I have several Bob Dylan albums on CD today, but when I was a teenager the first vinyl Dylan recording I ever owned was his first greatest hits collection, which hit the music stores 50 years ago today.
It had been in stores for many years by the time I added it to my collection, but I knew I would like it before I ever played it. I was familiar with every song on it.
Lots of folks must have felt the same way. Dylan has released more than three dozen albums in his remarkable career. The greatest hits collection that arrived in music stores on this day in 1967 is his top–selling album.
Perhaps it set a standard in my impressionable mind for all greatest hits albums to come — a standard that no other greatest hits album could hope to match, although I will admit that one or two have come close.
Even today I will look at that CD and think to myself that it is the perfect collection of Dylan's early music. (Two other volumes of his greatest hits have been released, but even three volumes — and one was a double album — weren't comprehensive accounts of Dylan's career.)
I mentioned that once to my friend Brady, who is probably Dylan's greatest admirer among my friends, and he seemed kind of amused by that. Maybe he could think of a song or two that he felt should have been included — he didn't say — but I can't. I still think it is a perfect collection of Dylan's best from the '60s — and I say that knowing that "John Wesley Harding" and "Nasvhille Skyline" had not yet been released.
Apparently, I am not the only person who feels that way about this album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic.com wrote that "[a]t just 10 songs, it's a little brief" — if you're familiar with recordings from the '60s, you know that was probably unavoidable since most songs tended to be two, three, at most four minutes long most of the time. Yes, it is a little brief by modern standards — just under 40 minutes.
"[B]ut that's actually not a bad thing," Erlewine wrote, "since this provides a nice sampler for the curious and casual listener."
Indeed it does. If I was going to introduce someone to Dylan, the "Greatest Hits" album would be the first album I would recommend. I would tell my friend that he/she should listen to individual Dylan albums, not just a greatest hits package, but the greatest hits album would be a good starting point.
Chances are that, like me, that person already would be familiar with every song on the album. It wasn't just a document of the early years of Dylan's career — although it certainly was that. It was a time capsule, a collection of the most socially relevant songs of probably the most socially explosive time in our history (which was still unfolding when the album first arrived in music stores). Songs like "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are A–Changin'," "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Just Like a Woman" punctuate the album. They form the soundtrack of their time.
The soundtrack of the '60s.
Oh, sure, you could throw in some other songs by other artists to get a true soundtrack for the '60s — but you can find a lot of it on this one album. The selections are like next–generation versions of "This Land Is Your Land."
My favorites from the album are probably "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
That reminds me of a story.
From time to time in my life, I have taught journalism to students in four–year and two–year colleges. A few years ago, I was in the classroom a few minutes before the start of a class, and some of my students were there as well. One of them asked me what my favorite rap song was. I kid you not.
I told him that the closest thing to rap in my collection was Dylan singing "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
A girl in the class piped up. "That's the original rap song!"
I was impressed that she knew the song, considering that it was recorded about 30 years before she was born.
"You get an A!" I told her. Then I looked at the other students. "See how easy it is?" I asked.
In fact, that girl did receive an A in that class. But it wasn't because of what she said that day. She was a good student and deserved the grade she got.
Like any admirer of Bob Dylan's work, there will always be a place in my music collection for "Blonde on Blonde" and "Blood on the Tracks."
But the Dylan album that Rolling Stone ranked the highest in its list of the Top 500 albums of all time — "Highway 61 Revisited" — was released 50 years ago today. (I have that one in my collection, too.)
It can be argued that, although Dylan had been a popular sensation before he recorded "Highway 61 Revisited," it was the album that truly made him a star.
What's more, three of the nine tracks on the album made it into Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. That's a pretty high proportion of any album, wouldn't you say? The first song on the album, "Like a Rolling Stone," was the #1 song on Rolling Stone's list.
"No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time," observed Rolling Stone. Considering how transformational the music of the 1960s was, that's a pretty comprehensive statement.
You can also find "Desolation Row" and the album's title track on that list.
The Bible tells us that God created heaven and earth in six days. Dylan recorded "Highway 61" in six days in the summer of 1965. Now, I'm not really trying to equate Dylan with the deity, but folk singer Robert Ochs did say "Highway 61" was "impossibly good. ... How can a human mind do this?"
