Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks poll

such an amazing piece of work, have no idea what i'm going to choose. will listen tomorrow.

whaaaaat? nice find! track #3 but i don't want to talk about it.

I've been meek
hard as an oak

Haven't listened to it start-to-finish in ages, but "Tangled Up in Blue" was always far and away my favourite--think I could still sing along without missing a word. After that, one of the last two.

Are we sure this hasn't been done?

could not find it under Bob Dylan or Blood on the Tracks

"Simple Twist of Fate" is amazing

Maybe not. I was thinking of
Lily, Rosemary and the POLL OF HEARTS
Bob Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts" Characters Poll

Tough choice between Tangled and Idiot Wind.

Just going to go ahead and vote for Idiot Wind.

Here he comes, the Man Who Didn't Like Blood On The Tracks

and I don't love it. there are some good songs on it. I really dislike Idiot Wind -- it seems hateful and pointless to me. Meet Me In The Morning is my favorite track, and it's the least classically Dylan of the bunch.

love the snap of guitar strings on this one

Voted "Shelter From the Storm," if only to keep it from being shut out.

Greatest album ever made about being in your 30s. And there's a lot of competition in that niche.

(Now that I'm in my 40s, I prefer albums he made both older and younger. But this is still classic start to end.)

I think one of the things that really puts me off is the constant clash of the busy basslines with Dylan's busy singing

there's way too much going on for me in almost every track, and everything sounds so fucking tightly wound. It's a record I can't really relax and enjoy even when I appreciate it.

all of it is great except idiot wind which for some reason annoys the SHIT out of me

voting for If You See Her Say Hello bcz it's beautiful but Simple Twist of Fate soooo close, and Lonesome, and Tangled and ughhh i love this album

'idiot wind' is so uncomfortable to hear -- it feels like you're eavesdropping on someone's worst fight with his spouse. can't really think of another moment when dylan let it all hang out like that. it's like the horrible flip-side of all those great dylan hate-songs where he's taunting someone and he's obviously the winner, the cool guy, the one who's gonna walk away unscathed -- here he's just ranting, spiteful, and defeated.

i'm slightly burned out on 'tangled,' but any of the others is liable to get stuck in my head on any given day. and the whole thing just sounds so lush, so beautiful in a way i don't typically associate with dylan. if i had to pick one, probably 'buckets of rain.'

'i can't even touch the books you've read' -- for some reason this line always hits me in the gut.

Tbh. Idiot wind feels like you are eavesdropping on some abusive asshole. I would probably take that with more of a grain of salt if he didn't have so many songs that seem to relish putting down a lover or ex lover.

B-b-but doesn't he turn it all on its head by the end like in one of those Randy Newman songs?

do u see?

Re. "Idiot Wind," I get all the objections, but the way he sings

I can't help it if I'm lucky

just knocks me out every single time--absolutely love it....

Yes, that is the best part

'Idiot Wind' easily.

No hesitation.

tangled up in blue is one of the only examples of a song that i would call "cinematic" or "widescreen," the line breaks are like edits, it really feels like a montage in a movie

I mostly prefer the NY Sessions presented on the bootleg called "Blood on the Tapes" for all these tracks (and its better sequencing). "Idiot Wind" and "Meet Me in the Morning" are exquisite on either version, and i'll have to refer back to both sets of those recordings to make a choice.

Yes, I must admit that my love of 'Idiot Wind' stems from the initial demo from 1974.

NY Sessions is better than the released album. Voting "If You See Her Say Hello", but "Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts" is the only one I don't adore.

the imagery in tangled is so crazily potent. hard not to vote for it. 'some are mathematicians, some are carpenter's wives' is the line that runs through my head all the time for some reason

the band on this is really good

either tangled or say hello or lonesome or ugh. "i can't help it if i'm lucky" def a vocal highlight but my favorite such thing on the album is either "and i've never! gotten! UUUUUUSED to it! i've just LARNED to turn it OFF" or

i'm going OUT
OF
MY
MIND
WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWITHAPAINTHATSTOPSANDSTARTS
LIKE A CORKSCREW TO THE HEART

Don't quite get the dislike of "Idiot Wind." I mean the title refrain and its environs are pretty nasty but there are also other elements that point away from this, all kinds of classic Dylan wordplay that isn't part of the put-down as well as the self-recrimination at the end. It's not nearly as relentless in its attack as, say, "Positively 4th Street."

"Idiot Wind" is my favorite. Agreed that it has more going on to it than "Positively 4th Street" - it's a Dylan put-down track, sure, but the kind of put-down of a drunken sad sack who knows the whole time that he's the real asshole in this situation, he shows you the blusteryness rather than just let you relish the bluster. Yeah maybe it's a bit DO YOU SEE but it works, for me.

Voting "Jack of Hearts" since no one else will and I have to somehow atone for unwittingly creating a redundant retread of possibly the most unlikely and narrowly-defined ILM poll ever.

love idiot wind. didnt even really feel the song until i gave it another listen a few years ago and suddenly i was like, damn u crazy for this one bob. and plus yeah, we're idiots babe

wait a second... what the fuck... what the fuck. he says "split up on a dark sad night"? i thought it was THE DOCKS THAT NIGHT, holy shit

37

I really like the Rolling Thunder Revue version of Shelter From The Storm with the yelling and slide guitar etc., and the full-band, more country arrangement from the 90s that I think was posted here. I didn't like the album much, but that has to do with what a contrarian Dylan fan I am.

xxp whoa so did i

always picture her turning around to look at him as he walks away down the dock

Got to be Tangled for me. Back in my teens Tangled felt impossibly full of the mysteries of life. Like, why is this woman in a topless place bending down to tie the laces of his shoe?? And what's up with guy who started into dealing in slaves?

