When push comes to shove this, quantitatively speaking, must be my favourite Dylan album based on the number of times I've played it over the last 25 years. And I'm not even remotely tired of hearing any of the songs on here. They somehow still maintain their power to dazzle like it's the first time, which probably speaks at least to the pure density of the lyrics. I can't even pick a least favourite song here, let alone a weak one.

These two are basically a double album in my mind - inseparable in sound and attitude. Plus, like Harry said the Rimbaud and other poetry took his lyrics to another level, the fame, adoration, drugs and desire to shirk the mantle of "voice of his generation" took his insouciance to another level.

There's also the fact that the songs all work on a rock and roll level. I'm a huge fan of opening lines, done right they can set the tone for the rest of a book, movie, song, or entire album. And the first line of the title track is "God said to Abraham, 'Abe kill me a son'" and if you don't grasp that ties together all the elements of the milieu listed above and a basic thread of Ametican life, then why do you even listen to Dylan?

I'll let Bloor expound on Like A Rolling Stone - and just add that Tombstone Blues is possibly my favorite Dylan song, dependent on the day. Lines like "The sun's not yellow, it's chicken" really do it for me.

I never get sick of "Like A Rolling Stone," from the moment that snare cracks I'm always drawn in and consumed by it. It's relentless and angry and nearly always kicks my ass.

Absolutely. The gloves come off. A 6:13 song that got RADIO play was astounding at the time. Bloomfield's guitar matches the ferocity of the lyrics, and Kooper's B3 licks ARE lyrics at certain points. Also, I think this is the first appearance of Nashville session player Charlie McCoy.

This is the album that always seemed to me to be Dylan saying, "Try playing catch-up all you want for as long as you want, but you'll NEVER do any better than choking on tailpipe fumes." Confession: As heretical as I suspect it will be viewed, I always preferred Johnny Winter's version of the title track.

When I was young, and getting into Dylan, it was all about the lyrics. It wasn't until much later that I cam back to appreciate A) how rock and roll it all was, but B) how he harnessed, stole, used and abused so many forms of music that came before him to make a sound that transcends definition.

My favorite album.

I also love his bitchy quote about the album: "I'm not gonna be able to make a record better than that one... Highway 61 is just too good. There's a lot of stuff on there that I would listen to."

Also, I wish 'Positively 4th Street' was on here but I don't know where I'd slot it in.

Perhaps this makes some kind of sense. We were both born and raised at the top and bottom of Highway 61, respectively.

Ha. That's interesting.

My friend and I recently drove Highway 61 from Memphis to New Orleans hitting up all the roadside food joints and remaining juke joints we could find. Listened to this album a lot on the trip.

Awesome! This sounds like the Gar-B-Que tour we have been planning.

I'm playing the album again and one of my favourite parts is the final verse of 'It Take a Lot to Laugh' when he hits that final bosssssssssssssssssssssss.

I think Jewels did an excellent job right here:



It really stands alone in the rock canon as just pure fucking brilliance. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is the only thing that approaches it but even that is way, way down the road. As much as I love Chuck Berry, the Stones and even the Beatles, they never reached this height.

I didn't get to listen today so I'll add some thoughts tmrw though my main focus will be on Blonde On Blonde (my favorite Dylan album fwiw)

There is no way in the world this still should be able to explode every fucking time with joy and bile:

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things
But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal

Hwy 61 is Dylan at the height of his powers, even more than Blonde on Blonde. It is the perfect balance between Beatnik and Hippie, and between allusive literati and dirt-bad street addict. And I'd share about that time in Sonoma I listened to Desolation Row for what must have been hours and hours whilst on windowpane (summer 1971?) and each line, and the gravitas of the return at the end of each stanza, had the secret of the Universe encoded in the Felini-like narratives. I still "see" all that when I hear it.

Has a couple of my favorite Dylan songs (Visions of Johanna, Stuck Inside Of Mobile....)

"Don't tell anybody you don't own fucking Blonde on Blonde, shhhhhhh, its gonna be okay"

For whatever reason, it was a year or so after its release before I listened to any of this one, other than the three songs that got radio play, and even longer than that before I listened to the entire thing- not due to any negative expectations, or any other reason I can put my finger on. The release was around the time that music was exploding everywhere around me, and becoming a substantial influence on my life. Let's just say I was distracted.