It was a clear sign that things were changing in popular music. Up to this point, Dylan had been making acoustic recordings, but rock musicians backed him on every track on "Highway 61" except for one — the haunting "Desolation Row," which, although acoustical on the album, was also recorded in a rock mode.
So you could say that "Highway 61" was Dylan's first all–electric album — except the electric version of "Desolation Row" didn't get on to the album. That's OK, though. It can be found on "The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack," which was released in 2005, 40 years after it was recorded.
How did Dylan come up with the name for the album? Easy. There was a Highway 61 that ran through Duluth, Minn., where he was born and linked Duluth with America's great music cities to its south. Knowing that, I have always wondered if the name served a dual purpose — it was a clear reference to Dylan's roots, but the word "revisited" suggests a taking stock of one's life — and moving on.
"Highway 61 Revisited" launched Dylan on the course he has followed ever since.
If you weren't alive during the so–called British invasion of the mid–20th century and you would like an idea of how thoroughly and how quickly it succeeded in capturing the imagination of American youth, you really need look no further than the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," which was released in the Stones' homeland — the United Kingdom — 50 years ago today.
It was released in the United States nearly three months earlier.
Although there had been earlier reports in the American media of the popular music being made in England, the British invasion of United States pop culture generally is believed to have begun when the Beatles arrived in New York to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. By 1965, it seems the invasion was over, and the British performers were here to stay. America was where the money was. Media, too.
There is a pretty convincing case to be made for the significance of the year 1965 in modern popular music history. The Beatles had three of the top five hits of the year — "Help!" "Yesterday" and "Ticket to Ride" — but the Stones' "Satisfaction" was the top–selling single of the year, followed by America's Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."
If you listened to the radio in 1965, you heard some of the biggest hits ever recorded by The Kinks, The Who, The Supremes, The Mamas and the Papas, The Beach Boys, The Yardbirds, The Moody Blues, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Roger Miller, Tom Jones, Herman's Hermits, The Temptations, and the list went on.
I was a small child in those days, and many of my peers had older brothers and sisters who introduced them to the music of the time, but my experience was different. I was the oldest in my family but far too young to be interested in the radio, and my parents rarely listened to the radio (my father would switch it on in the car if there was a good football game being played). I suppose my exposure to the music of my generation would have been further delayed if not for the fact that my father was a professor at one of the three colleges in my hometown, and he and my mother typically hired his students to watch my brother and me when they wanted to go out for dinner or a movie or something else. Sometimes the students came to our house to watch my brother and me; other times, my parents dropped us off at the dorm, and I can remember hearing the music of that time echoing through the halls of the dorms.
Undoubtedly, that is where I heard many songs for the first time. It is probably why I feel as if I have always known the words to some songs — I heard them played over and over again when I was young.
(If brainwashing were as benign as simply implanting song lyrics into one's brain, I could probably support it. But, I suppose, that form of brainwashing already exists.)
Speaking of which, it is funny how the brain functions, isn't it? I mean, every time I hear "Satisfaction," I remember — however briefly — when I saw "Apocalypse Now" and it was featured on the movie's soundtrack.
"Look out, kid,
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again"
Bob Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues"
It's hard to comprehend now just how phenomenally productive the early 1960s were for Bob Dylan.
Obviously, Dylan has had a remarkable career, and the quality of his work has seldom dropped to a level that other singer/songwriters could only hope to equal — some day.
He put out seven albums between 1962 and 1966, and the weakest probably was the first, his debut album (which Allmusic.com's Bruce Eder compared to the Beatles' and Rolling Stones' debut albums — "a sterling effort, outclassing most, if not all, of what came before it in the genre, but similarly eclipsed by the artist's own subsequent efforts").
Those early years weren't more productive than other periods in Dylan's life — they were probably as productive as any, though, and they yielded songs that will probably stand as his primary contributions to the history and traditions of American social activism — songs like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A–Changin'."
But, while one could detect a routine sameness to Dylan's work, that was more a matter of style than substance, and each of the albums Dylan released in that mid–decade period had something that made it unique in Dylan's library.