Probably one of my favourite Dylan albums.

Shelter from the Storm

xxxp I always heard it as "docks that night." With all the fishing boats etc later in the song, docks is way better than non-specific "dark sad night". You're killing me.

xxxxp It has always been docks that night. Mind blown.

is there an easy way to get ahold of the original version?

A toughie. Went with Shelter from the Storm, but it's pretty much tied with Simple Twist of Fate. Buckets of Rain and Meet Me in the Morning are second.

Close call with Idiot Wind, but I voted for the big girl. "Like a corkscrew to my heart..."

Meet Me in the Morning.

Pete Hamill's original liner notes, removed at some point:

http://www.bobsboots.com/CDs/cd-b28_Hamilltext.html

Haven't read them--supposedly wildly pretentious.

"Neighborhood Bully" and "Is Your Love in Vain," to name two, are far more hateful and unpleasant and hysterical than "Idiot Wind."

also ballad in plain d

Shelter from the Storm is nearly as ascerbic as Idiot Wind, but I'm going for You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome as the bitterest and most lyrically deft: dragon clouds so high above / I've only known careless love is imprinted on my adolescent soul.

wow great thread - and pretty much everybody OTM (except Mr. I don't like BOTT).
Apart from Lonesome, Rosemary or Meet me in the Morning - I could vote for any of these songs.

For the longest time my favorite was Say Hello - which, if you're lovelorn like I was when I was obsessed with this album, perfectly captures that specific type of narcistic melancholy: back-patting your heartbroken self with bogus lines like "whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way"

This album is such a big long slog Jesus. Voted Simple Twist of Fate cos it's got a nice chord sequence but fuck was Dylan getting good at out-staying his welcome at this time in his career. Same as Desire (albeit my favourite of his that I've heard) - 9 or 10 good songs that go on about 6x too long.

you go on about 6x too long

How is Desire a better album despite being 6 time too long

they both suffer from songs that go on too long is what i'm saying. i don't dislike any of these songs, but fuck listening to the whole of Hurricane again.

I think I get the same vibe from this album as Neil Young's On The Beach, which also has that long-song rainy day feeling but doesn't seem as boring.

you're boring and go on too long

i get the same vibe from you as i do from a lamppost

Nothing rainy about Tangled up in Blue - I always put it on a sunny day

also, how is Shelter from the Storm acerbic? WTF???

I like Desire better, personally, because I like fun stupid rambling story songs like "Isis," "Romance In Durango," and "Black Diamond Bay." There's some dreary filler on that record but it's way better for singalong fun times while you're doing the dishes, while this album really only has "Tangled Up In Blue," "Idiot Wind" and "Jack Of Hearts" for that.

like somebody thread, I pretty often have the "'some are mathematicians, some are carpenter's wives" line stuck in my head. Actually if this is an album about being in your 30's, that last verse of Tangled is a pretty good summary of it.

you go on about 6x too long

― zero dark (s1ocki), Thursday, 18 April 2013 14:59 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're boring and go on too long

― beef richards (Mr. Que), Thursday, 18 April 2013 15:04 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL

also, how is Shelter from the Storm acerbic? WTF???

― beef richards (Mr. Que), Thursday, April 18, 2013 10:06 AM (21 minutes ago)

I guess that depends on your reading of the title phrase? I don't trust it as genuine or hopeful – which would, to my mind, be out of sync with the album's general gist – but instead as sarcastic, regretful, self-pitying.

Also, the penultimate line If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born seems to me to shunt the woman/relationship back into a once-pleasant, now-embittered past, as the architect of the narrator's misery.

This album is such a big long slog Jesus

Hence the carpenter's wives and the woman bending down to tie the laces of his shoes

I think this album has some of his best-ever singing. It takes a lot to sell a line like "nothing really matters much/it's doom alone that counts" as something other than undergrad poesy. But he makes it sparkle, almost funny.

TRY IMAGINING A PLACE WHERE IT'S ALWAYS SAFE AND WARM

"she might think i've forgotten her/ don't tell her, it isn't so."

chilling line. i think this is my favorite dylan album by light years but i'm not sure if i think it's his "best"

aw go on say it anyway.

idiot wind idiot wind idiot wind

if you don't like mean dylan why are you even listening to dylan

good point.

i am going to listen to this album right now

i help her out of a jam i guess but i use a little too much force

i did always like the way he delivered "but I used a little too much force"

and "happy to just be ehM-PLOYED"

haha all these fantastic intonations on this album!

okay the "idiot wind" chorus still makes me catch my breath all these years after the first time i heard it.

and the organ makes you hurl

the way he sings "you're going to make me lonesome" is the dreamiest imo

Some of the tunes on this I tend to like the bootleg series versions better. I really think there's just something very cramped-feeling about the record that makes it hard for me to stick with.

