Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
1. Subterranean Homesick Blues
2. She Belongs to Me
3. Maggie's Farm
4. Love Minus Zero/No Limit
5. Outlaw Blues
6. On the Road Again
7. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
8. Mr. Tambourine Man
9. Gates of Eden
10.It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
11.It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
 
Ah....the first ever endeavor where
Mr. Dylan decided to alienate many of his cult following. Here, he
does it by playing
electric instruments. It's actually quite funny all of these
years later to ponder exactly what all the fuss was about. My thinking
is the tight knit crowd of Greenwich Village prided themselves so much
on being so different from the masses, that they didn't want the rest of
the world to experience this genius. I've never quite understood that
mentality. This album isn't really that much
different than his last release, Another Side of Bob Dylan. Sure,
there are those "electric" instruments, but melody and structure wise,
the differences are not that noticeable. Plus, by the time we get to
the middle of side 2, Bob has slowly peeled away those new influences,
and the album easily transfers back to the folksy style that we're all
familiar.
Then there's the fact that the music here is, quite simply, some of the
best he's ever done. Had the music suffered at all in terms of
quality, it would be very easy for more people to discount Bob's new
venture into unexplored territories. However, dare I say, this is quite
possibly his best release up to this point in his career. No, nothing
could be as influential as some of his earliest works, but song for
song, this record is darn near immaculate. From the opening lyrics of
the classic Subterranean Homesick Blues, "Johnny's in the
basement/Mixing Up the Medicine/I'm on the pavement/Thinking 'bout the
government....", you already somehow know that this album is
going to be a classic. The song never makes any sense, yet is so
uniquely "Dylan" that it ranks among his all time best.
The whole album is littered with great songs. Some, such as Love
Minus Zero/No Limit, Mr Tambourine Man and It's All Over
Now, Baby Blue have endured in popularity throughout the years, and
I would be afraid to count just how many artists have covered these
songs and somehow made them unique enough to resonate with that
particular artist as well as Dylan. Then there are those tracks
that are so uniquely what you would expect from Dylan, that they have
appeared on countless live albums and compilations both in this original
form and alternate versions such as Gates of Eden, Maggie's
Farm and the highly underrated It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only
Bleeding).
Although he's still political, his politics aren't quite as heavy handed
as they've been in the past, and his humor, if anything, has increased a
bit, both in lyrics and in his approach. Especially charming (and some
may say annoying) is the "left in" goof at the beginning of Bob
Dylan's 115th Dream, where he breaks out laughing several seconds
into the song before the finished, fixed product continues. So all
things are good here. Sadly, with everything he did during the sixties
turning to gold, this is one of those releases that seemed to get a
little bit overlooked, which shouldn't be the case. This is one of his
true, classic, "best of the best ofs".
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