About the Album:
“In 1965 and 1966, Bob Dylan went on a creative sprint that has never been matched. Over the course of fourteen months, Dylan recorded Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited – and then capped it off with Blonde on Blonde,” TL “arguably the finest record of the decade.” CQ
Double Album
This has been called “rock’s first significant double album.” TL Paste magazine’s Matt Mitchell goes so far as to call it “the greatest double album ever made.” PM He says, “Dylan was at the height of his powers in every sense of the term” and that “Blonde on Blonde is massive in scale and execution.” PM He also says it “should be credited with re-inventing the language of rock ‘n’ roll, as it remains miraculously taut and marvelously triumphant.” PM
Still, “like famous double albums to come, there is some debate this would have made a better single album set. Trouble is, too many good songs for two sides of vinyl, maybe not enough good songs for four sides.” AD
Moving Forward
The album captures a weary Dylan, “a pill-popping rock star who was sick of playing star, wary of hangers-on, and more than willing to spew bile at anyone in his way.” EW’93 This captures that, “complete with careening music that bites as hard as his words.” EW’93 Earlier that year, Dylan had been booed at the Newport Folk Festival when “he dared to brandish an electric guitar.” RV “Fans couldn’t take the idea of their idol..debasing himself before the false gods of money and fame.” CC His “hostile reaction created a rift between the artist and his audience. Instead of falling apart from the subsequent anxiety, Dylan’s recordings and performances became all the more galvanized, leading to the zenith of his career.” RV
“Both the folk messiah and the prophet of folk rock are here, finding a middle ground that surpasses even Highway 61 Revisited’s accomplished symbiosis.” RV If that album “played as a garage rock record…Blonde on Blonde inverted that sound, blending blues, country, rock, and folk into a wild, careening, and dense sound.” TL “Blonde on Blonde took Dylan’s modernist poetics and merged them full-on with the electric blues and folk rock he’d so poignantly fleshed out in the year prior.” PM
It “is an album of enormous depth,” AM with “a tense, shimmering tone” TL that “reaches some of Dylan’s greatest heights – which is to say, the very pinnacle of rock.” TL Blonde on Blonde was “the culmination of Dylan’s electric rock & roll period – he would never release a studio record that rocked this hard, or had such bizarre imagery, ever again.” AM
The Lyrics
This album is “the true mark of our greatest lyrical visionary.” PM “Its ever-shifting combinations of intense roots music and sweeping narrative represent storytelling on an extraordinarily high level; some consider it the closet thing in rock to classic literature.” TM It “is comprised entirely of songs driven by inventive, surreal, and witty wordplay, not only on the rockers but also on winding, moving ballads.” TL
“Dylan is having fun…playing with words as much for the way they sound as for what they mean.” JD “Blonde on Blonde embodies the range of human emotions unlike any other album ever released, and it's a tribute to an artist who never stopped evolving.” RV
The Music
“The music matches the inventiveness of the songs, filled with cutting guitar riffs, liquid organ riffs, crisp pianos, and even woozy brass bands.” AM Dylan was moving toward “leaving coffee bars behind forever…to bring country into rock & roll.” BL It was “a brilliant tour through the music of America past, present and future, touching on everything from Chicago blues to country waltzes to New Orleans marches, all delivered with a voice that was full of rock ‘n’ roll passion, and the ferocity, scorn and lust of a man at the end of his rope.” JD
In Howard Sounes’ Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, organist Al Kooper said, “Nobody has ever captured the sound of 3 a.m. better than that album… even Sinatra, gets it as good.” JD Dylan said, “The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold.” CM
The Recording of the Album
Blonde was recorded over three months in 1966, first in New York and then in Nashville. The New York sessions included work with Dylan’s touring group, The Hawks, who later became The Band. When “he couldn’t seem to find his groove” JD producer Bob Johnston suggested moving the sessions to Nashville, where Dylan, Kooper, and the Hawks’ Robbie Robertson assembled alongside local session musicians. It “was one of the first instances of a rock musician recording in the home of country music with Nashville musicians.” TB They give the album “a more fluid, expansive quality than the harsh folk rock of…Highway 61.” TB
“The bulk of the songs were busked in the studio; Dylan only had shadows of what he wanted.” CC He recorded live in the studio, having musicians “record in a circle, playing off one another during a series of gloriously sloppy extended jams. Most of the 14 tracks were captured on the first or second take, shortly after Dylan finished writing them. ‘The musicians played cards, I wrote out a song, we’d do it, they’d go back to their game and I’d write out another song,’ the artist said in 1968.” JD
The Songs
The album “veer[s] wildly between the silly, the serious and the surreal – sometimes all in the same song.” JD Some songs “borrow the surreal imagery and character types of the subdued ‘Desolation Row,’ and set them to up-tempo, glowing arrangements of harmonica, guitars, and swirling organs.” CQ “But if there is one recurring theme at its heart, it isn't politics or spirituality (the topics the folkie purists hoped the sage would tackle), but something much more familiar yet elusive.” JD
Here’s thoughts on each of the songs individually.
