Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks

I've laid waste the careers of Frank and the Fab Four, of Jeff and of Joni. Now comes the time to lay another sacred cow to rest.

Sure, there was a time when I found Blood on the Tracks powerful. Now… well, now — it's all right, I'm just kidding — now I love it as much as ever. I don't play it that often; I don't feel that I need to. I can drop the needle on it in my head wherever I am, and in chugs the bass, "Early one morning, the sun was shining, I was laying in bed…" It's all there, a Spotify of the mind. (All except Meet Me in the Morning, actually. Always my least favourite song on the record, yet I was surprised that Lucy identified it from the first few bars. I expect her to spot Aberfeldy and Indigo Moss, but I didn't realise she was on such good terms with Blood on the Tracks.)

So many things I could say about the album. The individual songs and lines that have come into focus for me at different times over the last 25 years. Our long hours spend trying to follow the plot of Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts (your discovery of the missing verse is now there on Wikipedia for the most casual of investigators to find). The original "New York Session" versions of the songs — for what it's worth, and on only casual comparisons, I tend to prefer the "Minneapolis" versions, as released. There's the invidious question of how autobiographical the songs are in dealing with Bob's break-up with Sara. I suspect not very. But the truth, one way or the other, is by the bye now — every new album with a few break-up songs on it has to be referred to, by statute, as its creator's "Blood on the Tracks album".

There's plenty already been said on all those topics, and you and I, we've been through that. So let me just say Thank You So Much for introducing me to this amazing record, which, until you sat me down with it, I'd ignored for years on the shelves of WH Smiths because of its odd blurred cover.

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Comments

[M.J. Nicholls]

Always thought "If You See Her, Say Hello" was rather dull, but the rest is A-grade. I prefer "Desire" though. By miles.

[David]

Thanks, M.J. Lots to love about Desire. Joey would probably sound amazing on many albums - for me, though, it suffers in the same company as Hurricane.