Blood on the Tracks | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 20, 1975 | |||
Recorded | September 16–19 and December 27–30, 1974 | |||
Studio | ||||
Genre | Folk [1] · folk rock | |||
Length | 51:46 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Producer |
| |||
Bob Dylan chronology | ||||
| ||||
Singles from Blood on the Tracks | ||||
|
Blood on the Tracks is the fifteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 20, 1975, [3] [4] by Columbia Records. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a two-album stint with Asylum Records. Dylan began recording the album at an A & R studio in New York City in September 1974. In December, shortly before Columbia was due to release the album, Dylan abruptly re-recorded much of the material in Sound 80 studio in Minneapolis. The final album contains five tracks recorded in New York and five from Minneapolis. The album's songs have been linked to tensions in Dylan's personal life, including his estrangement from his then-wife Sara. One of their children, Jakob Dylan, has described the songs as "my parents talking." [5] In interviews, Dylan has denied that the songs on the album are autobiographical. [6]
Although Blood on the Tracks initially received mixed reviews from critics, it has retrospectively been acclaimed as one of Dylan's best albums by both critics and fans and various publications have since listed it as one of the greatest albums of all time. It was a commercial success, peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart, with the single "Tangled Up in Blue" peaking at No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remains one of Dylan's best-selling studio releases, with a double-platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for at least two million copies sold in the United States. [7] In 2015, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. [8]
Blood on the Tracks was voted number 7 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). [9] In 2003, the album was ranked number 16 on Rolling Stone 's list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, rising to number 9 in the 2020 revision of the list. In 2004, it was placed at number 5 on Pitchfork 's list of the "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s". [10] A high-definition 5.1 surround sound edition of the album was released on SACD by Columbia in 2003. [11]
At the conclusion of his 1974 tour with the Band, Dylan began a relationship with a Columbia Records employee, Ellen Bernstein, which Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin has described as the beginning of the end of Dylan's marriage to his wife Sara. [12] In spring 1974, Dylan was in New York for several weeks while he attended art classes with the painter Norman Raeben. [13] Dylan subsequently gave Raeben credit in interviews for transforming his understanding of time, and during the summer of 1974 Dylan began to write a series of songs in a series of three small notebooks [14] which used his new knowledge:
[Raeben] taught me how to see ... in a way that allowed me to do consciously what I unconsciously felt ... when I started doing it, the first album I made was Blood on the Tracks. Everybody agrees that was pretty different, and what's different about it is there's a code in the lyrics, and also there's no sense of time. [13]
Dylan subsequently spent time with Bernstein on his farm in Minnesota and there he completed the 17 songs from which Blood on the Tracks was formed—songs which Heylin has described as "perhaps the finest collection of love songs of the twentieth century, songs filled with the full spectrum of emotions a marriage on the rocks can engender". [15]
Before recording the songs that would constitute Blood on the Tracks, Dylan previewed them for a number of friends in the music world, including David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Tim Drummond and Peter Rowan. [16] Nash recalled that Stills disliked Dylan's private performance of his new songs; immediately after Dylan left the room, Stills remarked to Nash, "He's a good songwriter ... but he's no musician." [16]
All of the tracks on the album are performed in Open D tuning. Irish folk musician Paul Brady recounts how Dylan had heard Brady's 'the Lakes of Pontchartrain' and asked to meet him. Brady showed him Open D tuning, and where to put his fingers to make the chords. [17]