Could be any of the songs on side 1 for me, but I'm going with "Girl," for this part quoted above:

WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWITHAPAINTHATSTOPSANDSTARTS

Yeah wonderful weirdo diction / intonation throughout. Always loved the wide gulf between Sessions "Idiot Wind" and the final version. Sessions version sung very properly / singer-songwritery; final version, dude can't keep from shouting all over the place, which sounds funny on those "arrrrrrrrrrr" rhymes.

the bootleg series version of Idiot Wind might be better, definitely casts the song in a less strident, more conflicted light:

http://www.myvideo.de/watch/7253080/Bob_Dylan_Idiot_Wind_Bootleg_Series_Vol_2

Idiot Wind w/o a second thought, though. All-time sneer moments at the ends of the verses ("can't heeeelp it if I'm lucky" / "sweeeeeeeet lady" / "blooooooood on your saddle" / "YOU'RE ON THE BOTTOM") + the slow bleed from unbridled hate parade -> sad vulnerability/complicity is perfect.

Love Tony Brown's work all over the album, too.

yes i love "sweeeeeeeet lady"

I haven't listened to this album in years. Thanks, thread.

this is difficult tbqh

Dylan at the peak of his powers imo. miracles of vocal phrasing abound.

"tangled" is the obvious frontrunner and 100% worthy but "shelter" and "idiot wind" are close and "jack" deserves votes for the melodic turn on "lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair" alone.

the "I'm complicit" stuff in Idiot Wind feels very unconvincing and cover-my-ass imo. I guess you could argue that that's just who the character of the speaker of the song is though, and that it's effective in that regard.

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu, San Francisco, Ashtabula

HONAHLULAH

this is a great record, i think Shelter from the Storm is my fave, but they're all great (even the lesser tracks like lily and meet me in the morning).

Ashtabula

every time I hear this I think "that's not a real place, is it?"

or is he just saying ras tabula

I used to think it was wordplay on tabula rasa, still not sure it isn't.

Wiki facts I never knew:

Prior to recording, and while details regarding his return to Columbia Records were being fleshed out, Dylan previewed the songs that would make up Blood on the Tracks to a number of friends and peers in the music world. According to biographer Jimmy McDonough, Dylan visited Neil Young in his home in Florida to showcase the songs on the album and seek out Young's opinion, and even run through some of the songs with Young's group Crazy Horse.[14] Dylan also previewed the songs to David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Tim Drummond, and Peter Rowan.[15] Notably, Graham Nash recalled that Stephen Stills disliked Dylan's private performance of his new songs: immediately after Dylan left the room, Stills remarked to Nash, "He's a good songwriter...but he's no musician."

Would LOVE to hear these songs with Crazy Horse

haha that Stills nugget preserved in Shakey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtabula,_Ohio

think even Dylan would agree

i did always like the way he delivered "but I used a little too much force"

― charlie 4chan, internet detective (Hurting 2), Thursday, April 18, 2013 11:51 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

same, he says it like its one word

The name Ashtabula comes from ashtepihəle, which means 'always enough fish to be shared around' in the Lenape language.

key source for "buckets of rain"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVbRh2p1sbA

haha yeah poor stills he comes off as the most pathetic aggro hippie salieri in a full length fur coat in Shakey

I never even got as far as objecting to mean Dylan with Idiot Wind -- something about the cadence and the shoutyness and look I'm queen of IA is anyone really that surprised that I find it annoying lol

also I've had this line in my head all morning

Kinda like VERLAINES and RimBAUD

anniNEVerDOgetYEWSt'it

isn't it RAM-BOH

well yeah

Would love to know what Tim Drummond thought.

would love to introduce a non-English speaker to this album to help with pronunciation

This and Murmur

lol Alfred

"Love is so simple"
To quote a phRAAASE

People talking about the singing being top-notch are otm. It's if during his vocal experiments with various types of bellowing and crooning he accidentally circled back to a version of his singing style on Highway 61/Blonde on Blonde, so you are getting overlapping Dylans, like an episode of Star Trek in which they go through an ion storm or The Gate on the Edge of Forever and end up interacting with their younger selves.

whereas Street-Legal is his nadir as a vocalist.

I really like the Rolling Thunder Revue version of Shelter From The Storm with the yelling and slide guitar etc., and the full-band, more country arrangement from the 90s that I think was posted here. I didn't like the album much, but that has to do with what a contrarian Dylan fan I am.
Same here. That's one of my favorite Dylan vocals.

I ran into the fortune-teller, she said be-WARE of lightning that might STRYYYYAAIK
I haven't known peace and quiet for so long I can't remember what it's LIYEEEEK

Maclaine and Rambo

lol

While we're doing phonetic spelling, I challenge anyone to render all the different pronunciations of "idiot."

ee-YEAAAH-dee-UH
ee-EEEEE-dee-yot
yaaaAAAYYYyy-deee-at

you're an eeeeeeeH-DEE-yut babe

I'd like that song better if he weren't idiot enough to make it go on so long.

rong it should never end

something about the line "every time you move your teeth" is so terrifying to me--such a savage way to describe talking

the 10min version of idiot wind on hard rain isn't as good as the bott version because it's more of a vicious cartoon and more like what the people itt who don't like the song hear in it, but it does have an incredible sarcastic intonation of AND IT MAKES ME FEEL SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY which would prob be the definitive interpretation if it didn't flatten out all the emotional space. like, i prefer it when he is actually sorry. but sometimes.

you guys are a lot nicer than I and maybe I am a psychopath is what this thread is teaching me. I love mean Dylan

at the height of my mixtape days I never put any Dylan on the love song ones. He shows more solicitude, patience, and look-you-in-the-eye honesty when he's hating a woman.

