1966 - Clive's Top 5 Albums of Every Year Challenge
Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.
As we power into the second half of the 1960s let’s have a look at what happened outside of the world of music in 1966: England won the World Cup, protests against the Vietnam War ramped up, Star Trek was shown for the first time, The Sound of Music won a load of Academy Awards and most momentously of all for me personally, my Mum was born. To celebrate this fabulous event, I’ll be reviewing a bumper ten albums this time.
Here’s the first five. Users of rateyourmusic.com’s personal selection of the top 5 albums in 1966:
#1 The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
#2 The Beatles - Revolver
#3 Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
#4 Ennio Morricone - Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, The Bad & The Ugly)
#5 John Coltrane - Ascension
The Beach Boys are finally here, along with veterans of these lists by now: Dylan, Coltrane and The Beatles. We’ve also got a soundtrack, how exciting! But I said I’d do 10 didn’t I? So I’ve had a gander further down the list and picked these five (featuring some old favourites and a couple of newbies to these lists) to chuck into the mix as well:
#10 Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage
#12 Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind
#14 The Rolling Stones - Aftermath
#16 Simon & Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme
#17 Simon & Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence
This’ll take a while, so here begins the ‘Clive’s Mum’s Birthyear Celebration Special Edition’ of this here challenge. The above ten albums ranked, with my thoughts on each. Find yourself a comfy seat, and let’s begin.
Aftermath is The Rolling Stones’ first album to feature entirely original compositions. It’s one of those albums that had different UK and US editions, which makes it pretty difficult to review as an album I feel. You hear people talk about it in lofty terms, but which version are they talking about? I’ve decided on the US version as it’s the one available on my streaming service of choice and it also features the banger Paint It Black, while the UK version doesn’t.
Notably this is rougher sounding than a lot of this year’s other recordings (particularly Revolver and Pet Sounds) which gives it a rawer, more live feel. Paint It Black (which is probably the exception to the point I’ve just made) opens with that famous guitar part and tom fill from Charlie Watts, before we have some rattly tambourine and sitar joining the mix, creating the image of a rattlesnake approaching. It’s again testament, as a lot of the albums this year seem to be, that adding in some original instrumentation can make a good song into something truly great and memorable.
The rest of the album feels more traditional instrumentally, and is certainly less cleanly recorded. This is probably unique to the US release, but Paint It Black doesn’t sound like it belongs here, it feels ahead of the game compared to the rest of the tracks production wise, although Doncha Bother Me and the irresistibly bouncy and yet wildly sexist Under My Thumb come close. The latter featuring some brilliant lively xylophone and a heavily distorted buzzing bass riff that really add to the light-hearted feel of the track, which has to be one of the catchiest things ever written. High and Dry on the other hand features a sort of reversed cymbal in the left channel which just gets annoying after a minute or so, a shame for what is an otherwise fun song.
The rest of the album is catchy, Jagger’s gritty vocals are great, and there’s some underrated gems on here such as the gentle acoustic Lady Jane, and the 11-minute blues march Going Home, but a lot of it just feels like decent rock ‘n’ roll to me.
Song Picks: Paint It Black, Under My Thumb, Lady Jane, Going Home
7.5/10
Simon & Garfunkel’s third album, and their second album of 1966 was the result of 3 months in the studio, a large contrast to the more rushed creation of Sounds of Silence. This is very much evident in the production. There are small touches: an added guitar fill here, an extra layer of vocal there, that make this sound very much like an album that’s been thought out very carefully.
What results is Simon & Garfunkel sounding their warmest, the harmonies engulf you like never before (opener Scarborough Fair/Canticle is a prime example) and the wide stereo image gives the whole thing a wonderful sense of space. The Dangling Conversation is a particularly good example of this, the strings filling the gaps in the soundscape like beautiful sounding syrup as Simon & Garfunkel’s perfect harmonies fill your ears with warmth.
