Blonde on Blonde
Encyclopedia
Blonde on Blonde is American singer-songwriter
Bob Dylan
's seventh studio album
, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records
and produced by Bob Johnston
. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with a plethora of backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing band, The Hawks. They continued until January 1966, but yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
". At Johnston's suggestion, Dylan, accompanied by keyboard player Al Kooper
and guitarist Robbie Robertson
, moved to the CBS recording studios in Nashville, Tennessee
. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville's top session musicians, were more fruitful, and the album was completed in March 1966.
The album completed the trilogy of rock
albums that Dylan recorded in 1965 and 1966, commencing with Bringing It All Back Home
and Highway 61 Revisited
. Blonde on Blonde is often ranked by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a modernist
literary sensibility, the album's songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics one critic called "a unique blend of the visionary and the colloquial". It was one of the first double album
s in rock music.
The album peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200
chart in the USA, where it eventually went double-platinum, and reached No. 3 in the UK. Blonde on Blonde spawned two singles that were top twenty hits in the USA: "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" and "I Want You
". Two further songs, "Just Like a Woman
" and "Visions of Johanna
", have been described as among Dylan's greatest compositions and were featured in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
list.
and keyboard player Al Kooper
had backed Dylan, both on his new album and at Dylan's controversial electric debut at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival
. Bloomfield chose not to tour with Dylan, preferring to remain with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. After backing him at concerts in late August and early September, Kooper informed Dylan he did not wish to continue touring with him. Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman
, was in the process of setting up a gruelling concert schedule that would keep Dylan on the road for the next nine months, touring the USA, Australia, and Europe. Dylan contacted a group who were performing as Levon and the Hawks. The Hawks comprised four Canadian musicians: Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko
, Richard Manuel
, and Garth Hudson
, plus Levon Helm
from Arkansas. They had come together as a band in Canada, backing American rocker Ronnie Hawkins
. Two people had strongly recommended the Hawks to Dylan: Mary Martin, the executive secretary of Albert Grossman, and blues singer John Hammond, Jr.
, son of record producer John Hammond
, who had signed Dylan to Columbia Records in 1961. The Hawks had backed the younger Hammond on his 1965 album So Many Roads.
Dylan rehearsed with the Hawks in Toronto on September 15, where they were playing a hometown residency at Friar's Club, and on September 24, they made their debut in Austin, Texas. Just two weeks later, encouraged by the success of their Texas performance, Dylan took the Hawks into Studio A of Columbia Records in New York City. Their immediate task was to record a hit single as the follow-up to "Positively 4th Street
". But Dylan was already trying to formulate the shape of his next album, the third he had begun that year backed by rock musicians.
, who had overseen the recording of Highway 61 Revisited, started work with Dylan and the Hawks at Columbia Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York
on October 5. They concentrated on a new arrangement of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
", a song recorded during the Highway 61 sessions but not included on that album. Three further numbers were attempted, but none progressed into completed songs that would find their place on the album. Both the fragmentary "Jet Pilot" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover", a quasi-parody of the Beatles' "I Wanna Be Your Man
", finally appeared on the 1985 box set retrospective, Biograph
. Also attempted were two takes of "Medicine Sunday", a song that later evolved into "Temporary Like Achilles
".
On November 30, the Hawks joined Dylan again at Studio A, but drummer Bobby Gregg
replaced Levon Helm, who had tired of playing in a backing band and quit the group. They began work on a new composition, "Seems Like a Freeze-Out", which was later retitled "Visions of Johanna
", but Dylan was not satisfied with the performances recorded that day. One of the November 30 recordings was eventually released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
in 2005. At this session, they completed "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" The song was released as a single in December, but only reached No. 58 on the American charts.
Dylan spent most of December in California, performing a dozen concerts with his band, and then took a break through the third week in January following the birth of his son Jesse
. On January 21, 1966, he returned to Columbia's Studio A to record another long composition, "She's Your Lover Now
", accompanied by the Hawks (this time with Sandy Konikoff on drums). Despite 19 takes, the session failed to yield any complete recordings. Dylan did not attempt the song again, but one of the outtakes from the January 21 session finally appeared 25 years later on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. (Although the song breaks down at the start of the last verse, Columbia released it as the most complete take from the session.)
Around this time, Dylan became disillusioned about using the Hawks in the studio. He recorded more material at Studio A on January 25, backed by drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Rick Danko (or William Lee),The booklet accompanying the The Original Mono Recordings
re-issue of Blonde on Blonde lists William Lee as the bass player . Wilentz insists that "the playing and talk on the session tape show conclusively that Rick Danko
was the bassist on 'One of Us Must Know'" . pianist Paul Griffin
, and Al Kooper on organ. Two more new compositions were attempted: "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
" and "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
". Dylan was satisfied with "One of Us Must Know"; the January 25 take was released as a single
a few weeks later and was subsequently selected for the album.
Another session took place on January 27, this time with guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, Al Kooper, and drummer Bobby Gregg. Dylan and his band recorded "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" and "One of Us Must Know" again, but Dylan was not satisfied with the recorded performance of either song. Also at this session, Dylan attempted a rough performance of "I'll Keep It With Mine
", a song which he had already recorded twice in demo
form. The musicians added some tentative backing, a rendition biographer Clinton Heylin
described as cursory. The recording was ultimately released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 in 1991.
A shortage of new material and the slow progress of the sessions contributed to Dylan's decision to cancel three additional recording dates. Six weeks later, Dylan confided to critic Robert Shelton, "Oh, I was really down. I mean, in ten recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song...It was the band. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that."
suggested that they move the sessions to Nashville. Johnston lived there and had extensive experience working with Nashville session musicians. He recalled how Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman
, was hostile to the idea: "Grossman came up to me and said 'If you ever mention Nashville to Dylan again, you're gone.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'You heard me. We got a thing going here'." Despite Grossman's opposition, Dylan agreed to Johnston's suggestion, and preparations were made to record the album at Columbia's A Studio on Nashville's Music Row
in February 1966.
In addition to Kooper and Robertson, who accompanied Dylan from New York, Johnston recruited harmonica
player, guitarist and bassist Charlie McCoy
, guitarist Wayne Moss, guitarist and bassist Joe South
, and drummer Kenny Buttrey
. At Dylan's request, Johnston removed the baffles—partitions separating the musicians—so that there was "an ambiance fit for an ensemble". Buttrey credited the distinctive sound of the album to Johnston's re-arrangement of the studio, "as if we were on a tight stage, as opposed to playing in a big hall where you're ninety miles apart." In addition, Dylan had a piano installed in his Nashville hotel room, which Kooper would play for Dylan to help in the songwriting process. Kooper would then teach the tunes to the musicians before Dylan arrived for the sessions.
On the first Nashville session on February 14, Dylan successfully recorded "Visions of Johanna", which he had attempted several times in New York. Also recorded was a take of "4th Time Around
", which made it onto the album, and a take of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", which did not.
On February 15, the session began at 6 p.m., but Dylan simply sat in the studio working on his lyrics, while the musicians played cards, napped, and chatted. Finally, at 4 a.m., Dylan called the musicians in and outlined the structure of the song. Dylan counted off and the musicians fell in, as he attempted his epic composition, "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
". Kenny Buttrey recalled, "If you notice that record, that thing after like the second chorus starts building and building like crazy, and everybody's just peaking it up 'cause we thought, Man, this is it...This is gonna be the last chorus and we've gotta put everything into it we can. And he played another harmonica solo and went back down to another verse and the dynamics had to drop back down to a verse kind of feel...After about ten minutes of this thing we're cracking up at each other, at what we were doing. I mean, we peaked five minutes ago. Where do we go from here?" The finished song clocked in at 11 minutes, 23 seconds, and would occupy the entire fourth side of the album.
The next session began similarly—Dylan spent the afternoon writing lyrics, and the session continued into the early hours of February 17, when the musicians began to record "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
". After several musical revisions and false starts, the fourteenth take was the version selected for the album.
and Michael Gray
, agree that there were two blocks of recording sessions: from February 14 to 17, and from March 8 to 10 in 1966. This chronology is based on the logs and files kept by Columbia Records.The booklet accompanying the The Original Mono Recordings re-issue of Blonde on Blonde gives recording dates for each track of the double album, confirming the Nashville recording sessions were in two blocks, one in February, the other in March .
Dylan and the Hawks performed concerts in Ottawa, Montreal, and Philadelphia in February and March, and then Dylan resumed recording in Nashville on March 8. On that day, Dylan and the musicians recorded a take of "Absolutely Sweet Marie
" that Dylan selected for the album. Historian Sean Wilentz
observed that "with the sound of 'Sweet Marie', Blonde on Blonde entered fully and sublimely into what is now considered classic rock and roll". March 9 saw the successful master takes
of "Just Like a Woman
", and "Pledging My Time
", the latter "driven by Robertson's screaming guitar".
According to Wilentz, the final recording session produced six songs in 13 hours of studio time. The first number to be recorded to Dylan's satisfaction was "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
", which changed its sound radically when McCoy picked up a trumpet to reinforce a musical phrase Dylan had been playing on his harmonica. Dylan and his band then quickly recorded "Temporary Like Achilles
". The session atmosphere began to "get giddy" around midnight, when Dylan roughed out "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" on the piano. Johnston recalled commenting, "That sounds like the damn Salvation Army
band". Dylan replied, "Can you get one?" Johnston then telephoned trombonist Wayne Butler, the only additional musician required, and Dylan and the band, with McCoy again on trumpet, played a high-spirited version of the song.
In quick succession, Dylan and the musicians then recorded "Obviously 5 Believers
", and a final take of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", powered by Robertson's lead guitar. The session concluded with "I Want You
", where, as one critic wrote, "Wayne Moss's rapid-fire sixteenth notes
on the guitar" sustain the vitality of the melody.
, who played keyboards on every track of Blonde on Blonde, has contested the conventional account that there were two blocks of recording sessions in Nashville. In comments on Michael Gray's website, Kooper wrote: "There was only ONE trip to Nashville for Robbie & I, and ALL THE TRACKS were cut in that one visit." Charlie McCoy
agreed with Kooper's version. Wilentz analyzed the recording of Blonde on Blonde in his book Bob Dylan In America, concluding that "the official documented version jibes better with Dylan's known touring schedule. It also jibes with the fact that five of the eight songs first recorded after 'Memphis Blues Again', but none of those recorded earlier, include a middle-eight section—Dylan's first extensive foray as a writer into that conventional structure."