I really like his singing on 'Nashville Skyline'.

i think the sarcasm and meanness is present in the bott version too; it's just that amping them up crowds out what else is there. fun as it is. sara's supposed to be sitting in the front row at that concert too!

along the lines of breaking up on the docks that night: is the one-eyed undertaker blowing a futile horn or a feudal one, and does it make any difference

it's more of a vicious cartoon

this IS the best kind of cartoon tho

i can't really think of a not-mean dylan love song that really works for me -- maybe 'all i really wanna do,' but that one seems more like a joke than anything. come to think of it, he doesn't really have many not-mean love songs. maybe 'i want you,' but i suspect there's some hate buried somewhere in those garbled images.

'Lay lady lay' doesn't work for you?

i can't really think of a not-mean dylan love song that really works for me -- maybe 'all i really wanna do,' but that one seems more like a joke than anything. come to think of it, he doesn't really have many not-mean love songs. maybe 'i want you,' but i suspect there's some hate buried somewhere in those garbled images.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, April 18, 2013 4:22 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't either, but that's why I don't like Dylan more than I otherwise would, he just seems so mired in resentment throughout his career and it gets tiresome.

"Don't Think Twice It's Alright" is a great, beautiful, bitter breakup song that somehow lacks the cruelty of idiot wind, even though some of its lines are pretty mean -- they just sound more in line with the expected anger of the fed-up lover, whereas there's something much more terrible and terrifying in idiot wind (which, tbf, I guess is the difference between the breakup of a relatively short relationship between two young people and the breakup of a tumultuous marriage).

i prefer the sandie shaw version of 'lay lady lay.' i think dylan's voice is what makes it hard for me to take any of his love songs straight -- he can't avoid injecting some sarcasm or (fake?) smarm into his delivery.

if you're going to Dylan for love songs, you're going to Dylan for the wrong reasons

"i'll be your baby tonight", "tonight i'll be staying here with you", "if not for you", "the man in me", "wedding song", "nobody cept you", "lonesome when you go" is a love song cuz she hasn't gone yet, i mean there are lots

"love minus zero/no limit" i mean is maybe some bullshit fascist poet-boy statement of ideals rather than a love song to an actual human sure but you can still use it as one if you want

"nobody cept you"

this is the first genuinely great love song of his that sprang to mind

"man in me" way up there too

o yeah if not for you, classic

that is the really weird thing to me about New Morning, it seems like one of the only Dylan albums where he's in an almost uniformly positive state of mind

dlh, otm

New Morning is one of my favorite Dylan albums

graduating in july just before my birthday and totally listening to "day of the locusts" on repeat for 24 hours

'i'll be your baby tonight' is a great one, nashville skyline is prob the least mean dylan album there is.

that's on JWH! at the end, where it suddenly turns into nashville skyline. yr comma might have denoted two totally separate thoughts tho.

oops! first heard those two albums on a continuous mixtape someone made for me as a teen and still sort of think of them as being somehow the same.

what i do have trouble thinking of tho, i realized looking at that list, is love songs pre-accident.

xp haha well yes that would be very confusing.

Dylan doesn't have any non-mean love songs?

A long time ago, I looked through most of his discography to make a compilation of my favourite Dylan love songs--not necessarily "lovey dovey" love songs, but Dylan-type love songs.

The non-mean love (lost) song that comes to mind is "Most of the Time". As do "Tomorrow Is a Long Time", "Mama, You Been on My Mind", "I Believe in You" (though I can see how this one is even more up to interpretation, but still). One that didn't make my playlist, but as others mention, is "If Not For You".

I can see how many songs are up to interpretation, but I've always thought only few songs about love were really mean, considering his vast discography and other songs.

He does have quite a few cynical/sarcastic songs, for sure, though.

i guess "from a buick 6" is a love song. those early ones tho--no limit, she belongs to me, etc--he's usually just bragging about the object. i got a girl who, etc.. not a lot of actual communication--vows, gooey compliments--until after the accident. jd is right that "all i wanna do" is special i think cuz it's an exception.

maybe all i mean here is third vs second person and maybe i am ascribing too much effect to it

at least he trusts women some of the time. I mean, "She said even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt." She would know.

ruby just smiled and said, oh you know some babies never learn

that swap meets line tho is kinda deceptive cuz it is prob the best line of his whole career

how bout "She’s everything I need and love but I can’t be swayed by that" from "Up to Me"?

With regard to special and exceptions, what about "Sara"? Despite the nymph and Scorpio sphinx comment (again interpretation), I think it's a nice love song.

I can see how his real life kind of puts a strain on the songs themselves, because everyone sees Dylan vs. Baez.

haha I tend to forget he dated her, and every time I watch a clip of her talking I understand why he left her.

i didn't bring up sara cuz i get the sense everyone hates it. i like the clip-clop vocal rhythm.

maybe the only desire-able track on the thing

because everyone sees Dylan vs. Baez

nah I never think about this. I mean, he'd ditched her by the time he got really interesting anyway. the marriage to Sara seems to inform his writing more.

i like the sad eyed lady line too, honestly

RAYDEEANT JEW-WELL

now the beach is deserted. except for some kelp.

