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