January 13, 1965—Returning to Columbia Records’ Studio A for his next LP, Bob Dylan was in the mood for something different, more spontaneous, more experimental than anything he’d tried before—an instrumental style that would not only match the looser, more free-flowing lyrics he’d written lately, but one that would represent what he would later call “the sound of the streets.”
Even in a career marked by as many shifts in tone and content as Dylan’s, Bringing It All Back Home constitutes a crucial transition. The year before, he had bid farewell to the social protest songs that made him famous with Another Side of Bob Dylan. This time, he was risking the wrath of folk-music purists with electrified instruments.
Perhaps for that reason, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter was, unusually for him, hedging his bets: The first side of the album was all-electric, with all but one of the songs clocking in at approximately three minutes or less—about as single-friendly as he could make it. The other side was entirely acoustic, with all but one song over 3½ minutes.
In later years, with the battle over, Dylan was careful not to claim too much credit for starting the folk-rock movement that would dominate the rock charts from the mid-to-late Sixties, in particular noting the contributions made by The Byrds. There were other important signposts before he plugged instrument wires into the walls at Studio A, including the Animals’ hit “House of the Rising Sun” and two songs by Richard Farina, the novelist-musician brother-in-law of Dylan’s girlfriend Joan Baez, “One-Way Ticket” and “Reno Nevada.”
But there’s no doubt that the songwriter who’d been acclaimed as the most significant voice of his generation brought unparalleled credibility and attention to this movement. Once he wrapped his increasingly free-association, phantasmagoric lyrics in the music he had thrilled to as a teenager—Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and other early pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll—other songwriters came to feel they could take this music seriously.
In Dylan’s quest for a new sound, the role of Tom Wilson would prove crucial. In the case of Simon & Garfunkel as well as Dylan, this African-American producer at Columbia Records took acoustic tracks and spun them into box-office gold. (Simon & Garfunkel were away doing other things--Paul in Europe, Art back in school--when Wilson got hold of one of their records, then transformed "The Sounds of Silence" into a wailing, p0werful electric hymn on modern alienation.)
At least Dylan was around when Wilson asked for his opinion. Unbeknownst to the singer-songwriter, Wilson had, before the sessions, added electrified instruments to the singer-songwriter's version of "House of the Rising Sun". Dylan liked the results when they were presented to him enough to give the okay to try out more in the studio.
Even in a career marked by as many shifts in tone and content as Dylan’s, Bringing It All Back Home constitutes a crucial transition. The year before, he had bid farewell to the social protest songs that made him famous with Another Side of Bob Dylan. This time, he was risking the wrath of folk-music purists with electrified instruments.
Perhaps for that reason, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter was, unusually for him, hedging his bets: The first side of the album was all-electric, with all but one of the songs clocking in at approximately three minutes or less—about as single-friendly as he could make it. The other side was entirely acoustic, with all but one song over 3½ minutes.
In later years, with the battle over, Dylan was careful not to claim too much credit for starting the folk-rock movement that would dominate the rock charts from the mid-to-late Sixties, in particular noting the contributions made by The Byrds. There were other important signposts before he plugged instrument wires into the walls at Studio A, including the Animals’ hit “House of the Rising Sun” and two songs by Richard Farina, the novelist-musician brother-in-law of Dylan’s girlfriend Joan Baez, “One-Way Ticket” and “Reno Nevada.”
But there’s no doubt that the songwriter who’d been acclaimed as the most significant voice of his generation brought unparalleled credibility and attention to this movement. Once he wrapped his increasingly free-association, phantasmagoric lyrics in the music he had thrilled to as a teenager—Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and other early pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll—other songwriters came to feel they could take this music seriously.
In Dylan’s quest for a new sound, the role of Tom Wilson would prove crucial. In the case of Simon & Garfunkel as well as Dylan, this African-American producer at Columbia Records took acoustic tracks and spun them into box-office gold. (Simon & Garfunkel were away doing other things--Paul in Europe, Art back in school--when Wilson got hold of one of their records, then transformed "The Sounds of Silence" into a wailing, p0werful electric hymn on modern alienation.)
At least Dylan was around when Wilson asked for his opinion. Unbeknownst to the singer-songwriter, Wilson had, before the sessions, added electrified instruments to the singer-songwriter's version of "House of the Rising Sun". Dylan liked the results when they were presented to him enough to give the okay to try out more in the studio.
Over the next four days, there were no rehearsals or run-throughs, and a couple of songs—notably the album’s opener, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”—were first takes. A dismayed Baez regarded the results as “sloppy.”
But the product, tentative as it was, shook the music scene. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” might have been a kiss-off to a lover, but it also amounted to Dylan turning his back on the folk scene.
Though the meditative “Mr. Tambourine Man” became a hit for the Byrds, it was several of the other electrified songs, such as “Maggie’s Farm,” “Gates of Eden,” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” that would characterize the tone of his succeeding two albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, as well as the hyperkinetic, out-of-control, doom-laden energies of the mid-Sixties.
“Folk rock,” while identifying adequately enough the source of the two influences on Dylan and those who followed eagerly in his wake, gives, I think, an inadequate idea of what he hoped to achieve with the new sound. I prefer “power poetry”—not just because it evokes a later term, “power pop,” but because it gives a visceral sense of how the music sounded: the power of rock ‘n’ roll with the poetry of folk.
But the product, tentative as it was, shook the music scene. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” might have been a kiss-off to a lover, but it also amounted to Dylan turning his back on the folk scene.
Though the meditative “Mr. Tambourine Man” became a hit for the Byrds, it was several of the other electrified songs, such as “Maggie’s Farm,” “Gates of Eden,” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” that would characterize the tone of his succeeding two albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, as well as the hyperkinetic, out-of-control, doom-laden energies of the mid-Sixties.
“Folk rock,” while identifying adequately enough the source of the two influences on Dylan and those who followed eagerly in his wake, gives, I think, an inadequate idea of what he hoped to achieve with the new sound. I prefer “power poetry”—not just because it evokes a later term, “power pop,” but because it gives a visceral sense of how the music sounded: the power of rock ‘n’ roll with the poetry of folk.
1 comment:
One of the greatest albums of all time. I've been listening to it endlessly in the car for the past three weeks. Genius.
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