And the thing that made "Bringing It All Back Home" — the album Dylan released 50 years ago today — unique was that Dylan divided it into equal parts acoustic and electric. In the days of vinyl records, that meant that one side was acoustic and the other was electric, but in the era of CDs, of course, it is all on one side so I guess, if you don't know where one ends and the other begins, you'll have to, uh, play it by ear. The sequence of the tracks is the same on the CD as it was on the original album.
My favorite track on the album has always been "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and that, in turn, always reminds me of a moment from one of the journalism classes I taught at Richland College here in Dallas. I was in the classroom about 10 or 15 minutes before class began on this particular day, and some of my students were there as well. One of my students asked me, "Professor Goodloe, what is your favorite rap song?"
Now, I have nothing particular against rap — other than the fact that I don't consider it music — but, to a great extent, I suppose it's this era's musical generational marker ... in the same way, I guess, that my parents and others of their generation preferred Glenn Miller and others who recorded the songs of their youths, and the people of my generation listened to our own music, and neither side really seemed to understand the other. There are always exceptions, of course — and I do appreciate other types of music more as I get older — but music really does have a strange power to transport you to another time and place in your life. They are so strong, these generational markers, that you can find yourself believing that you can merely walk through a door and be back in that time and place.
For people of a certain age, rap (or hip hop) is their generational marker. (Some people will tell you that not caring for rap is racist, but I can assure you it is not. It is more of that eternal age thing. I have known black people of my generation — some have been students in my classes — who felt the same way so it is clearly not a byproduct of race.
(Sometimes I feel like Jay Leno, who told Seth Myers the other night that he was called racist by a college–age person because he admitted to not liking Mexican food. "Being anti–guacamole is not racist!" he said.)
Anyway, I told my student, "The closest thing to rap in my collection is Bob Dylan singing 'Subterranean Homesick Blues.'"
Another student spoke up. "That's the original rap song!" That really impressed me because it must have been recorded 30 years before she was born, and I told her, "You just got an A!" (And she did get an A — but she earned it with exceptional work in class. Later, when she asked me to write letters of recommendation for her, I was proud to do so.)
Another song on the album that I have always liked is "Maggie's Farm." As a youngster, I just liked the song, the melody, and I paid little attention to the lyrics. In hindsight, I can see it was a declaration of independence of some sort.
But from whom was Dylan declaring his independence? Perhaps the folk genre — or the protest movement genre. It doesn't matter. Anyone who feels oppressed by someone or something and breaks away from whatever it is — an unsatisfying job, an unsatisfying relationship, whatever — may feel inspired to sing some of "Maggie's Farm."
I guess the song on the album that had the most Dylanesque folk sound was "Mr. Tambourine Man." I always think of it as a Dylan song — cut from the same cloth as "Blowin' in the Wind" or "The Times They Are A–Changin'" And, of course, it was a Dylan song, and his version does favor those songs, even half a century later (perhaps even moreso).
But I was reminded, not long ago, that an electric version of the song became the breakthrough hit for the Byrds.
Dylan has long been one of the musicians who was admired and appreciated by the people of my generation. "Bringing It All Back Home" was before my time when it was released, but I remember listening to it as a teenager. In many ways, it seems to me that it has always been a part of my life.
I guess I am not going out on a limb when I declare Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks," which was released on this day in 1975, one of the greatest albums ever recorded.
Rolling Stone named it the 16th–best album of all time more than a decade ago and described Dylan's songwriting as "lyrically piercing, gingerly majestic." I guess you could say that or something similar about most of the songs he has written — but if it is going to be said about any of Dylan's albums, "Blood on the Tracks" is the one it should be said about.
Initially, though, critical acclaim for "Blood on the Tracks" was slow in coming. Some critics really liked it; others didn't. Personally, I always liked it.
Not that I'm a critic or anything. I just appreciate good music. And this was really good music.
When the album hit the stores, "Tangled Up in Blue" was played rather frequently on the radio. It was really the only single from the album — although, as always, there were songs that were never hits in the conventional sense — but they were hits with Dylan's fans. I guess it is that way with most bands; songs appeal to different people for different reasons. Many of my favorite songs were never commercially popular.
