, as Bob's slightly worn, slightly grizzled voice brings out an intrinsic power in them that another singer might not be able to find, and the end result is the sort of timeless classic only hinted at with Mr. Tambourine Man and My Back Pages and the like. And dig those fills too!
I really don't know what else to say, only that it's utterly shocking that as good as this album is, I feel he would top it in a year. Apparently though, Dylan himself considers this his peak, and a strong case can definitely be made for that. Whatever may be, this album represents what "classic rock" is in its purest, greatest form - both raw and polished, obsequious and emotional, with great melodies all about. If you're looking to start a rock collection, this should be one of your first purchases, and that is that.
Trfesok@aol.com (05/12/06)
I recently put on both this one and the next album again for the
first time in quite a while. And I still would vote this one as
Dylan's best 60's album. The next one has a lot more diversity, but
this one just rocks more. Even the slower songs sound more energetic,
particularly "Desolation Row," with Mike Bloomfied's lovely acoustic
leads. The "controlled chaos" of the title track (reminds me a bit of
the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains," although that came out much
later) and "Tombstone Blues" is really amazing. Two slightly later
B-sides, "Positively 4th Street" and "Can You Please Crawl Out Your
Window?" share a similar mood to "Like A Rolling Stone" and really
should have been added as bonus tracks, making a truly amazing album
even better.
Best song: Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the best Dylan money can buy. Bob's singing has never been better, his songwriting peaked here, the arrangements are thicker and more complicated than before, and then there's the vibe. On this album, Dylan finds himself taking on the role of a mystic for the first time ever, filling many of the songs with a rich, heavy spirituality, and in doing so he manages to capture the mystic side of Americana better than any other album I've ever heard. In short, Blonde is the absolute epitome of music as more than just notes, and the overall effect is so shattering that I can't help but give the album the highest mark possible.
I could probably stop the review right there, but since not everybody seems to share my instant adoration of the album (most people wouldn't give this the highest grade for some reason or another, and Mark Prindle even once gave it a 6 out of 10), I guess I should go on. Many people seem to like to take issue with the length of the album (it's the first double album in rock, beating out Freak Out! by a couple of months), and claim that there's too much filler, often citing the presence of too much 'generic blues crap' or stuff like that. Statements like these make me sad. Not only is this album a clear example of a piece where the 'sprawl' factor is a definite asset, not a liability, but the album is so dang strong that, when I look at the tracklisting, I can only think of ONE song on the entire album that I could do without. And besides, the whole 'generic blues sucks' argument bugs me especially in the context of an album like this, since the blues and basic rock'n'roll are an ESSENTIAL element of the mythos of America, and that aspect of America is pretty much the point of much of the album. In other words, just going through the album with a hacksaw and saying "this is boring so it sucks, so's this, so's this..." misses the point completely. But I digress.
Now, of the 14 tracks on here, five have significant connections to either blues or blues rock, so it's worth taking a closer look at that aspect of the album. Of these five, only Temporary Like Achilles ends up walking and talking like filler, as it has an extremely similar melody and feel to Tom Thumb's Blues on the last album. The other four, though, I will brook no criticism for, as every last one of them is a killer. Three of them are in a traditional form, and while many may despise them because of it, there's simply nothing wrong with either Pledging My Time, Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat or Obviously 5 Believers (assuming, of course, that you're willing to acknowledge the possibility that blues rock isn't inherently bad). On the contrary, Pledging sucks you in with booming production and FIERCE harmonica, Obviously 5 Believers simply has a fabulous groove, and Leopard-Skin combines angry electric-guitar playing by Bob with some of the cleverest put-down misogynist lyrics ever put to tape. In short, if you define filler as doing nothing idiosyncratic to justify one's existence on an album, as you should, then NONE of these three qualify.
The other blues-related piece isn't as obvious a tribute to the form, but Visions of Johanna nevertheless has enough trappings in structure (I think, at least) to qualify as blues. And it absolutely rules, successfully introducing the mystical feeling that occupies so much of the rest of the album. What's it about, you may ask? You may think I'm crazy, but my general interpretation of the piece is as follows: for starters, Johanna is not a person that the singer is waiting for. Rather, 'Johanna' is an anglicized bastardization of 'Gehenna,' which is a place in Israel that was used as a symbol of hell and torment. If I think of the song this way, suddenly it becomes a piece about a man in the twilight of his life, waiting to die and knowing he's not gonna see heaven, but not showing any nerves or fear or any real emotion about it. Rather, he's more or less just bored, sitting in a quiet room listening to the radio at a low level while the wind blows outside, waiting for time to come claim him. Again, maybe it's not an obvious interpretation, but try substituting Gehenna for Johanna in each case, and see if you don't think of something similar along those lines (Addendum: much to my surprise, I've discovered that this is actually one of the predominant theories on the meaning of the track. And here I thought I was so clever).
So that leaves nine tracks, most of which are regarded as at least some level of classics. Everybody's heard Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (which I guess is also a blues piece in structure, though not in arrangement), and most people want to show how intelligent they are by saying how stupid it is, but it really isn't. It's NOT just a big pot joke, and if you think it is you took it completely the wrong way. It's not a song about people getting stoned in the pot sense - it's a song about people getting stoned in the sense of 'casting stones,' and if people would bother to actually listen to the verses instead of just focusing on the chorus like a bunch of braindead rednecks, they'd notice that. So Bob talks about getting stoned by the government, by folkies, by whomever, and since misery loves company, everybody may as well stone everybody else. Yeah, the song is silly sounding, but why must silliness be a negative issue for people? LIGHTEN UP!
Blonde also has the distinction of featuring three 'pop' songs that not only feature more brilliant imagery but also some of the cleverest and most complicated melodies you will ever find on a Dylan album. One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) is one of those brilliant songs that moves me an incredible amount everytime I hear it, even though it's very difficult to put my finger on any one particular element that makes it do so. It's just the way everything combines, you know? The organ, the melody, the rough singing - none of them are cathartic on their own, but together, it's pure unadulterated magic. Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine, on the other hand, is most impressive because of technical features (a rarity for Dylan) - an extremely complicated melody featuring a bizarre harmonica/horn groove throughout (doesn't sound like much, but trust me, I can't think of anything else in the rest of my collection with anything like it). And finally, Absolutely Sweet Marie, along with the expected lyrical strength, features an utterly brilliant organ pattern, adding a rollicking touch to the proceedings. Some people call these three songs filler, but again, I can't understand that at all.
