Skip to main content

Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan



Year Released: 1966

Label: Columbia

Year Bought: 2001

"You don't have it? That is perverse! Don't tell anybody you don't own fucking "Blonde on Blonde". It's gonna be okay."

- Barry, High Fidelity

And so, thanks to High Fidelity, I went to HMV on Oxford Street one afternoon in the summer of 2001 and bought Blonde on Blonde.

I already had an early greatest hits collection that spanned Bob Dylan's output up until 1967, but this was my first album by the great man.

Many consider Blonde on Blonde to be the first album - the first time an artist had thought about the coherence of a record as a singular art form, instead of a collection of songs. It is also thought to be the first double album - although the CD version that I have erases that presentation. 

Recorded in Nashville by someone who was more at home in New York, Blonde is Blonde is seen as the final record in Dylan's folk rock trilogy - after Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.

Why does Jack Black's character in High Fidelity think it's perverse not to own this album?

Because it's fucking great. It has Dylan being funny, poetic, cheeky, nonsensical, romantic, free-wheelin', philosophical, optimistic, nihilistic, ambitious, traditional - sometimes all in the same song.

'Rainy Day Women Nos 12 & 35' opens the album,  kicking off with a marching band drum evoking the American past, before descending into shouts of "Everybody must get stoned!" Counter-culture meets the establishment in one song. This must have sounded revolutionary to youngsters in 1966.

The album is peppered with tracks like 'Rainy Day Women...' that blend whimsy, humour and wit.

'Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat' is an ode to a garment that "balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine", while "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again" has some brilliant lines: "Now the rainman gave me two cures, Then he said, 'Jump right in', The one was Texas medicine, The other was just railroad gin, An’ like a fool I mixed them."

There are some tender moments - 'I Want You', 'Just Like A Woman', 'Visions of Johanna' - as well as a response to The Beatles' 'Norwegian Wood' in the form of '4th Time Around' (Bob Dylan trying to be John Lennon trying to be Bob Dylan, someone said.)

Musically, it's more blues than folk, and bounces along with liberal use of the harmonica, some scratchy guitar solos and a loose feel that gives it energy and warmth.

As you can tell, I love this album. Every time I listen to it, I always wonder why I haven't been listening to it more. To me, it has everything you want from a Bob Dylan record. Yes, it is a long album, clocking in at over 72mins, but I happily get lost in it every time.

10/10

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

Year Released: 2004 Label: Domino Year Bought: 2004 January 2004. I'd just quit uni. Was back at the family home in Bishop's Stortford. The place I'd been so desperate to get away from, and I was back and already bored.  And then things got a bit less boring. I remember this so clearly. I was having a shower and the radio was on, and on came 'Take Me Out'. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. At first I thought it must be an old tune that had passed me by, but no, it was announced as a new song by a band called Franz Ferdinand. It sounded glorious. It sounded interesting. After the staleness of the post-Britpop years, and beigeness of Coldplay, Travis et al, there was actually a British band doing something interesting. I loved it, and when the album came out the next month, I gobbled it up with glee. Listening back now, and I still love it. The hushed opening of 'Jacqueline', the sleaze of 'The Dark of the Matinee', the homoeroticism of 'M...
Post a Comment
Read more

Coming Up – Suede

  Year Released: 1996 Label: Nude Year Bought: 2011 I know lots of people love this album, and it has got some great songs on it, but I just can't love it. It's too trebly, too thin, too cold. It kicks off with 'Trash', which is an absolutely brilliant tune with fantastic lyrics. Brett is at his absolute best here, with talk of "nowhere towns" and "cellophane sounds", and being the "litter on the breeze". I love it. But, alas we go from one of Suede's best songs to one of their worst. 'Filmstar' feels incredibly lazy. The riff is nothing, and as for the lyrics:  Filmstar propping up the bar driving in a car it looks so easy Filmstar propping up the bar driving in a car tonight These are Noel Gallagher-on-an-incredibly-bad-day lyrics.  I hate the riff, I hate the chorus, I hate the lyrics. I hate how shiny it is. It's lazy ... which is the title of the next song. This tune sees the first use on the album of the "here the...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Bends - Radiohead

Year Released: 1995 Label: Parlophone Year Bought: 2000 Some records I'm going back to for the first time in a while. Others, like 'The Bends', are still in my regular rotation. What to say about this album? The crashing piano chords of opening track 'Planet Telex' give an immediate indication that this is not the same band that made 'Pablo Honey'. The album is a quantum leap from that record, which – while it has its fans, including me – is by-and-large the sound of just another guitar band. 'The Bends' is different. From the slowing-down-time intro of the title track, to the how-high-can-you-go guitars on 'Just', the album constantly delights. 'Fake Plastic Trees' is a magisterial effort, while 'Black Star' contains one of the great opening lines:  "I get home from work and you're still standing in your dressing gown, well, what am I to do?" The recording process for this record was inspired by seeing Jeff Buck...
Post a Comment
Read more