Musically, bringing The Hawks into the studio was a logical extension to what was going on in the live performances of the time, and Kooper's organ playing is is so tightly woven into the fabric of the songs, it's difficult to imagine the songs without it. I had no idea until I just read the credits that Joe South played on it. First Dylan album in which the music became as fully-realized as the lyrics.

Songs- for the most part, as strong a set as he had mustered to that point, and one which strikes me as a snapshot in Dylan's rapid stylistic progression. I smell heroin in these songs, but I could be wrong. A gracious sprinkling of tuneful, radio-friendly numbers, a nod or two looking back, and a couple of "let's get together and fuck around in the studio" songs thrown in to complete the mix. It's amazing to me that Rainy Day Women was ever successful as a single. From the padding of time and distance, much of it holds up well for me- Visions of Johanna is remarkably restrained for this period, and I Want You and Just Like A Woman remain 2 of my favorites, maybe because of, maybe in spite of, extensive radio air time. Positively 4th Street SHOULD have been on this album. In yet another one of those "no doubt I'll catch shit for it" moments, I don't EVER want to hear Leapord-Skin Pillbox-Hat again. Ever,

Sticky Fingers is to Exile as Highway 61 is to Blonde on Blonde. There is no question that B on B is the magnum opus, but there a reasonable argument to "like" the earlier work more. "Rainy Day Women" is no longer music to me, I've heard it just too many times; "Like a Rolling Stone" heard more often, still makes itself new for me(as does all of Highway 61). A number of songs sound like "hits", and have lost their power as hits played too often do.

Still.... no one ever wrote like this Dylan before, or since.... his yearning love songs sound like poweful jeremiads.

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I leave them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Now, I've got what I consider a pretty decent vocabulary, and I don't get stumped very often, but jeremiad sent me to the dictionary. Well done, Harry.

It's weird, I know many consider this his magnum opus, and the way the thing was cut makes it more of a cohesive piece than much of his other work, but I ever really think of this album as an epic document, or a grabbing of the cultural zeitgeist like I think of the earlier stuff, and the Bringing it All Back Home/Highway 61 one-two punch.

I really like the album, Stuck Inside of Mobile may be my favorite Zimmy tune, but like Harry said, I just prefer Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 to this, as some people prefer Bleed/Banquet/Sticky Fingers to Exile. Selah.

I do fucking LOVE Sad Eyed Lady, and Visions of Johanna - which the poet laureate of England mentioned as his favorite all time poem a few years back, but there are some clunkers...Rainy Day Women, and Leopard Skin Pill Box to name them.

Three of the songs on this album exceed 7 min and are pretty much perfect. How many albums can boast that?

I actually queued this up AFTER posting that, and recant most of what I said. I think my initial response was tempered by the fact that I knew most of these songs from live albums before I ever heard this whole bugger. For some reason, like Tentoze, I was late to the party with Blonde on Blonde, and only really took the time to listen to it AS AN ALBUM until much later in my Dylan and music-obsessive careers.

I like and agree with this and in both cases prefer the former to the latter.

Just wish he'd have included Positively 4th Street on Highway 61.

My favorite Dylan album. A top 5 desert island disc if there ever was one.

Spinning this on vinyl right now.

We've talked about this plenty of times so I'll reiterate my thoughts from last year during the great OPA favorite album tournament. Please forgive the use of "zeitgeist" once again:





It also was one of the first "classic" albums that I owned by him or anyone when I first started down this road of musical archeology during college so it also has sentimental value.

I can't imagine being 18 when this was new. Same year as "Revolver", "Pet Sounds", "Aftermath", "Sound of Silence", and "Soul Album" by Otis Redding. I can understand tentoze saying he got distracted.

Still, nobody could touch this if you were looking for meaning in lyrics IMO. Truly an album you can put your own meaning into.

Also, at a time when Brian Wilson was losing his mind making his mini-symphonies and opening up the possibilities of the studio and the Beatles were experimenting sonically with new sounds and techniques, the fact that this is still a classic and stands out speaks to just how incredibly good of a writer he was/is.

It's still very traditional. The balls to put an 11 minute song at the end and essentially just play an acoustic with little accompaniment is impressive. It takes up the whole side B of the 2nd record.