Two of the other songs, among the most famous of the album, share a common bond of showing an unusual approach towards songs related to the fairer gender. I Want You, aside from its wonderfully bouncy melody, also has the absolute weirdest lyrics you will EVER find in a love ode, amply demonstrating for the first time that love songs didn't have to incorporate cliches like rhyming true with blue to work. Just Like A Woman, on the other hand, is pure misogyny, combining another brilliant melody with Dylan's grossest lyrics ever. If you haven't heard these, you really should if only for the novelty of hearing Dylan get away from the traditional view of Dylan as protest-writer as possible.
As we come into the home stretch, one of the songs, 4th Time Around, is justifiably referred to as Dylan's take on Norwegian Wood, as it does have a similar feel and sound. Still, the guitar line is not the same as in that classic, and the emotional resonance of the song is much less in the way of bitterness than in the classic found on Rubber Soul. In any case, it's pretty if nothing else, and while I don't consider it a major highlight, it's always enjoyable to my ears.
The other two tracks, on the other hand, are major highlights, and safe choices for the best on the album. First, there's the immortal classic Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, with one of the best combinations of brilliant melody, brilliant lyrics, great vocal delivery and terrific arrangements you will ever get from Dylan. The lyrics are classic psycho Dylan, a great tribute to the power of absurdism, yet there is still a common theme and feel through the whole track. Indeed, the song does a GREAT job of creating the atmosphere described in the title - stuck in a deadend city and a deadend life, watching life unfold in all its mundanity and wondering, "Is this IT??!!!". Trust me, if you listen to the song again, taking for yourself this mindset, the song will suddenly resonate that much more and make that much more sense.
Finally, then, is Dylan's classic of classics, the culmination of his progression from simple folky to brilliant composer and arranger and lyrical mystificator. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, simply put, is the greatest, most brilliant piece of monotony you will ever come across in your life, an epic, silky, luxurious ode to his wife Sara. The arrangement is THICK (by Dylan standards, anyway), creating that "mercury" sound that so many use to describe the album as a whole, and the simple melody is one of the loveliest that mortal man could ever conceive. Needless to say, the lyrics are also brilliant, with Dylan using all kinds of drug-addled mystical lyrical imagery in his wonderful voice to create what may be the greatest love song of all time (if you like complicated imagery in your love songs, that is). Yes, it's repetitive as all get-out, with the same melody and arrangement coming up again and again until Dylan's harmonica replaces his voice near the end to help fade it out, and for that reason you might not be able to tolerate 11+ minutes of this. In that case, well, get in the mood for it - it's a piece that only becomes that much more powerful with each iteration of the melody, and I only wish it could be repeated longer.
I could say something profound in closing here, but I'm not sure what else can be said. I leave you only with the most brilliant summation of the album one could ever find, and encourage you to go out and buy it today.
Blonde on Blonde rules.
anlormarechal (anlormarechal@wanadoo.fr) (9/02/03)
I never heard this album, but I heard an atrocious thing about it : on
the original vinyl album, "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands" was LONGER ! it
was about 18 minutes long, occupying a whole side of the second disk
(that's why Dylan decided to make a double album). It was cut so that the
album would fit in 1 CD ! What a shame !
Simon B. (slb23@shaw.ca) (10/26/04)
In response to the above commenter: while "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"
did take up the entire side four of Blonde on Blonde, it really was only
11:20. He confined it to the last side because he wanted to make it a
seperate statement of sorts. Thanks for your time.
sports3532@aol.com (04/16/05)
Hey,
I just came across your website, and its awesome. Whether or not I agree
with your writings, its a fresh, honest look at a lot of the best music out
there.
I was drawn to it, through Google, cause I was looking into what other
people say about Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. I love the song, but I get a
different message than most.
(warning, qualifying statement follows). Now, though I am an admitted Dylan
nut, I haven't really read a lot of his stuff, other than his latest
autobiography, "Chronicles." I haven't read the critiques or the interviews,
so I can't be sure if he actually meant half of what I think he meant. But,
in a way, I don't want to--at least not until I've fleshed out my ideas
about his lyrics on my own.
Anyways, the point of this e-mail is this: Consider the sad-eyed lady as
"the messenger", and he's asking if he should wait for "her." I put her in
quotes, because, despite the song's title, I don't think gender is necessary
for my interpretation of the song. I know it works as a haunting love song,
but I just see more. The haunting love song, for example, fits the physical
imagery, but misses out, I feel, on most of the other imagery.
What if he's asking if he should wait for this messenger. He's got
"warehouse eyes" that can store whatever great truth she is going to
deliver, and he's got "arabian drums", which I see as an image of the most
primitive form of music (Dylan as a musician, the obvious connection). So,
he's got the mind and the music, and he's waiting for the message from
"her."
What if she is supposed to be, in Jackson Browne's words, "The Pretender,"
the "Everyman," or "The Great Song Traveller." What if she, with her
"streetcar visions" and a glass-face that can reflect the inner truth of the
world, is supposed to be the know-all of the Supreme Being, Platonic Truth
with a capital "T." We always expect, it seems, this Great Revealer to be a
man (maybe even Dylan?), but the "sad-eyed prophets say that no man comes"
from the "lowlands"---instead, it must be a woman. And Dylan, for all his
amazingness, would never picture himself to be this Great Revealer, so it
would seem fitting that he, like Jackson Browne and John Lennon and all
other amazing songwriters, is deciding to wait on the "sad-eyed lady"
Now here, with this understanding, I can see the supposed love song. Love is
the answer to all, and he's waiting for her, yada yada. But without placing
her in a role that farmers, the downtrodden, choose to "sympathize with
their side,"----in a role where she is providing a great truth not just for
the one man, Dylan, but for all men and women who are seeking the Great
Answer, I don't think the love song idea stands alone. Its more of a song
about understanding the burden to carry Truth, the "sad-eyes" that most
belong to that bearer, and wondering if this Savior will ever come.
Just my ideas, since I saw that its your favorite song on your favorite
Dylan album. If you're still doing all this, and ever want any help with
Dylan or any other folk/singer-songwriter, just let me know. Hope you found
my comments at least somewhat as enjoyable as I found yours.
