Dylan Album Project: Blonde on Blonde

Blonde On Blonde (1966)

As far as I know, this was the first double album in rock, and it was certainly the first double album by a mainstream artist. White it is, like the best double albums, a hodge-podge of styles, there is nothing so experimental as, say, “Revolution No. 9,” which means that the album isn’t marred by any obvious failures. Some days “Obviously Five Believers” seems a bit repetitive, “Pledging My Time” is plodding, or the side-long “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” a bit overly indulgent, but then “Temporary Like Achilles,” “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” or “Visions of Johanna” comes on and all is forgiven. While it isn’t my favorite of Dylan’s electric albums, it certainly does feature the apex of what he called his “thin, wild mercury sound,” that melancholy joy that rises up from the swamp of organ when the guitar lines pierce through it. Sadly, this was the first album since Freewheelin’ not to have self-penned liner notes filled with strange visions. Instead, the gatefold cover featured a long picture of Dylan in a coat – the same coat he’d wear on John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline – and the inside pictured what seemed to be people at a party, though the pictures of the women at the party disappeared after the album’s initial pressing.

Best Song: (Sooner or Later) One of Us Must Know – The first of the album’s five singles, and its second least successful, “One of Us Must Know” was the only song cut in New York, though it is believed that a minority of The Band plays on it. The song seems to change its attitude every few bars, alternately seething, sweet, bitter and bucolic.

Worst Song: Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 – This song isn’t so bad as it is silly. It features some interesting, complex chords that Dylan wouldn’t use again until “Love and Theft.” Also, I still contend that, at least on one level, it is about stoning sinners to death, which is a more interesting interpretation than that it is about weed. Whatever it is about, the party-like atmosphere seems a bit sardonic, as though Dylan is really saying no one should get stoned. I have heard two potentially apocryphal stories about this song’s formulation, so I will combine them here. A 35-year old woman who was kind of obsessed with Dylan tried to break into Columbia Studio A in Nashville, where recording was taking place. She had brought her 12-year old daughter with her, and both of them were stoned out of their minds. Supposedly, Dylan was annoyed and angrily had security escort them out before writing this song about how all stoned people want you to be stoned too. To record it, he decided it would be interesting if he just described the chord progression then got them high and had them attempt to play on an instrument they weren’t very familiar with. The musicians, who were normally a bunch of straits but who had smoked up for the session, fiddled around for awhile on the instruments. When one asked Dylan when they were going to make a real attempt at the song. Dylan told them they had just recorded it. He overdubbed his vocals later. I think this story is false for two reasons: Dylan doesn’t really do overdubs and though the song sounds sloppy it sounds too intentionally sloppy for it to be because it is a bunch of baked stiffs who don’t know their instruments. That said, funny story, and the first half might be true.

Best Outtake: She’s Your Lover Now – This is from the early aborted sessions Dylan did with The Band. No complete takes of the song exist from those sessions. As soon as a note was flubbed, Dylan broke down the whole thing. This version breaks down halfway through the last verse. By the time Dylan decided The Band was not a good match for him in the studio, he was more excited by the other new material he was working on. It’s a shame, too, because this may have been the best song on Blonde On Blonde and I’m sure it would have been featured in each category below. By the time The Band would finally work with Dylan in the studio on a project that saw release, several of the songs would be half-cooked and most of the arrangements would underestimate The Band’s abilities.

Notable live rendition: Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat – In Dylan’s 1966 sets the acoustic half of the show featured seven songs, including three from the as-yet-unreleased Blonde On Blonde and none from before he went electric. The electric set featured some songs off of his acoustic albums refigured in order to piss off the folkies who were booing him. Then there was this, the one song off of “Blonde On Blonde” to show up on those lists, and Robbie Robertson tears up the lead guitar in all its ragged, barrelhouse glory.

