Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks poll

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.

(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.

^^^