Keep writing,
Phillip Martin
John Byrd (jb2533@hotmail.com) (5/15/05)
YES!! FINALLY! Blonde On Blonde, the bloody best thing Bob Dylan has
done! And YES, Blood On The Tracks IS his most overrated album!
Mark Prindle is a great reviewer but I would have to agree with you
on this album, bravo!
Best song: er...
Prior to its official release in 1998, this was probably the most famous live bootleg of all time, and with good cause. As you might be aware, this is a recording of his 1966 performance at the Royal Albert Hall (or at least I THOUGHT it was: silly me, actually believing the FREAKING FULL TITLE OF THE ALBUM. As a commentator points out below, this was recorded in Manchester), a performance ripe with historical importance and symbolism of his falling out with the acoustic scene. The first half consists of totally acoustic renditions of tracks from the last three, "electric" albums, while the second half has electric backing from The Band and a much more 'rocking' approach. The audience is polite but puzzled in the first half, and in the second half they boo and heckle and call Dylan a Judas and a sellout, among other things. All the while, Dylan keeps his cool, purposefully messing with his audience and trying to piss them off, and these dynamics are enough to make the concert worthwhile.
The problem, then, is that the actual performances, while FAR from bad, don't live up to the hype of "greatest live album ever" like some want to call it. During the acoustic set, while Dylan's vocals are often superior to his singing on the studio albums, none of the tracks dominate their studio counterparts. It's interesting to hear totally acoustic transformations of She Belongs to Me and Visions of Johanna, and Mr. Tambourine Man has an impressive enough harmonica solo to make it match its normal level, but none of the others particularly stand out. Fourth Time Around merely sounds slightly less refined, It's All Over Now is just kind of "there," Desolation Row loses much of the acoustic frills that made the original so special, and Just Like a Woman just sounds weird. Again, all of them are great songs, but the performances are just good.
The second half, then, is even less refined, though the importance of it cannot be overestimated. The opening Tell Me Momma is a FINE blues rocker, but the rest is just, again, good. Inventive as hell, sure, with a ton of aggression and pure rockin' energy in the performances, but also with a lot of sloppiness without making the performances intoxicating. It also doesn't help that the production here is sometimes quite poor - it doesn't sound like much effort was made to "clean up" the original bootleg. Hence, while Ballad of a Thin Man has an endless level of passion, especially since Dylan could most definitely be said to be directing his words straight towards the audience, it's much harder to hear the vocals than one might wish. Again, though, I don't want to say any of these performances are less than good - I just want to slightly knock the album off its (slightly overdone) pedestal.
Regardless of the griping, though, I still give this album a very high 8, and most definitely encourage you to get it. Just don't confuse its importance with the actual quality, though.
Howard Roddie (howard@hroddie.wanadoo.co.uk) (09/05/05)
Gotta agree with this.
Someone's been re-writing history. The classic gig was at the albert hall -
Just listen to the version of LARS there and compare it to the version on
live 66. Funny how the manchester show wasn't mentioned till '66 came out.
Someone may have cried "judas", but the famous band intro is on the albert
hall version. If you haven't got it let me know.
Keep up the good work
Best song: Tears Of Rage
Speaking of albums that need to be knocked off a pedestal ... In late 1966, as you hopefully know, Dylan had his infamous motorcycle accident, putting him in a coma for a brief time. After coming out of it, he went into a bit of seclusion until recording John Wesley Harding, released in '68. In the meantime, he got together with The Band and recorded a bunch of countryish, "rootsy" numbers that were bootlegged ad nauseum until they were officially released in '75. Fine, that's your background.
The thing is, this album has gained a sort of mythic quality over the years, with many of the songs covered by various famous artists. It's also gained some sort of reputation as the "epitome of American music" and "music for the sake of music," and most "serious" critical top 100 lists will have this listed somewhere. To this, all I can say is that I must be missing something BADLY. What I hear is a near endless stream of patchy, underdeveloped, underranged country songs - none of which are blatantly awful but almost none of which show any real reason to exist. See, you have to understand - I don't have anything against country in general, and I don't have anything against Dylan doing country. Unfortunately, almost none of these songs (with one exception) have Dylan's spirit, the unmistakable Dylan magic, to buoy them up, and when they're evaluated on technical features, they can't help but fall short. Some are alright (Please Mrs. Henry is nice, as is the opening Odds and Ends), but the rest just ehn.
In any case, the only song on the two CD's that grabs me is the closer of disc one, the one true classic of the set, the incredible Tears of Rage. I have to say, the effect when I came to this song was astounding - there I was, head drooping, struggling to stay awake while slogging through a countryish bog, when this powerful bolt of pure unadulterated DYLAN comes blasting out of my stereo. The arrangement and production hark back a bit to Blonde, and that's so much for the better, as it brings out the power of his sadness that much more. If the rest of the songs could come anywhere near this level, I'd undoubtedly be proclaiming this as one of the alltime great albums, just like everybody else.
Unfortunately, that's simply not the case. Too many throwaways like ... er ... man, I don't even remember what songs are what anymore. In any case, this is a SERIOUSLY flawed collection, and the fact that it's on 2 CD's when it could probably fit on one, which makes it cost almost $30 new (I got it for $20 used, thank goodness), doesn't help either. If you REALLY want more Dylan, feel free, but otherwise, there's better things to spend your money on. I recommend a Monkey Island game.
Best song: All Along The Watchtower
As one might imagine, getting into a motorcycle accident and entering a coma proved to be a bit of a life-changing event for Mr. Zimmerman, and this extended into his artistic approach. Whereas Dylan's last few albums each showed a logical progression from the last, John Wesley Harding is a COMPLETE stylistic left turn from Blonde, yet none the worse for it. Complexity is replaced with defiant simplicity, length is replaced with brevity, powerful vocals are replaced with a whine (but not in a bad way), and protest (however obfuscated) is replaced with storytelling and humble role-playing. I can imagine that many of the "new breed" of Dylan fans back in the mid-60's were seriously confused and puzzled, but hey - doing the unexpected is what has made Dylan so fascinating throughout his career, and when one looks at the situation decades later, Dylan comes out a major winner with this album.
