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

Would if I could.

 

One interesting interpretation I have read of Johanna is that, rather than being Joan, or at least solely Joan (Which is a bit of boring, and safe interpretation) is that it has something to do with gehenna, a hebrew word relating to destruction/hell/the void or something along those lines. So the song is touching on a kind of 'Waiting for Godot' type of thing, man's search for something that is always out of reach. Of course the song is very complex though, and impressionistic is certainly the word, there is a lot going on...things touched on and hinted at.

It was a decent article, with some interesting ideas that make a lot of sense to me. Found it here: http://everybobdylansong.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/bob-dylan-song-70-visions-of-johanna.html

Forgive me for talking about lyrics in your music thread though! I've been sucked in...I love discussing lyrics.

 

Something I think is interesting to consider is why Bob didn't feel like the earlier versions of "Visions of Johanna" were right for the song (a pattern that will continue throughout the album). Also, after refusing so many takes, why did he choose the one with the mistakes by the bass player? I certainly don't have any answers.

 

I think he was looking for the take that had the right, odd, almost paradoxical feel. So much coming up, but nothing happening. That take has it.

L.

 

Here's some info on the recording and an important quote from Al Kooper.

Visions of Johanna" fell into place when Dylan was persuaded by his producer, Bob Johnston, to move the recording sessions to Nashville, Tennessee. During his first day in the CBS Nashville studio, on February 14, 1966, the Blonde on Blonde version of the song was recorded. In an interview with Andy Gill, Al Kooper has said that he and guitarist Robbie Robertson became sensitive to the nuances of Dylan's vocal.[5] Kooper added that "it's very important what Joe South's bass is doing in that"; Kooper described it as "this throbbing...rhythmically amazing bass part".[5] Other backing musicians were Charlie McCoy, guitar, Wayne Moss, guitar, and Kenneth Buttrey on drums.[9]

 

Thanks for the link.

"We sit here stranded, though we all do our best to deny it" certainly evokes "Waiting for Godot". For me personally, based on what I bring to the song as a listener, this also evokes all the denial mechanisms humans have to not face the harshest of realities - the utter meaninglessness of human existence. But, on the other hand, he who walks around forever in the "life is meaningless, woe is me" state of angst and ennui, over time is just a little boy lost who takes it all too seriously.

 

Whenever I read a post about someone pointing out a bum note or some off-key singing on a great, classic record, I say to myself "I'm sure glad that I don't ever notice those sorts of things."

 

has the title ever been explained? Is it an allusion to another song, perhaps a novelty number?

 

The ache in the song comes from the singer's feeling, sense, devout (or maybe not so devout) wish, that that if she'd just show up, the void would be filled. To me the key to the feel of the song is the way the final verse breaks form by adding 3 extra lines of melody and lyric, descending again and again from the IV to the I, allowing the nothing changing to build along the series of "-ode" rhymes an extra 3 times before quietly exploding when the last one jumps to the V, rearing up one more time for the beginning of the refrain and its final breathing rise and fall fall back to I.

L.

 

It wasn't this song, but I remember as a kid noticing that Dylan didn't confine himself to the form that the rest of the song used. He added additional lines and stretched verses. I think I first noticed it in Hattie Carroll.

 

It's one of his key techniques for a certain kind of song. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" is I think the earliest example. "Hattie Carroll" is another great one, so is "Mr Tambourine Man." And there are lots of others.

L.

 

Both sessions (Dylan's and Charlie Rich's) have Charlie McCoy as a prominent player on them. And I believe Jerry Kennedy (who produced and played guitar on the Charlie Rich sessions) also appeared on some of BoB, didn't he?

 

Yes, he did. Kennedy also produced the fabulous Jerry Lee country records of the late 60s/early 70s (as well as some not-so-fabulous ones later in the latter decade). No doubt Dylan was/is familiar with those (although not pertinent to this time period).

 

. . . and if Johanna is read as Gehenna, that same vision might involve some kind of oblivion, loss of self . . . death for the narrator. Reminiscent of the Romantics' poetic search for the trascendent vision . . . it was always just out of grasp, a ruin or a chasm, forever absent, at least while one has consciousness. Or something like that!