. Wilentz writes that it was at this point that Dylan and Johnston realized they had "produced enough solid material to demand an oddly configured double album, the first of its kind in contemporary popular music." According to producer Steve Berkowitz, who supervised the reissue of Dylan's LPs in mono
as The Original Mono Recordings
in 2010, Johnston told him that they carefully worked on the mono mix for about three or four days whereas the stereo mix was finished in about four hours.Johnston said: "We mixed that mono probably for three or four days, then I said, 'Oh shit, man, we gotta do stereo.' So me and a coupla guys put our hands on the board, we mixed that son of a bitch in about four hours!...So my point is, it took a long time to do the mono, and then it was, 'Oh, yeah, we gotta do stereo'" .
Al Kooper recalled that both the album title, Blonde on Blonde, and song titles arrived during the mixing sessions. "When they were mixing it, we were sitting around and Bob Johnston came in and said, 'What do you want to call this?' And [Bob] just like said them out one at a time...Free association and silliness, I'm sure, played a big role." Another Dylan chronicler, Oliver Trager, notes that besides spelling out the initials of Dylan's first name, the album title is also a riff on Brecht on Brecht, a stage production based on works by German
playwright Bertolt Brecht
that had influenced his early songwriting. Dylan himself has said of the title: "Well, I don't even recall exactly how it came up, but I know it was all in good faith...I don't know who thought of that. I certainly didn't."
According to author Andy Gill, by starting his new album with what sounded like "a demented marching-band...staffed by crazy people out of their mind on loco-weed", Dylan delivered his biggest shock yet for his former folkie fans. The elaborate puns on getting stoned combine a sense of paranoiac persecution with "nudge-nudge wink-wink bohemian hedonism". Heylin points out that the Old Testament
connotations of getting stoned made the Salvation Army-style musical backing seem like a good joke. The enigmatic title came about, Heylin suggests, because Dylan knew a song entitled "everybody must get stoned" would be kept off the airwaves. Heylin links the title to the Book of Proverbs
, chapter 27, verse 15: "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike." Released as a single in April 1966, "Rainy Day Women" reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart, and No. 7 in the UK.
"Pledging My Time
"
Following the good-time fun of "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35", the Chicago blues
-influenced "Pledging My Time" sets the somber tone that runs through the album. It draws on several traditional blues songs, including Elmore James
' recording of "It Hurts Me Too
". For critic Michael Gray
, the lines "Somebody got lucky but it was an accident" echoes the lines "Some joker got lucky, stole her back again" from Robert Johnson
's "Come On in My Kitchen
", which is itself an echo of the Skip James
1931 recording "Devil Got My Woman". Gray suggests that "the gulping movements of the melodic phrases" derive from the melody of "Sitting on Top of the World
", recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks
in 1930. The couplet at the end of each verse expresses the theme: a pledge made to a prospective lover in hopes she "will come through, too". Besides Dylan's vocals and improvised harmonica breaks, the song's sound is defined by Robbie Robertson's guitar, Hargus "Pig" Robbins's blues piano and Ken Buttrey's snare rolls. The song was released in edited form as the B-side of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" in April.
"Visions of Johanna
"
Considered by many critics as one of Dylan's greatest masterpieces, "Visions of Johanna" proved difficult to capture on tape. Heylin places the writing in the fall of 1965, when Dylan was living in the Chelsea Hotel
with his pregnant wife Sara
. In the New York recording studio, on November 30, Dylan announced his epic composition: "This is called 'Freeze Out'." Gill notes that this working title captures the "air of nocturnal suspension in which the verse tableaux are sketched...full of whispering and muttering." Wilentz relates how Dylan guided his backing musicians through fourteen takes, trying to sketch out how he wanted it played, saying at one point, "it's not hard rock, The only thing in it that's hard is Robbie." Wilentz notes that, as Dylan quiets things down, he inches closer to what will appear on the album.
Ten weeks later, "Visions of Johanna" fell into place quickly in the Nashville studio. Kooper recalled that he and Robertson had become adept at responding to Dylan's vocal and also singled out Joe South's contribution of "this throbbing...rhythmically amazing bass part". Gill comments that the song begins by contrasting two lovers, the carnal Louise, and "the more spiritual but unattainable" Johanna. Ultimately, for Gill, the song seeks to convey how the artist is compelled to keep striving to pursue some elusive vision of perfection. For Heylin, the triumph of the song is in "the way Dylan manages to write about the most inchoate feelings in such a vivid, immediate way."
"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
"
When Dylan arrived at the studio on January 25, 1966, he had yet to work out the lyrics and title for what was to become the closing track on Blonde on Blondes first side. With Dylan piecing together the song's sections, the session stretched through the night and into the next morning. It was not until the eighteenth take that a full version was recorded. The next take, the nineteenth, closed the session and made it onto the album four months later. Critic Jonathan Singer credits Griffin's piano for binding the song together: "At the chorus, Griffin unleashes a symphony; hammering his way up and down the keyboard, half Gershwin
, half gospel, all heart. The follow-up, a killer left hand figure that links the chorus to the verse, releases none of the song's tension."
"One of Us Must Know" is a straightforward account of a burned-out relationship. Dissecting what went wrong, the narrator takes a defensive attitude in a one-sided conversation with his former lover. As he presents his case in the opening verse, it appears he is incapable of either acknowledging his part or limiting the abuse: "I didn't mean to treat you so bad. You don't have to take it so personal. I didn't mean to make you so sad. You just happened to be there, that's all." "One of Us Must Know" was the first recording completed for Blonde on Blonde and the only one selected from the New York sessions. The song was released as the first single from the album on February 14, the same day Dylan began to record new material in Nashville. It failed to appear on the American charts, but reached No. 33 in the UK.
"
Andy Gill notes that the song displays a tension between the very direct tone of the chorus, the repeated phrase "I want you", and a weird and complex cast of characters, "too numerous to inhabit the song's three minutes comfortably", including a guilty undertaker, a lonesome organ grinder, weeping fathers, mothers, sleeping saviors, the Queen of Spades, and the "dancing child with his Chinese suit". Gill reports that "the dancing child" was rumored to be a reference to Brian Jones
of The Rolling Stones
. Heylin agrees there may be substance to this because the dancing child claims that "time was on his side", perhaps a reference to "Time Is On My Side
", the Stones' first US hit . Analyzing the evolution of the lyrics through successive drafts, Wilentz writes that there are numerous failures, "about deputies asking him his name...lines about fathers going down hugging one another and about their daughters putting him down because he isn't their brother". Finally Dylan arrives at the right formula.
Heylin points out that the gorgeous tune illustrates what Dylan explained to a reporter in 1966: "It's not just pretty words to a tune or putting tunes to words...[It's] the words and the music [together]—I can hear the sound of what I want to say." Al Kooper has said that of all the songs that Dylan had outlined to him in his hotel, this was his favorite, so Dylan delayed recording it to the very end of the Nashville sessions, "just to bug him".
Released as a single in June 1966, shortly before the album Blonde on Blonde, "I Want You" reached No. 20 in the USA, and No. 16 in the UK.
"Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
"
Recorded at the third Nashville session, this song was the culmination of another epic of simultaneous writing and recording in the studio. Wilentz describes how the lyrics evolved through a surviving part-typed, part-handwritten manuscript page, "which begins 'honey but it’s just too hard' (a line that had survived from the very first New York session with the Hawks). Then the words meander through random combinations and disconnected fragments and images ('people just get uglier'; 'banjo eyes'; 'he was carrying a 22 but it was only a single shot'), before, in Dylan’s own hand, amid many crossings-out, there appears 'Oh MAMA you’re here IN MOBILE ALABAMA with the Memphis blues again'."
Inside the studio, the song evolved through several musical revisions. Heylin writes, "It is the song's arrangement, and not its lyrics, that occupies the musicians through the wee small hours." On the fifth take, released in 2005 on the No Direction Home Soundtrack
, midtake Dylan stumbles on the formula "Stuck inside of Mobile" on the fourth verse, and never goes back. The song contains two oft-quoted pieces of Dylan's philosophy: "Your debutante just knows what you need/ But I know what you want" and "here I sit so patiently/ Waiting to find out what price/ You have to pay to get out of/ Going through all these things twice".
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
"
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a sarcastic satire on materialism
, fashion and fad
dism. Done in Chicago-blues style, the song derives its melody and part of its lyrics from Lightnin' Hopkins
's "Automobile (Blues)". Its putdowns have been criticized as misogynistic
, though the emotion underlying them is jealousy
. In the lyrics, the narrator observes his former lover in various situations wearing her "brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat", at one point finding his doctor with her and later spying her making love with a new boyfriend because she "forgot to close the garage door". In the closing lines, the narrator says he knows what her boyfriend really loves her for—her hat.
The song evolved over the course of six takes in New York, 13 in the first Nashville session, and then one try on March 10, the take used for the album. Dylan, who gets credit on the liner notes as lead guitarist, opens the song on lead; however, Robertson handles the solos with a "searing" performance. A year following the recording, "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" became the fifth single released from Blonde on Blonde, making it to No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100
.
"Just Like a Woman
"
According to Wilentz's analysis of the session's tapes, Dylan felt his way into the lyrics of one of his most popular songs, singing "disconnected lines and semi-gibberish" during the earlier takes. He was unsure what the person described in the song does that is just like a woman, rejecting "shakes", "wakes", and "makes mistakes". This exploration of female wiles and feminine vulnerability was widely rumored—"not least by her acquaintances among Andy Warhol
's Factory
retinue"—to be about Edie Sedgwick
. The reference to Baby's penchant for "fog...amphetamine and... pearls" suggests Sedgwick or some similar debutante, according to Heylin.
Discussing the lyrics, literary critic Christopher Ricks
detects a "note of social exclusion" in the line "I was hungry and it was your world". In response to the accusation that Dylan's depiction of female strategies is mysoginistic, Ricks asks, "Could there ever be any challenging art about men and women where the accusation just didn't arise?" The song reached No. 33 in the USA.
"
A bright blues "stomper" about lovers parting, "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" is one of the more literal songs Dylan recorded in his 1965–1966 period. The narrator has tired of carrying his lover and is going to let her "pass". As in "Just Like a Woman" and "Absolutely Sweet Marie", he waits until the end of each verse to deliver the punch line, which in this case comes from the title. "Most Likely You Go Your Way" was issued as a single a year later, in March 1967, on the B-side of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat".
"Temporary Like Achilles
"
This hazy, slow-moving blues number is highlighted by Hargus "Pig" Robbins's barrelhouse piano and Dylan's "wheezing" harmonica. In the song, the narrator has been spurned by his lover, who has already taken up with her latest boyfriend. Referring to his rival as "Achilles
", the narrator senses the new suitor may end up being discarded as quickly as he was. The refrain that ends each of the main verses—"Honey, why are you so hard?"—is a double entendre
Dylan had been wanting to work into a song.
