Showing posts with label bob dylan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bob dylan. Show all posts

Thursday, 27 November 2025

Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind marks his re-emergence, 1975

When Bob Dylan went to ground in 1966, it would be eight years before he returned to live performance. Eight momentous years, during which the singer's words became entwined with astonishing events - freedom marches, assassinations, the war in Vietnam, the moon landings.

The poet and author Daniel Mark Epstein witnessed Dylan's return to the stage at Madison Square Garden in 1974. He had last seen Dylan perform live in 1963.

"Since then, his words had become prophetic."

And now, "Bob Dylan returned to the spotlight, with his guitar and harmonica, riding waves of applause. He launched into 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' and the audience cheered as they recognised the words."

Dylan getting used to playing live again, 1974
Come gather round people wherever you roam
And admit that waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.

But Dylan was nervous, understandably after such a long period away from the stage. He sang at a breakneck speed, "as if he couldn't wait to put it behind him, with all that burden of personal and shared history." 

As the set progressed though, he warmed to his task, resurrecting many of his most iconic songs and showing that he still had the fire in his belly; his ability to memorise lyrics in full display.

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon

It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding runs to 113 lines and almost 700 words. The darkness at the edge of noon is a metaphor for mankind's interference with nature. Dylan takes aim at the pillars of society and, in a radical lyrical change, received with great applause, he takes aim at Richard Nixon, at the time accused of criminal conspiracy to steal secrets from his political opponents.

"...even the President of the United States, sometimes must have to stand naked"

Dylan's last studio album, Planet Waves, was a collection of pleasant songs, including one genuine contender in Forever Young. But fans still yearned for the poetry and social conscience that marked Dylan out as the voice of a generation in the 1960s.

The 1974 concerts with The Band showed Dylan where he needed to be. As his cosy family life dissolved and he embraced his music fully once again, he produced a masterpiece.

Blood On The Tracks contains some beautiful, graceful songs of love lost, tender moments shared and trust betrayed. It's arguably his most romantic album, apart from perhaps Blonde On Blonde, but it's also in parts his most angry.

Idiot Wind is the centrepiece song from side one. It's the tale of a man misunderstood, interwoven with bitterness and personal attacks on a former lover.

With typical obtuseness, Dylan denied the lyrics are in any way autobiographical, but it is very hard to believe him, given the proximity to his break up with wife Sara, and the sheer bile he invests in the lyrics.

On Idiot Wind, a poison pen letter to an estranged lover and confidante, Dylan lashes out at his partner and laments his predicament as a misunderstood public figure.

"People see me all the time, and they just can't remember how to act."

The line, "I haven't known peace and quiet, for so long I can't remember what it's like," is so pointedly personal it's hard to believe he isn't talking about himself.

Domestic bliss in Woodstock
He then seems to acknowledge that despite his life of family contentment, he wasn't cut out for it:
"You tamed the lion in my cage, but it just wasn't enough to change my heart."

So much anger and hate in these lines, it feels like intruding on private grief:

"I can't feel you anymore
I can't even touch the books you've read
"

And the final dismissal:

"I've been double-crossed now
For the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry
."

Idiot Wind....

Great songs and all, truly, but the reason I think Blood On The Tracks was so successful artistically and commercially, was that it was relatable. Anyone who has gone through a bitter break-up could empathise with the protagonist of Idiot Wind. The anger and spite in that song is not typical of the remainder of the album, which has some of the most romantic and heart-felt songs in Dylan's entire repertoire. Who amongst us cannot relate to the emotions expressed in "If You See Her, Say Hello" or "Simple Twist of Fate"?

Is it wrong to get enjoyment from a famous artist dissing their ex so publicly? The answer lies in how we project ourselves onto these words.

The clip featured here is from the second leg of the RollingThunder Revue tour - the 1976 stadium tour rather than the small club tour featured in Martin Scorsese's movie. 

This clip, while not of the greatest visual quality, packs a punch on the musical front. The band gives the song a bouncier feel but there is nothing bouncy about Dylan's delivery. It captures the anger of the recorded version very well, which is perhaps a reflection that has reconciliation with Sara around this time wasn't working out. 



