Bringing It All Back Home vs Highway 61 Revisited

[Robert163]

@Voyager

I assume you weren’t around then.

Not let the boys in - sending them in to Vietnam.

Old folks home at the college - when it was written you could often get a 2S student deferment as long as you were in school, so people wanting to avoid the draft would grow old in college.

Then there is fatten the slaves and send them off to the jungle.

The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken could refer to China.

And tombstone blues back then clearly could be bodies from Nam.

I’m not saying Dylan planned all this out. If Chronicles can be believed, he has the best subconscious writing mind around.

most of those make sense except the suns not yellow its chicken
i think that is just poetry

[Voyager]

@installLSC

I would vote a slight fave to “Bringing”. There’s isn’t a single track with a flaw on that album, while both “Thin Man” and “Desolation Row” somewhat wander off track and have some lyrical fuzziness. (Yes I know a lot of “Bringing”'s songs are lyrically cryptic, but it seems less forced.) Nevertheless, both are excellent albums.
I gotta disagree with those who say the rock songs on “Bringing” are tenative. How would you consider “Subterranean”, “Outlaw Blues”, and “Maggie’s Farm” half-hearted? It’s just that album had fewer songs that would work with a driving rock beat.

The session guy on BIABH were great, but Bloomfield was a genius. The music didn’t get in the way of the brilliant lyrics, true.

Take a listen to the Newport version of Maggie on the No Direction Home official bootleg CD. Tell me that Maggie’s Farm doesn’t work with a driving rock beat. Dylan has the amazing ability to make his songs work in a variety of styles.

I think the weakest track on Highway 61 is Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. Thin Man is just so devastating that I love it. I missed the humor to some extent also. “People carry signs around, saying ‘Ban the Bums’” Brilliant!

[Voyager]

@Octarine

Also, something about “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” cracks me up (Particularly I said, “You know they refused Jesus, too”/He said, “You’re not Him" and the final lines He said his name was Columbus/I just said, “Good luck”). Chances are it’s some sort of deep metaphor for so-and-so about the formation of the US, but just taken at face value I find it hilarious.

I love that song too, but I think it is first, like I said, a true dream and second a more sophisticated version of Talking NY Blues and Hard Times in New York Town, about a country boy coming to the big city.

Sorry for citing songs not widely available - I have lots of versions, but nowhere near a fraction of what is out there.

[GreenElf]

@Voyager

I think the weakest track on Highway 61 is Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.

Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues is one of my favorites.

[twickster]

Robert163, please don’t post full lyrics to a song here. It’s okay to quote a snippet, but pls. provide a link to where they can be found elsewhere online instead of quoting the whole thing.

Thanks,

twicks

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

Both are classic works, but “Maggie’s Farm,” “It’s All Right, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” make me give the nod to *Bringing It All Back Home.
*

Blood on the Tracks is Dylan’s best work, though.

[dropzone]

@SaharaTea

I like more of the songs on BIABH as opposed to Highway 61, but the gorgeous “Desolation Row” trumps all of them IMO.

This.

@The_Peyote_Coyote

Blood on the Tracks is Dylan’s best work, though.

And here is where we diverge.