"Absolutely Sweet Marie
"
This song, described as "up-tempo blues shuffle, pure Memphis" and an example of "obvious pop sensibility and compulsive melody", was recorded in four takes on March 7, 1966. Gill sees the lyrics as a series of sexual metaphors, including "beating on my trumpet" and keys to locked gates, many deriving from traditional blues. Nonetheless, the song contains what has been termed "one of the most oft-repeated of Dylan's life lessons", the thought that "to live outside the law you must be honest", which was later invoked in many bohemian and counter-cultural
contexts.
"4th Time Around
"
When The Beatles
released their sixth studio album, Rubber Soul
, in December 1965, John Lennon
's song "Norwegian Wood
" attracted attention for the way in which Lennon disguised his account of an illicit affair in cryptic, Dylanesque language. Dylan sketched out a response to the song, also in 3/4 time, copying the tune and circular structure, but taking Lennon's tale in a darker direction. Wilentz describes the result as sounding "like Bob Dylan impersonating John Lennon impersonating Bob Dylan".
"Obviously 5 Believers
"
"Obviously 5 Believers", Blonde on Blondes second-to-last track, is a roadhouse blues love song similar in melody and structure to Memphis Minnie
's "Me and My Chauffeur Blues
". Recorded in the early morning hours of the March 9–10 Nashville session under the working title "Black Dog Blues", the song is driven by Robertson's guitar, Charley McCoy's harmonica and Ken Buttrey's drumming. After an initial breakdown, Dylan complained to the band that the song was "very easy, man" and that he did not want to spend much time on it. Within four takes, the recording was done.
"
Written over the space of eight hours in the CBS recording studio in Nashville, on the night of February 15–16, "Sad Eyed Lady" eventually occupied the whole of side four of Blonde On Blonde. Critics have observed that "Lowlands" hints at "Lownds", and Dylan biographer Robert Shelton wrote that this was a "wedding song" for Sara Lownds
, whom Dylan had married just three months earlier.Bob Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965, at a judge's office on Long Island, New York. The only guests were Albert Grossman and a maid of honor for Sara; there was no publicity . In his paean
to his wife, "Sara", written in 1975, Dylan amends history slightly to claim that he stayed "up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/ Writin’ 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you".
When Dylan played Shelton the song, shortly after recording it, he claimed, "This is the best song I've ever written." Around the same time, Dylan enthused to journalist Jules Siegel
, "Just listen to that! That's old-time religious carnival music!" However, in 1969, Dylan confessed to Rolling Stone
s editor, Jann Wenner
, "I just sat down at a table and started writing...And I just got carried away with the whole thing...I just started writing and I couldn’t stop. After a period of time, I forgot what it was all about, and I started trying to get back to the beginning [laughs]."
Heard by some listeners as a hymn to an other-worldly woman, for Shelton "her travails seem beyond endurance, yet she radiates an inner strength, an ability to be re-born. This is Dylan at his most romantic." Wilentz comments that Dylan's writing had shifted from the days when he asked questions and supplied answers. Like the verses of William Blake
's "Tyger
", Dylan asks a series of questions about the "Sad Eyed Lady" but never supplies any answers.
gatefold
sleeve opens to form a 12-by-26 inch photo of the artist, at three quarter length. The artist's name and the album's title only appear on the spine. A sticker was applied to the shrink wrap to promote the release's two hit singles, "I Want You" and "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35".
The cover shows Dylan in front of a brick building, wearing a suede jacket and a black and white checkered scarf
. The jacket is the same one he wore on his next two albums, John Wesley Harding
and Nashville Skyline
. The photographer, Jerry Schatzberg
, described how the photo was taken:
The original inside gatefold featured nine black-and-white photos, all taken by Schatzberg and selected for the sleeve by Dylan himself. A shot of actress Claudia Cardinale
from Schatzberg's portfolio was included but later withdrawn because it had been used without her authorization and Cardinale's representatives threatened to sue, making the original record sleeve a collector's item. Dylan included a self-portrait by Schatzberg as a credit to the photographer. The photos, for Gill, added up to "a shadowy glimpse of [Dylan's] life, including an enigmatic posed shot of Dylan holding a small portrait of a woman in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other: they all contributed to the album's air of reclusive yet sybaritic genius."
, which carried a full-page Columbia advertisement on June 25, selected the album as a "New Action LP" on July 9, and ran a review and article on July 16. The album debuted on Billboards Top LP's chart on July 23—just six days before Dylan's motorcycle accident in Woodstock removed him from public view. Clinton Heylin argues that early July is the probable release date, stating that an overdub on "Fourth Time Around" was recorded in June. Blonde on Blonde has been described as rock's first studio double LP
by a major artist.Freak Out!
, the double album by The Mothers of Invention
, was released on June 27, 1966 . Given the uncertainty over the exact release date of Blonde on Blonde, these two albums were virtually simultaneous.
On its release, Blonde on Blonde was not short of critics who argued the album was a major work. To accompany the songbook of Blonde on Blonde, Paul Nelson
wrote an introduction stating, "The very title suggests the singularity and the duality we expect from Dylan. For Dylan’s music of illusion and delusion—with the tramp as explorer and the clown as happy victim, where the greatest crimes are lifelessness and the inability to see oneself as a circus performer in the show of life—has always carried within it its own inherent tensions...Dylan in the end truly UNDERSTANDS situations, and once one truly understands anything, there can no longer be anger, no longer be moralizing, but only humor and compassion, only pity."
The album received generally favorable reviews in 1966. For Pete Johnson in the Los Angeles Times
, "Dylan is a superbly eloquent writer of pop and folk songs with an unmatched ability to press complex ideas and iconoclastic philosophy into brief poetic lines and startling images." The editor of Crawdaddy!
, Paul Williams
, reviewed Blonde on Blonde in July 1966: "It is a cache of emotion, a well handled package of excellent music and better poetry, blended and meshed and ready to become part of your reality. Here is a man who will speak to you, a 1960s bard with electric lyre and color slides, but a truthful man with x-ray eyes you can look through if you want. All you have to do is listen."
The achievement of Blonde on Blonde seems to have lingered in Dylan's memory. Twelve years after its release, Dylan said: "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up." Several critics have described Blonde on Blonde as a satisfying conclusion to the mid-1960s trilogy of albums that Dylan had initiated with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Oliver Trager and Mike Marqusee
have described this trilogy as perhaps Dylan's greatest achievement.
Blonde on Blonde has been consistently highly placed in polls of the greatest albums of all time. In 1974, the writers of NME
voted Blonde on Blonde the No. 2 album of all time. Demonstrating the transitory nature of such polls, in 1997 the album was placed at No. 16 in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV
, Channel 4
, The Guardian
and Classic FM
. In 2006, TIME
magazine included the record on their 100 All-TIME Albums list. In 2003, the album was ranked No. 9 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
. In 2004, two songs from the album also appeared on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time
: "Just Like a Woman" ranked No. 230 and "Visions of Johanna" No. 404. (When Rolling Stone updated this list in 2010, "Just Like a Woman" dropped to No. 232 and "Visions of Johanna" to No. 413.)
Dylan scholar Michael Gray wrote: "To have followed up one masterpiece with another was Dylan's history making achievement here...Where Highway 61 Revisited has Dylan exposing and confronting like a laser beam in surgery, descending from outside the sickness, Blonde on Blonde offers a persona awash inside the chaos...We're tossed from song to song...The feel and the music are on a grand scale, and the language and delivery are a rich mixture of the visionary and the colloquial." Critic Tim Riley
wrote: "A sprawling abstraction of eccentric blues revisionism, Blonde on Blonde confirms Dylan's stature as the greatest American rock presence since Elvis Presley
."
Biographer Robert Shelton saw the album as "a hallmark collection that completes his first major rock cycle, which began with Bringing It All Back Home
". Summing up the album's achievement, Shelton wrote: "Blonde on Blonde begins with a joke and ends with a hymn; in between wit alternates with a dominant theme of entrapment by circumstances, love, society, and unrealized hope...a remarkable marriage of funky, bluesy rock expressionism, and Rimbaud
-like visions of discontinuity, chaos, emptiness, loss". For Mike Marqusee, Dylan had succeeded in reconciling traditional blues material with avant-garde
, literary techniques: "[Dylan] took inherited idioms and boosted them into a modernist stratosphere. 'Pledging My Time' and 'Obviously 5 Believers' adhered to blues patterns that were venerable when Dylan first encountered them in the mid-fifties. Yet like 'Visions of Johanna' or 'Memphis Blues Again', these songs are beyond category. They are allusive, repetitive, jaggedly abstract compositions that defy reduction."
That sense of crossing cultural boundaries was, for Al Kooper, at the heart of Blonde on Blonde: "[Bob Dylan] was the quintessential New York hipster—what was he doing in Nashville? It didn't make any sense whatsoever. But you take those two elements, pour them into a test tube, and it just exploded."
Side one
Side two
Side three
Side four
Singles
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's seventh studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
and produced by Bob Johnston
Bob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with a plethora of backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing band, The Hawks. They continued until January 1966, but yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
"One of Us Must Know " is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan. It is the fourth track on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, and was released as the album's first single that February. The song is an emotional confession of misconnects and apologies from the singer to a woman who has tragically...
". At Johnston's suggestion, Dylan, accompanied by keyboard player Al Kooper
Al Kooper
Al Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
and guitarist Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson, OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
, moved to the CBS recording studios in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville's top session musicians, were more fruitful, and the album was completed in March 1966.
The album completed the trilogy of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
albums that Dylan recorded in 1965 and 1966, commencing with Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band - a move that further alienated...
and Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...
. Blonde on Blonde is often ranked by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
literary sensibility, the album's songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics one critic called "a unique blend of the visionary and the colloquial". It was one of the first double album
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
s in rock music.
The album peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart in the USA, where it eventually went double-platinum, and reached No. 3 in the UK. Blonde on Blonde spawned two singles that were top twenty hits in the USA: "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" and "I Want You
I Want You (Bob Dylan song)
"I Want You" is a 1966 song recorded by Bob Dylan. It was issued as a single in June 1966, shortly before the release of its accompanying album, Blonde on Blonde. A live version of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was included as a B-side...
". Two further songs, "Just Like a Woman
Just Like a Woman
Just Like a Woman is a 1992 British film by Christopher Monger starring Julie Walters, Adrian Pasdar and Paul Freeman. Gerald, a finance executive , finds himself thrown out by his wife when she discovers women's underwear in their flat; in fact the clothes belong to him. He takes lodgings with...
" and "Visions of Johanna
Visions of Johanna
"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the results...
", have been described as among Dylan's greatest compositions and were featured in Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"....
list.
