L -> R

Some girl, Paves ist Rad

That's pretty funny.

Unban me as miniboss.

I would, but I'm not an admin.

Can't understand the trash-talking of Blonde on Blonde or BOTT, seriously cannot wrap my head around it.

Yeah, there's others that fit the bill.

As for Pong's assertion that he's the biggest Dylan fan...I'm a huge one but there's plenty much bigger than myself. Any long time boarder knows I consider Bob as the most important living pop icon.

It is slightly surprising to me that he's as well respected as he is on an indie centric board such as this.

Poll: Radiohead or Dylan...ha.

i've almost been savoring some of his albums...just to know that i still have a lot to listen to. i like knowing that.

I think it might end badly again. But, considering that I am already an internet legend, I think it will come out in the curve. Someway, somehow, I will never be denied that which is rightfully mine.

I knew somebody would misinterpret that when I typed it. It wasn't a pissing contest.

But, I have everything, including zillions of bootlegs, on my ipod. And, sometimes I even read the lyrics on-line!

No disputing your passion. Just can't say yer the biggest. that's for the guy...well...some oddball type..you know those obsessive ones.

I will say this: I think I understand where Bob is coming from in his lyrics more than most. He's definitely not what the mainstream thinks he is.

i shall make a documentary on the biggest dylan fan.

it'll be between 5 contestants. then the viewers get to vote. and then i'll make another movie focusing on that one guy that gets the most votes. it'll be cool. yeah. maybe even a chick.

In many profound ways, my career on SOMB and LOPP has paralleled Bob Dylan's career. And, that's including the "Cleancut Kid".

And, the motorcycle accident.

When's your Jesus period?

Since I was 11 years old and the Holy Spirit came upon me and knocked me to my knees in Homewood, Full Gospel Church, in Homewood, Illinois. It was then that I knew Yahweh's spirit of the Old World was still as potent as ever and it changed me in a profound way that cannot be described or measured. It's a Holy Spirit thing. If you have to ask, you'll never know.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - The Times They Are a-Changin' - Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home - Highway 61 Revisited - Blonde on Blonde


what an unfuckwithable run.


i guess you could throw John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline in there if you wanted to, but those have never been my favorites.

could and should

Yup. Blonde on Blonde ends an era, but John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline are both amazing records as well.

I went against my better judgement and bought Self Portrait on vinyl today. Hey, call me a completist, it was three bucks.

i'm still not crazy about nashville skyline. i don't hate it, i like it, but it doesn't sound that good. pleasant stuff, but nothing earth shaking.

well, saying that blonde on blonde ends an era i'm not sure is quite accurate. prior to the supposed motorcycle accident and retreat from the limelight were two distinct eras that happened to be pressed right up against each other: the folk and rock eras. each produced a trilogy of classic albums. and you could perhaps say the same of the proceeding era, depending on how you treat the basement tapes and 'new morning'


i only wish it was longer

I suppose what I meant was that John Wesley Harding ended an era, I just worded it wrongly.

I finally listened to the debut. 2 songs in and I was really digging it, but about halfway through it becomes pretty clear that it's nowhere close to his other albums. Does that make it a bad album? Probably not but I don't know if I'll play it again for a long time. The best part about it was probably the liner notes.

Funny you should say that Undo, Dylan shares that exact opinion.

Unlike most of the songs nowadays that are being written uptown in Tin Pan Alley / That's where most of the folk songs come from nowadays
This, this is a song, this wasn't written up there / this was written somewhere down in the United States




The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Released 27th May 1963

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/0H2giBghK0tf31EEVCOujf
Lala: http://www.lala.com/#album/504684633533536054

No difficult second album here. For my money, this is an album almost without peer in terms of the leap made from first to second album. It would feature in most people's lists if they did a top 10 2nd albums of all time (Alongside Fun House, Nevermind, The Bends, This Year's Model, Chairs Missing, Closer and few others). Not only that but even approaching 50 years on Dylan will likely be playing two songs a night from the first side of this LP, not something that the McCartney would likely to be doing off With The Beatles or The Stones with any version of their second album you want to pick.

