I'll admit, sometimes I forget about this album. Not because of the songs; between "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "Mr. Tambourine Man" & "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," it has 2 of my absolute favorite Dylan tunes on it. (I used to love "Subterranean Homesick Blues," but it's way too played out for me now.) Despite that, I sometimes forget about it as an album, if you know what I mean. It kinda gets lost in between Another Side of Bob Dylan, the conclusion to his early acoustic period, & Highway 61 Revisited, his first fully electric album which came out only 5 months later. It is literally the halfway point between the 2, with 1 electric side & 1 acoustic side, & Dylan maturing into the more surreal, less literal lyrical style he explored on (& which I've always interpreted to be the meaning of the title of) Another Side. But this latest listen reminded me that, more than a collection of great songs, Bringing It All Back Home is a solid album in its own right.
The narrative that this record was where Dylan "went electric" isn't really true, since his very 1st released single was a plugged-in blues number called "Mixed Up Confusion" way back in 1962, but he certainly starts this one off like he means it with the rollicking "Subterranean Homesick Blues." For the next few songs he alternates raucous electric blues like "Maggie's Farm" & "Outlaw Blues" with gentle pieces like "She Belongs To Me" & "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," graced with touches of lilting lead guitar but ultimately no more rowdy than the full-band pieces on his so-called acoustic albums like "Corrina, Corrina." The 2 softer pieces on this side are focused on declarations of romantic love, & you get the sense of Dylan's yearning to conjure images to convey the depth of his love, but it keeps eluding him. "Love Minus Zero" is one of his best love songs ever, as he tries to capture the peace that his beloved brings to his otherwise tumultuous world. Its closing line, "My love, she's like some raven at my window with a broken wing," is so gorgeous that I'll even forgive Dylan's tendency to infantilize flawed women.
Meanwhile, "Maggie's Farm" & "On the Road Again" focus on different kinds of relationships. There is a peculiar obsession with family members in both of these songs, filtered through Dylan's surreal sensibilities to act as microcosms of various social dynamics that vex & frustrate him. "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" starts with another cheeky nod to his "going electric," a fake-out start where Dylan & his engineer explode into delirious laughter when the band fails to come in. The song shares a melody with Another Side's "Motorpsycho Nitemare," & contains similar lyrics about being out of step with, & alienated & a little threatened by, middle America & what it has become.
More disillusionment with the modern United States is found on the album's 2nd half, the acoustic side, even though lead guitar figures still accompany the gorgeous "Mr. Tambourine Man," one of the loveliest melodies that Dylan ever wrote on an album that's somewhat short on melodies. (I'd only describe 5 of the 11 tracks as being particularly tuneful.) Another one is "Gates of Eden," which recalls both "Chimes of Freedom" & "My Back Pages" from the previous album, with a catalog of strange, expressive scenarios over strident, midtempo strumming. But side 2's knockout punch, of course, is "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," which is fascinating lyrically, all the way from its overall message to its rhyme scheme. I normally don't like talking about Dylan songs like poetry (though the language can be poetic, there's no denying that songs like "Mr. Tambourine Man" are pop songs through & through), but it makes it easier to discuss "It's Alright, Ma." Each verse is divided into 4 stanzas with a rhyme scheme that breaks down like this:
AAAAAB
CCCCCB
DDDDDB
EE (a phrase that ends in "Ma") B
The A, C & D rhymes come fast & furious, like Dylan is rushing to squeeze them all into the bar lines, while the B rhymes are ponderous & have a sense of finality. Underneath them, Dylan picks restless guitar chords that despite their complexity feel droning, like the old "Masters of War" where he incessantly strummed variations on a single minor chord. The apocalyptic imagery & air of despondency in the song (the first stanza ends with "there is no sense in trying") are so thick that the gentler, but no less resigned, closer "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" feels like a ray of desaturated sunshine.
Even though not all the songs resonate with me (I've never really known what to do with "Outlaw Blues"), Bringing It All Back Home is more than just a repository for several Dylan classics. It is brilliantly sequenced, despite the 2 halves gimmick, & moves through emotional highs & lows in a way that ends up being more than the sum of its parts. The fact that he released this & Highway 61 Revisited within 5 months of each other is kind of mindblowing.
Bringing It All Back Home, I'm sorry for sleeping on you. But that's all over now, baby.
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