Background
After the release of the Highway 61 Revisited in August 1965, Dylan set about hiring a touring band. Guitarist Mike BloomfieldMike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
and keyboard player Al Kooper
Al Kooper
Al Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
had backed Dylan, both on his new album and at Dylan's controversial electric debut at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival
Electric Dylan controversy
By 1965, Bob Dylan had achieved the status of leading songwriter of the American folk music revival.Paul Simon suggested that Dylan's early compositions virtually took over the folk genre: "[Dylan's] early songs were very rich ... with strong melodies. 'Blowin' in the Wind' has a really strong...
. Bloomfield chose not to tour with Dylan, preferring to remain with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. After backing him at concerts in late August and early September, Kooper informed Dylan he did not wish to continue touring with him. Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
, was in the process of setting up a gruelling concert schedule that would keep Dylan on the road for the next nine months, touring the USA, Australia, and Europe. Dylan contacted a group who were performing as Levon and the Hawks. The Hawks comprised four Canadian musicians: Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko
Rick Danko
Richard Clare "Rick" Danko was a Canadian musician and singer, best known as a member of The Band.-Early years :...
, Richard Manuel
Richard Manuel
Richard George Manuel was a Canadian composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his contributions to and membership in The Band....
, and Garth Hudson
Garth Hudson
Eric Garth Hudson is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist. As the organist, keyboardist and saxophonist for Canadian-American rock group The Band, he was a principal architect of the group's unique sound...
, plus Levon Helm
Levon Helm
Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm , is an American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band....
from Arkansas. They had come together as a band in Canada, backing American rocker Ronnie Hawkins
Ronnie Hawkins
Ronald "Ronnie" Hawkins is a Juno Award-winning rockabilly musician whose career has spanned more than half a century. Though his career began in Arkansas, USA, where he'd been born and raised, it was in Ontario, Canada where he found success and settled for most of his life...
. Two people had strongly recommended the Hawks to Dylan: Mary Martin, the executive secretary of Albert Grossman, and blues singer John Hammond, Jr.
John P. Hammond
John Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:...
, son of record producer John Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, who had signed Dylan to Columbia Records in 1961. The Hawks had backed the younger Hammond on his 1965 album So Many Roads.
Dylan rehearsed with the Hawks in Toronto on September 15, where they were playing a hometown residency at Friar's Club, and on September 24, they made their debut in Austin, Texas. Just two weeks later, encouraged by the success of their Texas performance, Dylan took the Hawks into Studio A of Columbia Records in New York City. Their immediate task was to record a hit single as the follow-up to "Positively 4th Street
Positively 4th Street
"Positively 4th Street" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Dylan in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965, reaching #1 on Canada's RPM chart, #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #8 on the UK Singles Chart...
". But Dylan was already trying to formulate the shape of his next album, the third he had begun that year backed by rock musicians.
New York sessions
Producer Bob JohnstonBob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
, who had overseen the recording of Highway 61 Revisited, started work with Dylan and the Hawks at Columbia Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on October 5. They concentrated on a new arrangement of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
"Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" was a 1965 single by American rock artist Bob Dylan. It reached #58 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #17 on the UK chart in January 1966...
", a song recorded during the Highway 61 sessions but not included on that album. Three further numbers were attempted, but none progressed into completed songs that would find their place on the album. Both the fragmentary "Jet Pilot" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover", a quasi-parody of the Beatles' "I Wanna Be Your Man
I Wanna Be Your Man
"I Wanna Be Your Man" is a Lennon–McCartney-penned song that was recorded separately by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones' version was released a few weeks earlier...
", finally appeared on the 1985 box set retrospective, Biograph
Biograph (album)
Biograph is a 53-track compilation spanning the career of Bob Dylan, from his 1962 debut album to the 1981 LP Shot of Love. Released in 1985 by Columbia Records, on both a 5-LP and a 3-CD Box set, it was one of the earliest and most successful examples of the CD Box set...
. Also attempted were two takes of "Medicine Sunday", a song that later evolved into "Temporary Like Achilles
Temporary Like Achilles
"Temporary Like Achilles" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The song was originally recorded in a much shorter version with The Band in New York in 1965 under the title "Medicine Sunday". That take was deemed unsatisfactory and shelved. Dylan added...
".
On November 30, the Hawks joined Dylan again at Studio A, but drummer Bobby Gregg
Bobby Gregg
Robert J. Gregg is a musician who has performed as a drummer and has also been a record producer. As a drum soloist and band leader he recorded one album and several singles, including one Top 40 single in the United States...
replaced Levon Helm, who had tired of playing in a backing band and quit the group. They began work on a new composition, "Seems Like a Freeze-Out", which was later retitled "Visions of Johanna
Visions of Johanna
"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the results...
", but Dylan was not satisfied with the performances recorded that day. One of the November 30 recordings was eventually released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is the third most recent installment in the Bob Dylan "Bootleg Series" of rare and/or officially unissued recordings....
in 2005. At this session, they completed "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" The song was released as a single in December, but only reached No. 58 on the American charts.
Dylan spent most of December in California, performing a dozen concerts with his band, and then took a break through the third week in January following the birth of his son Jesse
Jesse Dylan
Jesse Dylan is an American film director, and the founder, CEO and creative director of the media production company Wondros.-Personal Life:...
. On January 21, 1966, he returned to Columbia's Studio A to record another long composition, "She's Your Lover Now
She's Your Lover Now
"She's Your Lover Now" is a song written by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and recorded for his 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde, but ultimately never used.-Recording:...
", accompanied by the Hawks (this time with Sandy Konikoff on drums). Despite 19 takes, the session failed to yield any complete recordings. Dylan did not attempt the song again, but one of the outtakes from the January 21 session finally appeared 25 years later on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. (Although the song breaks down at the start of the last verse, Columbia released it as the most complete take from the session.)
Around this time, Dylan became disillusioned about using the Hawks in the studio. He recorded more material at Studio A on January 25, backed by drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Rick Danko (or William Lee),The booklet accompanying the The Original Mono Recordings
The Original Mono Recordings
The Original Mono Recordings is a box set compilation album of recordings by Bob Dylan, released in October 2010 on Legacy Recordings, catalogue 88697761042. It consists of Dylan's first eight studio albums in mono on nine compact discs, the album Blonde on Blonde being issued on two discs in its...
re-issue of Blonde on Blonde lists William Lee as the bass player . Wilentz insists that "the playing and talk on the session tape show conclusively that Rick Danko
Rick Danko
Richard Clare "Rick" Danko was a Canadian musician and singer, best known as a member of The Band.-Early years :...
was the bassist on 'One of Us Must Know'" . pianist Paul Griffin
Paul Griffin (musician)
Paul Griffin was an American session musician and pianist, who recorded with hundreds of artists from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
, and Al Kooper on organ. Two more new compositions were attempted: "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a song by Bob Dylan, from his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Like many other Dylan songs of the 1965-1966 period, the song features a surreal, playful lyric set to an electric blues accompaniment.-Lyrics:...
" and "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
"One of Us Must Know " is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan. It is the fourth track on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, and was released as the album's first single that February. The song is an emotional confession of misconnects and apologies from the singer to a woman who has tragically...
". Dylan was satisfied with "One of Us Must Know"; the January 25 take was released as a single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
a few weeks later and was subsequently selected for the album.
Another session took place on January 27, this time with guitarist Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, Al Kooper, and drummer Bobby Gregg. Dylan and his band recorded "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" and "One of Us Must Know" again, but Dylan was not satisfied with the recorded performance of either song. Also at this session, Dylan attempted a rough performance of "I'll Keep It With Mine
I'll Keep It with Mine
"I'll Keep It with Mine" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1964, first officially released by folk singer Judy Collins as a single in 1965. Dylan attempted to record the song for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde.-Dylan's Version:...
", a song which he had already recorded twice in demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
form. The musicians added some tentative backing, a rendition biographer Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
described as cursory. The recording was ultimately released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 in 1991.
A shortage of new material and the slow progress of the sessions contributed to Dylan's decision to cancel three additional recording dates. Six weeks later, Dylan confided to critic Robert Shelton, "Oh, I was really down. I mean, in ten recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song...It was the band. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that."
Move to Nashville
Recognizing Dylan's dissatisfaction with the progress of the recordings, producer Bob JohnstonBob Johnston
Donald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
suggested that they move the sessions to Nashville. Johnston lived there and had extensive experience working with Nashville session musicians. He recalled how Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
, was hostile to the idea: "Grossman came up to me and said 'If you ever mention Nashville to Dylan again, you're gone.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'You heard me. We got a thing going here'." Despite Grossman's opposition, Dylan agreed to Johnston's suggestion, and preparations were made to record the album at Columbia's A Studio on Nashville's Music Row
Music Row
Music Row is an area just to the southwest of Downtown Nashville, Tennessee that is home to hundreds of businesses related to the country music, gospel music, and Contemporary Christian music industries...
in February 1966.
In addition to Kooper and Robertson, who accompanied Dylan from New York, Johnston recruited harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
player, guitarist and bassist Charlie McCoy
Charlie McCoy
Charles "Charlie" Ray McCoy is an American musician noted for his harmonica playing. In his career, McCoy has backed several notable musicians including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Astor, Elvis Presley and Ween. He has also recorded thirty-seven studio albums, including fourteen for Monument Records...
, guitarist Wayne Moss, guitarist and bassist Joe South
Joe South
Joe South is a multi-talented American singer-songwriter and guitarist.-Career:...
, and drummer Kenny Buttrey
Kenny Buttrey
Aaron Kenneth Buttrey was an American drummer and arranger. According to CMT, he was "one of the most influential session musicians in Nashville history"....
. At Dylan's request, Johnston removed the baffles—partitions separating the musicians—so that there was "an ambiance fit for an ensemble". Buttrey credited the distinctive sound of the album to Johnston's re-arrangement of the studio, "as if we were on a tight stage, as opposed to playing in a big hall where you're ninety miles apart." In addition, Dylan had a piano installed in his Nashville hotel room, which Kooper would play for Dylan to help in the songwriting process. Kooper would then teach the tunes to the musicians before Dylan arrived for the sessions.
On the first Nashville session on February 14, Dylan successfully recorded "Visions of Johanna", which he had attempted several times in New York. Also recorded was a take of "4th Time Around
4th Time Around
"4th Time Around" is a song by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde.-Narrative:With lyrics that contrast the mundane with the absurd, "4th Time Around" is suggestive of a young romance. The song revolves around the actions and brief spoken phrases of a man and a woman, who are presumably...
", which made it onto the album, and a take of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", which did not.
On February 15, the session began at 6 p.m., but Dylan simply sat in the studio working on his lyrics, while the musicians played cards, napped, and chatted. Finally, at 4 a.m., Dylan called the musicians in and outlined the structure of the song. Dylan counted off and the musicians fell in, as he attempted his epic composition, "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
"Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is the closing song on the Bob Dylan album Blonde on Blonde, which was released in 1966.-History of the song:...
