How to Listen to Bob Dylan - Blood on The Tracks

This album also starts out with a stone cold classic-- “Tangled Up in Blue.” There’s not much not to like about a song in which each verse chronicles a year in a failed relationship. Genius, really! The album then curves its way through songs of break-up (“Simple Twist of Fate”), heartache (“If You See Her Say Hello”) and meaninglessness (“Buckets of Rain”). Dylanophiles know Blood on the Tracks as the “divorce” record because Bobby penned it in the midst of his divorce from Sara Lowndes. It’s his best album from the 70’s for sure …because there is very little of the 70’s in it. No cheesy synthesizer, disco beats or bad guitar solos. Arguably, the only thing to turn off a novice Dylan listener is the bluesy “Meet Me in the Morning” and the lengthy “Jack of Hearts”.

How to Listen to Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

What can you say about an album that starts off with what Rolling Stone magazine deemed the “Greatest Rock Song of All Time”….it’s none other than ”Like a Rolling Stone.” From the first strum of his electric guitar this song permeates the soul with all that is Dylan—enough said. But the swagger doesn’t stop after cut #1. The listener is led down a path of complete rock songs that challenge the establishment (“Ballad of a Thin Man”) and rain down with surrealistic imagery (“Highway 61 Revisited”). Outside of the more well-known songs there are those “filler” songs that just won’t quit such as “From A Buick 6” and “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”. Some argue that Dylan saved the best for last in this album’s sequencing. He leaves the listener with an apocalyptic epic called “Desolation Row.” One can only wonder as they listen over and over again to a song that tells of a world filled with characters like Cinderella, Robin Hood and Ezra Pound. We put this album as #2 because we don’t think it offers quite the breadth of “likeability” for the Dylan neophyte that Bringing It All Back Home does. But, many have argued this is Dylan’s greatest masterpiece.

How to Listen to Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

For the 1st time Dylan listener we recommend you start off with this album. Why? Well, it’s got a little something for everyone. There’s straight up rock and roll: “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm.” There’s acoustic folk: “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’-Each with Dylan signature harmonica shreds. There’s a bluesy rocker, “Outlaw Blues”, and even a few comedic songs like “On the Road Again” and “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” which are sure to warm the first-time listener up to Dylan’s wry sense of humor. The other alluring tracks on this album are addictive, stream of consciousness songs such as “It’s All Right Ma, I’m Only Bleeding” and “Gates of Eden.” These songs have the ability to hit the virgin Dylan ear like a Mack truck--pounding home his ability to say the right thing at the wrong time—with a cynicism and sincerity that is mesmerizing. We challenge anyone to listen to this album all the way through at least 5 times in a two-day period and not think: “This guy ain’t so bad after all! What else can I listen to!”

Discography: Bob Dylan

No other artist in the history of rock has been as written about, debated, feverishly researched and revered as the Jester that stole Presley's crown, Bob Dylan. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman on 24th May 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, he soon became the voice of a generation in the sixties. His output in his first twenty years in the business was phenomenal, penning classic after classic, while his live appearances became legendary with bootlegs becoming as coveted as his official recordings. When he became a born again christian in the late seventies many fans turned away from his new songs, preferring the Dylan of old, although some twenty years later these albums are now embraced by many who derided them at the time. Sadly fans of his songwriting have been thrown only a few morsels in the last fifteen years with his new albums almost exclusively cover versions, live sets or old rarities.

Discography:

Bob Dylan (1962)

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)

The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964)

Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Blonde On Blonde (1966)

Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (1967)

John Wesley Harding (1968)

Nashville Skyline (1969)

Self Portrait (1970)

New Morning (1970)

More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits (1972)

Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973)

Dylan (1973)

Planet Waves (1974)

Before The Flood (1974)

Blood On The Tracks (1975)

The Basement Tapes (1975)

Desire (1976)

Hard Rain (1976)

Street Legal (1978)

Slow Train Coming (1979)

At Budokan (1979)

Saved (1980)

Shot Of Love (1981)

Infidels (1983)

Real Live (1984)

Empire Burlesque (1985)

Biograph (1985)

Knocked Out Loaded (1986)

Down In The Groove (1988)

Dylan and The Dead (1989)

Oh Mercy (1989)

Under The Red Sky (1990)

The Bootleg Series, Vols 1-3, Rare and Unreleased 1961-1991 (1991)

Good As I Been To You (1992)

World Gone Wrong (1993)

The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration (1993)

Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994)

MTV Unplugged (1995)

Time Out Of Mind (1997)

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall Concert" (1998)