Homeward Bound is the most famous song here, and was notably included on the US release of the previous album Sounds of Silence. It’s a simple song of wanting to go back home to the person he loves (Kathy Chitty in this instance), written in the moment as he was waiting for a train home from Liverpool.
The aforementioned Dangling Conversation tells the tale of a couple sat in the room together, struggling to communicate, and it absolutely nails that feeling of failing to communicate with someone who you’ve spent so much time with. It finishes, rather poignantly with the lines:
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow
I cannot feel your hand
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives
It’s another example of Simon’s brilliantly evocative songwriting, even if the comparison that one reads Robert Frost and the other Emily Dickinson is a little pretentious.
Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall is as pretty as its title suggests, with the song slowing down as the word ‘rainfall’ finishes the chorus, leaving the song plenty of room to breathe, and an extra moment for that wonderful image to hit home. A Simple Desultory Philippic is a fun parody of Dylan. It may have had malicious intent, Simon clearly doesn’t like being considered no 2 to Dylan, but to me the song is a funny imitation of Dylan’s crazy and at times nonsensical lyrics, performed with plenty of life and humour.
The album finishes with the chilling 7’O’Clock News/Silent Night. The duo beautifully perform the famous Christmas carol as radio DJ Charlie O'Donnell talks through the events of 3 August 1966 in the style of a news report. It tells of a time of change, and of conflict, both on Civil Rights and in Vietnam and ends with the story that Richard Nixon had just called those protestors opposing the war the ‘greatest single weapon working against the United States’, a dark reminder that condemning anyone who is anti-government as anti-America is nothing new.
Song Picks: Homeward Bound, Dangling Conversation, Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall
8/10
Herbie Hancock’s 5th album as leader is a concept album creating an atmosphere of sailing on the ocean. Having been a fan of Empyrean Isles from 1964, I was excited to give this one a listen too.
This album features the same quartet as Empyrean Isles with the addition of George Coleman on saxophone.
The opener and title track, which has since become a jazz standard, is a wonderful, relaxed and floating track. Hubbard’s trumpet and Coleman’s saxophone create a warm, cosy sound full of the mysteries of the ocean, complete with wistful solos. They’re complemented by Hancock’s soft chords and Williams’ heavily cymbal led percussion. It sounds like a boat setting off to sea, a clear route and plan in mind, but with the knowledge that the unexpected is never far away.
The unexpected comes in the form of The Eye of The Hurricane, as things get notably more frantic, although in a way that is perhaps more fun than it is dramatic. This doesn’t sound like a particularly threatening hurricane, rather one that has people scrambling up to the deck to shout ‘hey, look at that flying fish,’ or laughing at each other as they slide around the deck. Hancock’s piano solo towards the end of the track is characteristically busy, with a steady stream of notes flying off the piano as he glides up and down it, pausing only to line up the next sequence of musical pitter-pattery.
Little One is another example of Hancock’s deft piano skills, this time creating the most beautiful chords and overtones in this sparse, twinkling night sky of a song. Survival of the Fittest ramps up the franticness again before we finish with Dolphin Dance, where Hubbard treats us to a gorgeous trumpet solo.
Maiden Voyage is a wonderful journey of an album. As jazz goes, it’s not too challenging, but it’s plenty inventive and just a joy to listen to, much like Empyrean Isles.
Song Picks: Maiden Voyage, The Eye Of the Hurricane, Little One
8/10
Perhaps the most challenging album of his I’ve heard so far, Ascension is a free-jazz album very reminiscent of the one that coined the genre by Ornette Coleman (remember Free Jazz from way back in 1960).
