Bringing It All Back Home
Encyclopedia
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 him from some of his former peers in the folk song community. Likewise, on the acoustic second side of the album, he distanced himself from the protest song
s with which he had become closely identified (such as "Blowin' in the Wind
" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
"), as his lyrics continued their trend towards the abstract and personal.
The album reached #6 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart, the first of Dylan's LPs to break into the US top 10. It also topped the UK charts later that Spring. The lead-off track, "Subterranean Homesick Blues
", became Dylan's first single to chart in the US, peaking at #39.
. Dylan was already familiar with the area, but his visits were becoming longer and more frequent. Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, also had a place in Woodstock, and when Joan Baez
went to see Dylan that August, they stayed at Grossman's house.
Baez recalls that "most of the month or so we were there, Bob stood at the typewriter in the corner of his room, drinking red wine and smoking and tapping away relentlessly for hours. And in the dead of night, he would wake up, grunt, grab a cigarette, and stumble over to the typewriter again." Dylan already had one song ready for his next album: "Mr. Tambourine Man" was written in February 1964 but omitted from Another Side of Bob Dylan
. Another song, "Gates of Eden
," was also written earlier that year, appearing in the original manuscripts to Another Side of Bob Dylan; a few lyrical changes were eventually made, but it's unclear if these were made that August in Woodstock. At least two songs were written that month: "If You Gotta Go, Go Now
" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)."
During this time, Dylan's writing became increasingly surreal
. Even his prose grew more stylistic, often resembling stream-of-consciousness writing with published letters dating from 1964 becoming increasingly intense and dreamlike as the year wore on.
Dylan eventually returned to the city, and on August 28, he met with The Beatles
for the very first time in their New York hotel (during which Dylan reportedly turned the band on to marijuana), a meeting which would bring about the radical transformation of the Beatles' writing to a more introspective style. Dylan would remain on good terms with The Beatles, and as biographer Clinton Heylin writes, "the evening established a personal dimension to the very real rivalry that would endure for the remainder of a momentous decade."
Dylan and producer Tom Wilson were soon experimenting with their own fusion of rock and folk music. The first unsuccessful test involved overdubbing a "Fats Domino
early rock & roll thing" over Dylan's earlier, acoustic recording of "House of the Rising Sun," according to Wilson. This took place in the Columbia 30th Street Studio
in December 1964. It was quickly discarded, though Wilson would more famously use the same technique of overdubbing an electric backing track to an existing acoustic recording with Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence
". In the meantime, Dylan turned his attention to another folk-rock experiment conducted by John P. Hammond
, an old friend and musician whose father, John H. Hammond
, originally signed Dylan to Columbia. Hammond was planning an electric album around the blues songs that framed his acoustic live performances of the time. To do this, he recruited three members of an American bar band he met sometime in 1963: guitarist Robbie Robertson
, drummer Levon Helm
, and organist Garth Hudson
(members of The Hawks, who would go on to become The Band
). Dylan was very aware of the resulting album, So Many Roads; according to his friend, Danny Kalb, "Bob was really excited about what John Hammond was doing with electric blues. I talked to him in the Figaro in 1964 and he was telling me about John and his going to Chicago
and playing with a band and so on..."
However, when Dylan and Wilson began work on the next album, they temporarily refrained from their own electric experimentation. The first session, held on January 13, 1965 in Columbia's Studio A in New York, was recorded solo, with Dylan playing piano or acoustic guitar. Ten complete songs and several song sketches were produced, nearly all of which were discarded. None of these recordings would be used for the album, but three would eventually be released: "I'll Keep It With Mine" on 1985's Biograph
, and "Farewell Angelina" and an acoustic version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on 1991's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
.
Other songs and sketches recorded at this session: "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," "She Belongs To Me," "Sitting On A Barbed-Wire Fence," "On The Road Again," "If You Gotta Go, Go Now," "You Don't Have To Do That," and "Outlaw Blues," all of which were original compositions.
Dylan and Wilson held another session at Studio B the following day, this time with a full, electric band. Guitarists Al Gorgoni, Kenneth Rankin, and Bruce Langhorne were recruited, as were pianist Paul Griffin, bassists Joseph Macho, Jr. and William E. Lee, and drummer Bobby Gregg. The day's work focused on eight songs, all of which had been attempted the previous day. According to Langhorne, there was no rehearsal, "we just did first takes and I remember that, for what it was, it was amazingly intuitive and successful." Few takes were required of each song, and after three-and-a-half hours of recording (lasting from 2:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.), master takes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Outlaw Blues," "She Belongs To Me," and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" were all recorded and selected for the final album.
Sometime after dinner, Dylan reportedly continued recording with a different set of musicians, including John Hammond, Jr. and John Sebastian
(only Langhorne returned from earlier that day). They recorded six songs, but the results were deemed unsatisfactory and ultimately rejected.
Another session was held at Studio A the next day, and it would be the last one needed. Once again, Dylan kept at his disposal the musicians from the previous day (that is, those that participated in the 2:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. session); the one exception was pianist Paul Griffin, who was unable to attend and replaced by Frank Owens. Daniel Kramer recalls "the musicians were enthusiastic. They conferred with one another to work out the problems as they arose. Dylan bounced around from one man to another, explaining what he wanted, often showing them on the piano what was needed until, like a giant puzzle, the pieces would fit and the picture emerged whole...Most of the songs went down easily and needed only three or four takes...In some cases, the first take sounded completely different from the final one because the material was played at a different tempo, perhaps, or a different chord was chosen, or solos may have been rearranged...His method of working, the certainty of what he wanted, kept things moving."
The session began with "Maggie's Farm": only one take was recorded, and it was the only one they'd ever need. From there, Dylan successfully recorded master takes of "On The Road Again," "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," "Gates of Eden," "Mr. Tambourine Man," and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," all of which were set aside for the album. A master take of "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" was also selected, but it would not be included on the album; instead, it was issued as a single-only release in Europe, but not in the U.S. or the UK.
Though Dylan was able to record electric versions of virtually every song included on the final album, he apparently never intended Bringing It All Back Home to be completely electric. As a result, roughly half of the finished album would feature full electric band arrangements while the other half consisted of solo acoustic performances, sometimes accompanied by Langhorne, who would embellish Dylan's acoustic performance with a countermelody on his electric guitar.