Initially, Dylan considered recording Blood on the Tracks with an electric backing group, and contacted Mike Bloomfield who had played lead guitar on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album. When the two met, Dylan ran through the songs he was planning to record, but he played them too quickly for Bloomfield to learn. [18] Bloomfield later recalled the experience: "They all began to sound the same to me; they were all in the same key; they were all long. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. He was sort of pissed off that I didn't pick it up." In the end, Dylan rejected the idea of recording the album with a band, and instead substituted stripped-down acoustic arrangements for all of his songs. [18] On August 2, 1974, Dylan signed a contract with Columbia Records. After releasing his two previous albums, Planet Waves and Before the Flood , on Asylum Records, Dylan decided his new album would benefit from the commercial muscle of the record label that had made him famous, and his new contract gave him increased control over his own masters. [19]
Dylan commenced recording at A & R Recording Studios in New York City on September 16, 1974. Bernstein has stated "the theme of returning ran through the sessions", so "it made a lot of sense to do it at A&R". [19] A & R Studios was the former Columbia Records "Studio A", where Dylan had recorded six albums in the 1960s. [19] The musicians quickly realized that Dylan was taking a "spontaneous" approach to recording. [18] The producer, Phil Ramone, later said that Dylan transitioned from one song to another as if they were part of a medley.[ citation needed ] Ramone noted: "Sometimes he will have several bars, and in the next version, he will change his mind about how many bars there should be in between a verse. Or eliminate a verse. Or add a chorus when you don't expect."[ citation needed ]
Eric Weissberg and his band, Deliverance, originally recruited as session men, were rejected after two days of recording because they could not keep up with Dylan's pace. [18] Dylan retained bassist Tony Brown from the band, and soon added organist Paul Griffin (who had also worked on Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde) and steel guitarist Buddy Cage. [18] After ten days [18] and four sessions [20] with the current lineup, Dylan had finished recording and mixing, and, by November, had cut a test pressing of the album. Columbia began to prepare to release the album before Christmas. [21]
Dylan played the test pressing for his brother, David Zimmerman, who persuaded Dylan the album would not sell because the overall sound was too stark. Robert Christgau also heard the early version of the album and called it "a sellout to the memory of Dylan's pre-electric period". [22] At his brother's urging, Dylan agreed to re-record five of the album's songs in Sound 80 in Minneapolis, with backing musicians recruited by David. The new takes were accomplished in two days at the end of December 1974. Blood on the Tracks was released into stores on January 20, 1975. [23] The version on the original test pressing was given a limited release in 2019 for Record Store Day. [24]
The five New York acetate recordings that were replaced on the official album have been officially released on varied reissues archival releases, but only in 2019 did an official release of the original test pressing get released, as a limited-edition vinyl-only Record Store Day release. [25] The acetate version of "You're a Big Girl Now" was released on 1985's Biograph . New York takes of "Tangled Up in Blue", "Idiot Wind", and "If You See Her, Say Hello" were released on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1–3 , but these were not the versions on the original test pressing. That collection also includes "Call Letter Blues", an outtake/early version of "Meet Me in the Morning" with alternate lyrics. "Up to Me", another outtake from these sessions, was also released on 1985's Biograph . An alternate take of the song "Shelter from the Storm" is featured in the original soundtrack album for Jerry Maguire (1996). An alternate take of "Meet Me in the Morning" was released on the B-side of the Record Store Day 2012 release of "Duquesne Whistle". The acetate versions of "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", "If You See Her, Say Hello", and "Tangled Up in Blue" were not released officially until 2018, when they were released, alongside 70 previously unreleased recordings, on the 6-disc deluxe edition of More Blood, More Tracks , volume 14 of Dylan's ongoing archival Bootleg Series. [26] . Despite featuring multiple versions of nearly every song from the sessions, the actual mix of "Idiot Wind" found on the test pressing is not in the box set, and was only made available on the aforementioned 2019 reissue.
The front cover shows Bob Dylan in a portrait in profile looking to the left. To the left of this is a burgundy color strip with the artist's name and album title, both in white and underlined. While the cover image looks like a painting, it is a heavily edited photograph by Paul Till (who is credited accordingly). Till explained that the picture was taken with a telephoto lens at a concert in the Maple Leaf Gardens, in Toronto on January 10, 1974. When developing the photo he solarized it, then handcolored it using watercolors.
