It’s difficult for me to listen to this album as anything more than as an interesting one-off. Though excellent, it’s so far out of character for Dylan. Nowhere does he throw acid or even point fingers–his love songs are largely free of suspicion and fatalism. He even sings differently. It’s no doubt because of this that the album became one of his greatest commercial successes. And while it’s fun to hear Bob Dylan write and sing country songs, the album’s 27 minute length seems to know that the novelty would only last so long, ending before the joke gets old. It’s a wise decision, and one that legend tells would be forgotten on Dylan’s next album as he tried to repeat it.
Month: March 2012
Record #56: Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding (1967)
1967 was a year that saw a great deal of experimentation in rock music. Pink Floyd released Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which had a strong influence on the psychedelic turns on Sgt. Pepper and The Who Sell Out. Even Brian Wilson was flexing his muscles with his ambitious Smile project.
Bob Dylan, meanwhile, took back his acoustic guitar and focused on a more functional style of songwriting.
Record #55: Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde, 1966
According to Wikipedia, Blonde on Blonde is the final album in what is largely considered to be his Rock Trilogy. When I read that, I was shocked that I hadn’t noticed it before. While Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited have always struck me as different sides of the same coin, Blonde on Blonde seemed a different monster altogether.
Record #54: Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Despite his affirmation of Highway 61’s significance as the trotting grounds of country blues legends, this album ends up being just as ironically titled as Bringing It All Back Home, on which Dylan brought just about nothing “Home,” but fled from his roots in a fury of rock bands and surrealism. In many ways, Highway 61 Revisited is Home’s Amnesiac–a further exposition on a previous album that had more to say than one groundbreaking album could say. Continue reading