Rhymes: freeze/sneeze/jeez/knees; showed/corrode/flowed/road/owed/loads/explodes (1-2 from “Visions of Johanna”); interrupt/cup (“I Want You”); debutante/want (“Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again”); see/me/Marie/be/penitentiary/agree/key/company/balcony (“Absolutely Sweet Marie”)

Images: “jelly-faced women;” “the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face;” (1-2 from “Visions of Johanna”); “your scorpion who crawls across your circus floor” (“Temporary Like Achilles”); “geranium kiss;” “sheet metal memory of Cannery Row” (4-5 from “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”)

Axioms: “Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues” (“Visions of Johanna”); “The preacher looked so baffled when I asked him why he dressed with twenty pounds of headlines stapled to his chest” (“Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again”); “Baby can’t be blessed ‘til she finally sees that she’s like all the rest” (“Just Like A Woman”); “I’m helpless, like a rich man’s child” (“Temporary Like Achilles”); “To live outside the law you must be honest” (“Absolutely Sweet Marie”)

Dylan Album Project: Highway 61 Revisited

Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Many critics say this is Dylan’s best album. It is always in the top three in “professional” rankings. I can’t say I agree with that, but I can say it is Dylan’s most rocking album. Over half the songs are considered “classics,” which is more than most albums can say. It is strong throughout, musically diverse and has Dylan pulling out all of his cards, but it is neither as coherent nor as diffuse as some of his other, for me stronger, albums.

Best song: Tombstone Blues – I’m certainly insane for not picking “Like A Rolling Stone,” but I don’t mind. I loved that song on Bob Dylan’s greatest hits, but in the ensuing decades since that first Dylan CD, I’ve heard it so many times that, while I still enjoy it, it rarely moves me. This song, though, is batshit insane and as manic as it gets. Not only that, you get some nice Biblical allusions thrown in for good measure.

Worst song: It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry – Another album where there aren’t really any bad songs. This one is just the least awesome.

Best outtake: Positively 4^th Street – The ultimate put-down song, and definitely the one with the best organ line. Usually I prefer Dylan’s songs that compound fantastically improbably imagery, but with this one I just like how much “I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You’d know what a drag it is to see you” stings.

Notable live rendition: Desolation Row – from Live 1966. The song, so relective and so resigned to ruin, needs to be acoustic. The pacing and phrasing is gorgeous on this rendition. Dylan creates a village inhabited by a motley crew of familiar characters gone awry. Where else would you find the Good Samaritan keeping company with Ezra Pound? This is on the short list for Dylan’s best song.

Rhymes: juiced in it/used to it (“Like A Rolling Stone”); sick in/chicken (“Tombstone Blues”); imagination/organizations (“Ballad of a Thin Man”); plastic/drastic (“Queen Jane Approximately”)

Images: “she violently knits a bald wig;” “jawbones on their tombstones” (1-2 from “Tombstone Blues”); “junkyard angel” (“From A Buick 6”); “[Einstein] went off sniffing drain piped and reciting the alphabet” (“Desolation Row”); “a plainclothesman busts everyone for being incredible” (liner notes)

Axioms: “The sun’s not yellow; it’s chicken” (“Tombstone Blues”); “Something’s happening here and you don’t know what it is” (“Ballad of a Thin Man”); “Her sin is her lifelessness” (“Desolation Row”); “Lifelessness is the Great Enemy & always wears a hipguard;” “you are lucky – you don’t have to think about such things as eye & rooftops & quazimodo.” (4-5 from the liner notes)

Wooly Bully

Today my daughter discovered "Wooly Bully," and a giggle fit ensued. She hadn't heard the song, but the sheer silliness of the phrase had her in stitches. Being the good dad that I am, I tried to find her a video on youtube, figuring it had been performed on Ed Sullivan or something. This is what I came across:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHF558u6Q_8

I knew Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs had some sexist, albeit clever, lyrics in their other bit hit, "Lil Red Riding Hood," I had no idea they performed in such stereotypical get-ups. I'm sure their outfits weren't seen as insensitive or racist at the time, but they should would be now. Sam really is a bit of a sham.

Dylan Album Project: Bringing It All Back Home

Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

And he’s back. Bringing It All Back Home is the first is what is usually seen as Dylan’s trilogy of electric albums, which many see as the peak of his career. This is usually seen as the weakest, but I see it as the strongest. I also think it is stronger than the two albums that proceeded it. The performances are sharp. The lyrics are, in turns, wild, romantic, bohemian, apocalyptic…. The album’s first side – the electric side – features a number of classics, both those that are recognized (“Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Maggie’s Farm”) and those that are perennially underrated (“Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream,” “On the Road Again”). There is little to no filler. The same can be said for the acoustic side two, which from the start of “Mr. Tambourine Man” to the end of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” is among the most surreal and visionary music ever recorded. Its four songs are mystical journeys. “Gates of Eden” is the least regarded of these, even though it would be a gem in anyone else’s catalog.

