Blonde On Blonde (1966)

How do you follow something as sublime as Highway 61 Revisited? You come up with Blonde On Blonde, that's how. If hairs are to be split, this 1966 LP sits slightly below Highway 61 in my personal top ten of Dylan releases but for any other artist this would be a career defining work. Originally a double-LP, this album has more quality on it than you'll find in a hundred dollar U2 box set.

*Quibble alert* 

I'll get this out the way now. After banging on about the fantastic way Dylan's last two LPs opened - I don't like the choice of opening track on Blonde On Blonde. I like the song. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 is a good song, it's just not right for the LP. Not an LP that has Visions of Johanna, I Want You, Just Like A Woman AND Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Rainy Day Women is a fine bawdy sing-along but it is fronting an album of real gentle beauty. It's not right. The track would be much more suited for the Basement Tapes or even just lower down in the track listing here.

I'd even go so far as to say that Pledging My Time (also a very good song) could do with moving down a track or two as well. Opening with those two -  while Visions of Johanna  is waiting for you at track three - is like waking on Christmas morning and having to play with the nuts and the chocolate orange in your stocking when you know there's a guitar shaped present sitting under the tree. 

*Quibble over*

The beauty of this LP is that once you've opened the guitar shaped present, there's another gift to open behind it, and another and another until you get to the one that looks suspicious like a hoverboard and, it turns out, it is. The hoverboard, of course, is Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and I promise we shall pursue this analogy no further.

Visions of Johanna is, perhaps, Dylan at his lyrical finest. "Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet." Just perfect. Sad Eyed Lady - a lyrically beautiful paean to wife Sara - is not far behind. Dylan will continue to write lyrics streets ahead of (nearly) every other artist over the next forty years but I don't think he ever tops the writing here.

That said, I have been wrestling with this line: 

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss

What, exactly, is a geranium kiss and would one know if they had received one?

Side three is a delight - Most Likely You Go Your Way, Temporary Like Achilles, Absolutely Sweet Marie, 4th Time Around, Obviously Five Believers - none of these would feature in a Mojo Magazine style top 10 Dylan song list but each are well worth their place on a wonderful LP.

Recorded at the time that the whole Dylan turning electric 'Judas' hoo-ha was swirling around it is a remarkable piece in many ways. Simply as a musical piece it stands out but coming on the back of Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisted it forms the last piece of a trilogy unrivaled in rock. It also marks the end of a phase of Dylan's career; perhaps the most important stage of his career - not just for the music produced but for the profound influence it had on popular music as a whole. Am I over-egging the pudding? No, I don't think so, it is a damn eggy pudding.

It's been a pleasure listening to this over and over again this week. Let's move on - careful riding that motorbike now.

Out of five?

Five.

Favourite track?

Visions Of Johanna

Next up?

John Wesley Harding

Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

This is a very special album. To say there isn't a duff track here is to do the record a spectacular disservice. Every single song is worth its place on one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time and some of them rank up there with the finest songs ever written. Ever. Like A Rolling Stone, Ballad of a Thin Man, Desolation Row, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, Highway 61 Revisited - good god, what more do you want?

From Times They Are A-Changin' to Another Side to Bringing It All Back Home to this, Dylan's growth as a songwriter is something to behold. If the strides made from Another Side to BIABH were remarkable, the leap to Highway 61 is something else. A number of the tracks from BIABH  - and this is said without the slightest hint of criticism - wouldn't have sounded too out of place if they'd have appeared on the Freewheelin'. Try to transpose any of the material on this LP to an earlier time and it'd stick out like the sorest of thumbs.

Lyrically, Dylan continues to move onwards and upwards in a league of his own and now, musically, he's at a pace. With the exception of Subterranean Homesick Blues (which in some ways sits closer stylistically to this LP than the the one on which it appears), the songs on the 'electric' side of Bringing It All Back Home often have the feel of Dylan plus backing musicians. Here Dylan and the band (not, The Band, not yet anyway) come together as one. It feels whole. Al Kooper's organ provides an exceptional motif throughout but the guitar of Mike Bloomfield and Paul Griffin's piano both add some gorgeous layers to already beautiful songs.

If the last one had one hell of an opening, this one is none too shabby either. A crack of the snare drum and off we go, Like a Rolling Stone.  The greatest song ever written? If there is such a thing then it's up there. One of the most important? Certainly. Am I answering my own questions? Yes.

Lyrically this is spectacular. Desolation Row is the exemplar but every song brings moments of brilliance. 

“The sun’s not yellow it’s chicken”

The cast of characters in Ballad of a Thin Man or Tombstone Blues alone create a narrative that elevate the lyrics to poetry 

"The geometry of innocence flesh on the bone
Causes Galileo’s math book to get thrown
At Delilah who sits worthlessly alone
But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter

Now I wish I could give Brother Bill his great thrill
I would set him in chains at the top of the hill
Then send out for some pillars and Cecil B. DeMille
He could die happily ever after"

and Highway 61 Revisited gives the best biblical story retelling in rock:

"God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61”

Personal favourite is the first line of Tombstone Blues which would be relatively mundane but somehow are made intriguing by the addition of the last two words:

"The sweet pretty things are in bed now, of course"

OK, that bit isn't exactly Lear but tickles me every time. And we would be here all night if I started on Desolation Row.

Ultimately LPs don't get much better than this. Lyrically, musically, this is great and, historically, a seminal album to boot. There's nothing to criticise or debate here. 

Oh, apart from the sleeve notes. They're a lot of nonsense.
 

Out of five?

Five.

Favourite track?

(With all the caveats about Like a Rolling Stone) Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Next up?

Blonde on Blonde.