To think that Dylan was still only 21 when he was writing these lyrics is a mind blowing concept to behold. When you even consider that the performances and song writing in songs left off this album, recorded in the first session, like "The Death of Emmett Till", "Rambling, Gambling Willie", and "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues", showing us our first glimpses of Dylan the protest singer. Opening the record is "Blowin' In The Wind" one of the most well known Dylan songs from the opening of his career mainly in part to Peter, Paul and Mary's cover of the song which reached #2 in the USA. It is thought to be Dylan's most covered song. Unlike many of his other protest songs, it doesn't reference any particular event or injustice and it's for that reason that this is the one that people latch on to the most. It deals with the general not the case of one particular person that may fade into history and is still being used as an anti-war and anti-oppression song to this day. It is said that Dylan wrote the first and last verses within minutes one night after a lengthy discussion on politics were it was concluded that remaining silent on an issue was tantamount to condoning it and it was a civic responsibility to stand up for other people\'s rights. Borrowing the tune from Negro spiritual song 'No More Auction Block' (performed in 1962 by Dylan in Greenwich a number of times and to be found on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991). The song was published in folk sheet music publication Sing Out! making it a popular song to be covered and parodied even before Dylan himself had recorded it, this was key to winning round the likes of Van Ronk on the song who couldn't understand the meaning of the title phrase. Now of course the phrase has entered the lexicon and the opening line even sees itself put forward as the question to the ultimate answer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. How a scruffy 21 year old Jewish kid could have come up with a song like this that speaks for and to so many people across age, race and country is so impressive I can barely find the words to capture it. John Baez summed it up when she remarked that had Dylan never recorded another note after this song he would have still done enough for one lifetime.

"Masters of War" is a more direct song, not an anti-war song per se but more aimed at the confluence of Government and the Military in the US at the time. Dylan himself has said it's more of a pacifist song then anything. Again the melody is borrowed, (from "Nottamun Town" for what it's worth) but the power of the song is in the sheer viciousness attacking those who profit from what was, and largely continues to be, American foreign policy. ('Even Jesus would never forgive what you do' he spits.) "Bob Dylan's Blues" was the original title of the record and along with "Bob Dylan's Dream" (Based on "Lady Franklin's Lament") sees Dylan in a more wistful, nostalgic mode and could have musically fit on to his debut album with the strong presence of Guthrie hanging over them, as well as nodding to social ills. He was also experimenting with metre and phrasing of more absurdest songs and even funny lyrics on "Talkin' World War III Blues" and closer "I Shall be Free" For example check out that final couplet at the end of the record as well as his witty reply to JFK or in the rambling tale of "Talkin' World War III Blues" he's left on hold by the talking clock and the doctor remarking that he had had the same dream about surviving a nuclear holocaust but hadn't seen Dylan there.)

The first recipient of a 10 mark goes to "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall", written at first in a long poem style and set to music in late 1962. Not directly influenced by (It was performed live in September) but in the the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis and fearing that he may not have many more opportunities to write a song the six and a half minute stream of consciousness was recorded in a single take. Dylan has said that each line in the song could have warranted a song of it's own and it's hard to disagree. From the imagery of the black branch dripping with blood, the thousand talkers with their tongues all broken and the young child beside a dead pony it's a song that contains seemingly nonsensical and yet profound statements that on other, later songs it could be argued are used merely for the way they sound not what they mean (more on this duly, of course). It's often assumed that the hard rain is fall out from a nuclear holocaust but it is actually, as Dylan clarified at the time, referring to the poison that permeates the media and the lies that they sow. Although the line "Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world" is likely to refer to the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. A crushing end to the first side of the record.

The other side to Dylan's bow at this stage in his career were long songs inspired by the album's cover star Suze Rotolo, who of course can probably take some claim for helping Dylan to become aware of the subject matter of many of his protest songs. The first one on here is not just about her though. "Girl From The North Country" with it's simple strummed nostalgia was written whilst Dylan was in England in early 1963 and hoping that he would be seeing Rotolo, who had been sent to university in Italy the September before by her parents to get her away from Dylan amongst other things, in Rome later on the tour (ironically, she was actually already back in New York at this point and would be living with Dylan again within weeks) and channelling this in with nostalgic remembrance of former girlfriends from Minnesota (Echo Helstrom and Bonnie Beecher). Despite the homesickness and lack of Suze the song does incorporate part of the melody to "Scarborough Fayre" the English folk song as well as the "Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine" outro showing that influences were still seeping into him.