Rolling Stone wrote that the album was "an instant success." That isn't how I remember it. "Tangled Up in Blue" was well received, and perhaps people bought "Blood on the Tracks" in spite of the critics. I don't know. I don't think I ever did know.
I liked "Tangled Up in Blue," but I would probably pick one song, maybe two, from the album that I liked a little better — but just a little. One followed it on Side A — "Simple Twist of Fate."
Or I might pick "Shelter From the Storm" from Side B.
Really, though, it is a masterful album. I have heard it described as "flawless," which is a little absolute for my taste, but I sympathize with the sentiment. "Blood on the Tracks" is one of those rare albums where not a song seems out of place. To omit any would diminish it.
The material is gritty. Some critics have suggested that the songs on "Blood on the Tracks" were inspired by Dylan's problems with his marriage at the time. I don't know if that is true; I do know that the songs are not happy ones and if a song is not unhappy, it is, at least, anxious or has a sense of resignation to the idea that, if everything is good right now, it is only a matter of time before things go south.
I have friends who are more knowledgeable about Dylan than I, and they, I am sure, have different opinions on that subject.
Dylan, to my knowledge, has always denied that the music was inspired by his life, but his son has said that, when he listens to "Blood on the Tracks," he thinks the music is describing scenes from his parents' marriage.
Dylan has introduced "Tangled Up in Blue" in a concert by saying it took 10 years to live and two years to write — which sounds awfully autobiographical to me.
I recall, at the time the album was released, that some people told Dylan how much they enjoyed it. His response was that he couldn't understand how anyone could enjoy that kind of pain.
He was right — to an extent — and, as I see it, Dylan's observation is further proof that at least some of "Blood on the Tracks" was about his marriage. Great pain — and his lyrics do speak of great anguish — is not the sort of thing that people can rightfully say they enjoy, but it is the kind of thing that an artist — a painter, a sculptor, a composer, a writer — is compelled to use for inspiration. It is a catalyst. The artist really has no choice.
Yes, that is what artists do. The act of taking that pain and turning it into something beautiful gives the experience its meaning, its validity.
So my feeling is that there probably was at least an element of Dylan's private life that inspired the music on "Blood on the Tracks." If I am right, then Dylan took what he had experienced and used it to make something truly remarkable.
And when I say remarkable, I mean the songs that weren't publicly recognizable as well the ones that were.
Dylan had some of his most sensitive, delicate guitar work on "Blood on the Tracks" — "You're a Big Girl Now," "Meet Me in the Morning," "If You See Her, Say Hello," "Buckets of Rain."
It should come as no surprise that the Beatles were the most popular recording artists in the 1960s, but Simon & Garfunkel's popularity easily rivaled the Beatles' by the time the decade ended.
Simon & Garfunkel made their debut on this day in 1964 with the release of their "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" album — but widespread acclaim did not come until after they released their second album, "Sounds of Silence," a year and a half later.
Recorded over three daytime sessions in the spring of 1964, "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" offered five original songs and several traditional folk songs, much like the composition of Bob Dylan's debut album.
And, again, like Dylan's album, it offered a glimpse into the future.
It was my mother who introduced me to Simon & Garfunkel when I was just a little boy. Mostly it was the music from the "Sounds of Silence" album, which Mom played frequently — and loudly — on our old stereo. I have no memory of hearing "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" until I was much older, maybe when I was in college.
I don't think there were any hits on the album, nothing that would be recognizable to anyone except the really hard–core Simon & Garfunkel fans.
And Mom was a pretty devoted fan. She probably heard some of the tracks from "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM," which led her to purchase Simon & Garfunkel's second album. I have many memories of her humming along with songs from "Sounds of Silence" and "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme." Sometimes, when the spirit really moved her, she would belt out the songs with the gusto of Ethel Merman. My brother and I were her audience. We were little, but we would cheer and applaud when she sang Simon & Garfunkel.
I don't recall hearing her sing most of the songs from "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM," though, which is a shame. There were some good songs on that album. Not great songs, but good songs — and, as I say, they gave people a taste of what to expect.
The original Paul Simon songs on the album clearly indicated a folk direction to Simon & Garfunkel's music at the time. I guess the folk genre was always appropriate for Simon & Garfunkel's music, but it was probably most pronounced on "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" with its acoustic guitar presence, but it also had an element the duo's other four studio albums lacked — a banjo.
