The marching band utilised on this track and the later ‘Most Likely You Go Your Way’ is also indicative of Dylan being at his most instrumentally ambitious as of so far in his career.įollowing the seemingly less-serious opening tracks, Blonde on Blonde takes a sudden turn into introspective, personal songwriting. His dazed and slurred delivery on this song seems at first like a thinly veiled drug innuendo, though the lyrics also seem to be a commentary on the reaction Dylan faced from his fans after going electric – ‘they’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car / they’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar’. The first track, ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’, is built almost entirely around Dylan’s double entendre on the word ‘stoned’. Regardless, his songwriting was in perfect form on this album, as evidenced by the fact that it remains a rare double album with no filler at all. The now-Nobel-prize-winning singer wheezes poetics in his nasally and disaffected tone through all of the tracks, much of his delivery being almost unintentionally hilarious and imitable. Love it or hate it, Dylan’s voice is a major part of Blonde on Blonde. That being said, the typically ‘Dylan’ elements (guitar, harmonica, vocals) are emphasised as the primary focus of this album, with the mixing very much putting Dylan’s vocals and lyrics at the forefront of the recording. In these sessions, the folk influences of Dylan’s work were subdued even further, replaced instead with instrumental references to blues, country, flamenco and rock.
Rather than return to his roots or maintain the folk-rock image he had cultivated in the American media, Dylan opted to use a cohort of Nashville recording artists (later famously known as The Band) to support him during the creation of Blonde on Blonde. Though some claimed it was his best effort yet, Dylan’s initial folk audience saw it as nothing less than a betrayal due to its primary focus on rock instrumentation. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up'ĭylan’s previous effort, Highway 61 Revisited was an album that attracted adoration and scorn in equal measure.
'The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind. Irritated by the ‘voice of a generation’ epithet thrust upon him by the American media, Dylan’s use of esoteric and surrealist lyrics is best seen on Blonde on Blonde, which abandons many of the socially conscious or protest themes often found in his previous work. Though many double albums are famous for being bloated or overly lengthy, Blonde on Blonde never overstays its welcome, featuring not only some of the highlights of Dylan’s career, but also some of his most defining statements as an artist. As one of the first double albums in popular music, it has developed somewhat of a mystique and reputation, something that often overshadows just how consistently impressive this album remains. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up” was how Bob Dylan famously described his 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde. It was one of the first double albums in rock music.ĭeluxe Edition, Bob Dylan Words And Music Company, Inc.,Įasy Guitar & Harmonica Edition, Bob Dylan Words And Music Company, Inc.,Įasy Guitar & Harmonica Edition, Big 3, USA, 32 pagesĮasy Guitar & Harmonica Edition 1967, Bob Dylan Words And Musicĭeluxe edition, The Big 3 Robbins-Miller-Feist, USA, 48 pagesĭylan Style Guitar Edition, AIR Music Scandinavia AB, 32 pagesĭylan Style Guitar Edition, Bob Dylan Words And Music Co, Inc, distributed by Big 3ĭylan Style Guitar Edition, EMI Music Publishing Ltd.“The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind… It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound.
Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a modernist literary sensibility, the album's songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics one critic called "a unique mixture of the visionary and the colloquial". BLONDE ON BLONDE completed the trilogy of rock albums that Dylan recorded in 19, starting with BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME and HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED.Ĭritics often rank BLONDE ON BLONDE as one of the greatest albums of all time. BLONDE ON BLONDE is the seventh studio, released in mid 1966, on Columbia Records.
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