 

from Wikipedia, per Clinton Heylin, Revolution in the Air:
"...Heylin suggests the title "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" refers to chapter 27, verse 15 (in the King James Bible): "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."

 

According to Sean Wilentz, it was Robbie Robertson on electric guitar for Visions of Johanna. Three songs were recorded that session, held on Feb. 14, 1966: 4th time Around, Johanna and some unreleased takes of Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat. Charlie McCoy was there, and definitely played on 4th Time Around, but Wilentz, who listened to the session tapes, seems confident that it was only Robertson who appeared on Johanna. Wayne Moss may have played only on the unreleased Pillbox Hat takes.

I'm overwhelmed by all the interest in Charlie Rich -- very cool! He will come up again in this thread, for sure, so I'd like to learn more about his Nashville sessions during 1965-66. According to the discography I found, he recorded at "Columbia Recording Studio, 804 16th Avenue South, Nashville," and was produced by Jerry Kennedy. As far as I know, that's the same studio where the Blonde sessions were held, and it may be the case that many of the same musicians played for both artists, Rich and Dylan.

Jerry Kennedy did attend Dylan's Blonde sessions, although I'm still trying to figure out if he appeared on any of the finished tracks. According to the Krogsaard listings at bjorner.com, Kennedy played only on some unreleased takes of Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat. Elsewhere, I've read that he played the trademark acoustic guitar riff on Just Like A Woman, so it's not clear which tracks he did actually appear on. (I really loved his work with Jerry Lee, too.)

I was going to post this song when we covered the upcoming track (One of Us Must Know), but what the hell, I'll do it now. Isn't this great stuff?

 

I'm not sure I buy the idea that "Johanna" has some relationship to "Gehenna," and think the feelings and ideas that the song works with are more quotidian than all that--at least it's not theological. It does engage some serious philosophical issues, though--without really being "about" them in any consistent or rigorous way. The main thing is the feeling, the sense of "freeze out," the empty waiting and the perceptions and insights, or puzzles that come to the singer as he sits there stranded. Maybe something happens at the end, maybe things don't change. I don't know. The empty cage does corrode, so maybe he escapes (or maybe nothing escapes because nothing was there); debts have been paid, what in what sense? What does it mean for a conscience to explode? Is that an event or a non-event? Does it leave you unburdened or destroyed. Not sure it matters, given that the visions of the lady are are still the only thing there at the end. The song always circles back to that. Leads outward in speculative circles back to that.

L.

 

Oh my goodness this song is incredible!!!!

 

Not to derail the thread, but being a Charlie Rich fanatic I must post the demo of "Feel Like Going Home" with Rich on piano.

 

Love that recording dearly. Not to further derail us, but there is a tangential Dylan connection, way post-Blonde. Jakob Dylan has said that his pop had a copy of a CBS compilation called Rockabilly Stars Vol. 1. (an album I snapped up when it first came out, and still have) and that's where he first heard Charlie Rich's soulful solo version of Feel Like Going Home, probably when his dad was playing the record.
http://www.amazon.com/Rockabilly-Stars-Volume-1/dp/tracks/B000002Z5W/ref=dp_tracks_all_1#disc_1

 

You may be right about the Muddy Waters track, but it surely wasn't the earliest example of people shouting and hooting in the background on a record (and I've used the term "party record" in its broadest sense). I've posted this track before in other threads. It was included on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, a 1952 collection that was "must-listen-to" for Greenwich Village folksingers during the early '60s, Dylan included. I'm not making an apples-to-apples comparison to Rainy Day Women, but the spirit of the recording is similar, I think.

 

This thread is just great. I'd only heard a couple of mid-seventies Charlie Rich tracks before now (to my knowledge anyway) and it's worth it for the couple of youtube links to some of his earlier stuff alone - thanks everyone!

 

So far, this thread has exceeded all of my expectations. Thanks to one and all. Really, I mean it.

And now, another context/chronology interlude, before we move on to track #4, One of Us Must Know.

