Bob Dylan
Highway 61 Revisited

It often happens to celebrate the 30th anniversary of albums that have made music history, but a fortieth anniversary is still quite rare. Well, Highway 61 Revisited is from 1965, even though it doesn't seem like it.
In the Italian collective imagination, thanks also to a powerful TV brainwashing, 1965 is associated with people like Jimmy Fontana, Edoardo Vianello, or at most Gino Paoli. It's forgotten that something was brewing underneath even here: at least De André and Guccini had already written something important, but very few knew it yet. A completely different revolution had happened in the USA, and much of the credit goes to an angry folksinger with a nasal and unpleasant voice, yet miraculously musical: Bob Dylan.

For a few years he was mainly a storyteller, and at such a level that he is now commonly cited in American literature anthologies (for example, I have a book of his lyrics that is part of a novel series). Then, in 1965, came first Bringing It All Back Home, balancing between the old style and the first attempts at real rock, and swiftly this fantastic Highway 61 Revisited, in which the old storyteller Dylan gave way to the musician Dylan, something that two years earlier seemed unthinkable. All without sacrificing the lyrics, of course. Even though the real masterpiece would be the next Blonde On Blonde, the turning point album is this: here a fully complete band appears full-time (notable are Al Kooper's organ and Robbie Robertson's acoustic guitar) and here a decisive, clear rock sound is definitively established: the only remnant of the folksinger's toolkit is the old faithful harmonica, which would accompany Dylan in the following phases, up to the '80s.

It's a different music, you can tell from the very first notes of "Like A Rolling Stone", one of the peaks of the album, thanks to the richness of the instrumentation colors and the very modern motif for the time, which perfectly marries the glacial cynicism with which Dylan's voice describes the downward spiral of a once-famous girl now "completely unknown." "Tombstone Blues" belongs to the more standard blues-rock, but its frantic tension makes it enjoyable. Just like "From A Buick 6" and "Highway 61 Revisited": that rock is almost naive in its purity. There are those who see a preview of Bruce Springsteen's "highway rock" in the latter, but for Dylan, Highway 61 is a place of the soul, more than a realistic scenario of human events as the Boss's roads will be.
In the slower blues, there is appreciation for careful instrumentation: evidenced by "It Takes A Lot To Laugh" and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues." "Queen Jane Approximately" is a perfect rock rendition of old ballads in folk style. But besides "Like A Rolling Stone," the other two strengths are "Ballad Of A Thin Man" and "Desolation Row." The former is not considered a classic, but if you exclude "Masters Of War," I've never heard a protest ballad where Dylan abandons his usual sarcastic and contemptuous tone to assume such moving participation, also thanks to the infinitely sad, wonderful theme. "Desolation Row" is a torrential ballad of over 11 minutes, yet made enjoyable by splendid acoustic guitar arpeggios.

Against the backdrop of this imaginary road flow images of historical and non-historical characters, all seen through a lens so irreverent and venomous to make them all seem like puppets uselessly and comically agitating, even if they respond to the illustrious names of Einstein, Pound, Eliot, etc...
Fabrizio De André (who else?) fully understood its corrosive satire and translated it with his usual skill ("Via della Povertà", 1974). I'll finish with a bold prediction: in another 40 years, this album will still not be forgotten.