Bob Dylan
Blood On The Tracks

THE REVIEW

I lived in London for a year. City of drinkers. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, so I adapt. In the past six months, I’ve averaged about a liter and a half of beer a day. By London standards, I'm a failure even in this, a novice, someone to be laughed at at the pub counter. Beer is cheap (two pounds and 20) and the unemployed spend half of their unemployment cheque on yellowish nectar. I see them all perched in front of the register with five pounds in one hand and their ID card in the other, mumbling something to the bartender who gives them a random beer, as they gulp down anything, even if it were gasoline. In fact, especially gasoline, to fuel their rage.

The beer is cheap and also light. To get tipsy, you have to gulp down at least two liters, four to argue with your neighbor, and a whole place to hit your wife. Yeah, because around here they prefer quantity over quality. Instead, if they drank those serious and somber beers, the ones made by monks, to be clear (by the way: shouldn't monks be drinking wine? better yet, shouldn't they not drink at all and spend their lives praising the Lord), they wouldn't need to gorge themselves to end up making faces at themselves in the mirror. A few sips would suffice to be satisfied. But what can you do, the motto around here is "I don't appreciate quality."

As for me, when I have a bit of money, I indulge in those thick beers, the ones you can eat with a spoon and make you walk wobbly along the main road. No stranger would approach you seeing you in that condition. And you've just taken a sip, for heaven's sake.

And that's the reason why I've only listened to Blood On The Tracks up to the fourth track (the masterpiece of spite "Idiot Wind"): after "Tangled Up In Blue," "Simple Twist Of Fate," "You're A Big Girl Now," and of course "Idiot Wind," I let out a burp of satisfaction. I didn't need anything else. Bitter and embittered Dylan, harmonica stitching the cuts, word chef like serpents, definitive and clarifying sound shifts into gear and gets drunk on its own. It doesn't need idiotic handlers.

What an album. If you don’t have it, well, I’ve warned you.