Prefer Dylan vs Hardy

http://cdnimg.visualizeus.com/thumbs/bd/18/bob,dylan,bw,francoise,hardy,photography-bd18b044cd7f036a3a077014738caa53_h.jpg?ts=93246

i love love love love 'sara' -- it's probably my single favorite dylan song. kind of a dick move that he actually used her name, though.

now imagine him singing:

"Wait a minute BAY-bee
Stay with me a while
Said you give me life
But you nevah TOLD me bout the FIYAH

now imagine him singing "i'm just a notch in your bedpost but you're just a line in a song"

SUGAH we goin DOWWWWN

a really romantic Dylan song is "queen Jane approximately." Which I love. But not as much as "idiot wind."

how did i forget that; it's the only dylan song i've ever put on a girlmix and i think i've done it three times :/

i am a monster

w a small repertoire

I guess "I Want You" is romantic if you realize instead of the girl he wants a rhyming dictionary and a Norton Anthology of English Verse.

aw i would love getting "QJA" on a mix! that is smoothly done, dlh.

"To Romana" is pretty romantic for early Bob

:D xp

wrt "i want you" he prob has a lil flirt going w yr dancing child in his chinese suit, when he takes the flute, i mean

shit mean Ramona, otherwise it sounds like a song to the macaroni grill or something, which Bob might do also

'song to woody' is kind of a love song, and a pretty sweet one.

actually "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" is a good answer, as Elvis & Rod understood

i didn't even know that song!

I've only heard Rod Stewart's.

Listening to Hard Rain version of "Idiot Wind." Pretty good but gets a little shouty at times, so much so that I picture Dylan singing and playing drums at time, like Levon Helm.

Elvis' "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" competes for my fav Elvis song, mf goes into the deeps

yeah that whole album's shouty. "shelter from the storm" in particular. xp

voted "Shelter" btw, sounds like codeine after what's come before

Gone my whole life up until now without using the word 'shouty' but there just didn't seem to be any other word that fit. Need to check out that Elvis cover as I have been meaning to since the writings of Greil Marcus, I think it must have been, first informed me of it a long time ago.

Looks like there is an Elvis comp album named after that song which also has some of his Jerry and Jimmy Reed material and other good stuff.

I like the Dylan albums from the 60s, but this one never struck me as particularly good for whatever reason.

i'm burned out on most of his '60s classics, i'm much more likely to reach for this one (or even 'desire').

Me too. Although I never owned a copy of Desire but always enjoyed the tracks off of it on the radio way back when.

Ditto. I haven't played The Sixties Trilogy in years. I said on another Dylan thread that his "minor" albums like New Morning, Empire Burlesque get more play...and I've worn out Love & Theft.

Guess listening to BOTT or Desire instead of The Big Three is roughly equivalent to listening to The Rutles instead of The Beatles which I am also wont to do.

Voted for Buckets of Rain b/c I'm a sap.

Never understood the plot line of "Isis. " Had some vague idea it was some kind of HP Lovecraft stuff.

On the proper album, my vote goes to "Meet Me in the Morning" -- if we include the NY Sessions, then it's "Idiot Wind".

Some discussion above the quality of his vocal performance -- his best single delivery must be the Bootlegs version of "Moonshiner" (his best harmonica playing, as well).

listened to most of this today, have two songs left to go. it would be really hard not to vote for "Idiot Wind."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

xp I agree that Dylan's "classics," especially the 60s ones, are less "listenable" than some of his "minor" albums. I want to put in a word for "Planet Waves," which gets a lot of spins when I am sitting in my room reading.

is Dylan one of the few canonical rock dudes folks still moralize over a bit? it's interesting, you see it here with people talking about "Idiot Wind" being less good bc he comes off abusive, the ongoing hand-wringing over "Joey" of course, etc. I'm not sure what it is, but you don't really see people apply that to old canonized rock types (exception: "Run for Your Life" with the Beatles, I guess). there's a greater point here about people maybe identifying with Dylan's narrators or something but I'm tired and don't know where to make it

I've never thought of Dylan as a person so

hm, i am almost inclined to say the opposite is true. dylan's persona has always been acerbic -- not the type to suffer fools gladly -- and part of the thrill of songs like "like a rolling stone" is the gratuitousness of its cruelty, the way he just eviscerates the addressee past the point of reasonableness... i mean, he is kicking this girl when she is down. the redemptive factor, i think, is that dylan's anger is often self-directed, or like, there are times when it is obvious his narrator is projecting. only naive bob-o-philes would believe that his anger is always righteous though.

on a related note, i never understood wtf is going on with "run for your life" that song always freaked me the fuck out and i'm a fan of "under my thumb", which i think is as much a song about the narrator's insecurity as it is a "sexist" work.

folx around here know I dismiss biography so when "Joan Baez" or "black eyeliner" come up I just listen to "Joey" or "Black Diamond Bay" and think "Christ on a crutch these things are long and stupid."

Love this whole abum but "Simple Twist of Fate" is the winner.

because you love the Steve Martin movie.

xp yeah I agree with that, just think "Joey" is a long-winded and sorta crappy song (and I love Desire otherwise), but you know the dominant narrative is "how dare Dylan romanticize a gangster"

lester bangs devoted most of his review to complaining about that, which i always thought was a little funny since there must be a thousand songs that sing the praises of jesse james or bonnie and clyde or whoever. the real problem with the song is that it goes on forever.

his criticism of "Mozambique" (a single!) is on the nose though

because you love the Steve Martin movie.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 April 2013 2:08 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Have no idea what this is so not sure whether to answer yes or no.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413j0ZoImoL._SX500_.jpg

lol Mozambique was a single?! god, zimmy stayed trolling even back then.

looks like I'm gonna have to find Blood on the Tapes, though, getting back to the actual album. I kept holding out that they were gonna release a bootleg series disc of it and it never happened.

"If You See Her, Say Hello"

This song just wounds me.

"Mozambique" started as a game, to see how many rhymes for "-ique" Dylan and Levy could find.