The recording is from a TV special aired in September 1976 but dating from May 23 in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was the penultimate show of the Rolling Thunder tour. Reviews at the time noted how the initial charm of Dylan's travelling show had largely worn off. This performance was also released as part of the Hard Rain live album. Apart from bassist and band leader Rob Stoner, the band at this late stage of the tour consisted of T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles and David Mansfield on guitar, Scarlet Rivera on violin and Gary Burke on drums.

Someone's got it in for me
They're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out quick
But when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named Gray
And took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucks
And when she died it came to me
I can't help it if I'm lucky

People see me all the time
And they just can't remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas
Images and distorted facts
Even you, yesterday
You had to ask me where it was at
I couldn't believe after all these years
You didn't know me better than that
Sweet lady

Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the back roads headin' south
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I ran into the fortune-teller
Who said, "beware of lightning that might strike"
I haven't known peace and quiet
For so long I can't remember what it's like
There's a lone soldier on the cross
Smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done
In the final end he won the wars
After losin' every battle

I woke up on the roadside
Daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare
Shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars
You hurt the ones that I love best
And cover up the truth with lies
One day you'll be in the ditch
Flies buzzin' around your eyes
Blood on your saddle

Idiot wind
Blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

It was gravity which pulled us down
And destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage
But it just wasn't enough to change my heart
Now everything's a little upside down
As a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad, what's bad is good
You'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom

I noticed at the ceremony
Your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore
Your mouth has changed
Your eyes don't look into mine
The priest wore black on the seventh day
And sat stone-faced while the building burned
I waited for you on the running boards
Near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned
Slowly into autumn

Idiot wind
Blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I can't feel you anymore
I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door
I been wishin' I was somebody else instead
Down the highway, down the tracks
Down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars
Hounded by your memory
And all your ragin' glory

I been double-crossed now
For the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry

Idiot wind
Blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind
Blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots, babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves

- Bob Dylan 1975

Saturday, 30 November 2024

A Complete Unknown - the life and times of Bob and Joan

Bob Dylan fans are abuzz about the new biopic 'A Complete Unknown' starring Timothee Chalomet, depicting Dylan's emergence in the early 1960s. 

Much has been made of Chalomet's resemblance to the young Dylan and his insistence on doing his own singing and playing in the movie. I've linked to the movie trailers at the foot of this piece.

I'm interested to see how the film, which opens on Christmas Day,  portrays the relationship between Bob and Joan Baez. It's a love story with an enduring fascination. Although their romance ended in the mid-60s, they have performed together many times over the years.

Baez nurtured Dylan's career early on, allowing him to share her stage and introducing him to the wider folk music world outside of Greenwich Village. She became his muse and musical sidekick and he was more than happy to use her as his jumping off platform. 

In later life, Dylan acknowledged the debt he owed to Baez, but he did a poor job of repaying it at the time. For her part, Joan was guilty only of blind devotion. 

For anyone who wants to delve deeper into the Bob and Joan backstory, I'd recommend David Hadju's excellent book 'Positively 4th Street'. Hadju weaves Bob and Joan's lives in with Joan's sister Mimi and her partner Richard Fariña. Mimi and Richard had their own musical partnership and Fariña was also a budding novelist. What separates the book from the many other Dylan biographies is the insight to how their everyday lives were intertwined and how their careers developed in quite different ways. 

Early in the story, Baez takes great pride in showing off her boyfriend to the folk music community and to the civil rights and peace movement (Ban The Bomb!) of the early to mid 60s. Their duets at Newport and concert halls across America are rightly held as historic moments. 

As Hadju's book notes: "This gorgeous woman, who is an icon in her own right, latches onto you and says, I'll be your everything, including being your lover. She adopted him. She found this guy who gave voice to all that powerful stuff, and she nurtured him in that role. He made out on every level."

Baez and Dylan in 1963
The candid chat between Bob and Joan in Martin Scorsese's 'Rolling Thunder Revue' movie, where they discuss how their lives diverged, is poignant because it's clear even then (1975) that Joan still holds a candle for him. Joan’s love for Bob goes way beyond the music, but it's really not clear how far Bob's love for Joan extends, beyond fond memories of their time together.  

As we saw in D.A. Pennebaker's movie 'Don't Look Back' about his UK tour in 1965, when Joan accompanied him to the UK, it was fairly obvious he didn't want her there. On that tour he didn't - as she had expected - reciprocate by inviting her onstage to perform with him.

