blonde on blonde vs. highway 61 revisited.

i was never a fan of thin man myself, but he really lit it up when i saw him do it live last year. it could have been his band, though. that band was terrific.

I like the 1966 versions where the organ comes through better than on the "official" one, but Bob's whine just ends up annoying. I was just listening to the album, version---I've got three huge box sets of 1965 and 1966 coming up in my queue---like, er, 36 cds worth (!)---so lotsa "Thin Man" in my near-ish future.

The folks who find "Ballad of a Thin Man" boring are making me wonder if I hear the same thing they do when it comes on.

I think most of the 66 boots are of the acoustic half of the shows, so probably not too much Thin Man Euler!

youtube seems to be scrubbed clean of dylan videos these days, but the 66 performance of this song included in No Direction Home is off the hook.

i used to would say HW 61 with little doubt, but over the years BoB has really earned its classic status to these ears. there are still more songs on BoB that I'm inclined to skip over, but the standouts are pretty much peerless vis-a-vis his catalaog.

hope it's ok if I keep using this thread as a general 1965/1966 thing.

The second set of 1965-6-1 @ BBC TV Theatre, London, England is terrific! Firstly, check out the set list:

Love Minus Zero/No Limit
One Too Many Mornings
Boots Of Spanish Leather
It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
She Belongs To Me
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

It's the last show before Newport 65, and it sounds like something is dying. The "Boots of Spanish Leather" has a faraway sound, sad & distant. He tells the "I'm only bleeding, ho ho ho" joke that's common on the UK 1965 tour but here it's lifeless (this is the last time he played it in 1965 & 1966 that I know of). But the real ear-opener is "One Too Many Mornings", which has the arrangement you know from the 1966 rock shows (with the delayed "behind"), but here in an acoustic take, and like the other songs, sad sad sad. It's great to hear where that later arrangement originates.

great write-up Euler. one of these days I will descend into the labyrinth that is dylan bootlegs. but for the mean-time, there's an arrangement of 'don't think twice it's alright' that's more upbeat/vicious than the album version that he played in the 60s - anybody know which bootleg has it?

might be the Before the Flood version from 1974 -- it's pretty rip-roaring.
so euler, this 65-66 set is the Jewels and Binoculars thing? Quite an undertaking! Some great stuff, but also I'd imagine some pretty poor sounding (audio quality) stuff as well.

hah yeah that's the one - I was a little unclear in my first post, I think he started playing this version in the 60s. I meant it was different than the arrangement on the album...thanks for the rec, though

I'm listening through three 65 and 66 boxes: firstly, 1965 Revisited, Jewels & Binoculars, and Genuine Live 1966. I think everything from the latter is available on Jewels & Binoculars but I knew the latter first (and like its sound quality). Plus I have the Sept. 3, 1965 Hollywood Bowl show in the queue (somehow that missed 1965 Revisited.

Euler's post above mentioning Love Minus Zero/No Limit just reminded me what Clinton Heylin said in the first part of his song chronology book, that it was originally written on the label like a mathematical equation, so (hopefully the formatting will work...):

zero
Love - --------
No Limit

Which i kinda love.

It didn't... datgunnit... ok, Love minus (-) Zero divided by No Limit.

Wish i hadn'tr bothered now...

Dylan says on one of the 1965 shows that I just listened to that it is a mathematical equation, a fraction of love - 0 over no limit, where "no limit" I gather is as in the infinitesimal calculus. I love Dylan's occasional reference to mathematics---in "Tangled Up In Blue", in interviews, "the geometry of innocent flesh on the bone", this song...he must have some admiration for mathematicians and/or maybe has one in the family.

in latex you'd have it $\frac{love - 0}{no limit}$, for those ~in the know~

"the only mathematical guitar genius I’ve ever run into who doesn’t offend my intestinal nervousness with his rearguard sound." (dylan on robbie)

ok wow @ the Forest Hills show, Aug. 28, 1965; the crowd is really hostile! The quality of this recording sucks b/c the catcalls & boos on the electric set make Bob + Robbie a big screechy sonic blur (though the piano sounds great (is it Al Kooper? could be electric piano). It sounds more like the Newport 65 show than the loping roll of the 66 rock sets: this one is jagged, crude, thumpy (the way the "Maggie's Farm" at Newport, on No Direction Home e.g., sounds). The crowd is just bewildered---you hear them moaning, whooping; it's like they're onstage with Dylan, part of the madness.