John Coltrane toyed with the idea of a big-band before on albums such as Africa/Brass but never in a way that’s even close to being as ‘free’ as this. Much like Free Jazz this feels like a complete assault on the ears initially. It’s like 350 jazz musicians have been locked in a room and are each playing their own thing. It’s impossible to latch onto anything, it sounds like the inner atoms of an explosion, amplified and slowed down 1000 times, it’s just an absolute cacophony of musical chaos. You’re falling down a giant hole, desperately trying to grab onto one of the floating jazz instruments for safety, but each time you latch onto the saxophone (‘oh this solo is taking me places’) a trombone comes flying out of nowhere and knocks you off it again as you continue stumbling towards the abyss.
Now, with Free Jazz I eventually ended up embracing the chaos while cooking a shakshuka (perhaps I need to try that with this), and in fact it ended up being my favourite album of that year. Ascension is an even tougher nut to crack however as there’s even more going on, I mean this is a big-band for Christ’s sake. Having found my first few listens thoroughly challenging and not all that enjoyable it was the fourth where I had a breakthrough. I was able to zoom out and focus on the whole, and to be honest, it was rather glorious. It felt a bit like falling off a surfboard into the waves, you’re powerless to stop the waves twisting and turning you around, you submit to their force, and wherever you pop up, you feel strangely relaxed and rejuvenated. It’s the same here, don’t fight the endlessly splashing cymbals, the chatter of saxophones and trumpets and chords flying around off the piano, just relax and let it happen. Once you can do that your whole experience of this album will change, and you’ll come out the other side of it feeling like you’ve just experienced something rather special, a moment of chaotic beauty.
8.5/10
Otherwise known as The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, this is the soundtrack to the famous film. But does it hold up as an album on its own? Please note I’m reviewing the original 1966 release here, which is around 33 minutes long, not the 59 minute extended version released in 2001, which I feel is overly long and repetitive.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the film that I’m reviewing this very much out of context. It starts with the title theme, the one that everyone’s heard, with the flute resembling the howling of a coyote in the desert. The piece is all about space, as the theme is whistled from the left, and responded to from the right with a deeper flute. Before long everything’s built up into a march and we’ve got a whistling trumpet giving proceedings a jolly feel as the heavily echoed drums march along. It’s a real display of how to use a variety of instruments effectively to build a mood, and manages to feel rather more momentous than it should be allowed to in it’s short running length.
You can certainly see why this is considered one of the greatest film soundtracks of all time and why it had such a massive influence on film soundtracks going forward. There is such a large variety of instruments used, and the emphasis is put on creating filling, evocative soundscapes. You can feel the desolation, the stretches of sand, the wilderness, even when you can’t see it. Pieces like The Desert are so hauntingly beautiful, and have a great sense of dynamics. Things start sparse, and as other instruments build around and begin to hijack the central melody you know something sinister is happening, the darkness has taken over, the light is under threat.
The whistling of the same melody that the harmonica plays at the beginning of Marcia is gorgeous, and again gives the whole thing a really full sound, despite the minimalism of it. As the harmonica and whistling fades and the orchestra gently comes in you’re left listening to a beautifully sad melody that has barely made an appearance before it vanishes into a few distant trumpet blows. It, like so much of this soundtrack, is a great display of the beauty of not repeating yourself (something the extended version ruins a bit in my books). When Marcia Without Hope and The Death Of a Soldier are built around the same vocal melody, it’s the first time you’ve been able to latch onto something since the opening track, and it feels like a comforting return home. Closing track The Trio feels like all the instruments returning for one more glorious, rousing and triumphant finale.
Ennio Morricone has created something quietly majestic here. It’s a lesson in how to create a painting with sound, the different instruments representing the different colours, in a way that is not at all loud, and perhaps a background for more exciting things to happen on top of. But my, what a beautiful background. It paves the way for not only future soundtracks, but a lot of ambient music to come.
Song Picks: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, The Desert Marcia,
8.5/10
Sounds of Silence is Simon & Garfunkel’s second album, and a collection of songs that had been recorded for other releases including the duo’s first album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M and Paul Simon’s debut album The Paul Simon Songbook, released in 1964 and 1965 respectively. I believe ‘Blessed’ is the only one that hadn’t appeared elsewhere (in another form) before.
