Bob Dylan's Carnival Jukebox: Musical Textures of Blonde on Blonde (1966)

This may sound silly, but my favorite moment in the track is the way Dylan sings "Ah-kill -EEEEZ". Where I come from it's "A-KILL-eez". A Midwestern thing or a Dylan thing?

 

Dylan and the Band, sounding majestic together. I've always loved that little snippet.

 

Perhaps it's use of onomatopoeia- he's singing through his heel, just like he often sings the word knows - in a nasal sound - through his nose - " She says she NOSE me well." LOL

 

A Dylan thing.

 

Yeah, that 0:59 second performance has been floating around for decades now, and should have been included on Biograph (it was even included on a Biograph preview tape that leaked out in 1984, prior to the box set release). A longer version would be nice to hear.

One more thing:

I'm in full Blonde on Blonde immersion mode, and prone to a few errors, I suppose, but please, when I make stupid blunders like that, somebody hit me.

The line should, of course, read: "With her fog, her amphetamines and her pearls."

 

I had to sneak this one in before we get to Bob's original Blonde version. George with Booker T. & the MGs? Does it get any better?

 

I noticed it. I corrected someone yesterday for using "I could care less" (when he clearly COULDN'T), so I was trying to cut down on correcting people.

 

BLONDE ON BLONDE: Side 3./Track 3.

ABSOLUTELY SWEET MARIE


"I don't know how it happened, but the riverboat captain, he knows my fate..." Cracks me up every time I hear it.

 

The way Harrison lets the other guitarists showcase their chops - so amazing. What a collective groove this ensemble is in! One of maybe five Dylan tunes where I prefer a cover to the original ... and I love the original.

 

re: Absolutely Sweet Marie

Wild, thin mercury at it's "absolute" finest, and a song that I think you could find on some imaginary carnival jukebox. What Dylan fan doesn't like this track?

The propulsive element is that "sweet" Motown/Pretty Woman beat -- tap-tap-tap-tap. The Rolling Stones used it for Satisfaction, and Charlie Rich and his producer Jerry Kennedy utilized it in I Can't Go On and Dance of Love from 1965, and Blowin' Town, released in 1966.

Also: this Stevie Wonder classic was all over the radio in early 1966:


Sean Wilentz provides us with this vivid description of the formation of Sweet Marie:
The recording at the fourth Nashville date began well after midnight, with a pair of run-through takes by what sounds like an ensemble of piano, two guitars (one played by Robbie Robertson), bass, organ, and drums. Dylan, rich-voiced, practically croons at times. The lyrics to what was then called “Where Are You Tonight, Sweet Marie?” are not quite done, and Dylan sings some dummy lines (“And the eagle’s teeth/Down above the train line”). The band even changes key between takes; but the song seems basically set—though, on these preliminary takes, Kenny Buttrey shifts his snare beat half a minute or so into the song, and then steadily increases the layered patterns of his drumming. On the last take, the one we know from the album, Buttrey builds the complexities to the point where he is defying gravity or maybe the second law of thermodynamics. By the time Dylan sings of the six white horses and of the Persian drunkard, Buttrey and the song are soaring—and then Dylan launches a harmonica break. The band stays in overdrive, but Dylan and Buttrey, pushing each other forward, nearly pop the clutch. For just under a minute, the song becomes an overpowering rock & roll concerto for harmonica and drums. “Absolutely Sweet Marie” is esteemed chiefly for lines like, “But to live outside the law you must be honest,” and “Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously/But then, now again, not too many can be like you, fortunately”—the second phrase one of many that Dylan has freely mutated in concert over the last forty years. With the sound of “Sweet Marie,” Blonde on Blonde entered fully and sublimely into what is now considered classic rock & roll.

The "bridge" of the song, first heard during "Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously..." always struck me as a borrowing from Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue. Although Buddy switched musical gears with a single chord change (from A directly to F), Dylan/Kooper/McCoy, et al, step it down in five quick bursts, and then step it up again.

I'll say it again: what Dylan fan doesn't love this track?

Another off-thread concert note: I saw Dylan live in Chicago on Halloween night, 1989, and his opening act was Jason & The Scorchers, who had a semi-hit with Absolutely Sweet Marie back then. They did their version, of course, and Bob offered up two more Blonde songs, I Want You and Rainy Day Women. (My favorite concert moment, though, was when Dylan knocked back the piano stool and stood, like Little Richard, while belting out Disease of Conceit.)