Bob would later say he was just trying to deal with the craziness of his life at that point. He had created this monster, the voice of a generation. Everyone looked to Bob for the answer and his response was to be increasingly cryptic and surreal. Contemporary reviewers referred to Dylan as a poet - how he "knew" and how he was "telling it like it is". But as NME writer Mick Farren noted in a retrospective mid-1970s assessment of Blonde On Blonde, "If Dylan was really telling it like it is, we'd all know exactly what he was talking about."

But Hadju's book is not a story about doomed love. It shows a relationship in full bloom, noting how Bob and Joan had a similar sense of the absurd, and at times it appeared as if they were having a private joke against the world. 

"A lovely thing was happening and I didn't want it to end," Joan said later.

Hadju's story does have a tragic ending, with the death of Richard Fariña in a motorcycle accident in 1966, just as he was launching his first novel. It was his partner Mimi Baez’s 21st birthday. 

Three months later, Dylan came off his bike near his home in Woodstock, New York. He knew he could have died on his motorcycle, as Fariña had. Ironically, the accident offered him the perfect excuse to go into hiding.

Dylan wrote, in his memoir, Chronicles, Vol 1: “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.”

Hadju wrote: “For a year and a half after the accident, Dylan stayed in seclusion in Woodstock, while rock musicians absorbed and drew upon his ideas.

Of Bob's classic mid 1960s albums, Hadju concludes, “The trio of records uniting poetry with elements of folk and rock and roll – Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and the double Blonde On Blonde, came to be acknowledged as pop masterworks and charted a whole new style of music."

Today, it seems that Bob and Joan are no longer in contact, but she harbours no bitterness towards him, recognising that what they did together was unique and in many ways historically significant.

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A Complete Unknown - movie trailer

A Complete Unknown featurette

Bob Dylan & Joan Baez - It Ain't Me Babe (Live 1964)

Sunday, 26 June 2022

Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan's artistic peak in the 1960s

Cool Bob, 1966

Like many a 1960s classic album, Blonde On Blonde is a record that is very much of its time, but one that still resonates down the years as an important milestone in rock music. 

It marked the end of an era for Dylan himself, the culmination of two years of intensive writing, recording and touring that could have turned him into another rock and roll casualty. He was too smart to fall into that trap, though. Or maybe he was just lucky.

In 1965, Bob Dylan had consolidated his move into electric music with the album ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ and its iconic single ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. He had toured Europe, confronting the hostility towards his new electric sound from folk purists who called him Judas for abandoning the protest movement and his acoustic guitar.

In his contemporary review of Blonde on Blonde for Crawdaddy magazine in July 1966, Paul Williams had words for those who continued to boo Dylan at his live shows.

Electric Bob, cool suit
"As long as people persist in believing that Dylan should be playing his new songs on a folk guitar instead of with a band, they will fail to realise that he is a creator, not a puppet, and a creator who has now reached musical maturity. If you’re interested in what he’s saying, you must listen to him on his own terms."

By the end of 1966, Dylan would be in hiding, burnt out from the road and keen to embrace family life. But as the year opened, he was on top of the world commercially. He had sold 10 million records worldwide and had begun recording a double album (a first in the rock era) that would be the culmination of his early 60s rise to stardom. 

On Blonde On Blonde, in contrast to his previous albums, two things stood out for Paul Williams: “the uniform high quality of the songs chosen for this extra-long LP and the wonderful, wonderful accompaniments.”

Recording sessions had begun in New York in October 1965, but whatever Dylan was looking for, he wasn’t getting it from these sessions. His producer Bob Johnston recognised that Bob wanted to craft an album with greater refinement than his previous efforts. Organist Al Kooper and guitarist Robbie Robertson were retained from the New York dates and in early 1966, the sessions moved to the CBS studios in Nashville, using their highly experienced session players.

“Not only is Dylan’s present band easily the best backup band in the country, but they appear able to read his mind,” said Williams. “On this album, they almost inevitably do the right thing at the right time. They do perfect justice to each of his songs, and that is by no means a minor accomplishment.”