The album opens with easily its most famous song The Sound of Silence, which the record label added electric guitars, drums and bass to without Simon & Garfunkel’s knowledge. The original acoustic solo version on The Paul Simon Songbook is also worth a listen, it’s missing the wonderful harmonies, but has an affecting sense of rawness about it that makes the track perhaps even more impactful. Now I’ve not heard the version before Columbia Records decided to tack drums etc onto it, but I think this version works. It was produced by Tom Wilson who produced Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited after all. The band gives the track an added immediacy and also helps to make those acoustic only parts which bookend the song really stand out. The track is about how people are unable to communicate emotionally and features some truly gorgeous lyrics. I mean just have a look at the opening verse:
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
It continues in a similar vein, building and building until we have neon lights flashing out the warning:
The words of the prophets are
Written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence.
I’ve always admired Simon’s lyrical skills but the more I absorb them, the more I realise I probably haven’t admired them enough. If you stripped the wonderful melodies and harmonies from the track, and just read it, it would still work as a great piece of poetry, and there’s not many songs you can say that for.
The rest of the album is a great mix of more acoustic numbers (e.g. Leaves That are Green, Kathy’s Song) and those with a band backing (Blessed, Where They Can’t Find Me), set out almost religiously in a ‘one calm, one faster’ manner that keeps things nicely varied.
Most Peculiar Man, which Simon wrote after reading someone who had committed suicide’s 4-line eulogy in the paper, ‘I thought that was a very bad eulogy,’ he said of it. It’s a song that rests on a beautiful, floating, plucked guitar part which, along with the plodding bass, creates a much happier sound than the song’s dark content. ‘He wasn’t friendly and he didn’t care’ Simon exclaims, shortly before revealing he gassed himself to death. It’s a song that has stuck with me, portraying something so dark and sad, in a manner that can only be described as breezy. Something tells me that that’s exactly how this ‘peculiar man’ would have wanted it.
The album closes with I Am a Rock, which has a slightly Dylan-esque organ padding out the soundscape and was another hit for the duo. It completes the album with another song about isolation, about someone looking down at the street below and deciding they don’t need anyone else. ‘I am a rock, I am an island’, the chorus triumphantly claims, as the song goes on to create a rather more jolly atmosphere than you’d maybe expect from a song about someone so alone.
Apparently this album was rushed together, but it certainly doesn’t sound that way to me. It’s a great and varied testament to Simon’s songwriting ability and the duo’s talent for melody and harmonies.
Song Picks: The Sound of Silence, A Most Peculiar Man, I Am a Rock
8.5/10
The seventh studio album by The Beatles and the last before their retirement as live performers (don’t worry, they had plenty of albums to come still) Revolver marks when they began to make more use of the recording studio, combining their ability to spin a catchy-melody with production that gives the songs more depth. This, for me, is when The Beatles hit their stride.
Notably, this album featured a bigger songwriting contribution from George Harrison than previous releases. He wrote Love To You, which has almost no western instrumentation, and is the start of his interest in Indian music, the great, punchy opener Taxman and the lyrically clever I Want To Tell You.
The album’s most famous track is probably Eleanor Rigby, which is made as much by the great string quartet part as it is by the poignant lyrics. It sounds like nothing I’ve heard up to this point, a wonderful mix of pop and classical, and an undeniable masterpiece.
Although I’ve never found The Beatles’ voices all that interesting, they sound at their warmest here, I’m Only Sleeping and Here, There and Everywhere are good examples of the thick sound (comparable to that on Pet Sounds) that is prominent on the vocals throughout the album, providing them with a lovely golden glow.