I really like the Rolling Thunder Revue version of Shelter From The Storm with the yelling and slide guitar etc., and the full-band, more country arrangement from the 90s that I think was posted here. I didn't like the album much, but that has to do with what a contrarian Dylan fan I am.

The version on Hard Rain is like Dylan backed by Carlos Alomar. I absolutely love it.

we always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view

tangled up in blue was of enormous importance to me in high school. i almost feel like i betrayed my 15 y/o self by voting for if u see her... which was of enormous importance to me this year after i broke up with my gf

Pete Hamill's original liner notes, removed at some point:

http://www.bobsboots.com/CDs/cd-b28_Hamilltext.html

Haven't read them--supposedly wildly pretentious.

In the end, the plague touched us all. It was not confined to the Oran of Camus.

<stops reading>

but really, this is one of those albums that is "lived with" more than "listened to"... that has continual relevance throughout one's life. it is like the Ulysses of albums; you can never be finished with it.

i love bob dylan.

they gave Pete Hamill a Grammy for those liner notes, in case anybody wants to make the case that the Grammys were ever not ridiculous

they give Grammys for liner notes? does that still happen?

it does.....though lately all that seems to win is big reissue boxes.

Wanted to do a poll but can't find enough good linkable ones......

Did the notes for that one Van Morrison album written by Janet Planet win anything?

ok, worst Literary Liner Notes of the Rock Album Era might work

Nominees:

Blood on the Tracks
Aja
Velvet Underground 1969 Live

anybody got any faves?

xp--I believe that a woman has NEVER WON the Grammy for "Notes!"

i guess at this point in my life' i'll never get to love Dylan, no matter how many chances i'll give his music.

he'll survive

if anyone wants those NY sessions http://hungryears.tumblr.com/post/31923051004/bob-dylan-the-new-york-sessions-blood-on-the-tracks

Early on, he warned us, he gave many of us voice, he told us about the hard rain that was going to fall, and how it would carry plague. In the teargas in 1968 Chicago, they hurled Dylan at the walls of the great hotels, where the infected drew the blinds, and their butlers ordered up the bayonets. Most of them are gone now. Dylan remains.

" Most of them are gone now. Dylan remains abides "

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

surprised lily, rosemary, and the jack of hearts got votes because it is terrible and does not fit in with the other songs on this album at all

surprised there wasn't more love for "if you seer her"

me too, that's the one i voted for. one of the best songs of the 70s imo.

surprised lily, rosemary, and the jack of hearts got votes because it is terrible and does not fit in with the other songs on this album at all

This is true except that it's awesome and totally fits into the album wtf

otm color me perplexed

i don't like it. maybe it would be a good track on some other dylan album, but it's too much of a non-sequitur for this album, and among dylan's freewheeling, long narrative songs with kooky characters i don't think this is one of the strongest. all those poker metaphors.

i should add that i am mostly talking about the lyrics. it sounds pretty good, especially the organ and the bass.

i think of it as sort of a fun intermission. the album would be just a little too heavy-spirited without it.

It's about people dealing with/not dealing with/escaping/not escaping their complicated pasts and promises and betrayals, just like everything else on the album. (And being too preoccupied with their own dramas to notice the drilling in the wall.)

xpost JD hm, i can see that. i am listening to it now -- and am really easily swayed in my opinions -- and i am thinking that this song reminds you that you're listening to a dylan album. this song is really the only one that celebrates verbal inventinveness and imaginative digressions for their own sake, which are both important hallmarks of dylan's style

Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts is quite fun to listen to, but every time it's on I try to follow the words to understand what it's actually about and it's just impossible - my mind wanders after a couple of verses. I couldn't tell you anything that happens in the song.

He'd have been fine if we just held the poll results until he'd had a chance to compose an essay about them.

Whoops wrong poll

Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts - seems like the kind of song that thinks its gonna thrill you through wit and cleverness but ends up just being pretty boring. Even when I was pathologically obsessed with that album, I would nearly always skip it.

"Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts" is not out of place out all, it is like the story within the story, a little cornell box of the rest of the album. The play's the thing.

There is some kind of weird rattle on the alternate take of "Tangled Up in Blue."

it's the buttons on dylan's jacket, apparently.

Being rattled as the idiot wind blew threw them!

this thread inspired me to order this album on vinyl and it should be here tomorrow. i'm excited. i'm going to give lil, rosemary, etc. a charitable listen this time and see if i can really "get" why an allegorical version of the narrative arc of the rest of the album was necessary.

I missed this poll, but the results seem reasonable to me. The younger me would have voted "Tangled" easily. "Back in my teens Tangled felt impossibly full of the mysteries of life", as someone wrote above and that definitely holds for me as well. In those days, "Idiot Wind" was one of my least favorite tracks - it's so big and ugly, like 1960s brutalist architecture. But now the rawness of it gives me a thrill. My vote for most overrated would go to "Shelter from the Storm" which has always seemed to me to overreach slightly for mythic significance. Most underrated is probably "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" which earns the emotional punch that "If You See Her, Say Hello" tries to grasp a bit too easily.

forgot to vote in this but shout out to that massive buddy cage pedal steel in meet me in the morning.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-amoeba-has-an-insanely-rare-bob-dylan-test-pressing-for-12-000-20150702-story.html

By AUGUST BROWN contact the reporter

Right now at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, the store has one copy of one of the rarest pieces of Dylan ephemera ever produced. It's a test pressing of his landmark 1975 album "Blood On The Tracks" that contains alternate versions of half the songs on the LP.