My vinyl copy is an original 1966 UK CBS version, with inner sleeves advertising
Andy Williams and Doris Day alongside Dylan, The Byrds and Miles Davis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the first Nashville session on Valentine’s night, Dylan recorded a keeper version of ‘Visions of Johanna’, side one track 3 of the original vinyl. Dylan biographer Greil Marcus suggested the song had been written during the blackout that shut down New York in November 1965, which might explain lines like “the heat pipes just cough” and “lights flicker in the opposite loft”.  

When people refer to this song as an example of Dylan’s genius, it’s down to the atmosphere he creates with the lyrics and their delivery.

"Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo, 'this is what salvation must be like after a while'
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles"

While folkies complained that he wouldn’t sing ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ any more, rock fans puzzled over the meaning of these new words. Dylan's command of language and his own skewed and playful lyrics were a key part of the intrigue - and he wasn't about to enlighten anyone as to their meaning.

"Only when it is amplified by music and declamation," wrote the poet Gerard Malanga, "does Dylan's verse stand forth in all its living strength and beauty. In the subtle distinction of its peculiar rhythm...an entirely new language prevails."

On 'Memphis Blues Again', Dylan relates specific episodes and emotions in his offhand, impressionistic manner.

Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells
Speaking to some French girl
Who says she knows me well
And I would send a message
To find out if she’s talked
But the post office has been stolen
And the mailbox is locked
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again

This track sounds fresh and full of bounce, which is amazing considering it was Take 20, finally completed in the early hours of February 17. Dylan did a lot of lyric writing in the studio, so the musicians needed to be patient. 

Contemporary reviews referred to Dylan as a poet - how he "knew" and how he was "telling it like it is". But as NME writer Mick Farren admitted in a retrospective mid-1970s assessment of Blonde On Blonde, "If Dylan was really telling it like it is, we'd all know exactly what he was talking about. We wouldn't have been sifting through his symbolism, in the vain attempt to find his particular Rosebud." That sifting has only intensified in the intervening 50 years.

The gatefold of Blonde on Blonde and the NME reassessment by Mick Farren

It’s not just the words though. Credit must go to the musicians for providing such sympathetic accompaniment. The keyboards and the guitar playing, the bass and drums are all excellent. That must have been inspiring to Dylan himself, pushing him to produce his best work.

“Blonde on Blonde is - in the quality of the sound, the decisions as to what goes where, the mixing of the tracks, the timing - one of the best-produced records I’ve ever heard. Producer Bob Johnston deserves immortality at least,” said Williams in his ’66 review.

Bob and Joan Baez

There's a strong romantic thread running through much of the album. It's a key factor that made Blonde On Blonde so powerful for the listener. Dylan’s love songs up to this point - like ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ (“I'll only let you down”) or ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’ (“Valentines can't buy her”) - had been less than tender.

Blonde On Blonde has a handful of truly romantic songs that stand today as classics, where the tenderness outweighs the bitterness; notably I Want You, Just Like A Woman and Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.

The day after recording ‘Visions of Johanna’, the session for Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands began at 6 pm, but Dylan hadn’t finished the words. Finally, at 4 am, the musicians assembled for a take. This link has them working out an arrangement.

Though they were reasonably familiar with the song, the band hadn’t appreciated it would run for almost 12 minutes. Drummer Kenny Buttrey recalled they'd be looking at each other thinking, “man, this is it, this is gonna be the last chorus and we've gotta put everything into it we can. We're cracking up. I mean, we peaked five minutes ago.”

Part of the intrigue of the romantic songs on Blonde On Blonde was who Dylan was writing about - it could often be Joan Baez, on ‘Sooner Or Later’ or ‘4th Time Around’, for example. Dylan later acknowledged the debt he owed to Baez - who nurtured his career early on - but he did a poor job of repaying it in 1965, when Joan accompanied him to the UK.

You feel for her, watching the movie 'Don't Look Back'. the film about Dylan's UK tour in April 1965. By this time, Bob was already involved with Sara Lownds, but he hadn't told Joan. It was Sara, while working at the film production division of Time Life, who had introduced Dylan to D.A. Pennebaker, the director of Don't Look Back. It must have been humiliating for Baez, realising she'd made a big mistake in coming on that tour.

Sara poses for an unused version
of the Highway 61 album cover

.Bob would later say he was just trying to deal with the craziness of his life at that point; and it was crazy. Joan should never have gone with him to the UK. She described it as hell (everyone else was on drugs - she was straight). And Bob didn't - as she had expected - reciprocate Joan's generosity by inviting her onstage to perform with him.

