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Rating:
After the successful "Another side of Bob Dylan," the rocking minstrel, officially known as Mr. Zimmermann, delivers the remarkable knockout punch.
"Bringing it all back home" (1965), distributed by Columbia, is one of the essential albums to understand the mystifying evolution of Bob Dylan (note: the term mystifying is not used pejoratively). Some might argue that the true rock turn will only completely occur with the release of "Highway 61 Revisited," but, in fact, that's only half-true: "Highway 61 Revisited" is the meticulous perfection of rock, "Bringing it all back home" is the root on which rock is based.
Dylan is a monster of skill, extremely adept at mixing, in one stroke, some of the most known and loved musical genres. Not even twenty-five, Dylan merges, in a singular admirable language, the tradition of folk and blues, the profound superficiality of rock, and the poetic suffering of Rimbaud and Ginsberg. Dylan dismantles the rules of music, creates a new and incredibly original language, breaks the puritanical barriers of Bill Haley's rock'n roll, and takes possession, albeit in a polite and respectful manner, of the stylistic features and musical rules typical of Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley, creates almost mystical atmospheres, and completely overturns the austere rules of folk and blues. An extremely risky, almost impossible operation, yet perfectly successful.
"Gates of Eden," "It's alright," "It's all over now Baby Blue": these masterpieces alone would be enough to understand the importance of this mid-Sixties gem. But Dylan is a habitual sinner; he wants us to enjoy it to exhaustion: here is the definitive pearl, "Mr. Tambourine Man", five delightful minutes, a perfect union of guitar, voice, and harmonica, something wonderful and admirable, a sort of not-yet-posthumous testament that, honestly, cannot fail to send at least a shiver to anyone with a heart and conscience. The strength, and thus the skill, of Bob Dylan is having been able to capture the moods and musical connotations typical of the America of the early Sixties. He took the risk and was criticized, he knew how to renew himself and was booed: one cannot say that Dylan doesn't know the word courage.
"Bringing it all back home" exudes pain and suffering, delicately mixes light topics (the desire to live) with hot topics (drugs, widespread malaise, slavery) but never slips into arrogance or indecency. Dylan's voice (beautiful, very beautiful) never falters even when, in the epic "Subterranean Homesick Blues", it seems to want to transport us to a pitiable and, frankly, embarrassing world. But Dylan, as already stated, is a habitual sinner: when it seems he has given (and said) everything, here comes the very amusing "Bob Dylan 115th Dream", a curiously angular and tender divertissement. Thus comes a suspicion (and it is legitimate): but wasn't "Another side of Bob Dylan" the antechamber of rock? The answer is yes, but there, it was a moderate rock and, all things considered, a bit raw. "Bringing it all back home" is hard and deadly rock, perhaps not perfect, maybe too daring, yet extremely delightful. It is incredibly difficult to create almost ethereal atmospheres and suggestions without (or better, not wanting to) affect the musical department in the least: Dylan succeeded, and he succeeded thanks to a deadly combination of music and words, between carefreeness and suffering, youth and audacity, courage and cunning.
The cover photo (very beautiful, by the way) featuring Dylan next to Sally Grossman, the wife of his manager, is a perfect tribute to the best American musical tradition. Dylan, sly as always, holds some famous early Sixties records: the Impressions, Robert Johnson, Eric Von Schmidt, and Lotte Lenya stand out. To realize the album in the best way, Dylan was helped by his guitarist friend Bruce Langhorne.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
02 She Belongs to Me (02:49)
She's got everything she needs,
She's an artist, she don't look back.
She's got everything she needs,
She's an artist, she don't look back.
She can take the dark out of the nighttime
And paint the daytime black.
You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees.
You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees.
But you will wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees.
She never stumbles,
She's got no place to fall.
She never stumbles,
She's got no place to fall.
She's nobody's child,
The Law can't touch her at all.
She wears an Egyptian ring
That sparkles before she speaks.
She wears an Egyptian ring
That sparkles before she speaks.
She's a hypnotist collector,
You are a walking antique.
Bow down to her on Sunday,
Salute her when her birthday comes.
Bow down to her on Sunday,
Salute her when her birthday comes.
For Halloween buy her a trumpet
And for Christmas, give her a drum.
03 Maggie's Farm (03:57)
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
No, I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
Well, I wake up in the morning,
Fold my hands and pray for rain.
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin' me insane.
It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
Well, he hands you a nickel,
He hands you a dime,
He asks you with a grin
If you're havin' a good time,
Then he fines you every time you slam the door.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks.
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks.
The National Guard stands around his door.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law.
Everybody says
She's the brains behind pa.
She's sixty-eight, but she says she's fifty -four.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
They sing while you slave and I just get bored.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
08 Mr. Tambourine Man (05:33)
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Though I know that evening's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I am branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And my ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escaping on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facing.
And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seeing that he's chasing.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Then take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
09 Gates of Eden (05:43)
Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull it glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when 'neath the trees of Eden
The lamppost stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached
To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail
Though it shadows metal badge
All and all can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow
No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden
The savage soldier sticks his head in sand
And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who's gone deaf
But still remains
Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tattooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Eden
With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Side saddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden
Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden
The motorcycle black madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden
The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious winds they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what's real and what is not
It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden
The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden
At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what's true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden
10 It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (07:32)
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
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Other reviews
By ilsuonatorejones
Dylan plugged in and folk-rock was born.
Bringing It All Back Home, along with Freewheeling and Highway 61 Revisited, has the same revolutionary impact on music that Les Fleurs du mal had on world poetry.
By luludia
The underground blues longs for home, the sky crumples under my feet and the apocalypse is my favorite game.
Then I’d like to sing a transcendent song, one of those that explain everything without explaining anything.