", a romp through the difficulties and absurdities of anti-establishment politics that was heavily inspired by Chuck Berry
's "Too Much Monkey Business." Often cited as a precursor to rap
and music videos (the cue-card scene in Dont Look Back
), "Subterranean Homesick Blues" became a Top 20 hit for Dylan.
"Snagged by a sour, pinched guitar riff, the song has an acerbic tinge...and Dylan sings the title rejoinders in mock self-pity," writes NPR
's Tim Riley. "It's less an indictment of the system than a coil of imagery that spells out how the system hangs itself with the rope it's so proud of."
"She Belongs to Me
" extols the bohemian virtues of an artistic lover whose creativity must be constantly fed ("Bow down to her on Sunday / Salute her when her birthday comes. / For Halloween buy her a trumpet / And for Christmas, give her a drum.")
"Maggie's Farm
" is Dylan's declaration of independence from the protest folk movement. Punning on Silas McGee's Farm, where he had performed "Only a Pawn in Their Game" at a civil rights protest in 1962 (featured in the film Dont Look Back), Maggie's Farm recasts Dylan as the pawn and the folk music scene as the oppressor. Rejecting the expectations of that scene as he turns towards loud rock'n'roll, self-exploration, and surrealism, Dylan swoons: "They say sing while you slave / I just get bored."
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit
" is a low-key love song, described by Riley as a "hallucinatory allegiance, a poetic turn that exposes the paradoxes of love ('She knows there's no success like failure / And that failure's no success at all')...[it] points toward the dual vulnerabilities that steer 'Just Like A Woman.' In both cases, a woman's susceptibility is linked to the singer's defenseless infatuation."
"Outlaw Blues
" explores Dylan's desire to leave behind the pieties of political folk and explore a bohemian, "outlaw" lifestyle. Straining at his identity as a protest singer, Dylan knows he "might look like Robert Ford" (who assassinated Jesse James), but he feels "just like a Jesse James."
"On the Road Again
" catalogs the absurd affectations and degenerate living conditions of bohemia. The song concludes, "Then you ask why I don't live here / Honey, how come you don't move?".
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
" narrates a surreal experience involving the discovery of America, the cast of Moby Dick and numerous bizarre encounters. It is the longest song in the electric section of the album, starting out as an acoustic ballad before being interrupted by laughter, and then starting back up again with an electric blues rhythm. The music is so similar in places to Another Side of Bob Dylan' s "Motorpsycho Nitemare" as to be indistinguishable from it but for the electric instrumentation.
Written sometime in February 1964, "Mr. Tambourine Man
" was originally recorded for Another Side of Bob Dylan
; a rough performance with several mistakes, the recording was rejected, but a polished version has often been attributed to Dylan's early use of LSD, although eyewitness accounts of both the song's composition and of Dylan's first use of LSD suggest that "Mr. Tambourine Man" was actually written weeks before. Instead, Dylan said the song was inspired by a large tambourine owned by Bruce Langhorne. "On one session, Tom Wilson had asked [Bruce] to play tambourine," Dylan recalled in 1985. "And he had this gigantic tambourine...It was as big as a wagonwheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing this tambourine just stuck in my mind." Langhorne confirmed that he "used to play this giant Turkish tambourine. It was about [four inches] deep, and it was very light and it had a sheepskin head and it had jingle bells around the edge - just one layer of bells all the way around...I bought it 'cause I liked the sound...I used to play it all the time." In addition to inspiring the title, Langhorne also played the electric guitar countermelody in the song, the only musician to play on the song besides Dylan.
A surrealist work heavily influenced by Rimbaud (most notably for the "magic swirlin' ship" evoked in the lyrics), Heylin hailed it as a leap "beyond the boundaries of folk song once and for all, with one of [Dylan's] most inventive and original melodies." Riley describes "Mr. Tambourine Man" as "Dylan's pied-piper anthem of creative living and open-mindedness...a lot of these lines are evocative without holding up to logic, even though they ring worldly." Salon.com
critic Bill Wyman calls it "rock's most feeling paean to psychedelia, all the more compelling in that it's done acoustically."
Almost simultaneously with Dylan's release, the newly-formed Byrds recorded and released an electrified, abbreviated treatment of the song which would be the band's breakthrough hit, and would be a powerful force in launching the Folk Rock
genre.
"Gates of Eden
" builds on the developments made with "Chimes of Freedom" and "Mr. Tambourine Man."
"Of all the songs about sixties self-consciousness and generation-bound identity, none forecasts the lost innocence of an entire generation better than 'Gates of Eden,'" writes Riley. "Sung with ever-forward motion, as though the words were carving their own quixotic phrasings, these images seem to tumble out of Dylan with a will all their own; he often chops off phrases to get to the next line."
One of Dylan's most celebrated and ambitious compositions, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" is arguably one of Dylan's finest songs. Clinton Heylin wrote that it "opened up a whole new genre of finger-pointing song, not just for Dylan but for the entire panoply of pop," and one critic said it is to capitalism
what Darkness at Noon
is to communism
. A fair number of Dylan's most famous lyrics can be found in this song: "He not busy being born is busy dying"; "It's easy to see without looking too far / That not much is really sacred"; "Even the president of the United States / Sometimes must have to stand naked"; "Money doesn't talk, it swears"; "If my thought-dreams could be seen / They'd probably put my head in a guillotine." In the song Dylan is again giving his audience a road map to decode his confounding shift away from politics. Amidst a number of laments about the expectations of his audience ("I got nothing, Ma, to live up to") and the futility of politics ("There is no sense in trying"; "You feel to moan but unlike before / You discover / That you'd just be / One more person crying"; "It's easy to see without looking too far / That not much / Is really sacred", Dylan tells his audience how to take his new direction:
"So don't fear if you hear / A foreign sound to your ear / It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing."