The backcover shows, depending on the edition, one of two lithographs by David Oppenheim. The main difference is between a version issued with and one issued without liner notes. The liner notes were written by Pete Hamill, then removed by Columbia Records for later 1975 pressings - which is when the lithograph was switched out - and then reinstated after Hamill was awarded a Grammy for his comments. There exist later issues of both versions of the back cover. [27]
The songs that constitute Blood on the Tracks have been described by many Dylan critics as stemming from his personal turmoil at the time, particularly his estrangement from his then-wife Sara Dylan. [28] One of Bob and Sara Dylan's children, Jakob Dylan, has said, "When I'm listening to Blood On The Tracks, that's about my parents." [29]
Dylan has denied this autobiographical interpretation, stating in a 1985 interview with Bill Flanagan, "A lot of people thought that album pertained to me. It didn't pertain to me ... I'm not going to make an album and lean on a marriage relationship." [30] Informed of the album's popularity, Dylan told Mary Travers in a radio interview in April 1975: "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean ... people enjoying that type of pain, you know?" Addressing whether the album described his own personal pain, Dylan replied that he didn't write "confessional songs". [18] However, on the live At Budokan album, Dylan seems to acknowledge the autobiographical nature of the song "Simple Twist of Fate" by introducing it as "Here's a simple love story. Happened to me." And in a 1978 interview, he responded to an observation that the album was confessional and that "Tangled Up in Blue" drew on his relationship with Sara by saying, "There might be some little part of me which is confessing something which I've experienced and I know, but is not definitely the total me confessing anything." [31]
According to Rolling Stone, in Dylan's lyric notebook, the working title of Simple Twist of Fate was 4th Street Affair; Dylan and Suze Rotolo lived at 161 W. 4th St. The narrator of the song memorializes an affair of ten years ago instead of singing about Dylan's marriage. [32] In "Hot Press," writing about the three known lyric notebooks for the songs, Anne Margaret Daniel noted that "Simple Twist of Fate" was first entitled "Snowbound," and set in part, like "Tangled Up In Blue," in a New York City apartment. [33]
In his 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Vol. 1 , Dylan stated that the songs have nothing to do with his personal life, and that they were inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekhov. [34]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [35] |
Chicago Tribune | [36] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [37] |
Music Story | [ citation needed ] |
MusicHound Rock | 5/5 [38] |
Pitchfork | 10/10 [39] |
Q | [40] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [41] |
Sputnikmusic | 5/5 [42] |
The Village Voice | A [22] |
Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks initially received mixed reviews from critics. [43] Rolling Stone published two assessments. The first, by Jonathan Cott, called it "Dylan's magnificent new album". The second reviewer, Jon Landau, wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness." [44] In NME , Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes", [44] while Crawdaddy magazine's Jim Cusimano found the instrumentation incompetent. [43]
An influential review of the album was written by Dylan critic Michael Gray for the magazine Let It Rock . Gray argued that it transformed the cultural perception of Dylan, and that he was no longer defined as "the major artist of the sixties. Instead, Dylan has legitimized his claim to a creative prowess as vital now as then—a power not bounded by the one decade he so affected." [45] This view was amplified by Clinton Heylin, who wrote: "Ten years after he turned the rock & roll brand of pop into rock ... [Dylan] renewed its legitimacy as a form capable of containing the work of a mature artist." [45] In The Village Voice , Robert Christgau wrote that although the lyrics occasionally evoke romantic naiveté and bitterness, Blood on the Tracks is altogether Dylan's "most mature and assured record". [22]
Since its initial reception, Blood on the Tracks has been viewed by critics as one of Dylan's best albums. [43] In Salon.com, Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years." [46] Bell, in his critical biography of Dylan, wrote that Blood on the Tracks was proof that "Dylan had won the argument over his refusal to argue about politics. In this, he began to seem prescient." [47] Bell concluded the album "might well count as one of the best things Dylan ever did". [48] Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape". [49]
A result of the acclaim surrounding the album has been that when critics have praised one of Dylan's subsequent albums, they have often described it as "his best since Blood on the Tracks". [50] [51] According to music journalist Rob Sheffield, Blood on the Tracks became a benchmark album for Dylan in the years that followed because it was "such a stunning comeback". [41]
The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . [52]
Hip hop group Public Enemy reference it in their 2007 Dylan tribute song "Long and Whining Road": "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back / You bet there's blood on them Bomb Squad tracks". [53]
A film adaptation of the album is currently in pre-production, under the direction of Luca Guadagnino. [54] [55]
All tracks are written by Bob Dylan.