What makes this album so great in the end is the overall atmosphere Dylan creates. More than any other album of which I'm aware, it sounds like authentic 19th century music, or at least what music would have sounded like in the 19th century with a rhythm section in the background. These songs really sound like they could have been sung around campfires on the various wagon trails going west, or by immigrant workers after a hard day's work, or in other similar situations. It's not just a case of solid musical mannerism, though - there is an utterly amazing mystical quality flowing throughout most of the album, and the resulting concoction, which I will call "folk mysticsm," is utterly unique in music history.
Not that every song is flawless, though, else I'd have no problem giving the album a perfect score. The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest does have some fascinating lyrics, much in the mode of something like I Shall Be Free No. 10, but the lyrics really are the only redeeming quality. The music backing is more primitive than anything else on the album, and the lyrics, while interesting, don't show any of the humorous wit that made something like, again, ISBF 10 so entertaining. Even worse is that Dylan's vocal delivery is annoyingly monotonous, devoid of any real emotional content.
A couple of tracks near the end also don't strike me as particularly brilliant. The Wicked Messenger has very good musical backing, with a solid vocal melody that works well with the nice bassline, but the lyrics don't have any of the epic heroism that make something like the title track (more on that later) so fascinating, and I don't really know what to take as the message of the song. As for Down Along the Cove, well, that's simply unadulterated filler, a piece of boogie/blues-rock that's much worse than any of the bluesier songs on Blonde. It's vaguely a love song, but ehn, it's not an impressive one.
The other nine tracks, however, are perhaps the most stunning collection of tracks in the entire Dylan discography, not just individually but as a collective whole. They're not particularly sophisticated from a technical perspective, but from the perspective of music as a catalyst for emotional resonance, they are king and ruler over all. Dylan's voice is somewhat "whinier" and more strident than before the accident, but the loss in technical power is more than made up for by the gain in emotive power, which makes the authenticity and mystical qualities of the album come that much more alive. It also helps that Dylan, for the first time, uses his harmonica in the same way one would expect Eric Clapton to use his guitar - not just as part of expected instrumental breaks, but to really carry the song and the mood and use it as a substitute for and continuation of the vocal parts. Needless to say, the increase in emotive power in Dylan's vocals is fully matched by the increase in emotive power in the harmonica, and that makes the album that much more impressive.
Anyway, onto the other songs. The title track, which opens things up, is a tribute to "heroic ballads" of eras past, as it recounts the deeds and life of, well, John Wesley Harding. The lyrics are extremely predictable, of course, but that's not the point - the point is the dead-on authenticity with which Dylan approaches the genre, and the way he's able to teleport the listener back to the "age of outlaws" and of traveling minstrels and stuff like that.
The next three tracks, on the other hand, take the minstrel shtick and apply it not to historical narratives, but rather to historical myth, and this is where the album really begins to take hold of the listener. As I Went Out One Morning tells of Dylan heading off to visit Tom Paine, meeting a girl who "meant to do (him) harm," and who subsequently tries to seduce him, and finally being saved by Mr. Paine himself. I guess one could try to look for literal symbolism, but I don't think that the girl really symbolizes the British Empire or anything like that, that would be too easy. Rather, it's just an ode to the power of myth, and Dylan's voice and harmonica really manage to make it all come alive quite well.
Next up is I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, a slow, mystical, silky ballad that (I guess) tries to convey the experiences of St. Augustine trying to save souls. So we have St. Augustine preaching to kings and queens, telling them meekly that even if they reject his message, "know you are not alone," and being rejected by people in the end (which I guess is what Bob means when he sings about putting him out to death - by rejecting Augustine's teaching, people essentially rejected his life, which could be easily metaphorically extended to putting him out to death). And don't forget the ending, with Bob waking up and feeling sad for rejecting him, even if it was just in a dream state - for some reason, I think of Peter crying after denying Christ
three times when I hear this, and it makes the sorrow come that much more alive.
And then we have the classic, the amazing All Along the Watchtower. Yeah, I know, most people (who probably haven't heard the original anyway) prefer Hendrix's cover, but I really wish they wouldn't. Hendrix's cover is an electric psychadelic guitar anthem - an utter classic, don't get me wrong, but absolutely not unique in the world of rock music. The original, however, has no counterpart - the "folk-mysticism" of the album is never felt more prominently than on this song, as Dylan's vocals combined with the soft rhythm work and ESPECIALLY the hypnotic harmonica solos create an uneasy spookiness that can't be topped with even the greatest of guitar solos. I know that few people will like this version better than Hendrix's, but hey, that's everybody else's problem ...
After the slight bore of Frankie Lee, we hit Drifter's Escape, another song that was covered by Hendrix. The song topic is basically summed up by the title - a drifter is on trial, people panic during a lightning storm, and the drifter is able to get away - but the vocal delivery, as usual, makes the song work. Dylan takes a VERY peculiar tone on this song, really making his voice sound pathetic and helpless when imitating the drifter, and while it's in many ways a rewrite of the title track, the differences are sufficient as to not bug me.
In comparison to what comes next, though, Escape is nothing. The next three tracks are, quite possibly, the three greatest odes to the poor, the weary, the downtrodden masses ever conceived in the realm of rock music. The first of these, Dear Landlord, is a piano-based plea for the landlord to not kick the protagonist off his land, and shows Dylan at his most humble and self-deprecating and begging yet. To tell the truth, it strikes me as much like a solo John Lennon tune from a few years later, both in the simple piano melody and the pleading delivery, but that's for neither here nor now. Point is, it's hard to believe listening to something like this that Bob hadn't been out of a home at some point in his life ...
Of course, with the next song, it's hard to believe Bob hadn't been a cynical hobo at some point in his life, which makes it that much more amazing. I Am a Lonesome Hobo is easily one of the most jaded songs I've ever heard in my life, and the delivery (as usual) drives it all home that much more. My favorite line, "I had 14 carats gold in my mouth and silk upon my back," is (imho) one of the greatest sneering, ironic looks at capitalism ever, but the other lines are certainly not much worse. The overall message, as summed up in the last line, is that the hobo knows people want to judge him for being a "lesser" person, yet he knows just how easily other people can end up on his path, and that there really isn't anything that people can do to stop it. Depressing, eh?