The album closes with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
", described by Riley as "one of those saddened good-bye songs a lover sings when the separation happens long after the relationship is really over, when lovers know each other too well to bother hiding the truth from each other any longer...What shines through "Baby Blue" is a sadness that blots out past fondness, and a frustration at articulating that sadness at the expense of the leftover affection it springs from." Heylin has a different interpretation, comparing it with "To Ramona" from Another Side of Bob Dylan
: "['Baby Blue' is] less conciliatory, the tone crueler, more demanding. If Paul Clayton is indeed the Baby Blue he had in mind, as has been suggested, Dylan was digging away at the very foundation of Clayton's self-esteem." However, the lyric easily fits in with the main theme of the album, Dylan's rejection of political folk, taking the form of a good-bye to his former, protest-folk self, according to the Rough Guide to Bob Dylan. According to this reading, Dylan sings to himself to "Leave your stepping stones [his political repertoire] behind, something calls for you. Forget the dead you've left [folkies], they will not follow you...Strike another match, go start anew." The only musician besides Dylan to play on the song is Bill Lee
on bass guitar
.
Van Morrison
and his band, Them
, released their own version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in 1966; a dramatic re-arrangement featuring a repeating, low-key Mellotron
pattern, it's often hailed as one of the best Dylan covers ever recorded. Later, Beck
used a sample of this version of the song as the basis for his single "Jack-Ass"
which appeared on his critically acclaimed Odelay
album in 1997. Another underground version was famously done by Roky Erikson's 13th Floor Elevators
on their 1967 album Easter Everywhere
.
(wife of Dylan's manager Albert Grossman
) lounging in the background. There are also artifacts scattered around the room, including LPs by The Impressions (Keep on Pushing
), Robert Johnson
(King of the Delta Blues Singers
), Ravi Shankar
(India's Master Musician
), Lotte Lenya
(Sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill) and Eric Von Schmidt
(The Folk Blues of Eric Von Schmidt). Dylan had "met" Schmidt "one day in the green pastures of Harvard University" and would later mimic his album cover pose (tipping his hat) for his own Nashville Skyline
four years later. A further record, Françoise Hardy
's EP J'suis D'accord was on the floor near Dylan's feet but can only be seen in other shots from the same photo session.
Visible behind Grossman is the top of Dylan's head from the cover of Another Side of Bob Dylan
; under her right arm is the magazine Time
with President Lyndon B. Johnson
on the cover of the January 1, 1965 issue. There is a harmonica
resting on a table with a fallout shelter
(capacity 80) sign leaning against it. Above the fireplace on the mantle directly to the left of the painting is the Lord Buckley
album The Best of Lord Buckley. Next to Lord Buckley is a copy of GNAOUA, a magazine devoted to exorcism and Beat Generation poetry edited by poet Ira Cohen
.
Dylan sits forward holding a cat and has an opened magazine featuring an advertisement on Jean Harlow
's Life Story by the columnist Louella Parsons
resting on his crossed leg. The cufflinks Dylan wore in the picture were a gift from Joan Baez
, as she later referenced in her 1976 hit "Diamonds & Rust
".
The black and white pamphlet lying across Time magazine with President Johnson on the cover is a publication of the Earth Society, then located on East 12th Street in the East Village. The Earth Society saw its mission as protecting earth from collisions with comets and planets. Their pamphlet interprets Immanuel Velikovsky
’s notion that life on earth was so deeply affected by near-collisions of Venus with Jupiter and Mars that the impressions and interpretations of observers found their way into myths and semi-historical documents of peoples of many cultures. The pamphlet also claims that the Ark of the Covenant is a representation of a comet, which is what the white shape in the center of the pamphlet cover is intended to represent.
Singles
The raunchy "If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Got To Stay All Night)" was issued as a single in Europe, but it would not be issued in the U.S. or the UK until The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
. An upbeat, electric performance, the song is relatively straightforward, with the title providing much of the subtext. Fairport Convention
recorded a tongue-in-cheek, acoustic French-language version, "Si Tu Dois Partir," for their celebrated third album, Unhalfbricking
.
"I'll Keep It With Mine
" was written before Another Side of Bob Dylan
and was given to Nico
in 1964. Nico was not yet a recording artist at the time, and she would eventually record the song for Chelsea Girl
(released in 1967), but not before Judy Collins
recorded her own version in 1965. Fairport Convention
would also record their own version on their critically acclaimed second album, What We Did on Our Holidays
. Widely considered a strong composition from this period (Clinton Heylin called it "one of his finest songs"), a complete acoustic version, with Dylan playing piano and harmonica, was released on 1985's Biograph
. An electric recording exists as well - not of an actual take but of a rehearsal from January 1966 (the sound of an engineer saying "what you were doing" through a control room mike briefly interrupts the recording) - was released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
.
"Farewell Angelina" was ultimately given to Joan Baez
, who released it in 1965 as the title track of her album, Farewell, Angelina. The Greek singer Nana Mouskouri
recorded her own versions of this song in French ("Adieu Angelina") in 1967 and German ("Schlaf-ein Angelina") in 1975.
"You Don't Have to Do That" is one of the great "what if" songs of Dylan's mid-1960s output. A very brief recording, under a minute long, it has Dylan playing a snippet of the song, which he abandoned midway through to begin playing the piano.
"Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence", first recorded during this album's sessions, would later be revisited during the Highway 61 Revisited
sessions (later issued on The Bootleg Series Vol 1-3).
. By now, Dylan had grown far more popular and acclaimed than Baez, and his music had radically evolved from their former shared folk style in a totally unique direction. It would be the last time they would perform extensively together until 1975. (She would accompany him on another tour in May 1965, but Dylan would not ask her to perform with him.) The timing was appropriate as Bringing It All Back Home signaled a new era.
wrote a glowing appraisal: "By fusing the Chuck Berry beat of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles with the leftist, folk tradition of the folk revival, Dylan really had brought it back home, creating a new kind of rock & roll [...] that made every type of artistic tradition available to rock." Clinton Heylin later wrote that Bringing It All Back Home was possibly "the most influential album of its era. Almost everything to come in contemporary popular song can be found therein." In 2003, the album was ranked number 31 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
.
In a 1986 interview, film director John Hughes cited it as so influential on him as an artist that upon its release, "Thursday I was one person, and Friday I was another."
Before the year was over, Dylan would record and release another album, Highway 61 Revisited
, which would take his new lyrical and musical direction even further.