I've always wondered if Dylan was striving to make a contemporary-sounding, commercially-palatable album in early '66, or if he was just Bob being Bob, and following his instincts. He became a millionaire in 1965 (so I've read) and the songwriting royalty checks alone from that year probably could have allowed him to retire at the age of just 24(!) He could have rested on his laurels and played Blowin' In The Wind and Mr. Tambourine Man in Vegas casinos for the rest of his days. But, of course, he didn't.

Listening to Blonde on Blonde nearly 50 years after the fact, it has a unique sound, but how did it fit in with other contemporary singles and albums when it was released in mid-66? I am certainly no musicologist, but that's one of the questions that I wanted to explore in this thread.

Here is a sample of what was being heard on the pop radio airwaves as Dylan was recording Blonde:

MARCH 5, 1966
HOT 100 SINGLES CHART (select tracks)
(note: final Blonde on Blonde sessions held March 7-10)

current position/title/artist/no. weeks on chart
01. THE BALLAD OF THE GREEN BERETS -- S/Sgt. Barry Sadler (5)
02. THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKIN' -- Nancy Sinatra (7)
05. CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' -- Mamas & The Papas (9)
08. UP TIGHT -- Stevie Wonder (12)
10. MY WORLD IS EMPTY WITHOUT YOU -- Supremes (8)
11. I FOUGHT THE LAW -- Bobby Fuller Four (6)
12. 19th NERVOUS BREAKDOWN -- Rolling Stones (2)
15. CRYING TIME -- Ray Charles (13)
16. HOMEWARD BOUND -- Simon & Garfunkel (4)
24. BARBARA ANN -- Beach Boys (10)
25. NOWHERE MAN -- The Beatles (1)
30. GOING TO A GO-GO -- Miracles (11)
35. NO MATTER WHAT SHAPE (YOUR STOMACH'S IN)* -- T-Bones (13)
38. A WELL RESPECTED MAN -- Kinks (14)
39. THE RAINS CAME -- Sir Douglas Quintet (6)
45. NIGHT TIME -- Strangeloves (8)
46. I'M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY -- B. J. Thomas (3)
48. WE CAN WORK IT OUT -- Beatles (12)
51. ONE MORE HEARTACHE -- Marvin Gaye (3)
53. DAYDREAM -- Lovin' Spoonful (2)
57. WAITIN' IN YOUR WELFARE LINE -- Buck Owens (6)
63. IT WON'T BE WRONG -- The Byrds (4)
64. THIS OLD HEART OF MINE -- Isley Brothers (3)
72. INSIDE LOOKING OUT -- The Animals (2) [b/w: YOU'RE ON MY MIND]
79. SATISFACTION -- Otis Redding (1)

Several of these tracks will figure into future discussion here, but this B-side caught my ear. Recorded by The Animals, and produced by Tom Wilson, Dylan's former producer (and the man responsible for the overdubbed version of Sounds of Silence, which was a huge hit for Simon & Garfunkel during this same time period) it has a certain Dylanesque/Blonde-ish musical qulity to it, and almost -- almost -- brings to mind One of Us Must Know. The only problem is that the single (Inside Looking Out was the A-side) wasn't released until after Dylan recorded One of Us Must Know. Were the Animals doing a Dylan-type song, or did Bob somehow hear the track before the single was released, and apply the sound of it to his own recording? It's one of those "close calls" that I've encountered several times while researching the charts from this era. I'd like to know what everyone thinks.



[BTW: This sounds a LOT like '70s Springsteen too, doesn't it?]

 

I gotta go with the BYRDS and Beatles as big influences.

The whole revolution of folk rock that was helped triggered by McGuinn and company, plus the guitar sounds of the Beatles is a huge influence.

Deep cut influence , Don't Worry Baby by the Beach Boys. That sound lends a certain flow and melody quality to Blond that Dylan did not previously flash as often before.
Mix all of that with the Nashville players, Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson and with Dylan's incredible songs, lyrics, vocals and magical musical weavings -voila.

I'd add Donovan's Sonny Goodge Street and Simon and Garfunkels's Sounds of Silence as influences . I'm pretty sure he liked and respected most of the songs listed, but not cite them as particularly influential.

 

Here's Sunny!

• Donovan - Sunny Goodge Street - YouTube
  ▶ 3:00
  www.youtube.com/watch?v=icEZMAcyMuA