The best of the trilogy, however, comes from the brilliant, BRILLIANT I Pity the Poor Immigrant, a song so authentic that it's hard to believe Bob didn't somehow unearth it from some, er, 1840's folk collection. More so than any other song on the album, I can see this as an anthem sung by thousands of people toiling through their lives working on the railroad. My favorite line is an obvious one - "Who passionately hates his life, and likewise fears his death," - but they all convey such a sense of bleak hopelessness that it's simply astounding. If you haven't heard this, well, you have no excuse for not picking up the album asap and making yourself cry.
Ironically enough, the last three tracks manage to avoid the whole depression motif (which is good, as it would be bad for Dylan's pocketbook to make all his listeners shoot themselves after the album was over). Unfortunately, two of them are the aforementioned Wicked Messenger and Down Along the Cove, but the good news is that the closing I'll Be Your Baby Tonight is a perfectly fine country love song. My favorite aspect of the track is the way he sings the chorus ("Iiiiiiiiiii'll be yoooooooooooour baaby toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight") with the rhythm of the harmonica playing off it perfectly, but the actual melody is genial in its simplicity, the lyrics are heartwarming, and there's all sorts of nice steel guitar. So yeah, it's hard to think of a better way to close out the album, ESPECIALLY since it fades out in one of those beautiful harmonica solos, which really leaves you wanting more in the end.
In the end, this here is simply a great album. Not flawless, but conceptually, it's simultaneously the humblest AND the cleverest Dylan ever got, and a combination like that isn't something you're going to come across every day. It's not the defiant Dylan everybody had grown to love, but the new Dylan is just fine, and it's hard for me to imagine somebody actively disliking this album. Get it asap.
"aagmnr@yahoo.com" (aagmnr@yahoo.com) (12/02/07)
About the Hendrix cover, yes. You absolutely nailed
it. That's completely and exactly the same feeling I have.
Best song: Lay Lady Lay
Well THAT was unexpected. So apparently, part of Dylan's motivation for going country on JWH, aside from a change in his life perspective, was to try to alienate and get rid of some of his idolizing fanbase. Problem was, while he might have thrown some for a loop, JWH was simply too good to get most people to dislike it, and he remained as highly regarded as ever. So he decided to strip the uniqueness and powerful humanism out of his countryish sound and go HARDCORE country. Yup, Dylan decided to become a Nashville country star on this album, and the changes from before are utterly jawdropping. First of all, Dylan apparently quit smoking for this album, and all of a sudden, his voice turned into a perfectly pleasant countryish croon. You won't believe it until you hear it, of course, but believe me, if you want to convince a Dylan-hater that Bob could sing nicely, this should be your first stop.
Otherwise, though, most of the changes aren't really for the better. They're not so much for the worse, though, as they are for the more generic. Simply put, you're not about to find much in the way of arrangement idiosyncracy on this album - there's harmonica, drums, acoustic guitar and slide guitar, all like there's been on previous albums, but here they're all used in exactly the manner you'd expect from a country album with the word Nashville in the title. Still, I guess I won't complain too much - everything is very professionally performed, and it's authentic country, as opposed to Garth Brooks-style "nu-country," so I can't gripe too much.
Most importantly, though, is that the actual songs are mostly very good. Except for the somewhat dispensable instrumental Nashville Skyline Rag, nothing on here is particularly weak - the sound is a bit monotonous, but it's only 29 minutes of monotony, so it doesn't grate as badly as it could. Anyway, though, the classic you might have heard before is Lay Lady Lay, with its great mix of slide guitars over distant organs that provides the "nighttime atmosphere" that oh so many reviewers have used to describe it. That's hardly the only highlight, though - the opening remake of Girl From the North Country, featuring a duet with Johnny Cash, is certainly worth the cost of the album in itself, as the great folk love song of before becomes a mini country anthem in their hands.
Elsewhere, there's ... er ... well, for starters, there's the lovely I Threw It All Away, with some of the most 'non-Dylanish' lyrics you'll ever hear Bob deliver in a totally convincing and resonant manner. There's a fun country groove in Peggy Day, a more 'rocking' country groove in Country Pie, and a bunch of nice countryish ballads that I don't want to go over song by song because it's not worth it. They're ALL good, bear in mind - it's just that, well, they're all just good country with nice melodies.
In the end, as difficult as Bob makes this album to review, it's still alarmingly enjoyable. Not brilliant or anything like that, but still one I happily give an 8, just because the amount of filler is very low. Just a note, though - its followup is hardly any worse ...
Best song: The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)
Most Dylan fans have seemingly been programmed to believe the following without question: Nashville Skyline is good, Selfportrait is abominable. Prindle gave NS an 8 and SP a 2; AMG gave NS ***** and SP **. This pattern continues throughout most of the world, and the mantra is repeated so much that seemingly everybody believes it. As you can see, though, I'll have no part of this charade - Self Portrait is just fine, thank you very much.
Indeed, I'd like you to try a little experiment. Make mp3's of the tracks from NS and from SP. Put them in a giant playlist together, and set it on randomize. Play it for somebody who's not actually familiar with either of the albums. I will bet you dollars to pennies that a set of unbiased ears will NOT, I repeat NOT be able to tell you which tracks are from the "good" album and which are from the "crap" album. The simple reason for this is that there is not a single legitimate reason why the country songs on this album should be any worse than the ones on Skyline, and as a result the album is just as good as its predecessor, no matter what everybody says.
Well, ok, just because there are no good reasons for hating this album doesn't mean that people don't like to give reasons anyway. Basically, the situation was this - Dylan was REALLY getting sick of the Godlike status afforded him by fans and critics, and obviously seemed somewhat dismayed that even the act of switching to hardcore country wasn't able to get fans to leave him be. So he took one more drastic step to get rid of his fans - instead of writing a bunch of country songs himself, he decided to do mostly cover versions of standard country tracks (with just a couple of originals here and there). The result then worked better than he could have imagined - he managed to produce one of the most universally hated albums in the world, one that's generally considered the embarrassment to end all embarrassments.
Problem is, it shouldn't be. Many people hate it because of the presence of so many cover tunes, as opposed to the originals on NS. I don't mind this at all - given the choice between covering other people's material and ripping off other people's material for his "originals," the former seems like a better choice to me. People also hate the fact that, because the songs are mostly covers, the songs lack Dylan's lyrics, which for many people is the main reason to enjoy Dylan. To this I say - where exactly was Bob showing "lyrical genius" on Nashville? Point is, if you want to hate both albums, that's fine, but hating SP while praising NS is simply ridiculous.