". Kenny Buttrey recalled, "If you notice that record, that thing after like the second chorus starts building and building like crazy, and everybody's just peaking it up 'cause we thought, Man, this is it...This is gonna be the last chorus and we've gotta put everything into it we can. And he played another harmonica solo and went back down to another verse and the dynamics had to drop back down to a verse kind of feel...After about ten minutes of this thing we're cracking up at each other, at what we were doing. I mean, we peaked five minutes ago. Where do we go from here?" The finished song clocked in at 11 minutes, 23 seconds, and would occupy the entire fourth side of the album.
The next session began similarly—Dylan spent the afternoon writing lyrics, and the session continued into the early hours of February 17, when the musicians began to record "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" is a song written by Bob Dylan that appears on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The album version also appears on 1971's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II. A live version of this song appears on the 1976 album Hard Rain; and was also released as...
". After several musical revisions and false starts, the fourteenth take was the version selected for the album.
Second recording sessions in Nashville
Most accounts of recording Blonde on Blonde, including those by Dylan scholars Clinton HeylinClinton Heylin
Clinton Heylin is an English author who has written extensively about popular music and the work of Bob Dylan.- Education :...
and Michael Gray
Michael Gray (author)
Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...
, agree that there were two blocks of recording sessions: from February 14 to 17, and from March 8 to 10 in 1966. This chronology is based on the logs and files kept by Columbia Records.The booklet accompanying the The Original Mono Recordings re-issue of Blonde on Blonde gives recording dates for each track of the double album, confirming the Nashville recording sessions were in two blocks, one in February, the other in March .
Dylan and the Hawks performed concerts in Ottawa, Montreal, and Philadelphia in February and March, and then Dylan resumed recording in Nashville on March 8. On that day, Dylan and the musicians recorded a take of "Absolutely Sweet Marie
Absolutely Sweet Marie
"Absolutely Sweet Marie" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released on his 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde. An exuberantly up-tempo number, "Sweet Marie" is full of diverse, often hardly disguised sexual imagery.- Song and background :...
" that Dylan selected for the album. Historian Sean Wilentz
Sean Wilentz
Robert Sean Wilentz is the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor of History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979.-Background:Born in 1951 in New York City, where his father Eli and uncle Ted owned a well-known Greenwich Village bookstore, the Eighth Street Bookshop, Wilentz earned...
observed that "with the sound of 'Sweet Marie', Blonde on Blonde entered fully and sublimely into what is now considered classic rock and roll". March 9 saw the successful master takes
Master recording
A multitrack recording master tape, disk or computer files on which productions are developed for later mixing, is known as the multi-track master, while the tape, disk or computer files holding a mix is called a mixed master.It is standard practice to make a copy of a master recording, known as...
of "Just Like a Woman
Just Like a Woman
Just Like a Woman is a 1992 British film by Christopher Monger starring Julie Walters, Adrian Pasdar and Paul Freeman. Gerald, a finance executive , finds himself thrown out by his wife when she discovers women's underwear in their flat; in fact the clothes belong to him. He takes lodgings with...
", and "Pledging My Time
Pledging My Time
"Pledging My Time" is a blues song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The song was recorded March 8, 1966 in Nashville, Tennessee with veteran Nashville musicians, as well as Robbie Robertson and Al Kooper, who Dylan had brought along...
", the latter "driven by Robertson's screaming guitar".
According to Wilentz, the final recording session produced six songs in 13 hours of studio time. The first number to be recorded to Dylan's satisfaction was "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
"Most Likely You Go Your Way " is the first track of the second disc of the 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, the seventh album from singer-songwriter Bob Dylan...
", which changed its sound radically when McCoy picked up a trumpet to reinforce a musical phrase Dylan had been playing on his harmonica. Dylan and his band then quickly recorded "Temporary Like Achilles
Temporary Like Achilles
"Temporary Like Achilles" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The song was originally recorded in a much shorter version with The Band in New York in 1965 under the title "Medicine Sunday". That take was deemed unsatisfactory and shelved. Dylan added...
". The session atmosphere began to "get giddy" around midnight, when Dylan roughed out "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" on the piano. Johnston recalled commenting, "That sounds like the damn Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
band". Dylan replied, "Can you get one?" Johnston then telephoned trombonist Wayne Butler, the only additional musician required, and Dylan and the band, with McCoy again on trumpet, played a high-spirited version of the song.
In quick succession, Dylan and the musicians then recorded "Obviously 5 Believers
Obviously 5 Believers
"Obviously Five Believers" is a song by Bob Dylan which appears on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. As with many other Dylan tracks of the 1965-1966 period , it is based around a slightly surreal lyric set to a blues-rock accompaniment.The song borrows from American blues tradition liberally: the...
", and a final take of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", powered by Robertson's lead guitar. The session concluded with "I Want You
I Want You (Bob Dylan song)
"I Want You" is a 1966 song recorded by Bob Dylan. It was issued as a single in June 1966, shortly before the release of its accompanying album, Blonde on Blonde. A live version of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was included as a B-side...
", where, as one critic wrote, "Wayne Moss's rapid-fire sixteenth notes
Sixteenth note
thumb|right|Figure 1. A sixteenth note with stem facing up, a sixteenth note with stem facing down, and a sixteenth rest.thumb|right|Figure 2. Four sixteenth notes beamed together....
on the guitar" sustain the vitality of the melody.
Controversy over Nashville recording dates
Al KooperAl Kooper
Al Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
, who played keyboards on every track of Blonde on Blonde, has contested the conventional account that there were two blocks of recording sessions in Nashville. In comments on Michael Gray's website, Kooper wrote: "There was only ONE trip to Nashville for Robbie & I, and ALL THE TRACKS were cut in that one visit." Charlie McCoy
Charlie McCoy
Charles "Charlie" Ray McCoy is an American musician noted for his harmonica playing. In his career, McCoy has backed several notable musicians including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Astor, Elvis Presley and Ween. He has also recorded thirty-seven studio albums, including fourteen for Monument Records...
agreed with Kooper's version. Wilentz analyzed the recording of Blonde on Blonde in his book Bob Dylan In America, concluding that "the official documented version jibes better with Dylan's known touring schedule. It also jibes with the fact that five of the eight songs first recorded after 'Memphis Blues Again', but none of those recorded earlier, include a middle-eight section—Dylan's first extensive foray as a writer into that conventional structure."
Mixing and album title
Dylan mixed the album in Los Angeles in early April, before he departed on the Australian leg of his 1966 world tourBob Dylan World Tour 1966
The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan's 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following his "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival...
. Wilentz writes that it was at this point that Dylan and Johnston realized they had "produced enough solid material to demand an oddly configured double album, the first of its kind in contemporary popular music." According to producer Steve Berkowitz, who supervised the reissue of Dylan's LPs in mono
Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
as The Original Mono Recordings
The Original Mono Recordings
The Original Mono Recordings is a box set compilation album of recordings by Bob Dylan, released in October 2010 on Legacy Recordings, catalogue 88697761042. It consists of Dylan's first eight studio albums in mono on nine compact discs, the album Blonde on Blonde being issued on two discs in its...
in 2010, Johnston told him that they carefully worked on the mono mix for about three or four days whereas the stereo mix was finished in about four hours.Johnston said: "We mixed that mono probably for three or four days, then I said, 'Oh shit, man, we gotta do stereo.' So me and a coupla guys put our hands on the board, we mixed that son of a bitch in about four hours!...So my point is, it took a long time to do the mono, and then it was, 'Oh, yeah, we gotta do stereo'" .
Al Kooper recalled that both the album title, Blonde on Blonde, and song titles arrived during the mixing sessions. "When they were mixing it, we were sitting around and Bob Johnston came in and said, 'What do you want to call this?' And [Bob] just like said them out one at a time...Free association and silliness, I'm sure, played a big role." Another Dylan chronicler, Oliver Trager, notes that besides spelling out the initials of Dylan's first name, the album title is also a riff on Brecht on Brecht, a stage production based on works by German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
playwright Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
that had influenced his early songwriting. Dylan himself has said of the title: "Well, I don't even recall exactly how it came up, but I know it was all in good faith...I don't know who thought of that. I certainly didn't."
Side one
"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"According to author Andy Gill, by starting his new album with what sounded like "a demented marching-band...staffed by crazy people out of their mind on loco-weed", Dylan delivered his biggest shock yet for his former folkie fans. The elaborate puns on getting stoned combine a sense of paranoiac persecution with "nudge-nudge wink-wink bohemian hedonism". Heylin points out that the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
connotations of getting stoned made the Salvation Army-style musical backing seem like a good joke. The enigmatic title came about, Heylin suggests, because Dylan knew a song entitled "everybody must get stoned" would be kept off the airwaves. Heylin links the title to the Book of Proverbs
Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...
, chapter 27, verse 15: "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike." Released as a single in April 1966, "Rainy Day Women" reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart, and No. 7 in the UK.
"Pledging My Time
Pledging My Time
"Pledging My Time" is a blues song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The song was recorded March 8, 1966 in Nashville, Tennessee with veteran Nashville musicians, as well as Robbie Robertson and Al Kooper, who Dylan had brought along...
"
Following the good-time fun of "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35", the Chicago blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
-influenced "Pledging My Time" sets the somber tone that runs through the album. It draws on several traditional blues songs, including Elmore James
Elmore James
Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was known as "the King of the Slide Guitar" and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice.-Biography:James was born Elmore Brooks in the old Richland community in...
' recording of "It Hurts Me Too
It Hurts Me Too
"It Hurts Me Too" is a blues standard that is "one of the most interpreted blues [songs]". First recorded in 1940 by Tampa Red, the song is a mid-tempo eight-bar blues that features slide guitar...
". For critic Michael Gray
Michael Gray (author)
Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...
, the lines "Somebody got lucky but it was an accident" echoes the lines "Some joker got lucky, stole her back again" from Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given...
's "Come On in My Kitchen
Come On in My Kitchen
"Come On in My Kitchen" is a blues song by Robert Johnson. Johnson recorded the song on Monday, November 23rd, 1936 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas - his first recording session...
", which is itself an echo of the Skip James
Skip James
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
1931 recording "Devil Got My Woman". Gray suggests that "the gulping movements of the melodic phrases" derive from the melody of "Sitting on Top of the World
Sitting on Top of the World
"Sitting on Top of the World" is a folk-blues song written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon, core members of the Mississippi Sheiks, a popular country blues band of the 1930s...
", recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks
Mississippi Sheiks
The Mississippi Sheiks were a popular and influential guitar and fiddle group of the 1930s. They were notable mostly for playing country blues, but were adept at many styles of United States popular music of the time, and their records were bought by both black and white audiences.In 2004, they...
in 1930. The couplet at the end of each verse expresses the theme: a pledge made to a prospective lover in hopes she "will come through, too". Besides Dylan's vocals and improvised harmonica breaks, the song's sound is defined by Robbie Robertson's guitar, Hargus "Pig" Robbins's blues piano and Ken Buttrey's snare rolls. The song was released in edited form as the B-side of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" in April.
"Visions of Johanna
Visions of Johanna
"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the results...
"
Considered by many critics as one of Dylan's greatest masterpieces, "Visions of Johanna" proved difficult to capture on tape. Heylin places the writing in the fall of 1965, when Dylan was living in the Chelsea Hotel
Hotel Chelsea
The Hotel Chelsea, also known as the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea, is a historic New York City hotel and landmark, known primarily for its history of notable residents...
with his pregnant wife Sara
Sara Dylan
Sara Dylan , born Shirley Marlin Noznisky and later known as Sara Lownds, was the first wife of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and mother of singer Jakob Dylan. She was married to Bob Dylan from November 1965 until June 1977.-Early life:Little is known about Sara Dylan's early life or family...
. In the New York recording studio, on November 30, Dylan announced his epic composition: "This is called 'Freeze Out'." Gill notes that this working title captures the "air of nocturnal suspension in which the verse tableaux are sketched...full of whispering and muttering." Wilentz relates how Dylan guided his backing musicians through fourteen takes, trying to sketch out how he wanted it played, saying at one point, "it's not hard rock, The only thing in it that's hard is Robbie." Wilentz notes that, as Dylan quiets things down, he inches closer to what will appear on the album.
Ten weeks later, "Visions of Johanna" fell into place quickly in the Nashville studio. Kooper recalled that he and Robertson had become adept at responding to Dylan's vocal and also singled out Joe South's contribution of "this throbbing...rhythmically amazing bass part". Gill comments that the song begins by contrasting two lovers, the carnal Louise, and "the more spiritual but unattainable" Johanna. Ultimately, for Gill, the song seeks to convey how the artist is compelled to keep striving to pursue some elusive vision of perfection. For Heylin, the triumph of the song is in "the way Dylan manages to write about the most inchoate feelings in such a vivid, immediate way."
"One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
"One of Us Must Know " is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan. It is the fourth track on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, and was released as the album's first single that February. The song is an emotional confession of misconnects and apologies from the singer to a woman who has tragically...
"
When Dylan arrived at the studio on January 25, 1966, he had yet to work out the lyrics and title for what was to become the closing track on Blonde on Blondes first side. With Dylan piecing together the song's sections, the session stretched through the night and into the next morning. It was not until the eighteenth take that a full version was recorded. The next take, the nineteenth, closed the session and made it onto the album four months later. Critic Jonathan Singer credits Griffin's piano for binding the song together: "At the chorus, Griffin unleashes a symphony; hammering his way up and down the keyboard, half Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, half gospel, all heart. The follow-up, a killer left hand figure that links the chorus to the verse, releases none of the song's tension."
"One of Us Must Know" is a straightforward account of a burned-out relationship. Dissecting what went wrong, the narrator takes a defensive attitude in a one-sided conversation with his former lover. As he presents his case in the opening verse, it appears he is incapable of either acknowledging his part or limiting the abuse: "I didn't mean to treat you so bad. You don't have to take it so personal. I didn't mean to make you so sad. You just happened to be there, that's all." "One of Us Must Know" was the first recording completed for Blonde on Blonde and the only one selected from the New York sessions. The song was released as the first single from the album on February 14, the same day Dylan began to record new material in Nashville. It failed to appear on the American charts, but reached No. 33 in the UK.
Side two
"I Want YouI Want You (Bob Dylan song)
"I Want You" is a 1966 song recorded by Bob Dylan. It was issued as a single in June 1966, shortly before the release of its accompanying album, Blonde on Blonde. A live version of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was included as a B-side...
"
Andy Gill notes that the song displays a tension between the very direct tone of the chorus, the repeated phrase "I want you", and a weird and complex cast of characters, "too numerous to inhabit the song's three minutes comfortably", including a guilty undertaker, a lonesome organ grinder, weeping fathers, mothers, sleeping saviors, the Queen of Spades, and the "dancing child with his Chinese suit". Gill reports that "the dancing child" was rumored to be a reference to Brian Jones
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
of The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
. Heylin agrees there may be substance to this because the dancing child claims that "time was on his side", perhaps a reference to "Time Is On My Side
Time Is on My Side
"Time Is on My Side" is a song written by Jerry Ragovoy . First recorded by jazz trombonist Kai Winding and his Orchestra in 1963, it was covered by both soul singer Irma Thomas and The Rolling Stones in 1964.-History:Winding session arranger Garry Sherman "Time Is on My Side" is a song written by...
", the Stones' first US hit . Analyzing the evolution of the lyrics through successive drafts, Wilentz writes that there are numerous failures, "about deputies asking him his name...lines about fathers going down hugging one another and about their daughters putting him down because he isn't their brother". Finally Dylan arrives at the right formula.
Heylin points out that the gorgeous tune illustrates what Dylan explained to a reporter in 1966: "It's not just pretty words to a tune or putting tunes to words...[It's] the words and the music [together]—I can hear the sound of what I want to say." Al Kooper has said that of all the songs that Dylan had outlined to him in his hotel, this was his favorite, so Dylan delayed recording it to the very end of the Nashville sessions, "just to bug him".
Released as a single in June 1966, shortly before the album Blonde on Blonde, "I Want You" reached No. 20 in the USA, and No. 16 in the UK.
"Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" is a song written by Bob Dylan that appears on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The album version also appears on 1971's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II. A live version of this song appears on the 1976 album Hard Rain; and was also released as...
"
Recorded at the third Nashville session, this song was the culmination of another epic of simultaneous writing and recording in the studio. Wilentz describes how the lyrics evolved through a surviving part-typed, part-handwritten manuscript page, "which begins 'honey but it’s just too hard' (a line that had survived from the very first New York session with the Hawks). Then the words meander through random combinations and disconnected fragments and images ('people just get uglier'; 'banjo eyes'; 'he was carrying a 22 but it was only a single shot'), before, in Dylan’s own hand, amid many crossings-out, there appears 'Oh MAMA you’re here IN MOBILE ALABAMA with the Memphis blues again'."
Inside the studio, the song evolved through several musical revisions. Heylin writes, "It is the song's arrangement, and not its lyrics, that occupies the musicians through the wee small hours." On the fifth take, released in 2005 on the No Direction Home Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack is the third most recent installment in the Bob Dylan "Bootleg Series" of rare and/or officially unissued recordings....
, midtake Dylan stumbles on the formula "Stuck inside of Mobile" on the fourth verse, and never goes back. The song contains two oft-quoted pieces of Dylan's philosophy: "Your debutante just knows what you need/ But I know what you want" and "here I sit so patiently/ Waiting to find out what price/ You have to pay to get out of/ Going through all these things twice".
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a song by Bob Dylan, from his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Like many other Dylan songs of the 1965-1966 period, the song features a surreal, playful lyric set to an electric blues accompaniment.-Lyrics:...
"
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a sarcastic satire on materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, fashion and fad
FAD
In biochemistry, flavin adenine dinucleotide is a redox cofactor involved in several important reactions in metabolism. FAD can exist in two different redox states, which it converts between by accepting or donating electrons. The molecule consists of a riboflavin moiety bound to the phosphate...
dism. Done in Chicago-blues style, the song derives its melody and part of its lyrics from Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins
Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...
's "Automobile (Blues)". Its putdowns have been criticized as misogynistic
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
, though the emotion underlying them is jealousy
Jealousy
Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...
. In the lyrics, the narrator observes his former lover in various situations wearing her "brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat", at one point finding his doctor with her and later spying her making love with a new boyfriend because she "forgot to close the garage door". In the closing lines, the narrator says he knows what her boyfriend really loves her for—her hat.
The song evolved over the course of six takes in New York, 13 in the first Nashville session, and then one try on March 10, the take used for the album. Dylan, who gets credit on the liner notes as lead guitarist, opens the song on lead; however, Robertson handles the solos with a "searing" performance. A year following the recording, "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" became the fifth single released from Blonde on Blonde, making it to No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
.
"Just Like a Woman
Just Like a Woman
Just Like a Woman is a 1992 British film by Christopher Monger starring Julie Walters, Adrian Pasdar and Paul Freeman. Gerald, a finance executive , finds himself thrown out by his wife when she discovers women's underwear in their flat; in fact the clothes belong to him. He takes lodgings with...
"
According to Wilentz's analysis of the session's tapes, Dylan felt his way into the lyrics of one of his most popular songs, singing "disconnected lines and semi-gibberish" during the earlier takes. He was unsure what the person described in the song does that is just like a woman, rejecting "shakes", "wakes", and "makes mistakes". This exploration of female wiles and feminine vulnerability was widely rumored—"not least by her acquaintances among Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
's Factory
The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968, although his later studios were known as The Factory as well. The Factory was located on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street, in Midtown Manhattan. The rent was "only about one hundred dollars a year"...
retinue"—to be about Edie Sedgwick
Edie Sedgwick
Edith Minturn "Edie" Sedgwick was an American actress, socialite, model and heiress. She is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars. Sedgwick became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Warhol's short films in the 1960s...
. The reference to Baby's penchant for "fog...amphetamine and... pearls" suggests Sedgwick or some similar debutante, according to Heylin.
Discussing the lyrics, literary critic Christopher Ricks
Christopher Ricks
Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks, FBA is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford from 2004...
detects a "note of social exclusion" in the line "I was hungry and it was your world". In response to the accusation that Dylan's depiction of female strategies is mysoginistic, Ricks asks, "Could there ever be any challenging art about men and women where the accusation just didn't arise?" The song reached No. 33 in the USA.
Side three
"Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
"Most Likely You Go Your Way " is the first track of the second disc of the 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, the seventh album from singer-songwriter Bob Dylan...
"
A bright blues "stomper" about lovers parting, "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" is one of the more literal songs Dylan recorded in his 1965–1966 period. The narrator has tired of carrying his lover and is going to let her "pass". As in "Just Like a Woman" and "Absolutely Sweet Marie", he waits until the end of each verse to deliver the punch line, which in this case comes from the title. "Most Likely You Go Your Way" was issued as a single a year later, in March 1967, on the B-side of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat".
"Temporary Like Achilles
Temporary Like Achilles
"Temporary Like Achilles" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The song was originally recorded in a much shorter version with The Band in New York in 1965 under the title "Medicine Sunday". That take was deemed unsatisfactory and shelved. Dylan added...