Best song: Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream – Dylan’s reimagining of the founding of America conflates Melville’s Moby Dick with conquistador culture and sets the whole thing in contemporary New York. The result is a triumphant mindfuck that leaves me bewildered every time.

Worst song: She Belongs To Me – All of the songs on this album are worthwhile, but two stuck out as subpar, at least for me. This and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Both are plodding without enough surprises to hold interest beyond a few listens. “It’s All Over Now” is more complex though, more layered than this semi-simple love song.

Best outtake: If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Gotta Stay All Night) – A playful, teasing song that is, lyrically anyway, as close as Bob gets to Prince. A sly come on with a wry wink to it. An alternate version was released as a sing in mainland Europe in 1967.

Best live rendition: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – London, England, 1965 was arguably the definitive performance. This song is an all-encompasing rant. Dylan spits phrases like venom and sears the national character as he does so. More than any other song in his catalog, this probably change the vernacular of spoken English. Sheffield may be impossible to find, but Manchester isn’t. The other option is to watch Dont Look Back and imagine the rest of the song after the camera cuts away.

Rhymes: manhole/candle/sandals/scandals/vandals/handles (“Subterranean Homesick Blues”); pants/France (“Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream”); attached/badge (“Gates of Eden”); fire/ choir/ pliers/ higher; seen/guillotine (4-5 from “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”)

Images: “conclusions on the wall” (“Love Minus Zero/No Limit”); “Utopian hermit monks sidesaddle on the Golden calf” (“Gates of Eden”); “flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark;” “bent out of shape from society’s pliers” (“It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”); “drawing crazy patterns on your sheets” (“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”)

Axioms: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (“Subterranean Homesick Blues”); “Everybody wants you to be just like them” (“Maggie’s Farm”); “he not busy being born is busy dying;” “money doesn’t talk; it swears” (3-4 from “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding”); “I accept chaos. I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” (liner notes)

Dylan Album Project: Another Side of Bob Dylan

Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

Just as many consider Times They Are A-Changin’ to be Dylan’s most political album, many consider Another Side to be Dylan’s most introspective album, focusing on emotional turmoil more than anything else. Often times it is also seen as a denouncement of politics. “My Back Pages” certainly is the denouncement of demagoguery, and “It Ain’t Me, Babe” may be Dylan breaking up with the folkies, though it is just as easily about a girl. “Chimes of Freedom” still features political engagement, though, and so do “Motorpsycho Nitemare” and “I Shall Be Free No. 10.” They may be ironic, but Dylan isn’t praising Fidel Castro’s beard for nothing. While Another Side is and isn’t introspective, is and isn’t political, there is little debate over Dylan’s sloppiness. The whole album was recorded in one beaujolais-soaked day. 15 songs were recorded and 11 made the final cut. They are all filled with flubbed chords. “Motorpsycho Nitemare” is completely arrhythmic and “I Shall Be Free No. 10” was so far off the mark that an attempt to save it by splicing together several takes ultimately proved fruitless. If not Dylan’s worst album to date, this at least included his worst performances.

Best song: Spanish Harlem Incident – A beautiful song about a fleeting affair. This song is filled with phantoms of ideal lovers and a bit of gypsy magic.

Worst song: All I Really Wanna Do – Dylan himself said that “Ballad In Plain D,” another track on Another Side, is the worst song he ever wrote. He also said it’s the only autobiographical song he ever wrote, and it is certainly a straight up expose of his breakup with Suze Rotolo. Still, this song, perhaps an attempt at remaining friends, is much worse. Its as gushy as a Hallmark card and twice as silly.

Best outtake: I’m not big on a lot of the overplayed hits (if that wasn’t already obvious), but I do find it pretty amazing that Dylan wrote “Mr. Tambourine Man” and then sat on it for nearly a year before rerecording it for Bringing It All Back Home. This version features a harmony vocal from Ramblin’ Jack Elliot on the choruses.