Legend has it Dylan test-pressed this version to listen to in 1974 to prepare for its Columbia Records release, but after taking advice from his brother David that too many songs sounded alike, he stopped the presses and re-recorded five songs on the album.

The alternate take of "You're A Big Girl Now" had been previously released on 1985's "Biograph" set, but “Lily, Rosemary & The Jack Of Hearts,” “Idiot Wind,” “If You See Her, Say Hello” and “Tangled Up In Blue” are all unreleased versions that you can only hear for the cost of an entry-level new car.

Only five copies of this test pressing are known to exist.

The store said it came upon this one during a massive buy from a collection in New Jersey, and it is the most expensive thing Amoeba Music in Hollywood has ever sold. It's still, however, a far cry from what believed to be the most expensive rock and roll LP for sale - the first known acetate demos of a little-known English group called the Quarrymen (who, of course, later re-formed as the Beatles) which fetches an estimated $300,000.

The Dylan LP is available for perusal and sale to the general public, and placed right alongside the rest of the rare Dylan music behind the counter in the sprawling record store.

Who says nobody will pay for music anymore?

Heh heh, wonder if it'll sell. Annoying how articles of this kind suggest that NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD THIS BEFORE, when in fact people have had this stuff for 40 years.

THIS is criticism!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmGCrNfSb9s

I'm gonna be bummed if it ain't the kid singing lead. Hey there's an idea for another series!

Hard to beat tangled in blue

I feel the way he says about poems when I hear damn by Kendrick Lamar

...sounds like Wally Pleasant.

video not available for me...

that video really is quality edutainment. i knew there were alt versions of blood on the tracks but had never really heard it all in sequence. the silly song was also reasonably well-argued so it piqued my curiosity and made a playlist. it's excellent and might become my default way of listening to it

I disagree about meet me in the morning but agree about lily, rosemary etc.

mmmhhh sounds p interesting that vid...

i don't wanna interrupt the rolling thunder discussion on the bootleg series thread, so: i'm digging into more blood more tracks and, as someone who loves documents of process, it's wonderful, the way the arrangements of certain songs start full and brimming and on further takes gradually recede into nothing as he realizes how little he needs to get the feeling across

i had never heard the og acetate/ny sessions version of this record, and i gotta say i think dylan was a little right to second-guess himself, the minneapolis recordings inject the record with an energy that helps it go down smoother. some of this might be me preferring the versions i'm familiar with, for instance i just want "idiot wind" to steamroll over everything bc that's what the lyric wants to do. having said that, my ideal version of this record would have the spare ny sessions takes of "lily, rosemary etc." and "you're a big girl now," a song i will never tire of hearing in its different permutations, it's just he seemed to nail the feeling and the delivery in the acoustic takes

the full band "simple twist of fate"s rule so much also

i can't remember which dylan thread it is, but someone here recommended this alt version of Blood on the Tracks which switches out a couple tracks and dips from different sessions:

Tangled Up in Blue - Take 3, Remake 2 (Bootleg Series, 1-3)
Simple Twist of Fate (BotT)
You're a Big Girl Now (BotT)
Idiot Wind - Take 4, remake with organ overdub (Bootleg Series, 1-3)
You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (BotT)
Up To Me - Take 2, Remake 3 (Side Tracks)
If You See Her, Say Hello (BotT)
Shelter from the Storm - Take 1 (Jerry Maguire)
Buckets of Rain (BotT)

i've really enjoyed listening to that the past several months.

ooh thanks for that karl, it's fun all the slightly different versions of the album you could cobble together from this tracklist

also this has never been one of my favorite dylan albums (i bought it in high school and aggressively didn't get it) but... i get it very much now. maybe i had to get past 30

"up to me" is too good of a lyric to have been left off this album but whatever bob

blood on the tracks is my ride-or-die dylan

All things considered, “Idiot Wind” may be my favorite Dylan lyric.

yeah, i have a hard time picking a favorite but it's just stunning. as many times as I've heard it the "one day you'll be in the ditch..." verse never fails to stop me in my tracks.

I've always liked this album but not as much as many people do (never considered it one of his best, for instance).
However, listening to the "more blood" single album version, I love it now since I consider the NY sessions are much better than the final original version (with the notable exceptions of "STOF" and "YABGN" which are stellar on the album).
For instance "TUIB" (take 3 remake 3) in so much better than on the album.
And yeah, it was crazy to leave out "Up to Me" !

I think Up to Me / Shelter From the Storm are too similar, he probably had to pick just one(?)

Yeah the music is pretty much the same and while the lyrics on "Up to Me" are great, I feel he already expressed that particular sentiment elsewhere on the album, while "Shelter" offers a nice - hopeful - counterpoint.

"shelter from the storm" is hopeful? i guess it's a good enough lyric you can get multiple things from it

I don't know but I prefer "Up to Me" and it's such a great track.
Another example of how the NY sessions are mostly superior to the final album imo is how fantastic "Lily, Rosemary..." (take 2) is compared to the awful album version.
It was revelatory to me. This "acoustic" take reminds of "Desolation Row" : a long, piece with complex stories and images.
It's now one of my favorite Blood tracks whereas I never liked the original version.

i def prefer the minneapolis "if you see her"

Aw I find his delivery more touching and emotional on take1. Same for « Idiot Wind » for instance.