"
This hazy, slow-moving blues number is highlighted by Hargus "Pig" Robbins's barrelhouse piano and Dylan's "wheezing" harmonica. In the song, the narrator has been spurned by his lover, who has already taken up with her latest boyfriend. Referring to his rival as "Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
", the narrator senses the new suitor may end up being discarded as quickly as he was. The refrain that ends each of the main verses—"Honey, why are you so hard?"—is a double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
Dylan had been wanting to work into a song.
"Absolutely Sweet Marie
Absolutely Sweet Marie
"Absolutely Sweet Marie" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released on his 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde. An exuberantly up-tempo number, "Sweet Marie" is full of diverse, often hardly disguised sexual imagery.- Song and background :...
"
This song, described as "up-tempo blues shuffle, pure Memphis" and an example of "obvious pop sensibility and compulsive melody", was recorded in four takes on March 7, 1966. Gill sees the lyrics as a series of sexual metaphors, including "beating on my trumpet" and keys to locked gates, many deriving from traditional blues. Nonetheless, the song contains what has been termed "one of the most oft-repeated of Dylan's life lessons", the thought that "to live outside the law you must be honest", which was later invoked in many bohemian and counter-cultural
Counterculture of the 1960s
The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...
contexts.
"4th Time Around
4th Time Around
"4th Time Around" is a song by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde.-Narrative:With lyrics that contrast the mundane with the absurd, "4th Time Around" is suggestive of a young romance. The song revolves around the actions and brief spoken phrases of a man and a woman, who are presumably...
"
When The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
released their sixth studio album, Rubber Soul
Rubber Soul
Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul had been recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market...
, in December 1965, John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
's song "Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
"Norwegian Wood " is a song by The Beatles, first released on the 1965 album Rubber Soul....
" attracted attention for the way in which Lennon disguised his account of an illicit affair in cryptic, Dylanesque language. Dylan sketched out a response to the song, also in 3/4 time, copying the tune and circular structure, but taking Lennon's tale in a darker direction. Wilentz describes the result as sounding "like Bob Dylan impersonating John Lennon impersonating Bob Dylan".
"Obviously 5 Believers
Obviously 5 Believers
"Obviously Five Believers" is a song by Bob Dylan which appears on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. As with many other Dylan tracks of the 1965-1966 period , it is based around a slightly surreal lyric set to a blues-rock accompaniment.The song borrows from American blues tradition liberally: the...
"
"Obviously 5 Believers", Blonde on Blondes second-to-last track, is a roadhouse blues love song similar in melody and structure to Memphis Minnie
Memphis Minnie
Memphis Minnie was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.-Career:...
's "Me and My Chauffeur Blues
Chauffeur Blues
Chauffeur Blues is a song written by Lester Melrose. It was originally called Me and My Chauffeur Blues and performed by Memphis Minnie and covered by many other artists....
". Recorded in the early morning hours of the March 9–10 Nashville session under the working title "Black Dog Blues", the song is driven by Robertson's guitar, Charley McCoy's harmonica and Ken Buttrey's drumming. After an initial breakdown, Dylan complained to the band that the song was "very easy, man" and that he did not want to spend much time on it. Within four takes, the recording was done.
Side four
"Sad Eyed Lady of the LowlandsSad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
"Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is the closing song on the Bob Dylan album Blonde on Blonde, which was released in 1966.-History of the song:...
"
Written over the space of eight hours in the CBS recording studio in Nashville, on the night of February 15–16, "Sad Eyed Lady" eventually occupied the whole of side four of Blonde On Blonde. Critics have observed that "Lowlands" hints at "Lownds", and Dylan biographer Robert Shelton wrote that this was a "wedding song" for Sara Lownds
Sara Dylan
Sara Dylan , born Shirley Marlin Noznisky and later known as Sara Lownds, was the first wife of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and mother of singer Jakob Dylan. She was married to Bob Dylan from November 1965 until June 1977.-Early life:Little is known about Sara Dylan's early life or family...
, whom Dylan had married just three months earlier.Bob Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965, at a judge's office on Long Island, New York. The only guests were Albert Grossman and a maid of honor for Sara; there was no publicity . In his paean
Paean
A paean is a song or lyric poem expressing triumph or thanksgiving. In classical antiquity, it is usually performed by a chorus, but some examples seem intended for an individual voice...
to his wife, "Sara", written in 1975, Dylan amends history slightly to claim that he stayed "up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/ Writin’ 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you".
When Dylan played Shelton the song, shortly after recording it, he claimed, "This is the best song I've ever written." Around the same time, Dylan enthused to journalist Jules Siegel
Jules Siegel
Jules Siegel is a writer and graphic designer whose work has appeared over the years in Playboy, Best American Short Stories, Library of America's Writing Los Angeles, and many other publications...
, "Just listen to that! That's old-time religious carnival music!" However, in 1969, Dylan confessed to Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s editor, Jann Wenner
Jann Wenner
Jann Simon Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.-Childhood:...
, "I just sat down at a table and started writing...And I just got carried away with the whole thing...I just started writing and I couldn’t stop. After a period of time, I forgot what it was all about, and I started trying to get back to the beginning [laughs]."
Heard by some listeners as a hymn to an other-worldly woman, for Shelton "her travails seem beyond endurance, yet she radiates an inner strength, an ability to be re-born. This is Dylan at his most romantic." Wilentz comments that Dylan's writing had shifted from the days when he asked questions and supplied answers. Like the verses of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
's "Tyger
The Tyger
"The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794 . It is one of Blake's best-known and most analyzed poems...
", Dylan asks a series of questions about the "Sad Eyed Lady" but never supplies any answers.
Outtakes
The following outtakes were recorded during the Blonde on Blonde sessions.| Title | Status |
|---|---|
| "I'll Keep It with Mine I'll Keep It with Mine "I'll Keep It with Mine" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1964, first officially released by folk singer Judy Collins as a single in 1965. Dylan attempted to record the song for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde.-Dylan's Version:... " |
Released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 |
| "I Wanna Be Your Lover" | Released on Biograph Biograph (album) Biograph is a 53-track compilation spanning the career of Bob Dylan, from his 1962 debut album to the 1981 LP Shot of Love. Released in 1985 by Columbia Records, on both a 5-LP and a 3-CD Box set, it was one of the earliest and most successful examples of the CD Box set... |
| "Jet Pilot" | Released on Biograph |
| "Medicine Show" | Released on Highway 61 Interactive CD-ROM |
| "Number One" (instrumental) | Unreleased track copyrighted in July 1971 |
| "She's Your Lover Now She's Your Lover Now "She's Your Lover Now" is a song written by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and recorded for his 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde, but ultimately never used.-Recording:... " |
Released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 |
Album cover and release
The cover photo of Blonde on Blonde shows a 12-by-12 inch close-up portrait of Dylan. The double albumDouble album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
gatefold
Gatefold
A gatefold is a type of fold used for advertising around a magazine or section, and for packaging of media such as vinyl records.- LP covers :...
sleeve opens to form a 12-by-26 inch photo of the artist, at three quarter length. The artist's name and the album's title only appear on the spine. A sticker was applied to the shrink wrap to promote the release's two hit singles, "I Want You" and "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35".
The cover shows Dylan in front of a brick building, wearing a suede jacket and a black and white checkered scarf
Scarf
A scarf is a piece of fabric worn around the neck, or near the head or around the waist for warmth, cleanliness, fashion or for religious reasons. They can come in a variety of different colours.-History:...
. The jacket is the same one he wore on his next two albums, John Wesley Harding
John Wesley Harding (album)
John Wesley Harding is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's eighth studio album, released by Columbia Records in December 1967.Produced by Bob Johnston, the album marked Dylan's return to acoustic music and traditional roots, after three albums of electric rock music...
and Nashville Skyline
Nashville Skyline
Nashville Skyline is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's ninth studio album, released by Columbia Records in April 1969.The album marked a dramatic departure for Dylan, previously known for his groundbreaking, poetic folk music and rock and roll...
. The photographer, Jerry Schatzberg
Jerry Schatzberg
Jerry Schatzberg is a photographer and film director.-Career:Schatzberg was born to a Jewish family of furriers and grew up in the Bronx. He photographed for magazines such as Vogue, Esquire and McCalls. He made his debut as a feature film director with 1970's Puzzle of a Downfall Child starring...
, described how the photo was taken:
The original inside gatefold featured nine black-and-white photos, all taken by Schatzberg and selected for the sleeve by Dylan himself. A shot of actress Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale is an Italian actress, and has appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French...
from Schatzberg's portfolio was included but later withdrawn because it had been used without her authorization and Cardinale's representatives threatened to sue, making the original record sleeve a collector's item. Dylan included a self-portrait by Schatzberg as a credit to the photographer. The photos, for Gill, added up to "a shadowy glimpse of [Dylan's] life, including an enigmatic posed shot of Dylan holding a small portrait of a woman in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other: they all contributed to the album's air of reclusive yet sybaritic genius."
Release
The dating of the album's release is uncertain. May 16, 1966 has been widely accepted as the official release date; however, Michael Gray, author of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, disputes this. Gray maintains the earliest Blonde on Blonde was available was late June or early July. This coincides with the album's promotion in BillboardBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
, which carried a full-page Columbia advertisement on June 25, selected the album as a "New Action LP" on July 9, and ran a review and article on July 16. The album debuted on Billboards Top LP's chart on July 23—just six days before Dylan's motorcycle accident in Woodstock removed him from public view. Clinton Heylin argues that early July is the probable release date, stating that an overdub on "Fourth Time Around" was recorded in June. Blonde on Blonde has been described as rock's first studio double LP
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
by a major artist.Freak Out!
Freak Out!
Freak Out! is the debut album by American band The Mothers of Invention, released June 27, 1966 on Verve Records. Often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, the album is a satirical expression of frontman Frank Zappa's perception of American pop culture...
, the double album by The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
, was released on June 27, 1966 . Given the uncertainty over the exact release date of Blonde on Blonde, these two albums were virtually simultaneous.
Critical reception and legacy
Blonde on Blonde reached the Top 10 in both the US and UK album charts, and also spawned a number of hits that restored Dylan to the upper echelons of the singles charts. In August 1967, the album was certified as a gold disc.On its release, Blonde on Blonde was not short of critics who argued the album was a major work. To accompany the songbook of Blonde on Blonde, Paul Nelson
Paul Nelson (critic)
Paul Nelson was a folk and rock music critic who wrote for Sing Out! and Rolling Stone. He was instrumental in launching and supporting the careers of Bob Dylan, The New York Dolls, Elliott Murphy, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon...
wrote an introduction stating, "The very title suggests the singularity and the duality we expect from Dylan. For Dylan’s music of illusion and delusion—with the tramp as explorer and the clown as happy victim, where the greatest crimes are lifelessness and the inability to see oneself as a circus performer in the show of life—has always carried within it its own inherent tensions...Dylan in the end truly UNDERSTANDS situations, and once one truly understands anything, there can no longer be anger, no longer be moralizing, but only humor and compassion, only pity."