Yellow Submarine, which was intended as a nonsense song for children, is also regarded by some as a suspiciously perfect description of an acid trip. It’s a favourite for me and a perfect example of how the thought that’s gone into the production improves on what is already an incredibly catchy and fun song. The wave sounds put you right there on the submarine, the background cheers and whoops put you right into the middle of a good time, and that irresistible chorus sung by the whole band is one of the jolliest things I’ve ever heard. As there’s a final merry cheer of ‘ahaaa’ in the background, my mouth always bends into a smile which only increases during that last chorus as everyone joins the party. This is one of the happiest, funnest songs on Earth.
There’s endless great songs on this album (only Dr. Roberts is forgettable for me). Good Day Sunshine is the perfect morning song, skipping along with a carefree sparkle. For No One is stylistically similar to Eleanor Rigby with it’s untraditional instrumental backing, and features a great little French-horn solo by Alan Civil. The closer Tomorrow Never Knows features a surprisingly heavy and prominent drum beat from Ringo which creates the backbone to the track along with McCartney’s bass, with all sorts of other crazy instruments and sounds appearing and disappearing again throughout the song’s duration. It’s a perfect closer to the album, announcing that the experimental period of the band’s life had well and truly begun.
My very favourite albums by The Beatles are still to come, but the experimental mindset that led to them was very much born here.
Song Picks: Eleanor Rigby, Taxman, Yellow Submarine, Tomorrow Never Knows
8.5/10
Pet Sounds is the eleventh studio album by The Beach Boys and produced, arranged and composed almost entirely by Brian Wilson. Regarded as a pioneering album in terms of its production, which features a whole host of instruments (and bicycle bells) meaning it could not be replicated live. This was one of the first times an album was seen as a ‘production’ rather than simply the recording of performances. The instrumental pieces, such as the inventive and instrumentally packed penultimate track Pet Sounds, are a great example of this.
Aside from the ‘wall of sound’ production, it’s the harmonies and melodies that make this album what it is. It’s almost not worth talking about the songs on Pet Sounds individually, because it feels like such a unified album. This is likely why it’s often referred to as a concept album despite it not having any particular theme. Pet Sounds pretty much came to Wilson in his head, and he just needed his band members to perform it (their lack of ability to have much creative input led to a lot of tension in the band). Brian Wilson was Beethoven, and The Beach Boys were very much his orchestra.
This album is built on lots of different instruments or voices doing the same thing. The vocals all sing harmonies of the same melodies, often there’s two separate instruments playing the exact same melody (If You Still Believe in Me is a prime example). This makes everything, the vocals, the guitar, the drums (Wilson used a heavily reverbed timpani a lot) sound thick and warm and gives the album its characteristic sound.
Pet Sounds is an album of gorgeous harmonies, of inviting melodies, of an artist pushing to create the warmest possible soundscapes. Pet Sounds is a lit fireplace inviting you in after a day working in the cold, it’s a warm hug, it’s the word ‘cosy’ in album form. Pet Sounds is magical, and apart from clearly being one of the most influential pop recordings ever made, it’s just an absolute joy to listen to.
Song Picks: Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Sloop John B, God Only Knows, You Still Believe In Me
9/10
Wild Is the Wind is an album that consists entirely of recordings left over from recording sessions in 1964 and 1965 that weren’t used on albums. Now, the fact they were left off clearly had nothing to do with their quality, and perhaps more to do with the fact they weren’t as ‘accessible’ or ‘sellable’.
Things start fairly upbeat with the rock ‘n’ roll I Love Your Lovin’ Ways which could have fit fairly seamlessly on 1965’s Pastel Blues. It’s catchy, well performed, and fun, but it’s after this that the album begins to truly shine. Four Women, the only song written by Simone on the album is nothing short of a masterpiece. The song tells the story of four African-American women, affected by years of racism, oppression, and slavery. Nina tells their stories (from their perspectives) over a gentle piano, bass and electric guitar backing, weaving sad, evocative tales before it all explodes in a crescendo as Nina emphatically reveals the name of the fourth woman. It’s such a well observed and powerful song and very much sets the tone for the rest of the album.