Best live version: Whenever you read a recent review of a Dylan concert, unsuspecting newspaper reporters are always shocked to find that Dylan has rewritten many of his songs into completely different styles. News Flash: Dylan has been doing this almost since the beginning. When Dylan toured England in 1966, for the acoustic half of his set he performed mostly songs that hadn’t been released yet, or which had been released as electric rock songs. The second, electric half of the set was half made up of old acoustic tunes reworked into hard rock. The most (in)famous of these early rewrites, and deservingly so since it rocks, was “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met).” The version from Royal Albert Hall released on Live 1966, the same concert where a fan likened Dylan to Judas for playing electric, is particularly fierce.

Rhymes: simplify/classify/defy/crucify; analyze/categorize/finalize/advertise (1-2 from “All I Really Wanna Do”); nineteen/spleen (“I Shall Be Free No. 10); Rita/ La Dolce Vita; jerkin’/ Tony Perkins (4-5 from “Motorpsycho Nitemare”)

Images: “your pearly eyes, so fast and slashing;” “the cliffs of your wildcat charms” (1-2 from “Spanish Harlem Incident); “majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sound;” “the sky cracked its poems in naked wonder” (3-4 from “Chimes of Freedom”); “your magnetic movements still capture the minutes” (“To Ramona”)

Axioms: “Without freedom of speech I might live in the swamp” (“Motorpsycho Nitemare”); “I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now;” “I’d become my enemy in the instant that I preached;” “Good and bad – I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow” (2-4 from “My Back Pages” – in the last, form mirrors content as the words defy clear definition); “every question, if it’s a truthful question, can be answered by askin’ it” (“some other kinds of songs” [liner notes])

Dylan Album Project: The Times They Are A-Changin'

The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964)

After Freewheelin’, this was in many ways a step backwards. Freewheelin’ had a wider scope than most double albums; it created its own world. Times is mostly regarded as a political album. Seven of the albums ten songs, and among them the album’s longest songs, are political in nature, with two of the others being breakup songs and the other one, “Restless Farewell,” being a rewrite of the Irish drinking song “Parting Glass” that seems like a 21+ version of Freewheelin's “Bob Dylan’s Dream,” a sad song about leaving friends behind. While its true that most of the major songs on Times – “With God On Our Side,” “Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” the title track – are political, Dylan’s political songs had become more nuanced and reflected a wider world view. In “Oxford Town” on Freewheelin’, Dylan basically said “look at racism. It sure is bad.” In “Hattie Carroll,” he accepts that racism is bad, he doesn’t need to state it. Instead, he focuses on society’s reaction to it, trusting the justice system to treat Carroll’s murder as a hate crime. It is the justice system that faces the spoken condemnation, not William Zantzinger, the man who murderer her, though the song manages to skewer both. In “Only A Pawn In Their Game” Dylan defends the unnamed Byron de la Beckwith, murderer of Medgar Evers, as being only a scapegoat for institutionalized racism that is perpetuated by the Southern aristocracy so they can keep the poor whites ignorant and thus keep sucking them dry. Dylan’s contention that Beckwith is a product of his times is much more layered than simply saying “shame on you for killing a civil rights leader,” which is what so many of Dylan’s peers were doing. That said, when you leave this album, Dylan expertly makes you feel disheartened and indignant, but only “When the Ship Comes In” imparts the spark of life that was all over Freewheelin’.

Best song: When the Ship Comes In – According to Joan Baez, Dylan rolled into town to be her opening act and, after initially being denied a hotel room due to his scruffy appearance, wrote this as payback in time to sing it at their concert. The song’s righteous anger may only be channeled at some hotel execs in actuality, but it sounds like an indictment of everything wrong with society, and specifically aimed at the old guard, willing to uphold inequality in the name of the almighty dollar, and Dylan calling in Moses to help him drown the swine on a day of joyous revolution.

Worst song: The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Yes, it an anthem. It might be the most anthemic song in Dylan’s whole catalog, but it is also one of the deadest. The problem is that he has all these fantastic ideas – I will gladly admit the song is full of truths – but no imagery to hang them on. Also, the melody is strident but after being overplayed a few thousand times it is stridently boring.

