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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

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