 

Excellent performance from "Harri" and company!

Blonde On Blonde's Sweet Marie:
Great, fun song, both the content and spirit of the song make it seem like it was one of the Basement Tape songs in high production - of course this is NOT possible, as Marie far pre-dates that era.

Great ensemble performance in the studio, but the drums steal it, propelling it relentlessly, with the other instruments quickly nipping at its heels.

Any truth to the rumor, back in the day, that the working title for this song was "Blue Balls"? LOL

BTW- Blonde On Blonde? Meaning??????

Also, back in the day, it was an urban legend that it meant imdulging in Blonde Hash and Blonde Ale , together.

 

I was thinking of this song :

• 
  1:53
  The Dave Clark Five - Bits & Pieces - Top Of The Pops (1964)
  youtube.com

 

There are many, many theories, and who really knows?, but I always thought it was a random reference to the finish on a guitar, maybe with a "blonde on blonde" body and neck combination. I posted this example in another older thread:

 

?????

 

Bob obviously likes to stretch out vowels a lot when he sings, especially the eeeeeee sound.

Always has.

 

The next track on Blonde is 4th Time Around, and listening to this Beatles song is, obviously, a necessary preamble:


The Beatles were the most influential force in the music world in the mid-'60s, bar none, and Bob Dylan must have appreciated their work as much as anyone else, although he's always seemed kind of cagey about praising their accomplishments. We do know it was a two-way street, with John Lennon, in particular, admitting Dylan's influence on his songwriting, with I'm A Loser, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, and Norwegian Wood being some of the prime examples from the 1964-65 period. (I would be interested to hear people's thoughts about whether any specific Beatles songs influenced any of the tracks on Blonde on Blonde.)

There is a long-running dispute about which song came first, Norwegian Wood or 4th Time Around, and whether it was a case of Dylan-doing-Lennon-doing-Dylan, or simply Dylan being a wiseguy by appropriating the melody and premise of the Lennon-McCartney composition, which came out on the Rubber Soul album in December 1965, while Dylan was still assembling songs for Blonde on Blonde. I'll just say that the two songs are similar, and leave it at that.

Previous thread on that topic:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/whats-the-story-of-bob-dylans-4th-time-around.96548/

The album cut of 4th Times Around was one of the first tracks that Dylan cut after arriving in Nashville. An early mix of the song, released on some initial pressings of the album, featured a droning organ or keyboard in the background, which was later removed, along with the original drumming, and replaced by freshly overdubbed drums, and perhaps an additional Spanish guitar part, in June 1966. The droning instrument somewhat resembled the chorded keyboard on the Beatles' recent single, We Can Work It Out. (An original mono vinyl dub of the withdrawn 4th Time Around used to be available on YouTube, but it's now gone.)

Previous thread on that topic:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/4th-time-around-what-is-that-instrument.207399/

 

BLONDE ON BLONDE: Side 3.Track 4.

FOURTH TIME AROUND or 4TH TIME AROUND (per record label)

 

What a difference a singer who can sing makes.

I kid.

 

re: 4th Time Around

Dylan's song, presented as a simple waltz-tempo piece, with a nice melody and fluttering, harp-like Spanish guitar accompaniment, has a sound reminiscent of Desolation Row from his previous album, which, again, harkens back to Marty Robbins' El Paso. I'm not sure who's playing those repetitive guitar figures on 4th Time Around, possibly Charlie McCoy or Jerry Kennedy, but my hat's off to them for their skillful and disciplined work.

As a matter of trivia, Roger Miller released an album entitled 3rd Time Around in 1965, produced by Blonde session man Jerry Kennedy, which featured some of the same style Spanish guitar work found on Dylan's Blonde tracks, although I could hear no direct similarities between the two records.

One song on the LP, This Town, an update of This Train's Bound For Glory, does, however, foreshadow Apple Suckling Tree on Dylan's 1967 Basement Tapes, IMO.

 

re: 4th Time Around
One more: I can't resist posting this. The album cut has that bright Blonde sound to it, but when Dylan performed the song solo during his acoustic sets in 1966, it seemed to become a little dragged out and monotonous. This version, from Melbourne, Australia, captured him in a coughing, wheezing, jet-lagged mode, and was, unfortunately, one of the first live versions of the song that I ever heard. It can be trying to listen to all the way through, but it has its moments.

