9. Bob Dylan, "Blood on the Tracks"

 

There are two things that will make Boomers extremely mad.  One of them is taking away the Early Bird special at Applebees and the other is saying that this album is overrated.  Guess what motherfuckers, there are only nine albums left and if I go down I'm taking Bob with me.

We've already established that my favorite Bob Dylan album, and in fact the best Bob Dylan album, is Highway 61 Revisited.  But I know that this album is a lot of people's favorite, including commenter Stephen.  As best as I can tell, that unvarnished love is mostly about the lyrics, which is good because apart from a few exceptions we'll get to, the music isn't that great.

So let's start with the music.  Originally recorded in New York City with the bluegrass band Deliverance as backup, Dylan scrapped that plan pretty quickly and then recruited new musicians for the sessions.  When his brother heard the test pressing and complained that it sounded too much like old Dylan, Bob decamped to Minneapolis and re-recorded some of the album with yet another  new set of musicians, some of whom are now lost to time.

A lot of the songs are repetitive in that very Dylan way, in that the music serves as a vehicle for the lyrics and not much more.  "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" is a nine-minute long story song that sounds like the treatment for a screenplay (and, in fact, two screenplays have been written based on the song, neither of which was ever produced).  I'm not gonna lie to you, it drags at times.  "Shelter from the Storm" is all about the lyrics, because it's only three chords and sounds like it (although, as some have pointed out, Dylan's open E tuning make the songs hard to replicate exactly).  

My favorite songs musically on this album all come near the front end.  "Tangled Up in Blue," which is admittedly a top-something all-time song, has the more polished sound that the Minneapolis recordings feature, and an arresting vocal melody.  (In Jon Landau's 1975 Rolling Stone review, he said "It’s been a long time since Dylan has composed a melody line as perfectly suited to his voice as 'Tangled Up in Blue'.")

Might as well get to lyrics now, because the lyrics to "Tangled" are some of Dylan's best, and it sets the tone for the album.  Blood is often called a breakup album, and it's definitely that, but it's also a portrait of a relationship's history.  I rewatched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night, and this song in particular reminds me of that movie, in that there are disjointed memories floating through the speaker's mind and it's hard to tell where one begins and another ends and whether it's past or present.

She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam, I guess
But I used a little too much force
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out west
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best
She turned around to look at me
As I was walking away
I heard her say over my shoulder
"We'll meet again someday
On the avenue"
Tangled up in blue

(Since we love sharing mondegreens, here's mine from this song: in the fourth verse, he sings "She was standing there, in back of my chair/Said, 'Tell me, don't I know your name?'," which I always heard as "Timmy don't I know you're name?" like the guy singing the song is Timmy.  Go ahead and laugh.)

Since this is kind of a breakup album, there's some dark shit too.  "Idiot Wind" is an angry, bitter song ("You’re an idiot, babe/It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe") that ends up on a conciliatory note, with Dylan admitting that both of them were idiots.  "If You See Her, Say Hello" is more sad than angry, with Dylan acknowledging that the dissolution of the relationship just happened, and really wasn't anyone's fault.

Besides "Tangled," my other musical highlight on this album is "Simple Twist of Fate," from the NYC sessions, with one of, or maybe the best vocal performances on the album, with Dylan's voice reaching up into a high cry on the penultimate line of each verse.  It sounds plaintive and sad and reflective.  It's also musically more complex and interesting than something like "Shelter."

You know, I always thought of the album's title as a reference to railroad tracks - like there was blood spattered across the tracks, like he'd been hit by a freight train.  It was only this morning when I realized "tracks" could also be tracks on the album, and he left the blood there too.  Who know what he had in mind, but I like both meanings.

Is this album in my personal Top 100? No.