Bob Dylan
Blood on the Tracks (Columbia)
Every new Bob Dylan album will be forever compared to this masterpiece
-- not because it's the best album of his career (Blonde on Blonde
and Bringing It All Back Home probably deserve that distinction),
but because of events that seem almost irrelevant in retrospect.
After an incredible string of '60s albums, Dylan broke parts of
his neck in a 1966 motorcycle accident -- and he became fallible
for the first time, releasing his actual bad albums and not arguing
with John Wesley Harding that he retained his revolutionary edge.
Blood on the Tracks proved that fans dismiss Bob Dylan at their
peril. It opens with a two-chord epic of love and wandering, "Tangled
Up in Blue," which is as beautifully written as anything
Dylan has ever done. The straightforward country-rock Dylan turns
out to be as artful as the cryptic, psychedelic folk Dylan of
Desolation Row. The first line sets the album's melancholy, vivid
tone: "Early one morning the sun was shining / I was laying
in bed / wondering if she'd changed at all / if her hair was still
red."
The music -- the jangling of an acoustic guitar, rich harmonica
solos between verses, Tony Brown's subtle bass lines, and a subtle
country-western spirit -- barely seems to change, even in the
transition from fuzzy blues ("Meet Me in the Morning")
to fast rock ("Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts").
Weather is a frequent lyrical backdrop, creating imagery and a
sense of place more akin to a novel than a rock album. Both of
these constants provide a foundation for Dylan's careening sentiments,
with the gentle heartbreak of "You're a Big Girl Now"
giving way to the gritted teeth of "Idiot Wind."
It's also one of Dylan's best and most cohesive singing performances.
If 1969's Nashville Skyline showed he could drop his tone to that
of a honey-voiced country singer, this album finds him mixing
Johnny Cash with his earlier, more familiar benchmark, Woody Guthrie.
Afterwards, Dylan slipped into a long funk of mediocre albums
(Bob Dylan at Budokan?) -- fans of Blood on the Tracks knew it
couldn't last forever.
Steve Knopper