Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks - 1975
"Sometimes he will have several bars, and in the next version, he will change his mind about how many bars there should be in between a verse. Or eliminate a verse. Or add a chorus when you don't expect" - Phil Ramone
This was the beginning of the third classic phase of Bob Dylan's career, for many, after the early acoustic protest years, then the "wild mercury sound" of 1965-67's switch to electric era. Yes, there was the laid-back country stuff, but that didn't really merit "classic" status. This did, however. The foundations laid on Planet Waves were fully built on here on one of the finest "relationship break-up" albums of all time.
I remember first hearing it as a teenager in March 1975 and being totally blown away by it. In many ways, it is an album so familiar to me that I find it a bit difficult to review. I know the songs so well. It is far easier to review a new album you have just become excited about rather than what has become something of a "comfy old chair" of an album for me. It is an album I love so dearly, but it is one that has been a companion for so long that I am maybe too set in my opinions.
On, then, to the tangled up observations.....
Bear with me though. I have learnt, over the years, as many have, that the album was initially recorded as a stripped-back, acoustic and bass creation, and that Dylan re-recorded five songs a few months later, in Minneapolis - Tangled Up In Blue, If You See Her Say Hello, Idiot Wind, You're A Big Girl Now and Lily, Rosemary & The Jack Of Hearts - using a new, full session band. I remember, when I first enjoyed the album, in 1975, automatically thinking that those five songs were the "fuller", more powerful-sounding numbers, without knowing the reason why.
Not that I didn't enjoy the stark beauty of the other five - Meet Me In The Morning, Shelter From The Storm, Buckets Of Rain, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go and Simple Twist Of Fate - augmented wonderfully as they are by Tony Brown's sumptuous bass lines. I didn't, back in 1975, know about the album's recording history yet the feel of two styles within the one album was one that came over loud and clear.
I have to say, though, that the original version of the album has an understated, most appealing atmosphere to it that makes it a serious competitor to the eventual release even for those of us who have lived with the album for so long. I love both of them, but there is a mellowness to the original that makes it a most engaging creation, one worthy of considerable attention which the wonders of digital arranging/customising can facilitate. Oh, and the original Meet Me In The Morning has a great - and most surprising - guitar solo at the end. I am not sure why this was omitted from the final release.
.....and now to my second main point, and this is most important to me, I want to make a case for the often-maligned Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts. It is one of my favourite Dylan songs of all time. It was the first song I heard from this album, back in 1975 and I bought the album as a result. Ok, I accept that it sits rather strangely amidst the soul-searching, lyrical poetry of much of the album's other material. However, it is a truly great Dylan "narrative poem" in the same style as Brownsville Girl, Hurricane and, latterly, Tempest (another one that divides fans). I guess you either like Dylan's "story songs" or you don't. Yes, it is repetitive, musically and in the fact that it is verse after verse irritates some people. However, I love the characterisation, the story, the cinematic atmosphere, Dylan's delivery. It is perfect in every way as far as I'm concerned. I absolutely love it and always have done.
Of, course, I love the rest of the album too - the great poetic songs of Tangled Up In Blue, with its marvellous imagery, about "Italian poets" and so on and the lovely, acoustic and mysteriously enigmatic Shelter From The Storm; the tortured and tender love songs - the beguiling Simple Twist Of Fate, the sensitive You're A Big Girl Now and the lovelorn If You See Her Say Hello with their spectacular turns of phrase.
The thing about the album which is often overlooked is that it is not all made up of embittered, heartbroken "break-up blues", lyrically. There are several lovely, tender moments - You're A Big Girl, Simple Twist Of Fate and the winsome country of You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go. Even the lover's lament of If You See Her Say Hello is a gentle, affectionate song - these are genuinely touching love songs. A song like the simply gorgeous Shelter From The Storm is certainly not a bitter, resentful one, either. It is one that misses better times gone by.
Then there is the slow, insistent, grinding blues of Meet Me In The Morning and the two folky "short songs" that end each of the old "sides" - the bucolic blues of Buckets Of Rain and Dylan trying to be thoughtful and sensitive on You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go. All marvellous in their own pure, simplistic way. These were not tracks of particular wordsmithery but therein lies their appeal when compared to the poetic shimmering of the other songs.
There is only one truly vituperative number, isn't there, though - lest we forget, the titanic Idiot Wind - Dylan spitting out invective left, right and centre bemoaning his broken relationship, the press and the state of the country/world in general. Even in his criticism though, his use of language is magnificent. I don't have words to describe it sufficiently, I'm afraid. Much as I have declared my love for Lily, Idiot has to be the jewel in the crown. Another counter to the "bitter, divorce, vitriol..." clichés trotted out about the album is that it ends with two quite tender songs in the reassuring loyalty of Shelter From The Storm and the melodic, unthreatening, almost throwaway country vibe of the short Buckets Of Rain. Nothing about Dylan is clear, though, is it?
This was one of the century's greatest albums. No question. Dylan was finally shedding the burden of his classic 1964-1966 period and proving that he could once again produce a spectacular piece of work. Even at the time I remember feeling that this was an artist re-discovering his greatness. Not all contemporary journalists took that view, though, and notable names such as NME's Nick Kent, who called it "trashy" and soon to be Springsteen champion Jon Landau, who said it had been "made with typical shoddiness", wrote reviews that they presumably felt embarrassed about in later years. It took a few months for its greatness to be slowly acknowledged, which was a noteworthy oddity.
As for me, I'm no journalist but I never tire of listening to it, all these years later. I feel I should have written more about it but for some reason I can't (the same applied to Blonde On Blonde). Maybe Dylan's compositions say all that is needed. Of course they do.
