The qualitative shift in affect between Highway 61 Revisted and Blonde on Blonde is still kind of startling considering how temporally close they are; the latter is so damn sweet compared to the the chill and coolness of the former.

Belongs here as much as anywhere else:

I just re-read the stanza of Sad-eyed Lady I posted above and felt physically moved by the power of it, and after hearing/reading it hundreds of times. That's art. That's why it isn't stupid pandering twaddle to call him a great poet, he was, and is. And great poetry will transform you, if you are ready for it and have that affinity.... And to have this pitch of powerful poetry come out new when you are an adolescent did transform me (us).



Don't you contradict yourself here?

I should clarify. I think he was totally pushing boundaries was making completely modern (and timeless) music. Like the aforementioned "Sad Eyed Lady.." but also little things like him cracking up in the first verse of "Rainy Day Women" and leaving it in. He'd been doing that stuff for the last couple albums. While many contemporaries where seeking perfection, he left in the imperfections and he was one of the biggest artists in the world at the time (which tells me he had TONS of control). His approach to everything was VERY un-traditional.

The point I was trying to make (which made more sense with the previous comment in the original post) was that the music itself was all coming from a traditional place. While "Rainy Day Women" is an oddball song, it's still just a simple blues progression with a brass band. "Sad Eyed Lady.." still comes from a folk background. Hell, if he'd recorded it for "Freewheelin" it probably would've been cut back to 4 minutes and it still would've worked. Rock n roll was exploding in all different directions but Dylan never needed to get "out there" sonically. He stayed very straight forward for the most part. Compared to the Beatles who tried to put out the sound of psychedelia. I mean, "Tomorrow Never Knows" must've freaked people out at the time. That's a very un-traditional approach to the sound. Dylan just did it with his words and great songs. I can listen to this and still feel it's also knee deep in the psychedelic movement without any backwards guitars or effects.

Guess I'm just saying that with all that was going on, for this to still stand out is just remarkable. Speaks to his genius and his popularity at the time.

Honestly, I just disagree. Blonde on Blonde sounds like nothing that came before it and nothing that came after it. It's out there in my opinion. It comes the closest to capturing the "thin wild mercury sound" that Dylan always heard in head.

While Highway 61 is my favorite, this is really the highwater mark in musical achievement in my opinion. I could probably wax about the title alone for paragraphs. But what it all comes down to me is Visions of Johanna. Every time I hear it, it's new. I almost rediscover music every time I hear it. No other song does that for me.

And I love Harry quoting Lyrics, so I'm going to throw out my own favorite verse:
"LIghts flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off."

That's literally meant a dozen different things to me in my life. The feeling from it always just connects with me. In fact, I should have responded to Mick's advice post, "Just put on visions of johanna and press repeat."

And I don't get the slagging of Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat.

Despite its '75 release date, this album clearly should be next up for our listening pleasure.

Maybe so. I think I've only listened to this maybe twice, certainly no more than that, so I'm not familiar enough with it to have an opinion.

most notably the complete five-disc series

Machine -let's get on this, eh?

Oy. I'll do this, but right now, my skeptical side has kicked in- I'm having a hard time believing there's actually 5 full discs worth of "the greatest American music ever made"

isn't there like a "new york sessions" version or some other city or something versus the one that most people have, that some consider to be the superior version?

also, I'm hoping Rads weighs in, because as I recall this is his favorite album of all time?

I'm reading the thread but staying out of it. I'm no Dylan fanboy, find much of his legend to be a wise joke, and don't have much use for him before Hwy 61 or after Basement Tapes. But yeah, this is one of my all time favorite albums - there's a casual depth to this music that seems bottomless.

And the notion that there is "too much Band" on it is retarded. The Band bring the highlights.

Personally, I've never understood the fascination with The Basement Tapes; it's fine and all but a lot of it has never worked for me much. Different strokes.

I'm putting it on in a few minutes. I like it well enough too, but it's really got me overly excited. I actually consider the problem situational and figure the right context in which the songs snap to it hasn't occurred for me yet.