The title of the Modena City Ramblers
' album Riportando tutto a casa is a tribute to Bringing It All Back Home.
The album was re-released in 2010 with new liner notes by Greil Marcus
.
.
Side one
Side two
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 fifth 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 March 1965 by 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...
. 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
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
band - a move that further alienated him from some of his former peers in the folk song community. Likewise, on the acoustic second side of the album, he distanced himself from the protest song
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
s with which he had become closely identified (such as "Blowin' in the Wind
Blowin' in the Wind
"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of questions about peace, war and freedom...
" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord...
"), as his lyrics continued their trend towards the abstract and personal.
The album reached #6 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart, the first of Dylan's LPs to break into the US top 10. It also topped the UK charts later that Spring. The lead-off track, "Subterranean Homesick Blues
Subterranean Homesick Blues
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 as a single on Columbia Records, catalogue 43242. It appeared 19 days later as the lead track to the album Bringing It All Back Home. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also...
", became Dylan's first single to chart in the US, peaking at #39.
Recording sessions
Dylan spent much of the summer of 1964 in Woodstock, a small town in upstate New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Dylan was already familiar with the area, but his visits were becoming longer and more frequent. Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, also had a place in Woodstock, and when Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
went to see Dylan that August, they stayed at Grossman's house.
Baez recalls that "most of the month or so we were there, Bob stood at the typewriter in the corner of his room, drinking red wine and smoking and tapping away relentlessly for hours. And in the dead of night, he would wake up, grunt, grab a cigarette, and stumble over to the typewriter again." Dylan already had one song ready for his next album: "Mr. Tambourine Man" was written in February 1964 but omitted from Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
. Another song, "Gates of Eden
Gates Of Eden (song)
"Gates of Eden" is a song by Bob Dylan that appears on his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records. It was also released as a single as the B-side of "Like a Rolling Stone". Dylan plays the song solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and...
," was also written earlier that year, appearing in the original manuscripts to Another Side of Bob Dylan; a few lyrical changes were eventually made, but it's unclear if these were made that August in Woodstock. At least two songs were written that month: "If You Gotta Go, Go Now
If You Gotta Go, Go Now
If You Gotta Go, Go Now is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1964. The first released version was as a single in the US by the UK group The Liverpool Five in July 1965, but this went uncharted in the US despite receiving much airplay, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. It was another English band...
" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)."
During this time, Dylan's writing became increasingly surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Even his prose grew more stylistic, often resembling stream-of-consciousness writing with published letters dating from 1964 becoming increasingly intense and dreamlike as the year wore on.
Dylan eventually returned to the city, and on August 28, he met with 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...
for the very first time in their New York hotel (during which Dylan reportedly turned the band on to marijuana), a meeting which would bring about the radical transformation of the Beatles' writing to a more introspective style. Dylan would remain on good terms with The Beatles, and as biographer Clinton Heylin writes, "the evening established a personal dimension to the very real rivalry that would endure for the remainder of a momentous decade."
Dylan and producer Tom Wilson were soon experimenting with their own fusion of rock and folk music. The first unsuccessful test involved overdubbing a "Fats Domino
Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino, Jr. is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Creole was his first language....
early rock & roll thing" over Dylan's earlier, acoustic recording of "House of the Rising Sun," according to Wilson. This took place in the Columbia 30th Street Studio
CBS 30th Street Studio
CBS 30th Street Studio, also known as Columbia 30th Street Studio, and nicknamed "The Church", was an American recording studio operated by Columbia Records from 1949 to 1981 located at 207 East 30th Street, between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan, New York City...
in December 1964. It was quickly discarded, though Wilson would more famously use the same technique of overdubbing an electric backing track to an existing acoustic recording with Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence
The Sound of Silence
"The Sound of Silence" is the song that propelled the 1960s folk music duo Simon & Garfunkel to popularity. It was written in February 1964 by Paul Simon in the aftermath of the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. An initial version preferred by the band was remixed and sweetened, and has become...
". In the meantime, Dylan turned his attention to another folk-rock experiment conducted by John P. Hammond
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:...
, an old friend and musician whose father, John H. Hammond
John H. Hammond
John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...
, originally signed Dylan to Columbia. Hammond was planning an electric album around the blues songs that framed his acoustic live performances of the time. To do this, he recruited three members of an American bar band he met sometime in 1963: 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...
, drummer 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....
, and organist 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...
(members of The Hawks, who would go on to become The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
). Dylan was very aware of the resulting album, So Many Roads; according to his friend, Danny Kalb, "Bob was really excited about what John Hammond was doing with electric blues. I talked to him in the Figaro in 1964 and he was telling me about John and his going to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and playing with a band and so on..."
However, when Dylan and Wilson began work on the next album, they temporarily refrained from their own electric experimentation. The first session, held on January 13, 1965 in Columbia's Studio A in New York, was recorded solo, with Dylan playing piano or acoustic guitar. Ten complete songs and several song sketches were produced, nearly all of which were discarded. None of these recordings would be used for the album, but three would eventually be released: "I'll Keep It With Mine" on 1985's 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...
, and "Farewell Angelina" and an acoustic version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on 1991's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 is a compilation box set by Bob Dylan, issued on Columbia Records, catalogue C3K 86572. It is the first installment in the Dylan bootleg series, comprising material spanning the first three decades of his career, from 1961 to 1989...
.
Other songs and sketches recorded at this session: "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," "She Belongs To Me," "Sitting On A Barbed-Wire Fence," "On The Road Again," "If You Gotta Go, Go Now," "You Don't Have To Do That," and "Outlaw Blues," all of which were original compositions.
Dylan and Wilson held another session at Studio B the following day, this time with a full, electric band. Guitarists Al Gorgoni, Kenneth Rankin, and Bruce Langhorne were recruited, as were pianist Paul Griffin, bassists Joseph Macho, Jr. and William E. Lee, and drummer Bobby Gregg. The day's work focused on eight songs, all of which had been attempted the previous day. According to Langhorne, there was no rehearsal, "we just did first takes and I remember that, for what it was, it was amazingly intuitive and successful." Few takes were required of each song, and after three-and-a-half hours of recording (lasting from 2:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.), master takes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Outlaw Blues," "She Belongs To Me," and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" were all recorded and selected for the final album.
