Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks poll

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