BoB is funnier but the sound on Highway 61 is better. something about the band on BoB doesn't seem as full or as unhinged, for the most part.

"I'm a mathematical singer, I use words the way most people use numbers." press conference 1965-12-17 @ Columbia Records, Los Angeles, CA

ok, having gotten through 36 cds of 1965 & 1966 bootlegs, I would not recommend this to anyone else. This has been more OCD than even I can handle. but 22 "Mr Tambourine Man"s in the last week or so have, er, gotten a bit tiring.

haha. yeah, as obsessive as I am about bob, I don't think I could do it, especially in such a concentrated period. his setlist wasn't really very extensive back then -- just playing about 20 songs live, right?
still, any surprises or more recommendations? i was just looking at a list of late 65 live recordings that I hadn't heard. I'm assuming they're in poor quality ...
one thing I dig about the 65 stuff I've heard is the re-arrangement of It Ain't Me Babe, which I don't think they play on the 66 tour. Has this cool, weird Robbie Robertson breakdown.

He plays "It Ain't Me, Babe" in December of 65 and then not in 66 as far as I can tell. The late 65 recordings are in pretty good quality, actually; that Hollywood Bowl boot kicks, and the Berkeley set from December is good too.

The "Thin Man"s in 66 are not as bad as I was fearing, though I still don't love the songs. They're good or not depending on how clear the organ playing is in the recording.

The only surprises really were how variable Dylan's singing and harmonica playing were. Some nights they're pretty gonzo! Actually the harp playing is pretty gonzo on Live 1966 so you get the idea. But Bob's singing some nights is even more narcotic than what you're used to on that tour. In particular the Royal Albert Hall sets from the 26th of May (so after Live 1966) are kinda amazing: Dylan sounds like he can barely stand up. The tempos on some songs ("Like A Rolling Stone" for instance) go waaaay down; maybe the whole band was on whatever Bob was on, or maybe they knew this was the only way he'd keep up. Still, he doesn't flub lyrics; I'm amazed as his poise given what we can only assume was an alarming pharmacological intake at that point.

yeah he sounds positively ghostly on the royal albert hall acoustic set, just floating out there. one of my faves. in many ways, i imagine that set sounded even more radical and bizarre to the audience than the electric stuff. and i love those meandering harmonica solos he takes.

cld anybody point me to ahem a blog source for gd blonde on blonde session outtakes, esp the complete piano version of 'she's your lover now', ty

(am currently reading and LOVING 'Bob Dylan in America' by Sean Wilentz)

and u u just sit around and ask for ashtrays CANT U REACH?????

(i only know the band version with the abrupt finish from the bootleg sessions, sorry)

lol a friend once said the v same thing to me cos i was being a lazy bastard, few dylan lines cut quicker/sharper

according to wilentz, the near-complete band version was the last try at this song after a long and frustrated session, and THEN dylan sat down at the piano and sang a slowed down no-flub take that yeah i wld love to hear

I have the acetate sessions or something like that

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMd_bgyilV0

there's a bootleg called dimestore medicine from a little while back that compiles almost all of the studio outtakes from 65-66. some of it was officially released on the no direction home boot series. not actually a lot of BoB outtakes available, though they exist -- wilentz goes into great detail about various takes. i assume columbia will release a "sessions" box set someday.

I saw Wilentz on a book tour appearance for this last year and then, shame on me, never sat down and read the book.

it's ok, i liked the blonde on blonde chapters the most, some of it is a little boring. nice that he gives the 90s-00s some detailed analysis.
if anyone's looking for a quick n easy dylan bootleg intro, this guy is posting the recent "performing artist" boots: http://musicruinedmylife.blogspot.com/search/label/Bob%20Dylan%20Performing%20Artist
probably the most well organized collection available.

I think this has what you're looking for. It's findable if you look around. I've listened to the whole damn thing, all 26 disks, & it's pretty insane.

ha, i've never braved that thing, though i've heard a lot of it. the audience recordings are super-rough, right?

they are rough & only for the superfanatic of that period. The good sounding sets though are worth time beyond the immeasurably worthwhile official 1966 boot. The real Royal Albert Hall show is particular great.

yeah, i've got the genuine live 66 bootleg (covering euro/uk tour), which i think changed my life.