When Rotolo first travelled to Europe leaving a lovesick Dylan behind it inspired him to write his first great love song, earning a second 10.0 on this album from me. Unlike many of his other love songs there's little in the way of spite or malice here (bar the line about wasting his precious time) just a guy tenderly coming to terms with the absence of the girl he loved with a richness of language ,set to another borrowed, lilting melody (Paul Clayton and Dylan's people agreed a settlement and the two remained threads) with a slightly touchy and self-pitying manner running though it. We've all been there guys though right? If Rotolo felt uncomfortable about Peter, Paul and Mary signing a song that was so obviously about her that was nothing compared to John Baez introducing the song at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 as being 'about a love affair that had gone on too long' confirming for her the whispers about the Baez's relationship with Dylan. She would shortly move out soon after and they split for good by March of 1964, Dylan covers this elsewhere.

The record tapers off slightly on the second half, the pleasant reworking of "Corrina, Corrina" and the cover of "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" don't add that much to the record but with the wealth of fantastic material here it seems churlish to criticise it for that, especially as Talkin' World War III Blues" and "Bob Dylan's Dream" were two of the late additions when the four songs, including "Talkin' John Birch Society Blues" were pulled. There's also along with the Cold War commentary of "Talkin' World War III Blues" the underrated "Oxford Town" which tells the tale of the first black student to be enrolled in University of Mississippi, James Meredith that September. Typical of the pace Dylan was working he had the song released by November as sheet music and recorded in early December.

A second album almost unrivalled for growth and maturity by any act in popular music, Dylan would go on to make other albums with songs as good as the best ones here but it's arguable that despite all he would do in the next three and a bit years, four of his greatest ever songs appear here. It also help to revolutionise the concept of the album containing mainly original work by the artist, The Beatles would be doing the same within a year.

All this by a guy described as (manager) "Hammond's Folly" at CBS in the lead up to this record.

1. "Blowin' in the Wind" 9.0
2. "Girl from the North Country" 9.0
3. "Masters of War" 8.5
4. "Down the Highway" 7.0
5. "Bob Dylan's Blues" 7.5
6. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" 10.0
7. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" 10.0
8. "Bob Dylan's Dream" 7.5
9. "Oxford Town" 8.5
10. "Talkin' World War III Blues" 7.5
11. "Corrina, Corrina" 7.0
12. "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" 6.5
13. "I Shall Be Free" 7.5

Initial score A
May 2009 Score A

I think Talkin' World War III warrants at least an 8.5 if not a 9. Lyrically one of the best on the album. I also think Down The Highway deserves a bit of a higher rating. Otherwise totally agree, with everything here.

Dylan's talkin' blues songs make for very funny satire ("John Birch Society" especially), but in the long run I've found them to really lack in staying power as actual songs, and especially when stacked up against everything else on Freewheelin'.

yeah

tracks 1 and 3 need higher ratings. agree with overall. this is on track to rival the neil thread

Yeah, for all its ubiquitousness, you can't deny "Bowin' in the Wind" a 10. Some songs are ubiquitous for a very good reason.

Pretty much, think I listened to this album five times in the past week as well as however many before this month. They are fine on their own but the fact that you could, in most cases slip them back on the debut speaks volumes. I even forgot to mention "Down The Highway" not that it's bad or anything, just pretty inconsequential.

I had to give "Blowin' In The Wind" less than 10.0 as it's not in my Dylan top 40 and if I was giving out more than 40 10.0's they'd be devalued.

unbelievably low on "Blowin' in the Wind", "Girl from the North Country", "Masters of War" (all 9.5-10 in my book), and i personally adore "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance" but that's for personal reasons and what it means to me rather than the song itself (which is still worthy of at least an 8.0 i reckon).

Overrated: A Hard Rains Gonna Fall a little bit in comparison with your other ratings

Underrated: Bob Dylan's Dream, Talkin' World War III Blues, Corrina, Corrina

WAY Underrated: Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance

This is still my favorite Dylan record, by quite a bit. Pretty much nothing I can fault on here, and certainly in my own library these are all 10.0 songs.

Not sure the 9.0's and 8.5's for those songs mean that rating is that low, I can't be the only one who thinks that 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' is the best thing on that side of the record? I go back to Sask's answer on the others, I couldn't see me independently listening to most of those songs outside of the album. I do really like 'Corrina Corrina', it is a cover though.

Next album should be coming up tonight.

Mitch, you (rightly) gave "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" a 10 but you didn't mention it in the review/post/whatever! I read through the whole thing hoping to see your thoughts on it (perhaps my absolute favourite Dylan song) but alas, no.

