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Rating: Forget about Bob Dylan, the erratic troubadour, the icon of a generation on the move with an acoustic guitar in his arms and a harmonica. Forget also 1963, the folk revival, the Newport festival with Joan Baez, the years of Greenwich, and the crowds singing "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They are a-Changin'" from memory, like ideal anthems of the thrill of change sweeping across America.
After 1965 (the album is from '66), the minstrel from Minnesota didn't go crazy, nor did he renounce the "movement" and its ideals, nor did he lose the strong popular conscience that had distinguished him from the very beginning. Much more simply, he decided it was time to give vent to his boundless creativity, time to plug the guitars into amplifiers, electrifying everything while still keeping his faithful harmonica firmly between his lips.
Many at the time considered his "electric turn" a "betrayal," a "retreat" from the battlefield, a step towards that establishment he had always sharply criticized and mocked. In reality, I think Dylan just wanted to do something new, something different, and if it meant making albums like "Blonde on Blonde," then it's fine if it resulted in a few (or quite a few, to be honest!) more records sold.
In "Blonde on Blonde," blues, country, rock, and folk are astonishingly blended: bizarre, absurd, visionary, passionate, poetic, and romantic lyrics blend with a new sound... richer and more complex than anything Dylan had done before. After this album, music would change decisively; many mark the beginning of "Rock" with this record... all bands and songwriters, to varying extents, would owe him a debt.
The album opens with a whimsical blues, almost a snapshot of his time, where Dylan expresses, with an ironic and resigned tone, how any choice you make, you are always and inevitably targeted and criticized ("they hit you and say it's the last time, then they hit you again, and you go back, and they hit you some more").
It continues with the introspective "Visions of Johanna" and then "Stuck Inside of Mobile," featured, among other things, in the soundtrack of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Then there are the very sweet "I Want You," "Just Like a Woman," and my favorite "4th Time Around."
What else to say... one of Dylan's best albums, surely a milestone of rock.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Visions of Johanna (07:33)
Ain't it just like the night to play tricks
When you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We'll sit here stranded, though were all doin' our best to deny it.
And Louise holds a handful of rain temptin' you to defy it.
The lights flicker from the opposite loft.
In this room the heat pipes just cough.
The country music station plays soft,
But theres nothing, really nothing, to turn off.
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.
In the empty lot where the ladies play
Blindman's bluff with the key chain,
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D train.
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight,
Ask himself if its him or them that's insane.
Louise she's all right, she's just near,
She's delicate and seems like the mirror,
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here.
The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.
Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously.
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously,
And when bringing her name up he speaks of her farewell kiss to me.
He's sure got a lot of gall to be so useless and all,
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall.
Oh, how can I explain? its so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they've kept me up past the dawn.
Inside the museums infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while.
But Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues,
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze.
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze,
And the one with the mustache say jeez, I can't find my knees.
Both jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule,
But these visions of Johanna they make it all seem so cruel.
The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him.
Saying name me someone thats not a parasite and I'll go out
And say a prayer for him.
But like Louise always says, ya can't look at much can ya man
As she herself prepares for him
My Madonna she still has not showed,
We see this empty cage now corrode,
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed,
The fiddler, he now steps to the road,
He writes everything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes.
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.
07 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (03:58)
Well, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Yes, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, you must tell me, baby
How your head feels under somethin' like that
Under your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, you look so pretty in it
Honey, can I jump on it sometime?
Yes, I just wanna see
If it's really that expensive kind
You know it balances on your head
Just like a mattress balances
On a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, if you wanna see the sun rise
Honey, I know where
We'll go out and see it sometime
We'll both just sit there and stare
Me with my belt
Wrapped around my head
And you just sittin' there
In your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, I asked the doctor if I could see you
It's bad for your health, he said
Yes, I disobeyed his orders
I came to see you
But I found him there instead
You know, I don't mind him cheatin' on me
But I sure wish he'd take that off his head
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, I see you got a new boyfriend
No, I never seen him before
Well, I saw you
Makin' love with him
You forgot to close the garage door
You might think he loves you for your money
But I know what he really loves you for
It's your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
08 Just Like a Woman (04:50)
Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls.
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.
Queen Mary, she's my friend
Yes, I believe I'll go see her again
Nobody has to guess
That Baby can't be blessed
Till she finally sees that she's like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls.
She takes just like a woman, yes,
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.
It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse
Is this pain in here
I can't stay in here
Ain't it clear that--
I just can't fit
Yes, I believe it's time for us to quit
But when we meet again
Introduced as friends
Please don't let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world.
Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do
You make love just like a woman, yes, you do
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.
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Other reviews
By Viva Lì
"Blonde on Blonde is a monumental work combining multiple genres into a single, innovative sound still relevant today."
"It is from this awareness, that redemption is born: the redemption of doing only and exactly what he wanted, regardless of everything and everyone."
By j&r
'Blonde on Blonde' is the first true work of art of rock.
'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowland'... one of the highest peaks of rock music.
By insolito
If Christ were alive today, he would play the harmonica, the perfect image of a hobo; he would have a crumbled, rough, even messy voice if you like. But it would be as seductive as few.
'Blonde on Blonde,' the destination Highway 61 leads to.
By dashell
"With 'Blonde on Blonde' Dylan becomes a fire thief and ignites the arid prairies of poetry."
"An essential album to understand who we are and where we come from."
By luludia
The well of that grating and iron voice…a voice that’s beautiful because it’s ugly and ugly because it’s beautiful.
Blonde on Blonde isn’t necessarily the most beautiful, but it’s the one closing the circle, and it’s the most visionary.