Of course, there were glimpses of the hit machine Simon & Garfunkel would become — like the original "The Sound of Silence," which it seems to me was the first Simon & Garfunkel song my mother brought home — in the form of a 45 rpm single.
That wasn't necessarily the version that was on the album that was released 50 years ago today. It might have been the revised (and, in my opinion, inferior) version that was included on the duo's next album — the one that brought them wide recognition.
So perhaps she heard "Wednesday Morning, 3 AM" after all. That song was featured more prominently in the album that shared that name.
I liked other original Paul Simon songs on the album, too. "Bleecker Street" was probably my favorite, but the historian in me appreciated "He Was My Brother," a song that was inspired by the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. One of those workers, Andrew Goodman, had been a classmate of Simon's. The song took certain liberties — for example, it said that the unnamed brother was five years older, when, in fact, Simon was about two years older than Goodman.
It was still a good song — and it was, I believe, Simon & Garfunkel's first foray into topical songwriting. It was also the song that first attracted the attention of Columbia Records.
"The Concert for Bangladesh" could have been the first movie my parents allowed me to attend by myself.
I'm not positive that it was. In fact, I'm almost sure that it wasn't. But if it wasn't the first movie I ever saw by myself, it was one of the first.
The movie was a film document of a benefit, multi–performer concert to aid the people of Bangladesh, who had been plagued by war and famine. Ex–Beatle George Harrison gathered together folks like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and others for a benefit show.
In hindsight, I'm sure it was the model for shows like Live Aid and other benefit concerts that were so prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s.
Eventually, the concert and the movie and triple album that came from it generated more than $200,000 in relief funds, but the organizers failed to apply for tax–exempt status, leaving the money snarled in an IRS escrow account for a decade.
I've heard that experience left a bitter taste in the mouths of many of the participants.
Well, that really is another story.
I was quite young in 1972 when the movie was at the theaters, and I was ignorant of many details. I had an older friend who had been given the album for Christmas so I had heard the music before, but I didn't realize that there wasn't one concert for Bangladesh but two.
I don't think that made me unique. In fact, unless you were living in the New York area 40 years ago, you probably didn't realize there were two concerts.
Both concerts took place 40 years ago tomorrow in New York's Madison Square Garden.
In terms of musical content, the shows were almost identical. The songs weren't played in the same order, but there were few variations.
In the afternoon show, Harrison played "Awaiting On You All" and Dylan played "A Hard Rain's A–Gonna Fall." Neither song was performed that night, but both recordings were on the album and in the movie.
Dylan also performed "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" that afternoon, but he did not play it that night. The recording wasn't included in the original album or movie, but it was part of a special edition DVD issued six years ago, and it was included as a bonus track on the reissued CD in 2001.
In the evening show, Dylan played "Mr. Tambourine Man." He didn't play that one in the afternoon and it wasn't in the movie, but it was included on the album.
The film combined footage from both shows, and — with the exceptions of the songs I mentioned — the rest of the shows were identical.
When I saw the movie, it seemed like one concert to me, not a compilation of clips from two different shows. I suppose it could be an example of how easy it is for even a semi–talented film editor to fool a young boy, but I'm not certain about that.
Clearly, I'm older now, but I wasn't able to differentiate the last time I saw the movie — and you really can't tell from listening to the album.
For all intents and purposes, the movie and album that were generated from the two performances on Aug. 1, 1971, might as well have been done in a single take.
Forty–five years ago, sometime around his 25th birthday, Dylan released "Blonde on Blonde." (I say it was sometime around his birthday because, technically, the album was released in mid–May, but its release was delayed in some markets until late June.).
In a career that has been loaded with classic albums, Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" has always stood apart from the rest.
It wasn't the first double album, but it was the first noteworthy double album in rock music — or, perhaps, that should be folk rock, even though that is still too imprecise because "Blonde on Blonde" really combined folk rock with blues and country to create something new and fresh and exciting.
That isn't just my opinion, either.