As for the album itself, it's simply good. Not stunning or earth-shattering, but that wasn't the point. Every song is performed well, the choice of tunes is clever, Bob further displays his nice country voice, and the mood of the whole thing is just so dang relaxing. Both covers of Alberta are swell, the cover of Days of '49 is simply BRILLIANT (with Bob putting on a fabulous vocal performance), the two takes on Little Sadie are simply a joy to listen to ... The list goes on, really. Besides, when it comes to setting the mood for relaxing, one can hardly beat All The Tired Horses, which kicks off the album - with just two lines ("All the tired horses in the sun, how am I supposed to get any riding done?") sung again and again by a choir of females, while some strings pop up here and there, the effect is that all the cares and stresses of the day wash away in a heartbeat.
The originals aren't half bad, either. The one track on the album that gets consistent praise is The Mighty Quinn, a weird countryish rocker with some of Bob's goofiest singing on the album and a chorus that will stick with you for hours. There's also a couple of throwaway but enjoyable (come to think of it, that explains the whole album) instrumentals, a nice string-laced ballad in Belle Isle, and some other stuff I can't think of at the moment but I still enjoy.
Again, this is not an album that has particularly many "highlights" (though it does have some), but I can also tell you that it doesn't contain a single "lowlight." It's lightweight, it's unoriginal, it's banal, yes. But it's professionally done, well-performed, relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable unoriginal banality. If you can accept Dylan as a humble man who needs to relax once in a while (I find it interesting, btw, that he would focus on that side of himself for an album called Selfportrait), there is simply no reason that you can't enjoy this album. Understated doesn't equal bad, after all.
Best song: New Morning
Because Bob was able to finally successfully pull off getting everybody to hate him with Selfportrait (and as such no longer had to concentrate on that particular side project), he now was able to go back to making music that reflected his inner mood and nothing else. What this album shows more than anything else, then, is that Bob was tired and depressed by this time, with a desire to get on with his life but having no idea what to actually do. His melody and lyric writing skills were just as fine as ever, but he really didn't have the motivation to focus them on anything deep or profound.
Honestly, though, that's fine by me. In a lot of ways, it foreshadows Street Legal, as that album finds Bob as puzzled and directionless as on this one, but this is miles better - this album sounds like a strong man in a moment of weakness, whereas that one just sounds like a pathetic old man. There's a vibe of strong spirituality throughout the album, with Bob reflecting on his life and lightly considering religion (though not any specific sect) as a method to find meaning and purpose in his existence. From a musical standpoint, this is brought out that much more in the fact that there's an abnormally high amount of piano on this album - the style is (at the most basic level) the same as on the last two albums, but there's a substantial shift away from using guitar as the foundation of the sound. If nothing else, this alone makes New Morning an interesting addition to Dylan's catalogue.
It also helps, as mentioned earlier, that Dylan's songwriting skills were still working at a high level at this point. Except for the somewhat stupid Scat-laced If Dogs Run Free, none of the 12 songs on here strike me as filler, and quite a few manage to really entertain me. Some are less interesting than others, but only slightly - One More Weekend is still a fine blues piece, and the waltz Winterlude still manages to be memorable and moving (for all its banality). Some of the other pieces don't womp me over the head, but that's only because they're SO low-key and humble and soft that I can almost miss them if I'm not careful - regardless, the organy Three Angels and the pretty ballad The Man In Me both have excellent melodies, and I'm not about to dismiss either one.
The rest, then, is ALL good. If Not For You is a lovely opener, although it was done better by George Harrison on his stunning All Things Must Pass, but even then it's only because Harrison gave it a fuller arrangement. Here, though, the sparseness works decently enough, and Dylan's slightly scraggly voice does full justice to wonderful lines like, "If not for you, the winter would hold no spring, I couldn't hear a robin sing." Its followup, Day of the Locusts, features Bob sitting at his piano (with an organ in the background), and while it may seem that there isn't any real pattern to what Bob's playing, the song turns out be very memorable in the end, with the chorus, "and the locusts sang!" staying with you for a long time afterwards. Similarly, Time Passes Slowly features Bob and the piano (with even simpler playing than on the last track), but what it may "lack" in musical substance (though it's still memorable) is more than made up for by the mood. If you've ever been between jobs, or in any other situation where there's really nothing to do but sit and putter, you'll know exactly what Bob is talking about when he sings lines like, "time passes slowly when you're lost in a dream."
Of the remaining four tracks, three touch on the more spiritual side of the album, while one focuses more on the loneliness and depression. Sign on the Window is the representative of the latter, as it manages to sum up perfectly what it's like to feel completely alone in the universe, alienated from other people even as they scurry about. Once again, it's mostly just Bob and his piano, with only a bit of female backing vocals here and there and some occasional drums, but for a song about feeling completely alone, this is a perfect arrangement choice (if anything, I'd want it even sparser, but whatever).
The other three, then, are definite highlights, and capture the spirit-searching aspect well. Went to See the Gypsy is just what the title says - Bob going to a gypsy, hoping he can give him meaning but not really getting anything from him. The title track, on the other hand, suggests for a brief instant that Dylan has found something, though I suspect that it's meant somewhat ironically (in other words, I suspect this is representative of the sort of thing Bob would think and sing IF he'd found enlightenment, and not necessarily an indication that he HAS). No matter, it's extremely uplifting, and the ecstatic chorus will stick in your head for a good while after shutting the album off, while even the slightly chaotic verse melody manages to be memorable in its own way.
Finally, closing things out, we have an unusual minute-and-a-half "ditty" in Father of Night, with the best piano riff of the album and some vaguely uncozy yet spiritual lyrics pouring out over it. It really fits the demeanor of the album that Dylan would close with something along these lines - spiritual without being committal, with slight reverence for a higher being but more of a sense of fear and trepidation than anything else. After all, this album is about searching, not discovering.
Anyway, it's dang good. Very downbeat and subdued, even more so than on Selfportrait, but very well-written and resonant as well. It's not as mindblowing as most of Dylan's 60's stuff, but just fine regardless.
ryan boyce (rboyce73@hotmail.com) (7/23/02)
I think this is the perfect album to play on the first snowfall. Quiet,
reflective, pretty. It is also a nice little piano album too.