 

For a long time 'Just Like A Woman' really stood out to me as the song which seemed to have the most depth to it on Greatest Hits, especially in the evening (strangely enough, 'Rainy Day Women' and 'Just Like A Woman' open and close both GHits and B'On'B, side 1 and 2 - released within one zeitgeist year of each other - how's that for stand-up symmetry?). Despite all the anthems on Greatest Hits, it's on this watery ballad that Dylan sounds like he cares about something more than what he thinks other people want him to care about ('Subterranean Homesick Blues' notwithstanding). It doesn't sound much different from the crooner's laments on his newest album. Yet on Blonde On Blonde it's just another brilliant upon brilliant song - not that that's a bad thing. With this song (and 'Sad Eyed Lady') Dylan is entering into the descending melodic realm shared and preceded by 'When A Man Loves A Woman', and succeeded by 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' - and super-preceded by Bach.

'Most Likely You Go Your Way' is the great sleeper song on the album (along with '4th Time' and 'One Of Us Must Know' - songs I hadn't heard elsewhere until I first heard Blonde On Blonde). The way the drummer approaches the song is both elegant and showy; the fills are amazing; a drummer of lesser ability and intuition would have stomped all nuance out of that song. Dylan sounds very laid back and cool in this song, yet highly enthusiastic at the same time.

In fact he sounds laid back and cool on all the songs (except the opener). Compared to the electric segments of the live European 1966 tour material, Dylan's singing is woozy and on NyQuil for much of these proceedings, uptempo or not; he's caught somewhere between the sleepy acoustic live '66 set and the fiery electric set - which makes sense, with those types of electric and acoustic instruments colliding, it's like it was recorded during intermission (intermission of tours, no less).

One of my regrets, for Dylan the paper-doll icon, is that he didn't get to tour in later '66 into '67 and play more of these Blonde On Blonde songs live, with the band or without. I wonder how soon he would have made his next album, as well. He seemed addicted to recording everything - concerts, double albums, etc., yet, ironically, I have yet to see a photo from the Nashville Blonde On Blonde sessions, nor one from the New York sessions identified as such (maybe those shots of him playing a Fender bass are from then). I don't know that he could have topped Blonde On Blonde for his next LP, but I would have loved to have heard him try.

 

Do people have a favorite side of Blonde On Blonde? It's a toss up between 2 and 3 for me.

Side one
No. Title Length
1. "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" 4:36
2. "Pledging My Time" 3:50
3. "Visions of Johanna" 7:33
4. "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" 4:54

Side two
No. Title Length
1. "I Want You" 3:07
2. "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" 7:05
3. "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" 3:58
4. "Just Like a Woman" 4:52

Side three
No. Title Length
1. "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" 3:30
2. "Temporary Like Achilles" 5:02
3. "Absolutely Sweet Marie" 4:57
4. "4th Time Around" 4:35
5. "Obviously 5 Believers" 3:35

Side four
No. Title Length
1. "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" 11:23

 

Always loved the live 'Positively 4th Street' from Australia.

There was a great video of Dylan playing/singing 'Just Like A Woman' '66 on youtube for a long time, but I can't seem to find it now. Must have been from the Eat the Document outtakes or Something's Happening, since I don't think it's in ETD or No Direction Home.

 

That makes for a really, really difficult choice. Side 2 is pretty amazing, but Side 1 has "Visions of Johanna".

 

Such an entertaining and multi-faceted post. You hit on a lot of subjects and made some wonderful observations. Thank you so much.

You did take some of the wind out of my sails, though: (quote) "..With...'Sad Eyed Lady'...Dylan is entering into the descending melodic realm shared and preceded by 'When A Man Loves A Woman'..." That's another of the "close calls" that I was going to mention when Sad Eyed Lady comes up to bat.

And this, I just can't do it! It would be like ripping chapters out of a novel, or slicing apart a good movie. No favoritism, I need to hear all fourteen tracks.

If pressed, and I was forced to leave out just one song off the record (like the Deleted Scenes on DVDs) it would probably be 4th Time Around. Sorry, Bob.