The performances on the rest of the album are completely captivating. I listened to this around four times in a day, simply because once I’d heard it I just couldn’t bear it not being on. As I remember someone saying about Bon Iver’s great debut album For Emma, Forever Ago ‘any moment spent not listening to this album has seemed wasted’. It’s been a while since an album has grabbed me so much on my first few listens.
What More Can I Say? Is a beautiful mix of lulling bass and piano, with some of Nina’s most beautifully fragile vocals over the top. Her virtuosic piano playing rumbles into a whirlwind along with the drums two thirds of the way through the song, and Nina’s once fragile vocals turn into an absolute powerhouse as she belts out ‘I would go anywhere you go’ before everything calms down again, and that wonderful fragility in Nina’s voice is back. It’s one of the best vocal performances I’ve ever heard, and the fact it doesn’t stand out all that much amongst the rest of these songs is testament to the quality of this record.
A lot of the album’s magic comes from the way the piano, bass and drums create fabulous, quietly dark textures which work so well to complement Nina’s vocals. Lilac Wine (later covered by Jeff Buckley on Grace) is a perfect example of this. Simone’s piano chord accompaniment and the bass is sparse and effective, only exploding into a whirlwind of notes for the crescendo, something this album does so well throughout.
The album’s title track Wild Is The Wind (which was covered by David Bowie as a tribute to Simone on Station to Station) features her most breathtaking piano performance. It’s absolutely magical, creating a starry sky of a thousand notes as she rushes around the keyboard creating a ‘wall of sound’ with just one instrument. As this piano magic builds and builds it becomes completely bewitching, and to be honest, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, until, as the song finished I found myself sitting there completely won over. The drama, the intensity and the feeling were unlike anything I’d ever heard.
This is an album with great songs, no doubt. But what really makes it is how those songs are performed. Nina Simone puts her stamp on them, she takes them, and then performs them as if she wrote them. It’s a tour-de-force of vocals and piano, Nina Simone laying herself bare with some of the most honest and darkly beautiful performances you’re ever likely to hear. A remarkable album.
Song Picks: Four Women, What More Can I Say, Lilac Wine, Wild is the Wind
9.5/10
Bob Dylan’s seventh album Blonde on Blonde was one of rock’s first double-albums, and with it’s epic 72 minute running length marked the end of Dylan’s famous trilogy of rock albums, the first two of which we covered in 1965’s list.
Almost entirely recorded at CBS Studios in Nashville, where producer Bob Johnston suggested they go due to the wealth of great session musicians available there. Because of this, Blonde on Blonde is a tour-de-force both lyrically, and instrumentally.
We’re still very much in Dylan’s amphetamine fuelled vivid imagery lyrical phase, which people often claim finished after his famous motorcycle accident in 1966, but I feel is still somewhat evident on 1967’s John Wesley Harding.
I remember the first time I heard the opening to Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again I got a rush of joy, and it was pretty much the moment I fell in love with electric Dylan. I’ve always adored the image those opening lines conjure up in my head:
The ragman draws circles,
Up and down the block,
I’d ask him what the matter was,
But I know that he don’t talk
The album opens with the rambunctious Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 where Dylan declares ‘everyone must get stoned, toying with the double meaning of the phrase. Dylan initially wanted to hire a school marching band to create the ramshackle sound of the band on the recording, but found they played it too evenly. The aforementioned studio musicians in Nashville were so good, they could play as if they weren’t that good. Kind of like when an actor has to act someone who’s rubbish at acting in a film. The sloppy, and yet still strangely brilliant playing is accompanied by endless whoops and cheers throughout the song in what builds to create one of my favourite ‘energies’ in a song. It just sounds like everyone is having a whale of a time. Dylan himself is clearly struggling not to burst out laughing during much of the performance, and does so on a couple of occasions. It’s a magical recording, and a great way to open the album in a less than serious manner.