I had that too; this is all of that & more, I think...way more than a non-freak needs, but I am a freak for Bob.

is there gonna be a new Bootleg Series volume this year? wasn't the Witmark thing last year? I have lost track.

i don't think so? think the new bob "product" this year is that hank williams songbook thing. and the unreleased gospel era track on the lol hawaii five-o soundtrack.

that'll be cool enough then I guess.

for 1965 fandom I've gotten much love out of this.

I love those 1965 shows because it's when Bob finally works out the croak of the Times They Are A-Changin' voice into something more tender, less strident. Though there are already hints of that on the astonishing slow take on "Gates Of Eden" in the 1964 Halloween show.

I noticed that a girl in one of my rotary art classes today--excellent student, very quiet--was having a bit of a giggling fit. It continued for a while, so I eventually asked her what was so funny. It was the lyrics to "Desolation Row"--I was playing a '65-66 CD I'd made on the occasion of his birthday. I didn't think any of them were paying any attention.

We had a farewell get-together after work for three people leaving next week. At one point, "Mr. Tambourine Man" came over the pub's sound system. I listened for about a minute, and had the same reaction I always have in such situations; I solemnly announced to the guy next to me, "Listen to what I say here: there are very few things in life as overwhelming as hearing Bob Dylan in a public setting" (by which I meant 1964/65/66 Bob Dylan--and many songs, not all of them..."Mr. Tambourine Man" definitely). I believe that devoutly--I can't even describe how that feels to me.

I could tell my pronouncement had quite an effect. "Neil--pass the onion rings," he replied, secretly pondering memory and fate and the jingle-jangle morning.

I clicked on this thread because I wanted to write about Desolation Row, but yes! to that post from four years ago. I have a distinct and lovely memory from childhood of being on a brief family trip in California, sitting in the car overlooking a beach, in jeans that were wet from wading in the ocean, feeling chilly and salty and uncomfortable and terribly happy and not wanting it to end, and hearing "Mr. Tambourine Man" on the radio. (The Byrds cover, but still effective. I don't think I had heard it before.) Years later I compared notes about that trip with my brother (JoeStork) and found that the memory of hearing "Mr. Tambourine Man" had stayed with him as well, in much the same way.

I still get shivers nearly ever time he gets to the "to dance beneath the diamond sky . . ." line.

Lily Dale's story in the revive above is terrific.

i remember being completely hypnotized and under the spell of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" the first time i heard it. probably age 13 or 14. it was just in my wood-paneled suburban bedroom, listening to the old blue Greatest Hits album. with "Subterranean Homesick Blues" i moved the needle back to hear it over and over, but i think with MTM it was more the epic centerpiece. it's still very evocative to me as a piece of writing and a performance, I can see my breath in the air as this tambourine man and his follower pass by, a hushed atmosphere despite all the jingle-jangling. don't think i could ever be critical of that one. but I had to actually look up which album it's on -- for me it exists mainly on that GH disc.

the two albums highlighted for this thread, i didn't hear until college. Highway 61, i got a copy of for a birthday or Christmas, and so i got to know it much much better. i like it a lot even if i'd probably give the edge to Bringing It All Back Home, of those two. BoB i know little enough to associate it mainly with one specific road trip down to Savannah - my friend was playing her copy in the car towards the end of the drive there, we stopped and got ice cream somewhere amidst Disc 1. tonight i've listened to Disc 2 twice in a row without intending to --- i think i like it a LOT better, and would probably have spent more time with this album if those songs came first!

Great posts above

Despite my lifelong Dylan fandom, I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually owned a copy of H61… I may just have the songs ingrained in my brain via Dylan collections. Honestly, I think I sort of forget the album exists; my brain jumps from BIABH to BOB (both of which were among the first CDs I owned, by any artist).

(Looking at the H61 tracklist now… I should give this one a spin some time, looks like a pretty good album, lol)

H61 is my weird Dylan blindspot, also. I borrowed a copy from my local library years and years back and listened to it a good deal but it never clicked - just wasn't in that headspace. I'm at the stage where I'm more interested in his less celebrated periods (xian, 80s, etc.)

Amphetamine pace of H61 makes it a great driving album.

