27th March - Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home

Artist – Album: Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home

Released:  27^th March 1965         

Sounds Like:  A record breaker

So, Bob Dylan here becomes the first artist to have had three albums reviewed on this blog, following 1964’s The Times They Are A-Changing and 1975’s Blood on the Tracks in January.

What’s surprising is that this effort doesn’t really sound anything like the other two. I mean, sure, his voice is still a squawk as in the older recording, and his lyrics are as well chosen, funny and tender as in later album, but, musically, this is going down a very different path. Here, Dylan’s forsaken the limited folk of his earlier records for the electric folk rock that he made his own. He has a go at Chuck Berry style Rock and Roll for ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, a song hilariously revealed to be a George Formby original in mock news comedy The Day Today (youtube it!). The second half is more traditional in tone but there’s a succession of more than five minute long songs, sprawling, all-encompassing tales that broke the rigid conventions of the time.

The calibre of the songs on this album is just extraordinary: ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’, ‘Mr Tambourine Man’, ‘Gates of Eden’, ’It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’; each one stakes a credible claim to be Dylan’s greatest ever single track, and each works exceptionally well with the others to create an entirely listenable and rewarding masterpiece of a whole.

And for that reason, Bob Dylan also becomes the first artist to have more than one perfect rated album on this blog. Now hear this Robert Zimmerman, I gave two tens to you.  

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1.       Subterranean Homesick Blues – 2:21

2.       She Belongs to Me – 2:47

3.       Maggie’s Farm – 3:54

4.       Love Minus Zero/No Limit – 2:51

5.       Outlaw Blues – 3:05

6.       On the Road Again – 2:35

7.       Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream – 6:30

8.       Mr Tambourine Man – 5:30

9.       Gates of Eden – 5:40

10.   It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – 7:29

11.   It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – 4:12

Listen to ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqNk9C8iUII

Also released on the 27^th March:

1991: Slint - Spiderland