Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Bob DylanEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2004-06-01
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- Like A Rolling Stone
- Tombstone Blues
- It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
- From A Buick 6
- Ballad Of A Thin Man
- Queen Jane Approximately
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
- Desolation Row
Free Music Notes for Highway 61 Revisited
Free Music Review: "She walks like Bo Diddley, and she don't need no crutch"
Hit: 5 Stars
Bob Dylan is a frustratingly inconsistent artist. The worst albums in his catalog - and there are a lot of those - are pretty much insufferable. But if you catch Dylan on a good day, when his creative powers are at their height and his lyrics are some of the best known to man - and there are a lot of those, too - every good word you've heard about the guy suddenly turns true. This is definitely one such album, and his most famous, acclaimed work. It may not be as revolutionary as Bringing it All Back Home or as personal as Blood on the Tracks, but the lyrics here are better than on ANY other Dylan album, or any other album, period.
So, right. It's Dylan vs. the establishment here. And if you aren't betting on Dylan, you're betting on the wrong horse. The most fierce attack on the "straight" (in more senses than one, if you're reading between the lines) culture is on "Ballad of a Thin Man", a creepy, organ-driven track with Dylan's sneering at its best. And the lyrics are brilliant, as usual. Another favorite of mine is the resident classic, "Like a Rolling Stone", which was later covered by everyone from Bob Marley to the Replacements to Jimi Hendrix. In other words, it's an across-the-board standard, and it just might be Dylan's signature song. It's not just the infamously nasty lyrics that make it the masterpiece it is, either (though that sure is part of it), but the melody, the triumphant organ part, and the little guitar fills, provided by Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, respectively. In short, it's Dylan at his peak as a songwriter, lyricist, and arranger. It's more or less as good as a song can get. Sharply contrasting this carefully arranged song are the several literally offbeat (as in, the bass and drums aren't even together) garage-rockers: "Tombstone Blues" is a propulsive, ramshackle rant against everything, taking "Subterranean Homesick Blues" to a new level; "From a Buick 6" is a funny blues rave-up parody with a great bass line and several great lyrics such as "I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead, I need a dump truck mama to unload my head" and various others that only Dylan could come up with. The title track is hilarious - the satirical lyrics ("God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son', Abe said, 'Man, you must be puttin' me on'") are gutbusters, and who doesn't love that little toy police siren? "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is more of Dylan at his finest, a witty travelogue with several sly, subtle references to prostitution, drugs, corrupt authorities, and general decadence. Let us not forget Dylan's sarcastic, satirical love song "Queen Jane Approximately" either, or the gentle majesty of the straightforward blues "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry".
And then there's "Desolation Row", arguably the most cryptic piece in Dylan's discography. It's more than eleven minutes long, and the entirety of it is played on an acoustic guitar with Dylan calmly intoning downright apocalyptic lyrics. It's certainly an ambitious piece, namechecking Ophelia, the Phantom of the Opera, Casanova (in the same verse!), Quasimodo, Cain & Abel, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and containing more than one reference to genocide. By anyone else it would fall apart, but there's something about Dylan's presence here that makes it arguably the best song on the album. I myself haven't the faintest idea of what he's getting at here - I suspect that "desolation row" itself is an afterlife of sorts - but the words sure do sound good together, whatever they're supposed to convey.
In conclusion, this was probably the album that gave the name "Bob Dylan" the messianic undertone it conveys. But here's what separates Bob from his many imitators. It's clear that he wasn't even TRYING to be the voice of his generation here - if he was, he probably would've put a lot more care into producing this album and DEFINITELY would've fixed all those little mistakes the band makes that just add to how GOOD this record is - but he succeeded in it just the same. Everyone else who tries it fails. See? That's what's so good about him.
Highway 61 Revisited Poster
Dylan was virtually gushing great songs when this masterpiece arrived in the summer of 1965. From the epochal opening of "Like a Rolling Stone" through the absurdly apocalyptic closer, "Desolation Row," his command of surrealistic language was daring and amazing. As a vocalist, he was rewriting the rules of the game. Jimi Hendrix made note of Mr. Z's technically suspect pitch and decided that he too was a singer. And the backing, though ragged, is precisely right. Is this the essential Dylan album? It's certainly one of them. --Steven StolderPop Music CDs
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