255. Bob Dylan, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"

 

Did you notice that every other record so far this week was by a female artist or group?  And now dumb old Bob Dylan comes crashing in on Friday to ruin our Grrl Power vibe.  Oh well.

This is the album that turned Bob Dylan into BOB DYLAN,  It was only his second album, but it's full of songs that became nearly instantly famous and remain that way.  Everybody was like "Bob how did you write all these songs so fast?" and he literally said (actual quote) "The songs are there. They exist all by themselves just waiting for someone to write them down. I just put them down on paper."  Which is kinda true because like half of the melodies are lifted or reworked from older songs.  The melody of "Blowin' in the Wind," for example, is based on an old spiritual called "No More Auction Block."  I do not happen to love "Blowin' in the Wind" but that's probably because of the saccharine Peter, Paul & Mary version.  Bob's version here seems a lot more plaintive and hopeless.

The girl on the cover is Suze Rotolo, who was Dylan's girlfriend during the writing and recording of this album.  They were living together on West 4th Street in New York when she went to Italy to study art, and songs like "Down the Highway" ("My baby took my heart from me/ She packed it all up in a suitcase/ Lord, she took it away to Italy, Italy") specifically reference his longing for her.  

Dylan is probably one of the most written-about and analyzed and microscopically studied artists in the history of popular music so I'm not going to try and say anything revolutionary here.  There are some earth-shatteringly great songs on this record, like "Girl from the North Country" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."  The latter, in particular, really blows me away.  He wrote these lyrics when he was 21 or 22:

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

Simple, but devastating.  Of course, it's about Rotolo too, after she told him she was considering staying in Italy.  Usually when someone hears their girlfriend is extending a trip abroad, they mope a bit, maybe go out with the boys, that kind of shit.  Bob Dylan writes one of the most important songs in modern music.  Differences.

I don't love all the songs on this record.  I think "Masters of War" is super overrated; it really does sound like a 22-year-old who just read "A People's History of the United States" and wants to tell you ALL ABOUT IT.  Plus the melody was lifted so wholesale from another song (a modern arrangement of an old English folk song) that Dylan's lawyers had to pay off the actual writer to go away.  And I've said my piece on "Blowin' in the Wind."  I wish I could go back and listen to it now without ever having heard it before.  "Talkin' World War III Blues" is the kind of talking blues song that should be three minutes shorter.  Maybe five.

Dylan and Rotolo broke up in 1964 after an abortion, Dylan's interest in Joan Baez, and family pressures from Suze's side.  I have some old pictures and notes from a former relationship.  Bob Dylan has this album.  We all mark time in our own ways.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? No.  Just shitting you, of course it does.