I actually prefer Dylan's version of "If not for you" to Harrison's. I like
the simple version with the xylophones. Don't get me wrong, George does a
great job.
I first heard "The Man in Me" on the movie "The Big Lebowski." You actually
hear it twice!!
I agree with the rating.
CARPQUIET@aol.com (7/23/02)
I make my debut of reader commenting on this sight with New Morning, a
strange choice, because this, well, is a very strange record. Its not really
country, sorta poppy, I dunno, but it is very good. Any record with "Day of
the Locusts" has gotta be great, and the appearance of the title track and If
Not For You also help this record carry along quite nicely. No real gripes
either, not even with the notorious "If Dogs Run Free." Does anyone else in
the world like this great, funny piece off jazzy piano stuff? I hope so,
because its got scat, and anything with scat has gotta be great, right?
Best song: Final Theme or Knockin' On Heaven's Door
While Bob would end up taking a four year break between "proper" studio albums after New Morning, he also released this soundtrack to a film starring himself in 1973. Since it's mostly instrumental, the vast majority of fans tend to either ignore this or put it down, both of which are serious mistakes. Yes, there's only two actual (by "actual" I mean songs with lyrics) songs on here (one of which is reprised three times, once in instrumental form), with the rest all instrumental, but this hardly turns out to be a fatal flaw. Quite the contrary, actually - without lyrics to "hide" behind, Dylan's composing skills are put front and center, and he shows amply that he is still very strong in this department. In the end, only the fact that the album is quite monotonous (after all, it is just two songs and a bunch of country-western instrumentals) hurts things at all.
So what of these instrumentals? Well, it's like this - Bob proves throughout the album (much as he had in his last couple of albums) that "country-western" does not necessarily have to mean "formulaic" or "boring" or "poorly written." On some of the tracks, Bob contents himself to merely provide solid acoustic foundations that happen to have no lyrics (Cantina Theme, Bunkhouse Theme). On one of them (River Theme), he takes another solid acoustic melody, and overlays some wordless chanting over it for a minute and a half. On another (Main Title Theme), he takes the Billy theme (Billy is one of the two "actual" songs) and plays with its genial melody for six minutes. All good thus far.
The other two instrumentals, though, are where you'll find the most goodness. One of them, Turkey Chase, mixes a banjo with a really clever and interesting fiddle part - if that doesn't intrigue you, then just imagine Bob singing something to the "vocal" melody provided by the fiddle, and you'll feel better. The other, Final Theme, distinguishes as one of the two best tracks on the album, laying a gorgeous recorder melody over some slight acoustic strumming to provide a sort of "minimalist gospel" effect. George Starostin raved about this piece on his site, and I must admit I was slightly skeptical; I shouldn't have been. The theme is tweaked every which way for a good five minutes, and every variation turns out an absolute winner.
As for the actual songs, aside from the aforementioned Billy (which comes in as Billy 1, Billy 4 and Billy 7, all done slightly different from each other), there's the wonderous Knockin' On Heaven's Door. It's confession time - I'd managed to never hear Dylan's original until I listened to this album for reviewing purposes (I only knew a myriad of cover versions). Oops. Suffice it to say that I'm a better person for having heard this version.
Anyway, I'd like to write a longer review, but it's not really possible given the nature of the album. Regardless, though, I'd like oh so much for you to give it a shot - for a mostly-instrumental Dylan album, it's better than one would ever expect.
Best song: Forever Young
Bob's "true" comeback album, with The Band backing him up, isn't as good as one would hope. After listening to PGABTK, it's actually a major disappointment, because Dylan had pulled out so many quality acoustic melodies for that album, while the melodies here are, how can I say it, vague. The sharp, well-defined melodies of New Morning and PG are mostly a thing of the past, replaced with a lot of "atmosphere," only without the sorts of things that had made the Dylan atmosphere so intoxicating in the past. The album was apparently recorded in three days time, and while that's not bad in and of itself (Another Side was recorded in one, remember?), Bob doesn't at this time show the vocal power or charisma that he'd once been able to use to make AS into such a bonafide classic.
Now don't get me wrong, the album's not nasty - except for the stupid, overdone closer (Wedding Song), not a single song is really offensive. But the songs, for the most part, just seem to take up space. There are exceptions, like the first two tracks (the bouncy On a Night Like This, the depressing in a good way Going Going Gone), or Dirge (which mostly stands out because of the nagging, creepy piano line below Dylan's depression lyrics) or the anthemic classic Forever Young (both in its "normal" version and the funny dancey followup), but the album is mostly just one big pile of blah. Too much of it points the way to Dylan's typical 80's work, and that's no compliment - lack of well-defined hooks and lyrics that are just ok and that don't manage to lift the songs on their own are much of what characterize that period.
Anyway, it's no coincidence that this is my shortest Dylan review thus far (I think even Times beat this out) - even the "highlights" aren't strong enough to really make me care. I give the album a six out of ten because, like I said, little on the album actively offends me, and ratings below a six tend to require pissing me off a good deal, but there isn't much to get me excited. That's not to say the album isn't important, though - it did help provide the foundation for Dylan's impending shortlived "comeback."
Peter Jacoby (pjacoby@mbox.com.au) (5/14/03)
I can well remember the impact this album had on me and my fellow Dylan
fans when it came out in 1974, frustrated as we were by his recent
insipid efforts. This was the first time we'd heard him backed by The
Band on a studio album and the combination of Dylan's voice and Robbie
Robertson's guitar on this collection of simple but beautiful love
songs was a revelation to us. We played it to death on our crap little
stereos.
And yet Planet Waves seems to have gone down in history as a bit of a
dud. Oh well....
paul richardson (paulrichardsonbarrister@ntlworld.com) (08/02/07)
Thanks for the effort you have put in to this site. It's not
necessary to agree with the views of others in order to appreciate
them and I have enjoyed reading your reviews (and agrred with most of
them). I would, however, suggest that you give Planet Waves another
chance. The production values are a bit shoddy, but the songs,
including WS are strong and there's a wonderfully lazy country-rock
filthiness (lyrically and musically) to the overall sound that,
whilst clearly not classic Dylan, can really suck you in. These are
love songs about "dirty blonde hair" where the highest compliment you
can pay a woman is to not be ashamed of her anywhere. Yet along side
them you've got the desperately painful love of Dirge and WS. Add to
that the plaintive tones/uplifting anthemic qualities of Forever
Young (depending on which version) and haven't you got a near
classic...