Sometime after dinner, Dylan reportedly continued recording with a different set of musicians, including John Hammond, Jr. and John Sebastian
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000...
(only Langhorne returned from earlier that day). They recorded six songs, but the results were deemed unsatisfactory and ultimately rejected.
Another session was held at Studio A the next day, and it would be the last one needed. Once again, Dylan kept at his disposal the musicians from the previous day (that is, those that participated in the 2:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. session); the one exception was pianist Paul Griffin, who was unable to attend and replaced by Frank Owens. Daniel Kramer recalls "the musicians were enthusiastic. They conferred with one another to work out the problems as they arose. Dylan bounced around from one man to another, explaining what he wanted, often showing them on the piano what was needed until, like a giant puzzle, the pieces would fit and the picture emerged whole...Most of the songs went down easily and needed only three or four takes...In some cases, the first take sounded completely different from the final one because the material was played at a different tempo, perhaps, or a different chord was chosen, or solos may have been rearranged...His method of working, the certainty of what he wanted, kept things moving."
The session began with "Maggie's Farm": only one take was recorded, and it was the only one they'd ever need. From there, Dylan successfully recorded master takes of "On The Road Again," "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," "Gates of Eden," "Mr. Tambourine Man," and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," all of which were set aside for the album. A master take of "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" was also selected, but it would not be included on the album; instead, it was issued as a single-only release in Europe, but not in the U.S. or the UK.
Though Dylan was able to record electric versions of virtually every song included on the final album, he apparently never intended Bringing It All Back Home to be completely electric. As a result, roughly half of the finished album would feature full electric band arrangements while the other half consisted of solo acoustic performances, sometimes accompanied by Langhorne, who would embellish Dylan's acoustic performance with a countermelody on his electric guitar.
The songs
The album opens with "Subterranean Homesick BluesSubterranean Homesick Blues
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 as a single on Columbia Records, catalogue 43242. It appeared 19 days later as the lead track to the album Bringing It All Back Home. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also...
", a romp through the difficulties and absurdities of anti-establishment politics that was heavily inspired by Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
's "Too Much Monkey Business." Often cited as a precursor to rap
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
and music videos (the cue-card scene in Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back
Dont Look Back is a 1967 documentary film by D.A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically...
), "Subterranean Homesick Blues" became a Top 20 hit for Dylan.
"Snagged by a sour, pinched guitar riff, the song has an acerbic tinge...and Dylan sings the title rejoinders in mock self-pity," writes NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's Tim Riley. "It's less an indictment of the system than a coil of imagery that spells out how the system hangs itself with the rope it's so proud of."
"She Belongs to Me
She Belongs to Me
"She Belongs to Me" is a song by Bob Dylan, and was first released as the second track on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. It was one of the first anti-love songs and one of Dylan's first of many songs that describe a "witchy woman"...
" extols the bohemian virtues of an artistic lover whose creativity must be constantly fed ("Bow down to her on Sunday / Salute her when her birthday comes. / For Halloween buy her a trumpet / And for Christmas, give her a drum.")
"Maggie's Farm
Maggie's Farm
"Maggie's Farm" is a song written by Bob Dylan, recorded on January 15, 1965, and released on the album Bringing It All Back Home on March 22 of that year...
" is Dylan's declaration of independence from the protest folk movement. Punning on Silas McGee's Farm, where he had performed "Only a Pawn in Their Game" at a civil rights protest in 1962 (featured in the film Dont Look Back), Maggie's Farm recasts Dylan as the pawn and the folk music scene as the oppressor. Rejecting the expectations of that scene as he turns towards loud rock'n'roll, self-exploration, and surrealism, Dylan swoons: "They say sing while you slave / I just get bored."
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit" is a song written by Bob Dylan for his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home, released in 1965 . The song was originally written as a tribute to Dylan's future wife Sara Lowndes...
" is a low-key love song, described by Riley as a "hallucinatory allegiance, a poetic turn that exposes the paradoxes of love ('She knows there's no success like failure / And that failure's no success at all')...[it] points toward the dual vulnerabilities that steer 'Just Like A Woman.' In both cases, a woman's susceptibility is linked to the singer's defenseless infatuation."
"Outlaw Blues
Outlaw Blues (song)
"Outlaw Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan. It was originally released in 1965 on Dylan's fifth studio album, Bringing It All Back Home.An alternate version of the song was released as part of the "Three Song Sampler - EP", which contained outtakes from the soundtrack of the Martin Scorsese Dylan...
" explores Dylan's desire to leave behind the pieties of political folk and explore a bohemian, "outlaw" lifestyle. Straining at his identity as a protest singer, Dylan knows he "might look like Robert Ford" (who assassinated Jesse James), but he feels "just like a Jesse James."
"On the Road Again
On the Road Again (Bob Dylan song)
"On the Road Again" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his album Bringing It All Back Home. The song appears on the album's electric first side, between "Outlaw Blues" and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"...
" catalogs the absurd affectations and degenerate living conditions of bohemia. The song concludes, "Then you ask why I don't live here / Honey, how come you don't move?".
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" is a song by Bob Dylan, released on his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home. In 2005, Mojo Magazine rated the song as the #68 greatest Bob Dylan song....
" narrates a surreal experience involving the discovery of America, the cast of Moby Dick and numerous bizarre encounters. It is the longest song in the electric section of the album, starting out as an acoustic ballad before being interrupted by laughter, and then starting back up again with an electric blues rhythm. The music is so similar in places to Another Side of Bob Dylan
Written sometime in February 1964, "Mr. Tambourine Man
Mr. Tambourine Man
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" was originally recorded for Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
; a rough performance with several mistakes, the recording was rejected, but a polished version has often been attributed to Dylan's early use of LSD, although eyewitness accounts of both the song's composition and of Dylan's first use of LSD suggest that "Mr. Tambourine Man" was actually written weeks before. Instead, Dylan said the song was inspired by a large tambourine owned by Bruce Langhorne. "On one session, Tom Wilson had asked [Bruce] to play tambourine," Dylan recalled in 1985. "And he had this gigantic tambourine...It was as big as a wagonwheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing this tambourine just stuck in my mind." Langhorne confirmed that he "used to play this giant Turkish tambourine. It was about [four inches] deep, and it was very light and it had a sheepskin head and it had jingle bells around the edge - just one layer of bells all the way around...I bought it 'cause I liked the sound...I used to play it all the time." In addition to inspiring the title, Langhorne also played the electric guitar countermelody in the song, the only musician to play on the song besides Dylan.