The album received generally favorable reviews in 1966. For Pete Johnson in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, "Dylan is a superbly eloquent writer of pop and folk songs with an unmatched ability to press complex ideas and iconoclastic philosophy into brief poetic lines and startling images." The editor of Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy!
Crawdaddy! was the first U.S. magazine of rock and roll music criticism. Created in 1966 by college student Paul Williams in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music, Crawdaddy! was self-described as "the first magazine to take rock and roll...
, Paul Williams
Paul Williams (Crawdaddy! creator)
Paul Williams is an American music journalist and writer. Williams created the first national US magazine of rock music criticism :Crawdaddy! in January 1966 on the campus of Swarthmore College with the help of some of his fellow science fiction fans...
, reviewed Blonde on Blonde in July 1966: "It is a cache of emotion, a well handled package of excellent music and better poetry, blended and meshed and ready to become part of your reality. Here is a man who will speak to you, a 1960s bard with electric lyre and color slides, but a truthful man with x-ray eyes you can look through if you want. All you have to do is listen."
The achievement of Blonde on Blonde seems to have lingered in Dylan's memory. Twelve years after its release, Dylan said: "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up." Several critics have described Blonde on Blonde as a satisfying conclusion to the mid-1960s trilogy of albums that Dylan had initiated with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Oliver Trager and Mike Marqusee
Mike Marqusee
Mike Marqusee is an American-born writer, journalist and political activist in London. His partner is the barrister Liz Davies.Marqusee, who describes himself as a "deracinated New York Marxist Jew" has lived in Britain since 1971...
have described this trilogy as perhaps Dylan's greatest achievement.
Blonde on Blonde has been consistently highly placed in polls of the greatest albums of all time. In 1974, the writers of NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
voted Blonde on Blonde the No. 2 album of all time. Demonstrating the transitory nature of such polls, in 1997 the album was placed at No. 16 in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV
HMV Group
HMV is a British global entertainment retail chain and is the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company also operates in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index...
, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and Classic FM
Classic FM (UK)
Classic FM, one of the United Kingdom's three Independent National Radio stations, broadcasts classical music in a popular and accessible style.-Overview:...
. In 2006, TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine included the record on their 100 All-TIME Albums list. In 2003, the album was ranked No. 9 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. In 2004, two songs from the album also appeared on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"....
: "Just Like a Woman" ranked No. 230 and "Visions of Johanna" No. 404. (When Rolling Stone updated this list in 2010, "Just Like a Woman" dropped to No. 232 and "Visions of Johanna" to No. 413.)
Dylan scholar Michael Gray wrote: "To have followed up one masterpiece with another was Dylan's history making achievement here...Where Highway 61 Revisited has Dylan exposing and confronting like a laser beam in surgery, descending from outside the sickness, Blonde on Blonde offers a persona awash inside the chaos...We're tossed from song to song...The feel and the music are on a grand scale, and the language and delivery are a rich mixture of the visionary and the colloquial." Critic Tim Riley
Tim Riley
Tim Riley is a Northwest media personality in Portland, Oregon. He is currently an Anchor/Reporter with AM 860 and KKOV, Portland Oregon. He served as News Director/Anchor for Hot Talk 1080 KOTK, Max 910 during Imus In The Morning, and KUFO during The Rick Emerson Show from 2001 until 2009...
wrote: "A sprawling abstraction of eccentric blues revisionism, Blonde on Blonde confirms Dylan's stature as the greatest American rock presence since Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
."
Biographer Robert Shelton saw the album as "a hallmark collection that completes his first major rock cycle, which began with Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home
Bringing It All Back Home is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's fifth studio album, released in March 1965 by Columbia Records. The album is divided into an electric and an acoustic side. On side one of the original LP, Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band - a move that further alienated...
". Summing up the album's achievement, Shelton wrote: "Blonde on Blonde begins with a joke and ends with a hymn; in between wit alternates with a dominant theme of entrapment by circumstances, love, society, and unrealized hope...a remarkable marriage of funky, bluesy rock expressionism, and Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
-like visions of discontinuity, chaos, emptiness, loss". For Mike Marqusee, Dylan had succeeded in reconciling traditional blues material with avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, literary techniques: "[Dylan] took inherited idioms and boosted them into a modernist stratosphere. 'Pledging My Time' and 'Obviously 5 Believers' adhered to blues patterns that were venerable when Dylan first encountered them in the mid-fifties. Yet like 'Visions of Johanna' or 'Memphis Blues Again', these songs are beyond category. They are allusive, repetitive, jaggedly abstract compositions that defy reduction."
That sense of crossing cultural boundaries was, for Al Kooper, at the heart of Blonde on Blonde: "[Bob Dylan] was the quintessential New York hipster—what was he doing in Nashville? It didn't make any sense whatsoever. But you take those two elements, pour them into a test tube, and it just exploded."
Track listing
All songs written by Bob Dylan.Side one
- "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" – 4:36
- "Pledging My TimePledging My Time"Pledging My Time" is a blues song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The song was recorded March 8, 1966 in Nashville, Tennessee with veteran Nashville musicians, as well as Robbie Robertson and Al Kooper, who Dylan had brought along...
" – 3:50 - "Visions of JohannaVisions of Johanna"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the results...
" – 7:33 - "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"One of Us Must Know " is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan. It is the fourth track on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, and was released as the album's first single that February. The song is an emotional confession of misconnects and apologies from the singer to a woman who has tragically...
" – 4:54
Side two
- "I Want YouI Want You (Bob Dylan song)"I Want You" is a 1966 song recorded by Bob Dylan. It was issued as a single in June 1966, shortly before the release of its accompanying album, Blonde on Blonde. A live version of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was included as a B-side...
" – 3:07 - "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues AgainStuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" is a song written by Bob Dylan that appears on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The album version also appears on 1971's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II. A live version of this song appears on the 1976 album Hard Rain; and was also released as...
" – 7:05 - "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box HatLeopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a song by Bob Dylan, from his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Like many other Dylan songs of the 1965-1966 period, the song features a surreal, playful lyric set to an electric blues accompaniment.-Lyrics:...
" – 3:58 - "Just Like a WomanJust Like a WomanJust Like a Woman is a 1992 British film by Christopher Monger starring Julie Walters, Adrian Pasdar and Paul Freeman. Gerald, a finance executive , finds himself thrown out by his wife when she discovers women's underwear in their flat; in fact the clothes belong to him. He takes lodgings with...
" – 4:52
Side three
- "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go MineMost Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)"Most Likely You Go Your Way " is the first track of the second disc of the 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, the seventh album from singer-songwriter Bob Dylan...
" – 3:30 - "Temporary Like AchillesTemporary Like Achilles"Temporary Like Achilles" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. The song was originally recorded in a much shorter version with The Band in New York in 1965 under the title "Medicine Sunday". That take was deemed unsatisfactory and shelved. Dylan added...
" – 5:02 - "Absolutely Sweet MarieAbsolutely Sweet Marie"Absolutely Sweet Marie" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released on his 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde. An exuberantly up-tempo number, "Sweet Marie" is full of diverse, often hardly disguised sexual imagery.- Song and background :...
" – 4:57 - "4th Time Around4th Time Around"4th Time Around" is a song by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde.-Narrative:With lyrics that contrast the mundane with the absurd, "4th Time Around" is suggestive of a young romance. The song revolves around the actions and brief spoken phrases of a man and a woman, who are presumably...
" – 4:35 - "Obviously 5 BelieversObviously 5 Believers"Obviously Five Believers" is a song by Bob Dylan which appears on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. As with many other Dylan tracks of the 1965-1966 period , it is based around a slightly surreal lyric set to a blues-rock accompaniment.The song borrows from American blues tradition liberally: the...
" – 3:35
Side four
- "Sad Eyed Lady of the LowlandsSad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is the closing song on the Bob Dylan album Blonde on Blonde, which was released in 1966.-History of the song:...
" – 11:23
Personnel
- Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
– vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, harmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal... - Paul GriffinPaul Griffin (musician)Paul Griffin was an American session musician and pianist, who recorded with hundreds of artists from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
– piano (New York) - Rick DankoRick DankoRichard Clare "Rick" Danko was a Canadian musician and singer, best known as a member of The Band.-Early years :...
– bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
(New York) - Bobby GreggBobby GreggRobert J. Gregg is a musician who has performed as a drummer and has also been a record producer. As a drum soloist and band leader he recorded one album and several singles, including one Top 40 single in the United States...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
(New York) - Robbie RobertsonRobbie RobertsonRobbie Robertson, OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
– guitar, vocals - Charlie McCoyCharlie McCoyCharles "Charlie" Ray McCoy is an American musician noted for his harmonica playing. In his career, McCoy has backed several notable musicians including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Astor, Elvis Presley and Ween. He has also recorded thirty-seven studio albums, including fourteen for Monument Records...
– bass, guitar, harmonica, trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air... - Al KooperAl KooperAl Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
– organOrgan (music)The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, guitar - Hargus "Pig" Robbins – piano, keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
- Bill Aikins – keyboards
- Kenneth A. Buttrey – drums
- Joe SouthJoe SouthJoe South is a multi-talented American singer-songwriter and guitarist.-Career:...
– guitar - Jerry KennedyJerry KennedyJerry Glenn Kennedy is an American record producer, songwriter and guitar player.-Early years:Kennedy was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. As a child, he recalls "beating on broomsticks and other things" as his initial forays into music-making...
– guitar - Wayne Moss – guitar, vocals
- Henry Strzelecki – bass
- Wayne Butler – tromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
- Bob JohnstonBob JohnstonDonald William Robert 'Bob' Johnston is a noted American record producer, best known for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and many Nashville recording artists, as well as Simon and Garfunkel.-Early days:Johnston was born into a professional musical family...
– producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music... - Jerry SchatzbergJerry SchatzbergJerry Schatzberg is a photographer and film director.-Career:Schatzberg was born to a Jewish family of furriers and grew up in the Bronx. He photographed for magazines such as Vogue, Esquire and McCalls. He made his debut as a feature film director with 1970's Puzzle of a Downfall Child starring...
– cover photographer
Charts
Album| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Billboard 200 | 9 |
| UK Top 75 | 3 |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | "One of Us Must Know" | Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
N/A |
| UK Top 75 | 33 | ||
| "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" | Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
2 | |
| UK Top 75 | 7 | ||
| "I Want You" | Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
20 | |
| UK Top 75 | 16 | ||
| "Just Like a Woman" | Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
33 | |
| UK Top 75 | N/A | ||
| 1967 | "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat" | Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
81 |
| UK Top 75 | N/A |