“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”
The first track, Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, “epitomizes the album” JD with its “absurdist title” JD and “a delightfully ragged march.” JD With “its carnival sound and saloon atmosphere” CQ it is “the most off-kilter piece in the Dylan canon.” TB “The loose feel was achieved by forcing all of the musicians to switch off from their regular instruments.” JD
“The song is at once a devilishly playful and unapologetic pro-drug anthem (one of rock’s first, and most daring for the time, with its recurring refrain of ‘Everybody must get stoned’); a sarcastic and cautionary tale of how society demonizes outsiders and rebels.” JDHowever, while “the often-misunderstood lyrics connote for many listeners the drug culture of the late ‘60s…[the] song actually has more to do with the way women drag men through the mud no matter what they do.” RV
“Pledging My Time”
Pledging My Time “is a fine blues influenced song, very accomplished and featuring some great harmonica and guitar work.” AD This and “Absolutely Sweet Marie” are some of Dylan’s “most accessible songs.” CM
“Visions of Johanna”
“The achingly beautiful Visions of Johanna” CQ “captures the atmosphere of New York after midnight, mixing surreal images…with specific scenes.” CM This “is Dylan’s heartache put to music, telling of the pain brought on after he and fellow folk hero Joan Baez went their separate ways.” RV “A romantic masquerading as a cynic, Dylan approaches the concept of love from several different angles, equating eroticism with spiritual transcendence.” JD
“The song encompasses the timeless dilemma of when it’s all right to finally move on – the narrator must choose between a woman who loves him and the images of the woman who conquers his mind. Dylan’s heartfelt poetry may be unmatched by any other song in his catalogue. The single line ‘Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?’ stands as one of the most beautiful images Dylan has ever written.” RV
It also features “the finest set of vocals Bob ever laid down.” AD The song is “dreamy and strangely romantic” AD and features “Bob’s symbolism and imagery rich lyrics.” AD In the book 25 Albums That Rocked the World!, Patrick Humphries called this “the masterpiece of the set.” CC
“One of Us Must Know”
Robbie Robertson’s “questing guitar animates One of Us Must Know,” TM which “is a bitter farewell played out against desolate landscapes beneath glowering, leaden skies.” CC It “was considered something of a failure upon single release, but only because it followed ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and the mighty ‘Positively Fourth Street.’ It’s still a fine song, bordering on classic status. The chorus is very strong and memorable, even if the song as whole isn't quite as good as the aforementioned two classics.” AD
“I Want You”
We hear Dylan “pleading for satisfaction like a clumsy, hormone-crazed teen in I Want You.” JD It “has such a happy little melody that when married to Bob’s amazing sounding lyrics is practically guaranteed to make you smile.” AD
“Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”
“Dylan’s infamous enigmatic poetry shines more than ever in inscrutable Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, topping even the rambling ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues.’” RV Dylan induces “images even the Bard couldn't have created.” RV This “is kaleidoscopic, a twirling, twisting – rich sounding seven-minute-plus track that fails to be boring for even a single second. Another fine vocal performance.” AD
This is “another of those great Dylan songs about places. Few American songwriters have conveyed the space and variety of their nation as well as Dylan…He manages to convey the full awfulness of being marooned in Mobile, Alabama, buring with the blues from Memphis, Tennessee.” CC
“Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat”
This is “quite a funny song lyrically and a fantastic blistering guitar solo enlivens proceedings no end when it arrives shortly after the two minute mark.” AD This and “Rainy Day Women” are “some of his funniest songs.” CM This and “Just Like a Woman” are supposedly about “Edie Sedgwick, a model for pop art wizard Andy Warhol.” RV
“Just Like a Woman”
“Most of the songs on Blonde on Blonde attack or praise women in some way.” RV We hear Dylan “giving up with near-misogynistic disgust in Just Like a Woman.” JD The song serves up a “litany of selfish, sexist slurs.” CC It “incurred the wrath of feminist groups around the country for the line ‘she breaks just like a little girl.’” RV
Critic Adrian Denning, however, calls this “another display of a sweeter Bob Dylan. A Bob Dylan love song. It’s just as good as ‘I Want You’ if not slightly better.” AD “The lyrics describe Sedgwick as fully-embodied woman who feels and loves with strength, but somehow can’t keep it together.” RV
“Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine”
Dylan displays “comic resignation in Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine.” JD It “is another galloping rhythm ala Highway 61 Revisited although without the cowboy feel this time round. Another classic song.” AD “Dylan sounds like a veteran bandleader prodding hes crew for the evening’s last big push.” TM
“Temporary Like Achilles”
“Lovely piano introduces the start of Temporary Like Achilles.” AD That song and “Obv iously 5 Believers” “sounded like Bob Dylan trying to ape the Bob Dylan of a year before.” CC
“Absolutely Sweet Marie”
This and “Most Likely” “rock along best without much scrutiny.” CC While this does “nothing wrong in itself would be another track that may have made way if this had been a single rather than a double album release.” AD
“4th Time Around”
This “is a another delight with beautifully delicate guitar going round and round and another fine Dylan vocal.” AD It is “an engaging rewrite of the Beatles ‘Norwegian Wood,’ which had appeared on Rubber Soul six months before.” CC
“Obviously 5 Believers”
“Most Likely” and “the slightly lightweight if bouncily enjoyable” AD Obviously 5 Believers “sound like natural, more polished and eclectic extensions of earlier blues rockers like ‘From a Buick 6.’” CQ “To call a song this good filler is to do an injustice to it…But, if we are talking in terms of an album listening experience, from beginning to end, then it comes across as a song too many.” AD
“Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”
Dylan summons “his full powers of poetry as a tool for seduction in” JD “the sprawling Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” CQ which Paste magazine’s Matt Mitchell calls “the greatest song Bob Dylan has ever penned.” PM Dylan sounds “as world-weary as Humphrey Bogart in the neon-lit Rick’s Bar in Casablanca, as Ilsa quits him, again.” CC
It is “impossibly beautiful” AD and “another great vocal performance on an album full of them.” AD The song “sweetly reveals pieces of Dylan’s relationship” CQ with his new bride, Sara, Lowndes, “who would later inspire the spiteful songs that inhabit Blood on the Tracks,” RV which as often been called his “divorce album.” Here, though, Dylan is “describing Sara as saint-like with silky skin, a mercurial mouth and soulful eyes, and he pledges his undying devotion to her.” RV
The song’s epic 11-minute run time, “then the longest popular song on record,” TB was unheard of to the Nashville musicians who were “used to playing on tw-minute country tracks.” TB Drummer Kenny Buttrey said, “It went on and on…We’d never heard anything like this before.” TB
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