Best song: I Shall Be Released
An aural record of the first nostalgia tour in rock, this isn't actually bad at all. The main disadvantage for a Dylan fan, as you might infer from the credit to Bob Dylan and The Band, is that 8 of the tracks on the album are Band songs (though one of them is a Dylan cover), but even that doesn't particularly drag down the album. The seven Band originals on here aren't really enough to instantly make me a raving Band fan, but they sure aren't enough to turn me off from the band either. They get a little samey after a while, but I have nothing against The Weight, and I find myself enjoying the initial Up On Cripple Creek quite a bit, so whatever. In retrospect, it might have been a good idea to put the performance of The Band on a separate live album, as the flow of the album is disrupted far too significantly, but this isn't a crippling injury to Flood.
Besides, how angry can I be with The Band's presence when they contribute the best performance on the entire album? Their cover of Dylan's I Shall Be Released (the original was never released on any Dylan studio album, but is available on compilations - The Band's version was found on their debut) is by far the most stirring, emotionally resonant performance on the whole 2-CD set. It has a sort of sad Gospelish vibe to it, combining majesty with honest self-examination as only Dylan can, yet the vocals of the Band member who sings it manage to give it even more weeping power than even Dylan probably could have pulled off.
Band or no, though, it's Dylan's songs (with Band backing, of course) that give the album as high of a rating as it gets. There are no Waves songs, thank goodness, and the vibe of the concert couldn't possibly be further away from that album. Perhaps Dylan was overdoing it just to make sure to get the point across, that he was back and "ready to rock," but his vocals are really in energetic overdrive throughout the album. Sure, the backing performances of The Band are good enough (not spectacular, but certainly competent, albeit with too many synthesizers), but it's Dylan that really provides the "live note" here. The opening Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine and Highway 61 Revisited demonstrate this in particular, with Dylan bellowing out lines at the right times, while Ballad of a Thin Man has more of a high intensity running throughout than any particular line standing out. Even something like Lay Lady Lay, orginally a soft country ballad, comes close to being a balls-out rocker in this context.
It Ain't Me Babe, Don't Think Twice (It's Alright) and It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) also really stand out as highlights, especially the latter with certain lines working the audience into a frenzy. And hey, you really can't go wrong with Like A Rolling Stone or All Along the Watchtower, even if the latter is more along the lines of Hendrix's cover than Dylan's mystical original (then again, I guess that cozy mysticism doesn't translate well to live performance, so that's forgivable).
Not all the performances are spectacular (Blowin' the Wind slightly drags, Knockin' on Heaven's Door is only good instead of brilliantly cathartic, and Rainy Day Women doesn't have the richness that made it so interesting orignally), but even the ones that aren't breathtaking are entertaining at worst. I put off getting this album for a long time, assuming that the presence of so many Band songs would automatically render the album bad, but that was a mistake - it is indeed very good, and while you should definitely only look for it at a discount, you should seek it out. Quality is quality, after all.
Best song: Simple Twist Of Fate
There is no less envious situation for a web-reviewer than when a good album is overrated. You see, I like Blood on the Tracks a lot - it's an exceptionally good album, and almost certainly among the top 5% I'll ever hear in my life - and the rating I've given the album certainly bears this out. But unfortunately, this is one of those albums I'm not allowed to just like a lot; no, I have to love it, consider it one of the ten best albums ever made, the peak of Dylan's career, etc etc. Hence, I know that, inevitably, somebody is gonna flame my ass into the ground for daring to suggest that BOTT isn't the greatest artistic achievement of the XXth century. But, I volunteered for this treacherous assignment, so I guess the problem is mine and nobody else's. Sigh.
The thing that jumps at me most with regard to this album is that, in more than a couple of ways, it's sort of a "Cliff Notes" version of "classic" Dylan. The country-western experiment has finally ended, and the general sound of the instrumentation is essentially a slightly "richer" version of Dylan's Freewheeling sound, with some tasteful keyboard, bass and drums arrangements augmenting Dylan's acoustic and harmonica parts. The lyrics are sophisticated and untrivial, yet without the psycho mystifications that occupied so many of his best 60's albums. Likewise, the thematics are emotional and introspective, much like they've always been with Dylan, but it's usually much easier to figure out what Dylan's singing about on first listen than it was before.
Now, I can very easily understand the argument that all of these things are for the better. For lack of a better way to put it, Blood is a VERY "commercial" album (not really meant in a bad way) - he's basically taken what he does well, distilled it for the general populace (ie those who are really confused by calling Mr. Jones a cow), and produced a melodically strong album with some "traditional" Dylan trappings. The result is an album with some catchiness, some lyrical depth, a lot of emotion, and some retro values for those who had missed Dylan the last few years. In other words, he made an album basically designed to be loved and rabidly worshipped by millions of fans to this very day, even by some who aren't necessarily huge Dylan fans. In short, a classic.
So you are probably wondering by now what the hell my problem is, why I've rated this below Blonde o
Carlo
Bob Dylan - 1962 Columbia
8 (11)
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - 1963 Columbia
9 (15)
The Times They Are A-Changin' - 1964 Columbia
5 (8)
Another Side Of Bob Dylan - 1964 Columbia
9 (13)
Live 1964 - 2004 Columbia
9 (12)
Bringing It All Back Home - 1965 Columbia
9 (13)
I saw Dylan on Valentine's Day a couple of years ago, and he did "Love Minus
Zero" and it killed me and moved me to tears. His guitarist played pedal
steel on that track.
Ryan
Highway 61 Revisted - 1965 Columbia
9 (15)
*Blonde On Blonde - 1966 Columbia*
10 (15)
Later
Live 1966 - 1998 Columbia
8 (12)
The Basement Tapes - 1975 Columbia
6 (9)
John Wesley Harding - 1968 Columbia
9 (14)
Nashville Skyline - 1969 Columbia
8 (11)
Selfportrait - 1970 Columbia
8 (11)
New Morning - 1970 Columbia
8 (12)
Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid - 1973 Columbia
7 (11)
Planet Waves - 1974 Columbia
6 (9)
Before The Flood (Bob Dylan And The Band) - 1975 Columbia
7 (11)
Blood On The Tracks - 1975 Columbia
9 (13)