Ed Masley of the Arizona Republic writes that "[t]here's never been a more compelling argument in favor of the double album as an art form ... The lyrics are brilliant, naturally. And Dylan never made a better–sounding record. Every detail plays its part."
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic.com has called it "his richest set of songs." It might be.
It is "an album of enormous depth," writes Erlewine, "providing endless lyrical and musical revelations on each play." I can vouch for that. I've had the CD in my collection for nearly 20 years, and before that I had the LP in my collection for several years — and the experience truly is unique every time I listen to it.
But that shouldn't be surprising. It was Dylan's seventh album in an extraordinarily productive period in his life. He released two more albums before the '60s were over, and those nine albums still represent a run of quality unmatched by virtually anyone else at any other time in the history of recorded music.
Nearly all of those albums were flawless, and the fact that "Blonde on Blonde" packaged 14 songs, most of which were written in this groundbreaking style and ran longer (in some cases much longer) than most recordings of the time, merely demonstrates the surge of creativity Dylan was experiencing.
I always felt that it was an inspiration to others, even those who reached the same heights as Dylan.
"Blonde on Blonde," perhaps more than any other Dylan album, reminded me of the solo works of John Lennon, who didn't embark on his own solo career until four years later. Their styles were clearly different, but, still, it is difficult for me to listen to "Blonde on Blonde" and not be struck by the surreal quality of the lyrics and the whimsy in the music of "Just Like a Woman," "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" and "Visions of Johanna" — the wordplay that was so prominent in Lennon's music as well.
And then there was my personal favorite from the album, the groggy yet giddy "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" — which never mentioned rainy day women but did mention, frequently, that everybody must get stoned.
(Incidentally, because of an irrational concern on the part of many American radio stations and the BBC about "drug messages," that song was banned from the air in many places.
(In spite of that, it was one of the two hits that were promoted on a sticker on the plastic wrap — "I Want You" was the other.)
That song was the first track on the album — and the only track to feature a brass band.
It was followed by "Pledging My Time," a blues song that was an obvious change of pace, and that pace kind of continued for the remainder of the album, beginning with the ballad "Visions of Johanna." It wasn't as bluesy as "Pledging My Time," but it clearly established a mood. Dylan said it was his favorite track from the album.
Side One concluded with "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)," the story of a worn–out relationship. Its lyrics were honest, if a bit defensive. When I hear Dylan singing "I didn't mean to treat you so bad ... I didn't mean to make you so sad," somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear Lennon singing "I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry that I made you cry."
In my opinion, Dylan's plaintive harmonica was never put to better use than it was in that song.
Side Two opened with "I Want You," which always seemed to have the quintessential feel of 1960s folk music. The music was kind of jaunty, bouncy, and it has been suggested that the lyrics were inspired by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. I don't know if that is true.
Next was "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," a song that, frankly, never made a significant impression on me. I mean, I liked it well enough, but it sounded almost too conventionally Dylan to me. Maybe I felt it went on a little bit too long — it was, after all, more than seven minutes.
But length wasn't really a factor on a double album, even in 1966. Both "Visions of Johanna" and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" were longer ("Sad Eyed Lady," in fact, was more than 11 minutes long and took up the entire fourth side of the album).
It must have been something else. Maybe it was the lyrics. John Lennon, I have heard, wrote a parody of the song ("Stuck Inside of Lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus Blues Again") that made fun of Dylan for using too many obscure lyrics in his songs.
Maybe that is what it was. I don't know what it was. I just know the song never really grabbed me.
I couldn't say that about the next song on the album — "Leopard–Skin Pill–Box Hat."
At this point, it is probably worth reminding readers that Dylan's music and lyrics — by and large — are timeless.
But pillbox hat is a reference that probably requires some explanation for younger folks.
The pillbox hat was fashionable in the early 1960s. It was particularly favored by first lady Jackie Kennedy, who set style trends whenever she wore anything.
And she was wearing a pillbox hat on the day her husband was assassinated here in Dallas in 1963.
Dylan's song was meant to make fun of a slave to fashion, and the story is that the inspiration for that song (and others) was Edie Sedgwick, an actress/socialite who was probably best known for her association with Andy Warhol.