A surrealist work heavily influenced by Rimbaud (most notably for the "magic swirlin' ship" evoked in the lyrics), Heylin hailed it as a leap "beyond the boundaries of folk song once and for all, with one of [Dylan's] most inventive and original melodies." Riley describes "Mr. Tambourine Man" as "Dylan's pied-piper anthem of creative living and open-mindedness...a lot of these lines are evocative without holding up to logic, even though they ring worldly." Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
critic Bill Wyman calls it "rock's most feeling paean to psychedelia, all the more compelling in that it's done acoustically."
Almost simultaneously with Dylan's release, the newly-formed Byrds recorded and released an electrified, abbreviated treatment of the song which would be the band's breakthrough hit, and would be a powerful force in launching the Folk Rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
genre.
"Gates of Eden
Gates Of Eden (song)
"Gates of Eden" is a song by Bob Dylan that appears on his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records. It was also released as a single as the B-side of "Like a Rolling Stone". Dylan plays the song solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and...
" builds on the developments made with "Chimes of Freedom" and "Mr. Tambourine Man."
"Of all the songs about sixties self-consciousness and generation-bound identity, none forecasts the lost innocence of an entire generation better than 'Gates of Eden,'" writes Riley. "Sung with ever-forward motion, as though the words were carving their own quixotic phrasings, these images seem to tumble out of Dylan with a will all their own; he often chops off phrases to get to the next line."
One of Dylan's most celebrated and ambitious compositions, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" is arguably one of Dylan's finest songs. Clinton Heylin wrote that it "opened up a whole new genre of finger-pointing song, not just for Dylan but for the entire panoply of pop," and one critic said it is to capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
what Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940...
is to communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. A fair number of Dylan's most famous lyrics can be found in this song: "He not busy being born is busy dying"; "It's easy to see without looking too far / That not much is really sacred"; "Even the president of the United States / Sometimes must have to stand naked"; "Money doesn't talk, it swears"; "If my thought-dreams could be seen / They'd probably put my head in a guillotine." In the song Dylan is again giving his audience a road map to decode his confounding shift away from politics. Amidst a number of laments about the expectations of his audience ("I got nothing, Ma, to live up to") and the futility of politics ("There is no sense in trying"; "You feel to moan but unlike before / You discover / That you'd just be / One more person crying"; "It's easy to see without looking too far / That not much / Is really sacred", Dylan tells his audience how to take his new direction:
"So don't fear if you hear / A foreign sound to your ear / It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing."
The album closes with "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records . The song was originally recorded on January 15, 1965 with Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E. Lee's bass...
", described by Riley as "one of those saddened good-bye songs a lover sings when the separation happens long after the relationship is really over, when lovers know each other too well to bother hiding the truth from each other any longer...What shines through "Baby Blue" is a sadness that blots out past fondness, and a frustration at articulating that sadness at the expense of the leftover affection it springs from." Heylin has a different interpretation, comparing it with "To Ramona" from Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
: "['Baby Blue' is] less conciliatory, the tone crueler, more demanding. If Paul Clayton is indeed the Baby Blue he had in mind, as has been suggested, Dylan was digging away at the very foundation of Clayton's self-esteem." However, the lyric easily fits in with the main theme of the album, Dylan's rejection of political folk, taking the form of a good-bye to his former, protest-folk self, according to the Rough Guide to Bob Dylan. According to this reading, Dylan sings to himself to "Leave your stepping stones [his political repertoire] behind, something calls for you. Forget the dead you've left [folkies], they will not follow you...Strike another match, go start anew." The only musician besides Dylan to play on the song is Bill Lee
Bill Lee (musician)
William James Edwards "Bill" Lee III is an American musician. He has played the bass for many artists including Cat Stevens, Harry Belafonte, Chad Mitchell Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, Aretha Franklin, Odetta, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob Dylan...
on bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
.
Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
and his band, Them
Them (band)
Them were a Northern Irish band formed in Belfast in April 1964, most prominently known for the garage rock standard "Gloria" and launching singer Van Morrison's musical career...
, released their own version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" in 1966; a dramatic re-arrangement featuring a repeating, low-key Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
pattern, it's often hailed as one of the best Dylan covers ever recorded. Later, Beck
Beck
Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...
used a sample of this version of the song as the basis for his single "Jack-Ass"
Jack-Ass (song)
"Jack-Ass" is a single by Beck, taken from the album Odelay. The song is based on a sample of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", performed by Them, from their 1966 album Them Again....
which appeared on his critically acclaimed Odelay
Odelay
Odelay is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock artist Beck, originally released on June 18, 1996, by DGC Records.After the mainstream success of "Loser", Odelay featured several hit singles, including "Where It's At", "Devils Haircut", and "The New Pollution"...
album in 1997. Another underground version was famously done by Roky Erikson's 13th Floor Elevators
13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators were an American rock band from Austin, Texas formed by guitarist and vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland, which existed from 1965 to 1969...
on their 1967 album Easter Everywhere
Easter Everywhere
Easter Everywhere is the second album from the Texas psychedelic rock band 13th Floor Elevators. The album was originally released as an LP by International Artists. For a long time, the album was a hard-to-find collectors' item, until re-released as a CD from Collectables Records in 1993.The...
.
Cover art
The album's iconic cover, photographed by Daniel Kramer, features Sally GrossmanSally Grossman
Sally Grossman was the wife of Bob Dylan's former manager, Albert Grossman. According to some Dylan biographers, she introduced Dylan to his first wife Sara ....
(wife of 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:...
) lounging in the background. There are also artifacts scattered around the room, including LPs by The Impressions (Keep on Pushing
Keep on Pushing
Keep on Pushing is an album and song by the American soul music group The Impressions. It was the biggest album of their career, reaching the Top 10 on the Billboard Pop Album chart...