Also here is a contradiction. The wise joke is as well made a point as any gesture of great art. In a sense Dylan was a performance artist as much as an artist who performed.

Out of curiosity, do you read poetry?




Which is what many of us also feel about Dylan and his various musics.

Yeah, I think by the time this record finishes I've forgotten how much I like the beginning. 'Yazoo Street Scandal' is burning me up right now.

I would enjoy a Rads review even if negative of New Morning.

Exactly. WTF RADS? BRING THE HEAT!

Now I can't wait for Self-Portrait and Dylan.

Well, John Wesley Harding. I love this album. A set of seemingly simple songs, and they might actually BE simple songs. I've never quite decided, owing to my inability to figure out what the lyrics meant; there was always this gnawing indecision as to whether or not either a whole lot was going on underneath those simple lyrics, or he was having us all on. I recall hearing I'll Be Your Baby Tonight for the first time on the evening show on WAPE, 690 on your dial, probably within a week or two if its release. The DJ, Ron Something Or Other, said, "This is either the best song I've ever heard, or the worst song I've ever heard."

The Nashville session players are dead perfect. Dylan is testing the waters of Twangy Lake, but only sticking his toe in. The only song I could do without is Down Along The Cove.. I have absolutely no idea what transpired between Blonde On Blonde/ Basement Tapes and JWH, but I was, and still am, very glad it happened.

The famous (if it actually happened) motorcycle wreck. Or, Dylan lost his shit and quit the biz for a few years to regroup.

From what I vaguely remember, the Basement Tapes sessions were done after the motocrash, but I'm too lazy to go digging to confirm that. If so, the stylistic gap remains baffling. But then again, he's Bob Dylan.

somehow i think i've only listened to JWH once or twice in my life.

i'll put it on now.

Yeah, Basement Tapes and JWH were both after "the Crash." And Dylan lead the generation (I know, I know) into the "Jesus, that was too much, let me retrench and get a breath" of the sixties. After the Goldrush, you know? But the Goldrush was hella fun while it lasted.

I think, and there's some evidence, that he stopped doing hard drugs and starting talking to the "hippie Jesus people" who were exploding across the movement. (The moral tales abound... The Ballad of Frankie Lee). I much, much prefer the potency of the three classics, Bringing, Highway, Blonde to this. But I don't hate it (the hate is coming).

Prophetic, moralizing, ranting against the Machine of Mammon, and warning of the split in the eternal road leading to Paradise for the elect and Damnation for the sinners. I know you gotta serve somebody but I sorta hate what Jesus did to Dylan... and I think it started here.

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief.
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief."
If the joker is Christ, then this could be something like Christ saying, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" (Matthew 17:17). (For more on the joker as Christ imagery, see "Jokerman")
"Business men, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."
"The Lord will enter into judgement with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses." (Isaiah 3:14). All belongs to the Lord, but His creation has spoiled the earth, His bounty, His vineyard, and the poor.
"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I we've been through that, and this is not our fate.
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
"Then were there two thieves crucified with him. . . " (Matthew 27:38). One of the two thieves seemed to feel that life [was] but a joke, that is, "he railed on [Christ], saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us" (Luke 23:39). But the other saw Christ for who He was. And, recognizing that the hour [was] getting late, he refused to talk falsely: "But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. And it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth . . ." (Luke 23:39-44).
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
"Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield" (Isaiah 21:5).
While all the women came and went . . .
"When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them" (Isaiah 27:11).
"As for my people . . . women rule over them" (Isaiah 3:12).
"And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach (Isaiah 4:1).
. . . barefoot servants, too.
"Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners . . . " (Isaiah 20:3-4).
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
"And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights: And, behold, there cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken down unto the ground" (Isaiah 21:8-9).
"For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion" (Isaiah 31:4).
"And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him" (Revelation 6:8).
There is no reference to the wind howling, but howling figures prominently in the Book of Isaiah--it is mentioned repeatedly (Isaiah 15:2-3, 16:7, 23:1, 23:6, 52:5, 65:14).