Similar to the "Up to Me"/"Shelter..." tip -- I find "Call Letter Blues" to be much more direct/affecting than "Meet Me in the Morning," but he could clearly only include one of those songs -- and maybe "Call Letter Blues" felt too "on-the-nose" or something? (I feel like someone made a similar comment on another thread, but it occurred to me now as I revisit some of these tracks.)

Another example of how the NY sessions are mostly superior to the final album imo is how fantastic "Lily, Rosemary..." (take 2) is compared to the awful album version.
It was revelatory to me. This "acoustic" take reminds of "Desolation Row" : a long, piece with complex stories and images.

I can relate to this, but I've always appreciated the weird, dense nature of the album version (and still do). It may be Dylan's most "difficult"/challenging album track?

"If You See Her" is the dog of the album, IMO -- at least lyrically. I've always disliked this verse:

We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart

Yeah these are not his greatest lyrics... but to me the worst is :

Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast

It's horrible imo... and it's from one of my favourite songs of his !
The musical intro alone kills me everytime.

Agreed with AlexTC that the "Lily, Rosemary" is a revelation in its bare-bone version (although it still lacks musicality to make it a favorite).
"If You See Her" has always been one of my very faves, although - yes, seeing those lyrics printed is a bit embarrassing. For a 20 year old, however, they seemed very direct and powerful . These days, as a 40 something, "Tangled up in Blue" is probably my favorite lyrics of his entire career.

About "Lily, Rosemary" I like this story :

Dylan called up folk singer, Joan Baez, about this track. Baez told The Huffington Post: "He read me the entire lyrics to 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts' that he'd just finished from a phone booth in the Midwest." The phone call prompted Baez to write "Diamonds & Rust," which is about the relationship she had with Dylan in the '60s. Baez said she later lied to Dylan that "Diamonds and Rust" was about her husband, David Harris.

lol how "Diamonds and Rust" can ONLY be about Dylan !

Yeah atm "Tangled up in Blue" (but the More Blood version) is my favourite Dylan song.

what do y'all think about the new york versions of "tangled up in blue" starting off in third person? it's v interesting to me that he shifted it all to first person for the minneapolis recording

It’s ok but musically I prefer the bright rolling sound of the final version. Lyrically the switch between first and third person works too (hints of Lynch-ian time/person blurring) but the more straightforward final lyric still gets the essence of the story. I’m sure there are tons of academic papers on all this.

i agree!

With the possible exception of Tangled, I find the NY versions so much better: more raw, more conflicted between anger and sadness, or at least some of that anger is self-directed. A lot of that emotion seems drained on the MN versions, which are still good, just more one-dimensional, or the performance aspect veils the emotional core of the songs. Idiot Wind especially pales in MN.

Nah the NY version of TUIB is great (and better imo) !

I think the pov switch is kinda awkward; but having lived with the album version for so long before hearing the alt. version for the first time (on the first Bootleg Series set), it's hard to say how I'd feel if it were the other way around.

the way he delivers "and i'm just like that bird" on the ny sessions version of "you're a big girl now"... god, it's so bottomlessly sad. this gets lost in the minneapolis version (which has a gorgeous arrangement, so i like that we have both now)

Tangled is the one song that perhaps benefits from the bright MN sound, fitting for what is in essence a travelogue of a relationship. I sometimes prefer the ambiguity of the NY version, which fits into the long tradition of Dylan third-person shifting narratives.

i think this will always be my favorite dylan album

it just gets better as i get older and life starts sucking in new ways that blood on the tracks addresses

the way he delivers "and i'm just like that bird" on the ny sessions version of "you're a big girl now"... god, it's so bottomlessly sad.

^^^^The way he moans just after that line it’s like his heart is going to burst. One of my favorite moments in his entire career.

going to buy MBMT rn, don't know why i' waited so long

i've always found both "lily" and "idiot wind" to be such unbearable slogs and rather unfortunate tarnishes on a record that was otherwise deeply beautiful. the stripped-down versions are indeed a revelation; i'm hearing them as if for the first time and it's a punch in the gut for sure, these songs now feel like shimmering expanses rather than clumsy elephantine obstructions.

found a decent vinyl rip of the test pressing that they released for record store day this year. mostly sought it out bc, iirc, tylerw said the official ny sessions takes on the box set are remixed (which is fine, they sound lovely) and i wanted to hear the burble of the organ in "idiot wind" as it was originally intended i guess, lol. and... yeah, now i'm really in love with this version of the record, but it's so fuckin weird to me that dylan nearly released a drumless album after planet waves

(drumless aside from "meet me in the morning," the only song with a full band arrangement, which is ALSO very weird to me)

I've been meek
and hard as an oak

i've seen pretty people disappear like smoke
friends will arrive
friends will disappear

if you want me, honey baby i'll be here

Big Jim was no one’s fool, he owned the town’s only diamond mine

Always imagine that refers to Jim Thompson’s dad.

Idiot Wind is so good. I love that contrast of cosmic storytelling in the verses ("shot a man called Gray", "ran into the fortune teller") with the scathing frankness of the chorus. the attempt to weave a story that actually goes anywhere is reined in each time by Dylan's helpless anger. he acknowledges it himself when he concedes "the wheels have stopped".

there's also (of course) a gradual sense as the song goes on of Dylan being complicit in feeding the mindless emotional turmoil. I like it how it ends on "we're idiots, babe..." rather than "I'm an idiot, babe...". Seems more organic that he's only willing to go in for a half-compromise after so artfully -- and artlessly -- making others the subject of his vitriol.

there really aren't many albums better than this one.

^^^