Blonde on Blonde

Dylan, Bob

album cover

One of the Greatest Albums of the Rock Era

By virtually any measure—hallucinatory insights per minute, raucous reworkings of the blues, rambling tales of transcendence—Blonde on Blonde stands among the greatest works of the rock era. Its ever-shifting combinations of intense roots music and sweeping narrative represent storytelling on an extraordinarily high level; some consider it the closest thing in rock to classic literature. It's not the single defining work of Dylan's career, but it's among them. Any record that contains such endlessly beguiling verse-chorus epics as "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," "Visions of Johanna," "Just Like a Woman," "Absolutely Sweet Marie," and "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" has to be.

On the Dylan time line, this record follows Highway 61 Revisited (see previous page). In terms of temperament, it's some distance from that earlier landmark. Dylan replaces the frantic word-torrent lunges of old with an unhurried swagger, the cadence of a man who knows what he wants. A sense of assurance permeates everything: Where he once allowed himself long stretches of idle speculation, Dylan now seems more purposeful, attuned to the world, his conversation rooted in the present moment.

Blonde was recorded in Nashville, and its howling hard-rock stomps and easy-going shuffles feel like they were captured quickly, with the rough edges preserved. The unflappably steady band is key to this—it includes Al Kooper (whose creeping organ defines "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands") and Robbie Robertson (credited as "Jaime Robertson," whose questioning guitar animates "One of Us Must Know"). The musicians bring plenty of energy, but it's their cool competence and unerring sense of timing that Dylan has been missing.

As he unwinds the novelistic narratives of his ballads, Dylan lingers just a bit over each carefully wrought image, taking his time sketching the magnificent "Visions of Johanna." And when he breathes fire into the harmonica to launch the last verse of "Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I'll Go Mine)," Dylan sounds like a veteran bandleader prodding his crew for the evening's last big push. (That harmonica interlude might boil down to two notes, but it's some of the most fervent needling riffage in the bard's discography.)

Like Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde is somewhat inscrutable. It's packed with rogues and schemers and tender-hearted lovers caught in tense situations. Sometimes these vignettes play out in such surrealistic ways you wonder if Dylan put them there just to confuse those who cobble together biographies based on song lyrics. Of course, these verses are more than that now. They're part of the soul of American music.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1966, Columbia
Key Tracks: "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," "Visions of Johanna," "Just Like a Woman," "Absolutely Sweet Marie."
Catalog Choice: John Wesley Harding; Desire
Next Stop: The Band: Music from Big Pink
After That: Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon
Book Pages: 244–245