Best Outtake: Moonshiner – This may have been the only cover recorded at the Times sessions, but it is has one of Dylan’s great vocal performances. Dylan has a fondness for songs about bootlegging, and this harkens to that tradition. He also has a haunting performance on “Copper Kettle” from Self Portrait and a spirited jaunt on “Diamond Joe” in the film Masked and Anonymous. Not to mention a rarely heard jovial rollick through “Good Ol’ Mountain Dew” with Johnny Cash. Lots of good bootlegging songs.

Best live rendition: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll – I heard Dylan perform this in Kansas City. It was the highlight of the show and it sounded like a hymn. Gorgeous. Christopher Ricks, professor at Oxford, feels this is the best poem in the English language.

Rhymes: less/Midwest (“With God On Our Side”); shacks/cracks/tracks/pack/back; clinch/lynch (2 and 3, “Only A Pawn In Their Game”); numbered/conquered (“When the Ship Comes In”); caught ‘em/bottom (“Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”)

Images: “screams are stabbin’ you like the dirty drivin’ rain” (“Ballad of Hollis Brown”); “the silent night will shatter” (“One Too Many Mornings”); “the fire in the air, it felt frozen” (“North Country Blues”); “she emptied their ashtrays on a whole ‘nother level” (“Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”); “the dirt of gossip blows into my face” (“Restless Farewell”)

Axioms: “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand” (“The Times They Are A-Changin’”); “If God is on our side, he’ll stop the next war” (“With God On Our Side”); “The poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool” (“Only A Pawn In Their Game”); “a Boston tea party don’t mean the same thing as it did in the newborn years before;” “there’re no depressed words, just depressed minds” (4 and 5 from “11 Outlined Epitaphs” [liner notes])

Ain't No More Cain (sic) on the Brazos

I was listening to the Band's recording of "Ain't No More Cane" this morning. When it comes to traditional material, you can't do much better than the band. They do my favorite versions of both this and "Long Black Veil," which actually sounds much older than it really is. Today was the first time I'd really noticed the line "don't you rise up 'til it's judgment day for sure," though, and it struck me at once that Cane may be working dually here.

I knew "Ain't No More Cane" was an old work song, probably dating back to the early twenties or maybe a little further back. I had always assumed it was a migrant farmer song about the ending of the sugar season ("Ain't no more cane on the [banks of the] Brazos [river.] It's all been ground down to molasses" wails the song's speaker. What I didn't know is that it is also a prison song. After hearing it with fresh ears, I went to The Band's unofficial website where Erin Sebo expertly points out that nearly all of the prisons in Texas are along the Brazos and that the song also uses prison slang, like "bully" and "captain."

Another word that is slang is "Hannah," meaning the sun. It is Hannah who is told not to rise until judgment day is certain, i.e., after the anti-Christ, who may claim that (s)he will bring judgment. Sun here may double as Son -- the speaker could be asking Christ to rise up. In the literal context of the song, though, the speaker is asking the sun not to rise because the day means work, often in the hot fields. And though the sugar is all harvested, some other crop's season may be just around the corner.

All of this seems to beg the question, why sugar cane? It may simply be that "cane" is a literal detail from an autobiographical songwriter. It may be that cane fit the meter best. It may also be because cane carries resonances of Cain. Prisoners are outcasts; they bear the same burden as Cain. It could be that they are identifying with him. "Ain't no more Cain" because they have escaped, but then if they "all got ground down to molasses" they may be dead. This is particularly interesting as molasses is the same color as the tar baby. One may think of Jean Toomer's "Cane" or of the white supremacist belief that black skin is the physical mark of Cain (interestingly enough, racists used this as proof of blacks inferiority and then proceeded to lynch blacks, although God marks Cain as a proscription of vengeance, saying that no one can kill Cain because of his mark).

Whatever associations we may make with cane/Cain, its purpose in the song is to represent labor. The sun also represents labor, as the prison work is done beneath the sun's intense heat. The two are equated. When the speaker tells Old Hannah, or the sun, not to rise until judgment day, the speaker is also telling Cain not to rise until judgment day. I don't have the whole thing worked out yet, but there may indeed be something interesting going on there.