As I say, the song, with its bluesy melody and tongue–in–cheek lyrics, wasn't the only one that was said to have been inspired by Sedgwick. So, too, was the last song on Side Two — "Just Like a Woman."
But that song may have been inspired by someone else — Joan Baez. That's the other story I have heard about "Just Like a Woman" — that Baez, with whom Dylan was involved at the time, inspired it. I guess it really doesn't who inspired it. It will always be a Dylan classic.
The first song on the second LP, "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," didn't have that much commercial impact initially, but it sort of got a second life almost a decade later when it became a standard on a tour featuring Dylan and The Band.
Masley calls its horn and harmonica lead–in "sinister." That's a good word for it. It was another bluesy track on what was, for the most part, a bluesy album.
The next song, "Temporary Like Achilles," was still more blues — but not "sinister."
"Mournful" is probably more appropriate.
"Absolutely Sweet Marie" always makes me think of George Harrison — primarily, I suppose, because he sang that song at Dylan's 30th anniversary concert but also because it always seemed to embody the playful and whimsical quality I often found in Harrison's compositions.
True, Harrison's music always seemed to have a spiritual depth, but Dylan's music didn't lack that quality. It just didn't seem to combine playful with spiritual as easily as Harrison's did.
I've never really been sure what to think of "4th Time Around." I mean, I've heard the stories — that it was a response to the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" (and, perhaps, a warning to Lennon not to encroach on his turf) or that it was about his relationship with Baez.
But I always hear the Dylan I heard in the lyrics and music of stuff like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A–Changin'." That isn't a bad thing — just a different take.
"Obviously 5 Believers" concluded Side Three with 3½ minutes of old–fashioned blues rock that was clearly influenced by traditional blues artists like Ray Charles, Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters (and later borrowed and adapted by Southern rock groups like the Allman Brothers).
I always loved the way the line "feel so all alone," harkening back to the chorus on the first song on the album.
The last side of the record, as I mentioned before, was the 11–plus–minute recording of "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," which rewarded listeners with some of the richest imagery of Dylan's extensive musical catalog.
It was said to be inspired by Dylan's first wife, Sara, something he apparently acknowledged in a song called "Sara" on the "Desire" album five years later.
As incredible as it is to believe, today is Bob Dylan's 70th birthday.
Radio Free Europe says the occasion is being marked in many languages around the globe — which is appropriate. Dylan's influence has been felt the world over.
Dylan has been on the scene for nearly half a century. Probably, he is most often linked in the public mind with the 1960s. He was, after all, the unofficial troubadour of folk protest music in an era that is practically defined by folk protest music, but he has remained relevant through a myriad of changes in the music industry.
"There is a lesson here for educators and for students," writes English professor Jim Salvucci in the Baltimore Sun. "We need to be — as Mr. Dylan suggests — 'Admitting life is hard.' Not just hard to do, but hard to grasp. And so is learning."
It's really hard to know what to say — in any language — about Dylan at this stage of his life. In so many ways, it seems it has all been said before.
Actually, it has all been said before, I guess. There have been countless books, newspaper and magazine articles, television profiles, radio interviews, but the man is still something of an enigma.
Long ago, Dylan became an icon, a symbol. He continued to write and record music but, for many people, he became a living myth, a legend — were it not for his tours, I suppose, he would have morphed into this generation's Howard Hughes.
But he has been more visible than that — and, because his early music became so strongly identified with social movements in America in the 1960s, he is now seen as a survivor of a time that so many did not survive — whether they died in the jungles of Vietnam or the city streets of America.
That has given him a special kind of status.
Dylan's influence is not limited to music. He remains an influence on the culture. In 1999, TIME magazine named Dylan one of the Top 100 people of the 20th century — a list that included prominent folks from all walks of life.
TIME's list was a tribute to all the people who made the 20th century what it was — and there can be no denying that Dylan played a role in making the second half of the 20th century what it was.
He had help, of course, but it really is almost impossible to think of the 1960s and not think of Dylan's musical contribution.
I was only a child in the 1960s, but my memory is that it was often a time of contradictions. There were a lot of serious things happening — wars, protests, riots, assassinations, deaths of all kinds (some might even be considered the outcomes of terrorism, by modern standards) — but there were genuinely light–hearted, playful, even silly moments, too.