6th paragraph, I don't refer to it by name for some reason, just that I gave it a 10.0. Incredible song.

Hah! I'm an idiot. I read that paragraph distractedly and thought "that sounds like DTWIA" but didn't see the name anywhere, so I did a CTRL+F and nothing showed up..

Never mind!

i LOVE "I Shall Be Free." along with "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" (which was an outtake from this record, if i recall) those are two of the funniest songs i've ever heard. no complaints, though. i understand how hard it is to go through entire discographies ~ or half-way thru, anyway ~ and give ratings perspective. great record.

You named the 10's on that record correctly for sure and I understand the 9.0 for Blowin' In The Wind. It doesn't make my top Dylan! mix. I'm surprised how much our ratings are matching up. I think my favorite line from any song ever is from Hard Rain: "I'll know my song well before I start singing." I think it was either Ginsberg or Pete Seeger that said the torch was passed with that line. Does an excellent version of it on Live 1975.

These are sort of the exact reasons why the album does more for me than anything else in his catalog.

Freewheelin', though. I listened to that on the train Friday.

Hope you all enjoyed this post.

how the fuck can you give blowin' in the wind and girl from the north country anything less then a 10.0? both of those songs are perfect in every way.

I got the order of his albums mixed up and thought that Freewheelin' was his third release (haven't heard Times yet). Because... how could this really be his second album? The jump from his debut to this is difficult to take seriously until you realize that it really happened. Wow. When I was 21 I was... let's not even go into that.

This might be my favorite album of his so far, but there's 3 or 4 classixxx I still haven't heard yet so that might change. So many great songs on this one. I like them all.

Really pumped to let everyone here know how I feel about the Another Side songs.

You'd think I'd given Blowin' In The Wind and Girl From The North Country -4/10. If I'm throwing out 10's like free dildos they don't mean anything.

Two of the best songs written. EVER. Both deserve a 10, as does Masters of War. The only way I could justify your ratings are if you're not in the habit of throwing out 10's for any of this fly by night indie rock fad stuff that gets hyped to death around here. But 40 Dylan songs that get 10's and these aren't among them?

Nice writing though. I've enjoyed this thread.

That's correct. I'm not just not going to give everything 10, sorry. These songs are being compared to other Dylan songs and what I think of them. Not to The Beatles, Frightened Rabbit, Animal Collective or beer. Just to other Dylan songs. All three of those wouldn't be in my top 50 or so Dylan songs, so they don't get a 10.



Thanks. Good to know people are enjoying this.

I really think that 'Masters of War', 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' and 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right' are the only songs worthy of 10.0 on this record. Yes, those other songs you mentioned are fantastic too, but you're arguing that he should have awarded them one more point than he actually did.

I'd say that I like the debut about as much as I like beer.

Well, that's a big distinction. Because if you were comparing these songs to any other songs out there, which I think most people do when they use this type of scale, then they are definitely 10's. There are very few songs that are even in the same universe at these.

Well as this a Bob Dylan thread I'm comparing like for like. Saying these songs are 10's compared to The Jonas Brothers doesn't tell us much.

I don't like those songs as much as you do. Sorry, nothing is going to change that.

that's certainly the difficulty in a thread like this. because you can't do it in a vacuum and yet you have to have the context of the artist's other work. after all, 90% of dylan's stuff is better than 90% of all other stuff out there, but you can't give 90% of his stuff a 9/10 or better. but you can't evenly distribute his work 1-10 either. but it's naturally gonna skew toward favorable ratings for a great artist even if you're comparing him to himself 'cause the work either moves you or it doesn't

i can understand wanting to limit the number of perfect 10s as a means to distinguish great from even greater, but having a quota like 25 or 40 or 50 or whatever doesn't make sense to me. what's the magic #? the answer my friend...

Those quoted number of 10's aren't set in stone or even sand. I was just making a rough generalisation dishing them out too freely. Not going to reach a limit and not give anymore out.

Freewheelin' is the album that got me into Dylan, as it's the first album of his I sat with and listened to front-to-back by myself. The talkin' blues songs don't hold up and I know "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Masters of War" get bonus points for Importance™ and all, but they're just not that enjoyable to me as songs anymore. However, almost 20 years (oh my god) after first hearing these songs: no matter what's happening or where I'm at, if I hear "Girl From the North Country" or "Don't Think Twice", I get all sentimental and nostalgic. Those two songs alone are worth buying this record for.