), 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...
(King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers
King of the Delta Blues Singers is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released in 1961 on Columbia Records. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential blues releases ever...
), Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...
(India's Master Musician
India's Master Musician
India's Master Musician is an album by Hindustani classical musician Ravi Shankar. It was released in 1963 on vinyl. It was later digitally remastered and released in CD format through Angel Records.-Track listing:...
), Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer, diseuse, and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language film she is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs...
(Sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill) and Eric Von Schmidt
Eric Von Schmidt
Eric "Rick" Von Schmidt was an American singer-songwriter and Grammy Award recipient. He was associated with the folk/blues revival of the 1960s and a key part of the East Coast folk music scene that included Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.-Background and associations with Dylan:Von Schmidt's father,...
(The Folk Blues of Eric Von Schmidt). Dylan had "met" Schmidt "one day in the green pastures of Harvard University" and would later mimic his album cover pose (tipping his hat) for his own 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...
four years later. A further record, Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Madeleine Hardy is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style. She is married to the singer and movie actor Jacques Dutronc.-Biography:...
's EP J'suis D'accord was on the floor near Dylan's feet but can only be seen in other shots from the same photo session.
Visible behind Grossman is the top of Dylan's head from the cover of Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
; under her right arm is the magazine 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...
with President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
on the cover of the January 1, 1965 issue. There is a 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...
resting on a table with a fallout shelter
Fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
(capacity 80) sign leaning against it. Above the fireplace on the mantle directly to the left of the painting is the Lord Buckley
Lord Buckley
Lord Richard Buckley was an American stage performer, recording artist, monologist, and hip poet/comic...
album The Best of Lord Buckley. Next to Lord Buckley is a copy of GNAOUA, a magazine devoted to exorcism and Beat Generation poetry edited by poet Ira Cohen
Ira Cohen
Ira Cohen was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker.Cohen lived in Morocco and in New York City in the 1960s, he was in Kathmandu in the 1970s and traveled the world in the 1980s, before returning to New York, where he spent the rest of his life...
.
Dylan sits forward holding a cat and has an opened magazine featuring an advertisement on Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
's Life Story by the columnist Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...
resting on his crossed leg. The cufflinks Dylan wore in the picture were a gift from Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, as she later referenced in her 1976 hit "Diamonds & Rust
Diamonds & Rust
Diamonds & Rust is a 1975 album by Joan Baez. Baez is often regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, and on this album she covered songs by Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, The Allman Brothers, and Jackson Browne...
".
The black and white pamphlet lying across Time magazine with President Johnson on the cover is a publication of the Earth Society, then located on East 12th Street in the East Village. The Earth Society saw its mission as protecting earth from collisions with comets and planets. Their pamphlet interprets Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky
Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950...
’s notion that life on earth was so deeply affected by near-collisions of Venus with Jupiter and Mars that the impressions and interpretations of observers found their way into myths and semi-historical documents of peoples of many cultures. The pamphlet also claims that the Ark of the Covenant is a representation of a comet, which is what the white shape in the center of the pamphlet cover is intended to represent.
Charts
Album| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1965 | 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... |
6 |
| 1965 | UK Top 75 | 1 |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | "Subterranean Homesick Blues" | 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... |
39 |
| 1965 | "Subterranean Homesick Blues" | UK Top 75 | 9 |
| 1965 | "Maggie's Farm" | UK Top 75 | 22 |
Outtakes
The following outtakes were recorded for possible inclusion to Bringing It All Back Home.- "California" (early version of "Outlaw Blues", circulating)
- "Farewell Angelina"
- "If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Got to Stay All Night)"
- "I'll Keep It With MineI'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:...
" - "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence"
- "You Don't Have to Do That" (titled "Bending Down on My Stomick Lookin' West" on recording sheet)(fragment)
The raunchy "If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Got To Stay All Night)" was issued as a single in Europe, but it would not be issued in the U.S. or the UK until The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 is a compilation box set by Bob Dylan, issued on Columbia Records, catalogue C3K 86572. It is the first installment in the Dylan bootleg series, comprising material spanning the first three decades of his career, from 1961 to 1989...
. An upbeat, electric performance, the song is relatively straightforward, with the title providing much of the subtext. Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock and later electric folk band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement...
recorded a tongue-in-cheek, acoustic French-language version, "Si Tu Dois Partir," for their celebrated third album, Unhalfbricking
Unhalfbricking
The band's male vocalist Iain Matthews left during the recordings for Unhalfbricking to make his own album Matthews' Southern Comfort, after recording just one track, "Percy's Song". Sandy Denny sang lead vocals on all the other songs, including her own compositions, "Autopsy", and "Who Knows Where...
.
"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:...
" was written before Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
and was given to Nico
Nico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
in 1964. Nico was not yet a recording artist at the time, and she would eventually record the song for Chelsea Girl
Chelsea Girl (album)
Chelsea Girl is the debut solo album by Nico. It was released in October 1967 by Verve Records, also home to The Velvet Underground. The name of the album is a reference to Andy Warhol's 1966 film Chelsea Girls, which Nico starred in...
(released in 1967), but not before Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...
recorded her own version in 1965. Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention are an English folk rock and later electric folk band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement...
would also record their own version on their critically acclaimed second album, What We Did on Our Holidays
What We Did on Our Holidays
- Personnel :* Sandy Denny - vocals, acoustic & 12-string acoustic guitars, organ, piano, harpsichord* Iain Matthews - vocals, congas* Richard Thompson - electric, acoustic & 12-string acoustic guitars, piano accordion, vocals...
. Widely considered a strong composition from this period (Clinton Heylin called it "one of his finest songs"), a complete acoustic version, with Dylan playing piano and harmonica, was released on 1985's 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...
. An electric recording exists as well - not of an actual take but of a rehearsal from January 1966 (the sound of an engineer saying "what you were doing" through a control room mike briefly interrupts the recording) - was released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 is a compilation box set by Bob Dylan, issued on Columbia Records, catalogue C3K 86572. It is the first installment in the Dylan bootleg series, comprising material spanning the first three decades of his career, from 1961 to 1989...
.
