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Rating: "Highway 61 Revisited" was already legendary, and the name Bob Dylan was a sure thing. No longer just a sermonizing songwriter, but also a writer of rock, folk, jazz, and blues songs. In essence, a Distinguished Musician.
"Like a rolling stone" had already shattered a record that had stood for forty years: having a song last more than five minutes ("Satisfaction" by the Stones was under 4 minutes), but he drew the ire of numerous fans who saw him distancing from Joan Baez and the protest song. Undoubtedly, in hindsight, rock Dylan is certainly less affected and monotonous than the excellent sermonizing Dylan.
In 1966, Dylan released "Blonde on Blonde," and again broke another record. "Blonde on Blonde" is the first double LP in music history, practically, at the time, it seemed an almost monumental work. And in fact, it is a monumental work. Jazz, folk, blues, soul, rock, pop: Dylan performs the miracle of combining multiple musical genres into a single genre, perhaps indefinable, or perhaps so ingenious as to remain innovative today, forty years later.
Double LP recorded in a somewhat quirky way (a bit like what will happen with the Beatles and "Abbey Road"): Dylan practices the tracks along with Al Kooper - sound master and author of all the excellent sessions recorded entirely in Nashville - while band musicians pass the time chatting among themselves or playing cards. Dylan practices the songs two or three times a day and then records them. Awkward condition, no doubt, yet, the art and talent of Dylan seem to suffer no hindrance.
Young and a bit reckless, Dylan quickly records a series of tracks that will almost immediately go down in history: from the almost folk "Just like a woman" to the unsteady sway of "Rainy day women nos 12 & 15," leading to the beautiful "One of us must know," excellently sung by Dylan but played even more excellently, by Robbie Robertson's six-string guitar and a heavenly accompanying organ, before spilling over into a 'drugged' refrain.
Of course, the record is not all there is. There are at least another six or seven tracks worth mentioning: "Vision of Johanna," "Temporary like Achilles," "4th time around," the delightful "I want you" (vibrant, cheerful, sparkling) culminating in the lengthy "Sad eyed lady of the lowlands," 11 minutes that speak of love, like no one had managed to do before. Among mystical visions, vibrant joys, Lewis Carroll’s mirrors, desolation, love, dust, rain, sun: everything is in "Blonde on Blonde," all of Dylan's art, half of early Sixties American musical history, there are references (obligatory and clear) to the Byrds and Joan Baez, there are all imaginable instruments, there is a rock that seems to turn into something astral, there is a way that would be an understatement to define as genius, of conceiving music adapting it at will.
But above all, there is a desire for redemption: the year before cutting "Blonde on Blonde" (so, 1965) Dylan was absurdly booed at the Newport Folk Festival guilty of having started playing purely electric and rock pieces (the audience expected something like "The times they are a changin’"), and, in protest, anything was thrown at the stage where Dylan was playing. Forced to withdraw from the stage, he would understand that all the respect to which his fans had rightly accustomed him was lost.
And it is from here, from this awareness, that redemption is born: the redemption of doing only and exactly what he wanted, regardless of everything and everyone. "Blonde on Blonde" is an absolute cult classic in music history, a fundamental album to understand the evolution of the singer-songwriter genre made in the USA, and, more generally, a historic album that, in an eventual paradoxical music ranking, can only appear in the top ten positions. Before or after the equally epochal "Highway 61 Revisited"? That, I'll leave for you to decide.
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 NicholasRodneyDrake
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.
Many at the time considered his 'electric turn' a 'betrayal,' a 'retreat' from the battlefield, but Dylan just wanted to do something new, something different.
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.