No. | Title | Recorded | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Tangled Up in Blue" | December 30, 1974, in Minneapolis | 5:42 |
2. | "Simple Twist of Fate" | September 19, 1974, in New York City | 4:19 |
3. | "You're a Big Girl Now" | December 27, 1974, in Minneapolis | 4:36 |
4. | "Idiot Wind" | December 27, 1974, in Minneapolis | 7:48 |
5. | "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" | September 17, 1974, in New York City | 2:55 |
Total length: | 25:20 |
No. | Title | Recorded | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Meet Me in the Morning" | September 16, 1974, in New York City | 4:22 |
2. | "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" | December 30, 1974, in Minneapolis | 8:51 |
3. | "If You See Her, Say Hello" | December 30, 1974, in Minneapolis | 4:49 |
4. | "Shelter from the Storm" | September 17, 1974, in New York City | 5:02 |
5. | "Buckets of Rain" | September 19, 1974, in New York City | 3:22 |
Total length: | 26:26 51:46 |
For personnel details, see Heylin, 1996 [56] and Björner, 2014. [57] Track numbers refer to CD and digital releases of the album.
M ^ Involved in the Minneapolis recording sessions
NY ^ Involved in the New York recording sessions
In 2002, Mary Lee's Corvette released an album covering Blood on the Tracks in its entirety. [58]
In 2022, singer/songwriter Ryan Adams also released an album covering each song on the album track-by-track. [59]
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
Year | Single | Peak position |
---|---|---|
US [73] | ||
1975 | "Tangled Up in Blue" | 31 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Canada (Music Canada) [74] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
Italy | — | 100,000 [75] |
United Kingdom (BPI) [76] | Platinum | 300,000^ |
United States (RIAA) [77] | 2× Platinum | 2,000,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 30, 1965, by Columbia Records. Dylan continued the musical approach of his previous album Bringing It All Back Home (1965), using rock musicians as his backing band on every track of the album in a further departure from his primarily acoustic folk sound, except for the closing track, the 11-minute ballad "Desolation Row". Critics have focused on the innovative way Dylan combined driving, blues-based music with the subtlety of poetry to create songs that captured the political and cultural climate of contemporary America. Author Michael Gray argued that, in an important sense, the 1960s "started" with this album.
"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, and released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited. The song has been noted for its length (11:21) and surreal lyrics in which Dylan weaves characters into a series of vignettes that suggest entropy and urban chaos.
Blonde on Blonde is the seventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as a double album on June 20, 1966, by Columbia Records. Recording sessions began in New York in October 1965 with numerous backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing band, the Hawks. Though sessions continued until January 1966, they yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—"One of Us Must Know ". At producer Bob Johnston's suggestion, Dylan, keyboardist Al Kooper, and guitarist Robbie Robertson moved to the CBS studios in Nashville, Tennessee. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville's top session musicians, were more fruitful, and in February and March all the remaining songs for the album were recorded.
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the second studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on May 27, 1963, by Columbia Records. Whereas his self-titled debut album Bob Dylan had contained only two original songs, this album represented the beginning of Dylan's writing contemporary lyrics to traditional melodies. Eleven of the thirteen songs on the album are Dylan's original compositions. It opens with "Blowin' in the Wind", which became an anthem of the 1960s, and an international hit for folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary soon after the release of the album. The album featured several other songs which came to be regarded as among Dylan's best compositions and classics of the 1960s folk scene: "Girl from the North Country", "Masters of War", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right".
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is the twelfth studio album and first soundtrack album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 13, 1973, by Columbia Records for the Sam Peckinpah film of the same name. Dylan himself appeared in the film as the character "Alias". The soundtrack consists mainly of instrumental music and was inspired by the movie itself. The album includes "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", which became a trans-Atlantic Top 20 hit.
"Tangled Up in Blue" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which was released as the opening track of his 15th studio album Blood on the Tracks (1975). The song was written by Dylan and produced by David Zimmerman, Dylan's brother. Released as a single, it reached No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song concerns relationships and contains different narrative perspectives. Dylan has altered the lyrics in subsequent performances, changing the point of view and details in the song.
"4th Time Around" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which was released as the 12th track on his seventh studio album Blonde on Blonde on June 20, 1966. The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. Commentators often interpret it as a parody of the Beatles' 1965 song "Norwegian Wood ". John Lennon composed "Norwegian Wood" after being influenced by the introspective lyrics of Dylan. Lennon later reflected on his feelings of paranoia when Dylan first played him "4th Time Around".