"Farewell Angelina" was ultimately given to Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, who released it in 1965 as the title track of her album, Farewell, Angelina. The Greek singer Nana Mouskouri
Nana Mouskouri
Nana Mouskouri , born Ioánna Moúschouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a Greek singer who has sold about 300 million records worldwide in a career spanning over five decades, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She was known as Nána to her friends and...
recorded her own versions of this song in French ("Adieu Angelina") in 1967 and German ("Schlaf-ein Angelina") in 1975.
"You Don't Have to Do That" is one of the great "what if" songs of Dylan's mid-1960s output. A very brief recording, under a minute long, it has Dylan playing a snippet of the song, which he abandoned midway through to begin playing the piano.
"Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence", first recorded during this album's sessions, would later be revisited during the 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...
sessions (later issued on The Bootleg Series Vol 1-3).
Aftermath
The release of Bringing It All Back Home coincided with the final show of a joint tour with Joan BaezJoan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
. By now, Dylan had grown far more popular and acclaimed than Baez, and his music had radically evolved from their former shared folk style in a totally unique direction. It would be the last time they would perform extensively together until 1975. (She would accompany him on another tour in May 1965, but Dylan would not ask her to perform with him.) The timing was appropriate as Bringing It All Back Home signaled a new era.
Legacy
One of Dylan's most celebrated albums, Bringing It All Back Home was soon hailed as one of the greatest albums in rock history. In 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide, critic Dave MarshDave Marsh
Dave Marsh is an American music critic, author, editor and radio talk show host. He was a formative editor of Creem magazine, has written for various publications such as Newsday, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone, and has published numerous books about music and musicians, mostly focused on...
wrote a glowing appraisal: "By fusing the Chuck Berry beat of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles with the leftist, folk tradition of the folk revival, Dylan really had brought it back home, creating a new kind of rock & roll [...] that made every type of artistic tradition available to rock." Clinton Heylin later wrote that Bringing It All Back Home was possibly "the most influential album of its era. Almost everything to come in contemporary popular song can be found therein." In 2003, the album was ranked number 31 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 a 1986 interview, film director John Hughes cited it as so influential on him as an artist that upon its release, "Thursday I was one person, and Friday I was another."
Before the year was over, Dylan would record and release another album, 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...
, which would take his new lyrical and musical direction even further.
The title of the Modena City Ramblers
Modena City Ramblers
Modena City Ramblers is an Italian folk band founded in 1991. Their music is heavily influenced by Celtic themes, and can be compared to folk rock music. The band has sold over 500,000 albums...
' album Riportando tutto a casa is a tribute to Bringing It All Back Home.
The album was re-released in 2010 with new liner notes by Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
.
Track listing
All songs written by Bob DylanBob 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...
.
Side one
- "Subterranean Homesick BluesSubterranean Homesick Blues"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan, originally released in 1965 as a single on Columbia Records, catalogue 43242. It appeared 19 days later as the lead track to the album Bringing It All Back Home. It was Dylan's first Top 40 hit, peaking at #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also...
" – 2:21 - "She Belongs to MeShe Belongs to Me"She Belongs to Me" is a song by Bob Dylan, and was first released as the second track on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. It was one of the first anti-love songs and one of Dylan's first of many songs that describe a "witchy woman"...
" – 2:47 - "Maggie's FarmMaggie's Farm"Maggie's Farm" is a song written by Bob Dylan, recorded on January 15, 1965, and released on the album Bringing It All Back Home on March 22 of that year...
" – 3:54 - "Love Minus Zero/No LimitLove Minus Zero/No Limit"Love Minus Zero/No Limit" is a song written by Bob Dylan for his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home, released in 1965 . The song was originally written as a tribute to Dylan's future wife Sara Lowndes...
" – 2:51 - "Outlaw BluesOutlaw Blues (song)"Outlaw Blues" is a song by Bob Dylan. It was originally released in 1965 on Dylan's fifth studio album, Bringing It All Back Home.An alternate version of the song was released as part of the "Three Song Sampler - EP", which contained outtakes from the soundtrack of the Martin Scorsese Dylan...
" – 3:05 - "On the Road AgainOn the Road Again (Bob Dylan song)"On the Road Again" is a song written and recorded by Bob Dylan for his album Bringing It All Back Home. The song appears on the album's electric first side, between "Outlaw Blues" and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"...
"– 2:35 - "Bob Dylan's 115th DreamBob Dylan's 115th Dream"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" is a song by Bob Dylan, released on his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home. In 2005, Mojo Magazine rated the song as the #68 greatest Bob Dylan song....
"– 6:30
Side two
- "Mr. Tambourine ManMr. Tambourine Man"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" – 5:30 - "Gates of EdenGates Of Eden (song)"Gates of Eden" is a song by Bob Dylan that appears on his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records. It was also released as a single as the B-side of "Like a Rolling Stone". Dylan plays the song solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and...
" – 5:40 - "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"It's Alright, Ma " is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and first released on his 1965 album, Bringing It All Back Home. It was written in the summer of 1964, first performed live on October 10, 1964, and recorded on January 15, 1965...
" – 7:29 - "It's All Over Now, Baby BlueIt's All Over Now, Baby Blue"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on March 22, 1965 by Columbia Records . The song was originally recorded on January 15, 1965 with Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E. Lee's bass...
" – 4:12
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...
– 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...
, 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...
, 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... - John P. HammondJohn P. HammondJohn 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:...
– guitar - John Sebastian – bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Kenny RankinKenny RankinKenny Rankin was an American pop and jazz singer and songwriter, originally from the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, New York.-Biography:...
– guitar - 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 .... - John Boone – bass
- Al Gorgoni – guitar
- 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...
– 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...
, keyboards - Bruce LanghorneBruce LanghorneBruce Langhorne is an American folk musician. He was active in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, primarily as a session guitarist for folk albums and performances...
– guitar - Bill LeeBill Lee (musician)William James Edwards "Bill" Lee III is an American musician. He has played the bass for many artists including Cat Stevens, Harry Belafonte, Chad Mitchell Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, Aretha Franklin, Odetta, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob Dylan...
– bass - Joseph Macho Jr. – bass
- Frank Owens – piano
- Tom Wilson – 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...
- Daniel Kramer – photography