It’s not long before we’re onto our first masterpiece, Visions of Johanna, which poet Andrew Motion said had ‘the best lyrics ever written’. It starts with an iconic harmonica solo before the guitar, bass and drums all plod along, backing Dylan’s web of poetry in a way that is never distracting, but accompanies it perfectly. Obviously it’s surreal and hard to decipher, but it was written as Dylan was falling in love with his first wife Sara (the final track is definitely about her, but we’ll get to that) and is undoubtedly one of my very favourite Dylan songs. My favourite verse changes daily, but today I particularly like this final section of the song:
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes everything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain
Along with the poetic lyrics, I particularly like Dylan’s vocals on this track. His sort of invention of ‘spoken singing’ is at its peak here, emphasising just the right words.
As with Highway 61 Revisited most of these songs were done in a few takes, with the sound of the songs changing drastically from take to take. You only need to listen to Volume 12 of the famous Bootleg Series to see how some of the unused takes vary from the ones chosen for the album. Although the backing band sound perhaps more professional here than on Highway 61 (simply because they were) there’s still an immediacy to the recordings that I’m sure would have been lost had there been too many takes. It feels like, as Highway 61 is, a perfect recording of Dylan’s sparking and amphetamine fuelled mind at the time.
I Want You is perhaps my favourite Dylan song, featuring again, some superbly evocative lyrics, but also the backing band creating a gentle carnival atmosphere, with a wonderful harmonica intro that paves the way for some fantastically jolly lead guitar work. It’s a song that to me encompasses that feeling of falling in love better than any song ever has. It’s perfect use in the Dylan biopic I’m Not There has only increased my love for it. It also features one of my favourite nonsense verses from Dylan, which some believe to be about him hanging out with Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones:
Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit
He spoke to me, I took his flute
No, I wasn’t very cute to him, was I?
But I did it, because he lied
And because he took you for a ride
Uh because time was on his side
And because I
Again, I could write a paragraph about all 14 songs here, but I’ll finish by talking about the epic 11 minute closer Sad Eyed Lady of The Lowlands which is about his wife at the time, something he references in the song Sara on his 1976 album Desire. Again, it’s perfectly accompanied by the backing band with a gently tapping drumbeat and instruments creating a thick sound that’s hard to identify individual instruments in. But rather than talk about the song too much (you should just go and listen to it, it’s another masterpiece), I’d like to finish this review by telling the story of how it was recorded, which I feel is a perfect example of the atmosphere in which this momentous ‘Dylan trilogy’ was recorded. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the session:
[On February 15, the session began at 6 p.m., but Dylan simply sat in the studio working on his lyrics, while the musicians played cards, napped, and chatted. Finally, at 4 a.m., Dylan called the musicians in and outlined the structure of the song. Dylan counted off and the musicians fell in, as he attempted his epic composition, "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". Drummer Kenny Buttrey recalled, "If you notice that record, that thing after like the second chorus starts building and building like crazy, and everybody's just peaking it up 'cause we thought, Man, this is it...This is gonna be the last chorus and we've gotta put everything into it we can. And he played another harmonica solo and went back down to another verse and the dynamics had to drop back down to a verse kind of feel...After about ten minutes of this thing we're cracking up at each other, at what we were doing. I mean, we peaked five minutes ago. Where do we go from here?"]
And isn’t that just the greatest? When Dylan plays the last of 731 harmonica solos on the song I always feel a tinge of sadness, as what is one of the most momentous run of albums comes to an end. Then I remember that I’m being an idiot and that they’re there for me whenever I want to listen to them, and I can’t help but smile knowing that. Dylan has only once reached these heights again, on 1975’s Blood On The Tracks (though there’s plenty more great albums), but it’s pretty much Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde that got me into music as heavily as I am now, and without them, I doubt I’d be sat here doing this challenge. Cheers Bob.
Song Picks: Visions of Johanna, I Want You, Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again,
10/10