Expecting Rain

An attempt to listen to all of Bob Dylan's studio albums in order over the summer, climaxing approximately with the release of the newest Bob Dylan album sometime in September. There will be about 2 albums per week.

Part 5:
Highway 61 Revisited
Release: August 30, 1965

Give it another listen and record your responses here! (Speaking of Bringing it Back Home--I played Highway 61 Revisited while driving south on Highway 61 today in Minnesota.)

allmusic review:
Taking the first, electric side of Bringing It All Back Home to its logical conclusion, Bob Dylan hired a full rock & roll band, featuring guitarist Michael Bloomfield, for Highway 61 Revisited. Opening with the epic "Like a Rolling Stone," Highway 61 Revisited careens through nine songs that range from reflective folk-rock ("Desolation Row") and blues ("It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry") to flat-out garage rock ("Tombstone Blues," "From a Buick 6," "Highway 61 Revisited"). Dylan had not only changed his sound, but his persona, trading the folk troubadour for a streetwise, cynical hipster. Throughout the album, he embraces druggy, surreal imagery, which can either have a sense of menace or beauty, and the music reflects that, jumping between soothing melodies to hard, bluesy rock. And that is the most revolutionary thing about Highway 61 Revisited -- it proved that rock & roll needn't be collegiate and tame in order to be literate, poetic, and complex.

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Bob Dylan
Release: March 19, 1962
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=70175

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Release: May 27, 1963
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=70208

The Times They Are a-Changin'
Release: January 13, 1964
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=70256

Another Side of Bob Dylan
Release: August 8, 1964
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=70288

Bringing It All Back Home
Release: March 22, 1965
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=70318

Highway 61 Revisited
Release: August 30, 1965

Blonde on Blonde
Release: June 20, 1966

John Wesley Harding
Release: December 27, 1967

Nashville Skyline
Release: April 9, 1969

Self Portrait
Release: June 8, 1970

New Morning
Release: October 21, 1970

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Release: July 13, 1973

Dylan
Release: November 16, 1973

Planet Waves
Release: January 17, 1974

Blood on the Tracks
Release: January 17, 1975

The Basement Tapes
Release: June 26, 1975

Desire
Release: January 16, 1976

Street Legal
Release: June 15, 1978

Slow Train Coming
Release: August 20, 1979

Saved
Release: June 20, 1980

Shot of Love
Release: August 12, 1981

Infidels
Release: November 1, 1983

Empire Burlesque
Release: June 8, 1985

Knocked Out Loaded
Release: August 8, 1986

Down in the Groove
Release: May 31, 1988

Oh Mercy
Release: September 22, 1989

Under the Red Sky
Release: September 11, 1990

Good as I Been to You
Release: October 27, 1992

World Gone Wrong
Release: October 28, 1993

Time Out of Mind
Release: September 30, 1997

"Love and Theft"
Release: September 11, 2001

Modern Times
Release: August 29, 2006

Together Through Life
Release: April 28, 2009

Christmas in the Heart
Release: October 13, 2009

Tough and intelligent. And funny.

The first time i listened to it carefully a couple of years ago i thought it was very sad and bitter . Needless to say i instantly loved it .

An obvious classic. What Dylan would call New York type songs.

Obviously alot of brilliant songs.

Love the usuals but I often start this album on side 2 because I love Queen Jane and Tom Thumb's Blues so much.

And It Takes Alot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry is not only a classic blues but a brilliant title as well!

Farthest he got down that old highway, before he almost got blinded. After that it was a stop, look and listen.

"Like a rolling stone, if a Minnesota Isaiah calling down the spirits of Hank Williams and Robert Johnson could be a Rolling Stone. This was an explosion of vision and humor that forever changed rock, and a piece of music that stands as its signal accomplishment. It was also a journey through America ( with a stop at a Mexican border town and a destination beyond the law), a map of its traps and glories."---Greil Marcus, from Stranded.

Full of explicit blues references and utterly timely in the development of rock...its as if all the horses just took off at the starting gun and Dylan helicoptered in to conduct his victory lap in the middle of the race. I'm going to try to pull out some of the blues references...are there any in that book Giada?

There. I fixed it for you.


disclaimer:(Edtited from Troub's original post. See above)

No. But Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads has a few.

Listening now. Oh how I love It Takes a Lot to Laugh it Takes a Train to Cry. Bliss. Every time it sounds new. What the words mean, no matter. The sound of the voice says it all. And the harmonica.

^
Yeah, it's a very sexy vocal. Don't my gal look fine, when she's comin' after me?

One thing i love about this album , is the way every song ends.



...Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
How does it feel


...Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge



...Don't say I never warned you
when your train gets lost.




...Well, if I go down dyin', you know she bound to put a blanket on my bed.




...Well, you walk into the room
like a camel and then you frown
you put your eyes in your pocket
you put your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
against you comin' around
you should be made to wear earphones



... when all the bandits that you turned your other cheek to
All lay down their bandanas and complain
And you want somebody you don't have to speak to
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane?





...yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61


...i'm going back to New York City
i do believe i've had enough


...right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them from
Desolation Row


Every song has a sad ending , it's like saying " fuck you" or " Goodbye , i love you , how did it all went so wrong ? good luck ! " only a lot better , bitter yet glorious . i can't think of a way to describe it .. If i ever make a movie or write a book i want it to end like a Dylan song .
what a masterpiece this abum is .

My very first Dylan purchase - got it when it first came out - mainly because of "Desolation Row" - but Tragos is right, the entire album is a masterpiece.

Love this idea John S - thank you.

It was actually smoke's idea, But I wholeheartedly endorse it!

Me, too! Yay smoke.

All kudos to smoke, who has started so many great threads here.

Thanks for keeping it rolling, John B.

You only have to hear the album once and it sears a permanent exhibition of masterpieces in the mind.

That's just so true Ben. BOTT is kind of always my favourite but in many ways this is a better album that teams with genius. The fact that he still plays much of it today is testament to it's greatness.

too bad they don't include 4th street, crawl out (xylophone version) and other songs/outtakes from those sessions on a deluxe cd

i paid $2.98 for my mono version; stereo was a dollar more

Upon first listen when I was 17 or 18 i thought Highway 61 and tombstone blues was too repetitive in a mashed up sound that i found it long and annoying to my ears, though i loved the lyrics and the voice of rebellion intelligent youth

Now as Benny boy has stated I find it a masterpiece in brilliance and execution. Very entertaining but also smart too. My 14 year old nephew likes this album...it's the only album he likes of his.

So ... six months after recording Gates Of Eden, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, Mr Tambourine Man, and It's Alright Ma in a single afternoon, Dylan decides to ... raise his game!? Extraordinary. Oh, and it's still probably only his third best album.

I like Tombstone Blues fine as it is. But if only they'd retained the Chambers Brothers on the released take, after I heard that, the Dyan solo vocal take seems a little empty.

"I'll never make another album better than this. The next one might be as good, but not better." - remembered words of Bob Dylan on Highway 61 Revisited

Remembered by whom?