These two records are usually paired together, but I think Blonde on Blonde actually marks a shift that is completed with his 1967 recordings. There's more attention to songcraft, writing bridges and hooks, the tempos are easing off, there are many more country music touches. I suspect that the motorcycle accident had less to do with his change in style than that he had burnt off a lot of the intensity of 1965. This may correlate with changes in drug intake and family situation?

i buy that. part of why it's taken me a long long time to get into BoB is that i find the energy level kinda sluggish. i was wondering last night if that was partially a matter of the mix --- the drums in particular feel really muffled/distant a lot of the time. but it could totally also be the songwriting and tempos making things feel a little bit less urgent. much moreso than on the previous two albums, i find the lyrics kinda washing past me --- just a parade of randomly identified characters doing miscellaneous things, not really adding up to a point or a narrative. maybe that'll change with more attentive listens, idk, but I feel like a lot of these songs could shed 2 or 3 verses and we'd never know the difference. disc one is also weighed down by having Rainy Day Women and Just Like a Woman which reallllly bore me (except the opening of JLaW). do Dylan fans get into "one-disc" versions of this record, the way Beatles people will tinker around with the White Album on rainy Sundays? i guess it gets tricky if you're committed to keeping Sad-Eyed Lady, which i probably would be.

I'm 40, and my parents were big Dylan fans. These two + Bringing It All Back Home were in regular rotation when I was growing up and were thus among the first "adult" music that I heard somewhere other than the radio that I really tried to develop my own connection with. Predictably, my relationships with all 3 albums have continued to evolve throughout my life.

Posts upthread by marcos and Dr. C describing the airier, more limp mix of BoB had me sold on where I would put my allegiance between these 2. While I have always loved the poetry of Dylan's phrase "thin, wild mercury sound," the actual SOUND he seems to be describing leans a little too heavily on the "thin" part, on BoB anyway. But then I read brimstead's gorgeous

like he’s not looking over his shoulder or winking as much, just letting it all spill out. It’s an ornate maroon and gold carpet. it sounds like home.

and I'm back to thinking of these two deeply similar albums as incomparably different.

Also, cannot believe I have never noticed before today that Blonde on Blonde abbreviated spells BOB!

Re: trimming the fat on BoB to create a regular length LP, it would be interesting to see if there's any consensus. A lot of the songs are quite similar, and I suspect that aside from a few obvious standouts (and cutting Rainy Day Women) the ones you keep and cut are very personal, based on specific lines and moments that resonate. I won't try to get into track order - it definitely wouldn't be this - but a very quick pass for me says something like

A:
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
I Want You
Visions of Johanna
One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
Temporary Like Achilles

B:
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine)
Fourth Time Around
Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

Cut:
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
Pledging My Time
Just Like a Woman
Absolutely Sweet Marie
Obviously Five Believers

But wait! Whut about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKqQJuJqN6Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlnlrtsHC6s

I'd keep "Absolutely Sweet Marie" because it's got am instrumental hook and interesting chord changes, which I bet no-one ever said about half of the songs on the record.
I admit I never got "Visions of Johanna".

It's like Bob saying, "do you see what I did there?" for seven minutes straight.

Johanna vs. Sweet Marie is exactly the kind of personal preference I alluded to - neither has much in the way of hooks, both long, but both have lots of indelible lines. "The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face" - cmon

I do like "Sweet Marie" a lot but it is sort of Blonde on Blonde by numbers to me. It doesn't stand out.

"Just Like a Woman" also has plenty of great moments but could've been a non-album single

Oh, I love Sweet Marie. I could see maaaaybe losing Five Believers.

People. Just enjoy the record. Also if anybody so much as *touches* the Kenny Buttrey tour de force of “Marie”, I will be over with the enforcers.

^otm

Inspired by this revive, I listened to BoB tonight and was thinking about how the album is kind of divided between serious or intense songs (Visions, One or Us Must Know, etc.) and lighter/funnier material (Rainy Day, Leopard Skin, etc.). It's its own little White Album. I was imagining the single album version of BoB not in terms of my favorites (I'd take some from both styles), but solely from the serious or intense side. There isn't quite enough for an entire album imo, so I added "She's Your Lover Now" and came up with this:

Emo Blonde on Blonde
Side A:
1. She's Your Lover Now
2. Visions of Johanna
3. One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
4. Just Like a Woman

Side B:
1. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
2. Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

That fumble at the end of She's Your Lover Now leads into Visions really well.

So I've been listening to this version, which I now call Blonde on the Tracks, and it is killer imho (I know ppl don't like Just Like a Woman, but it works in this much more thematic context).