"Idiot Wind" is a song by Bob Dylan, which appeared on his 1975 album Blood on the Tracks. He began writing it in the summer of 1974, after his comeback tour with The Band. Dylan recorded the song in September 1974 and re-recorded it in December 1974 along with other songs on his album Blood on the Tracks. Between the recordings, he often reworked the lyrics. A live version of the song was released on Dylan's 1976 album Hard Rain, and all of the studio outtakes from the September sessions were released on the deluxe edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks in 2018.
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter. Often considered to be one of the greatest songwriters in history, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60-year career. He rose to prominence in the 1960s, when songs such as "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. Initially modeling his style on Woody Guthrie's folk songs, Robert Johnson's blues and what he called the "architectural forms" of Hank Williams's country songs, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". His lyrics incorporated political, social and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.
"Bob Dylan's Dream" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1963. It was recorded by Dylan on April 24, 1963, and was released by Columbia Records a month later on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.
"Pledging My Time" is a blues song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his seventh studio album, Blonde on Blonde (1966). The song, written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston, was recorded on March 8, 1966 in Nashville, Tennessee. Dylan is featured on lead vocals, harmonica, and guitar, backed by guitarist Robbie Robertson and an ensemble of veteran Nashville session men.
"If Not for You" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his October 1970 album New Morning. It was issued as the A-side of a single in Europe in early 1971. The song is a love song to Dylan's first wife, Sara Dylan. He recorded it several times in 1970; the session for the released version took place in New York in August. He also recorded the song with George Harrison on May 1, soon after the break-up of the Beatles, a session that attracted much speculation in the music press. The May recording remained unreleased until its inclusion on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 in 1991.
"If You See Her, Say Hello" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks (1975). The song is one of five on the album that Dylan initially recorded in New York City in September 1974 and then re-recorded in Minneapolis. The later recording, made on December 30, 1974, was produced by Dylan's brother David Zimmerman, who was not credited. The recording later became the album track and the B-side of the "Tangled Up in Blue" single, released in February 1975.
"Watching the River Flow" is a song by American singer Bob Dylan. Produced by Leon Russell, it was written and recorded during a session in March 1971 at the Blue Rock Studio in New York City. The collaboration with Russell formed in part through Dylan's desire for a new sound—after a period of immersion in country rock music—and for a change from his previous producer.
The Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 was a concert tour undertaken by the American musician Bob Dylan, from February to May 1966. Dylan's 1966 World Tour was notable as the first tour where Dylan employed an electric band backing him, following him "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The musicians Dylan employed as his backing band were known as the Hawks, who later became famous as the Band.
The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 is a compilation album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, containing demo recordings he made for his first two publishing companies, Leeds Music and M. Witmark & Sons, from 1962 to 1964. The seventh installment of the ongoing Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, it was released on October 19, 2010 on Legacy Records.
David Bromberg is the debut album by American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter David Bromberg. It was released by Columbia Records in February 1972. The album includes "The Holdup", written by Bromberg and George Harrison, and "Sammy's Song", which features Bob Dylan on harmonica.
"Santa-Fe" is a song that was recorded by Bob Dylan and the Band in the summer or fall of 1967 in West Saugerties, New York. It was recorded during the sessions that would in 1975 be released on The Basement Tapes but was not included on that album. These sessions took place in three phases throughout the year, at a trio of houses, and "Santa-Fe" was likely put on tape in the second of these, at a home of some of the Band members, known as Big Pink. The composition, which has been characterized as a "nonsense" song, was copyrighted in 1973 with lyrics that differ noticeably from those on the recording itself.
"I Shall Be Free" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was recorded on 6 December 1962 at Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios, New York, produced by John Hammond. The song was released as the closing track on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan on 27 May 1963, and has been viewed as a comedic counterpoint to the album's more serious material. Dylan has never performed the song in concert.
"One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which was released as the fourth track on his seventeenth studio album Desire (1976). The song was written by Dylan, and produced by Don DeVito. The album version of "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" was recorded on July 30, 1975, and released on Desire in January 1976. Dylan said the song was influenced by his visit to a Romani celebration at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in France on his 34th birthday.
{{cite magazine}}
: Cite magazine requires |magazine=
(help)