Dylan's music was often like that, I thought — a struggle between the serious and the silly. It didn't interfere with the message. It enhanced it.
But he was so much older then. He's younger than that now.
Well, many of his fans are, anyway.
Dylan at 70 remains as relevant as Dylan was at 20 because the subjects of his songs are still relevant to the human experience in America. Lyrics like "Senators, congressmen, please heed the call, Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall" resonate because politicians of all stripes continue to be more about obstruction than anything else.
Everyone can relate to that. It's like the reaction most people have to George Harrison's "Taxman." I mean, everybody hates paying taxes, right?
Dylan's recordings from those early years still inspire new generations of listeners — and the nice thing about someone who has been around as long as Dylan is the fact that there are often little nuggets of gold waiting to be found in some forgotten archive.
Only dedicated Dylan fans, not casual listeners, will recognize any of the tracks on the album, but for the youngest (and newest) of his fans, those songs may well be what they remember most about him after they get older and discover the music the rest of us have known for years.
Ah, yes, the music. Many of my friends have learned to play the guitar over the years. Some became more proficient than others. But I heard them all play at least one Dylan song at some point. I couldn't tell you which song has been covered most — "Blowin' in the Wind," maybe?
All popular singers/songwriters have their work covered by others. The more popular they are, I guess, the more often they are covered.
I have heard many cover versions of songs from the 1960s, but I've probably heard more cover versions of Dylan's songs than songs by anyone else.
The famous and the near–famous have paid homage to Dylan in this way — and so have the unknowns.
My father was a college professor when I was growing up, and he often had to attend campus functions. Whenever it was appropriate to do so, he brought his family with him.
On one such occasion, I remember the son of one of Dad's colleagues — who was about a year or two older than I was — provided the musical entertainment between courses.
While the servers were distributing the entree or the dessert or whatever it was, this young man (who must have been about 12 or 13 at the time) got up in front of an audience that was mostly made up of people who had to be 30 or 40 years older than we were — and they sat in rapt silence as he sang "The Times They Are A–Changin'," accompanied only by his guitar.
When he finished, the banquet room erupted into a standing ovation.
There was no generation gap in that room that night.
Dylan never has been about creating gaps. He's been about bridging them.
That's hard work, as I am sure Salvucci would agree.
His "music endures," says the deck headline on Salvucci's piece, "not because he gives us easy answers but because he raises so many questions."
Having said all that, there really is only one thing left to say.
Word is coming out that, last month, one of the legends of popular music was unrecognized when he was found wandering in a residential neighborhood in the rain by police in Long Branch, N.J.
The word "legend" is often applied to people who may or may not be legends. But in the case of Bob Dylan, it may be — if anything — inadequate.
Dylan's influence on music, on culture, on society may be measureless. Granted, he isn't the 20–year–old who burst onto the scene in 1962. He is in his late 60s now. But when he stumbled into the yard of a home with a "For Sale" sign, the sight of an "eccentric–looking old man" apparently made the occupants of the house nervous, and they called police.
Police officer Kristie Buble, who, at 24, is only a few years older than Dylan was when he recorded his first album, went to "earnest lengths" to establish Dylan's identity, reports Chris Francescani of ABC News, but he had no ID on him.
As Francescani observes, Buble probably should have been able to determine that he was, indeed, Bob Dylan. He was in the area as part of a national concert tour, but she apparently was oblivious to that fact. Francescani also points out that Dylan was "hooded, disheveled [and] rain–soaked." That — and 40–plus years — made him look different than the youthful Bob Dylan she had seen in old photographs.
"He was acting very suspicious," Buble said. "Not delusional, just suspicious."
And her suspicions increased when he said he was touring with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp.
Anyway, she took him back to the tour buses to verify his identity. Once she did, apparently she just said, "Have a nice day," and left.
I think I would have asked for an autograph. Or maybe a picture of me with Dylan. But that's just me.
At the very least, I think I would have honored his request to take him back to the neighborhood once his identity was verified.
Buble admits she was skeptical of his identity when they were driving back to the tour buses. But there would have been no doubt about her passenger's identity on the return trip.
And how many chances do you get to chat with Bob Dylan?
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