Bob and Sara married in secret in November 1965. On ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’, it was his new wife he was serenading.

In his book 'Bob Dylan - An illustrated history', Michael Gross called Blonde On Blonde "letter-perfect rock and roll. Here was an album with a song that lasted a whole side. The symbolism was Dylan's but the situations were everyone's. If any one disc recorded in the Sixties can stand as a psycho-historical recreation of the times, this is it.

"With its passionate love songs and descents into Dylan's dramatic, urban landscape, is not an album to pin down. Like the ‘ghost of electricity, howling in the bones of her face,’ it is more something to feel.”

The first single from Blonde On Blonde in April 1966 saw Dylan being as plain as could be about smoking marijuana, while also deflecting to avoid censure. Knowing that a song called ‘Everybody Must Get Stoned’ might be banned before it even got out of the traps, he called the song ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35’.

In The Rolling Thunder Logbook, Sam Shepard quotes a character called Johnny Dark saying, “I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw ‘Everybody must get stoned’ on the jukebox. I mean there it was, right in front of everybody. Right there in the restaurant. I couldn’t believe you could play that kind of stuff in public while you were eating your cheeseburger.”

Regardless of the cryptic title, it’s a wonder the song wasn’t banned anyway. It did inevitably fall foul of conservative programmers at some radio stations in the US and it was excluded from playlists at the BBC. But exposure on pirate radio stations was sufficient to see it rise to No. 7 in the UK. It made it all the way to No. 2 in the US.

With Francoise Hardy, 1966
Blonde On Blonde was so entwined with the unique circumstances of the sixties – the flowering of youth culture and rebellion against the cultural norms of the time - that sober reflection was difficult for those who had lived it.

"One of the main problems approaching Blonde On Blonde after all this time (my italics) is the temptation to take the whole thing far too reverently," said Farren in 1976. 

Indeed, so here we are, another fifty years down the track and the album is still resonating.   

The playfulness and wilful surrealism of some of Dylan's imagery doesn’t detract from the power and fascination of this record. Even as a teenager, I could tell this was something to get lost in. Blonde On Blonde was the first Bob Dylan album I bought and it was another of those records that fired my imagination. Did I get the full message on those first listens? Certainly not, but what I did hear was an atmosphere and a sense that this music really had depth to it. I was tapping into an unattainable bohemian lifestyle.

In his book ‘The Ballad of Bob Dylan’, Daniel Mark Epstein described seeing Dylan’s comeback show at Madison Square Garden in 1974. “Now, at the age of 25, I could understand lyrics that meant little to me when I heard them at 17. Poetry grows with you.”

In the year when punk rock broke through in the UK, Farren was still in awe of Dylan's achievement 10 years earlier.

"It is certainly Bob Dylan's finest hour and there are less than a handful of other works that can seriously challenge it for the title of the greatest rock album of all time."

In fact, a year earlier, the NME writers had judged it to be, in their collective wisdom, the second greatest album ever, after Sgt Pepper.

In April 1966, Dylan’s friend Richard Fariña died in a motorcycle accident in California, just as he was launching his first novel. It was his partner Mimi Baez’s 21st birthday. Tragic in every way. 

Three months later, Dylan came off his bike near his home in Woodstock, New York. He knew he could have died on his motorcycle, as Fariña had.

Ironically, the accident offered him the perfect excuse to go into hiding.

Dylan wrote, in his memoir, Chronicles, Vol 1: “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.”

In his excellent book ‘Positively 4th Street’, about how the lives of Bob, Joan, Mimi and Richard had intertwined, David Hadju wrote: “For a year and a half after the accident, Dylan stayed in seclusion in Woodstock, while rock musicians absorbed and drew upon his ideas.

“The trio of records uniting poetry with elements of folk and rock and roll – Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and the double Blonde On Blonde, came to be acknowledged as pop masterworks and charted a whole new style of music. 

“When Dylan began making music again, it was wholly for his own pleasure.”

He made very few public appearances once Blonde On Blonde was released and did not tour again for almost eight years.

Here's Dylan on the 1966 UK tour, singing 'Visions of Johanna' unaccompanied.

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Also on this Blog:

Bob and Joan and Scarlett and Joni... Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue

Idiot Wind marks Dylan's re-emergence in 1975