Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks poll

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.

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.

^^^