Blood on the Tracks

It’s decent, but I just don’t get why people like his music so much

I understand the influence, and honestly a great lyricist and intersting song structures..... but that voice.

I don't know that sadness, pain and regret have been so seductively packaged too many times.

Favorite songs: Meet Me in the Morning, Tangled Up In Blue, Shelter From the Storm, "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", Idiot Wind

Least favorite songs: Buckets of Rain

4/5

I like it, solid songs.

This album has somewhat of a cult following. I am not one of those people, but I get it. With the exception of Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts, this is a great album. You know there's a bunch of old dudes sitting around saying, "Blood on the Tracks really got me through some tough times." Must be good, right?

Not his best, but I'm not a lyrics guy, so I'm not the best one to ask on this one. Still, I like the guy, so at least a 3

Think I would need to listen to this 5 more times before it clicks and I absorb the lyrics. Initial reaction is it's solid but not something I would seek out. 3/5.

Doesn't feel as douchy as his earlier albums, but he ruins my goodwill to him by making every one of these songs longer than they need to be. God he's so annoying.

Ne mogu da vjerujem da ovo govorim ali tangled up in blue nije grozna pjesma stvarno. Samo što je poslije nje sve gore i gore. I onda se još ubaci blentava usna harmonika i dodatno pokvari. Vokali dno dna logično. Ne kontam hype još uvijek.

Blood on the Tracks is the most focused collection of songs in Dylan’s catalog, and his greatest artistic achievement in terms of crafting a structured, thematic piece of work. In the throes of a major life shift, Bob accurately conveys every emotion and coping mechanism that comes with the dissolution of a long-term relationship. Throughout these ten songs, he expresses bitterness (both understandable and irrational), replays multiple scenarios with a seemingly impossible balance of confusion and clarity, admits fault while not being afraid to place blame on other parties, resigns himself to mournfulness, and occasionally offers the glimmer of hope or optimism that you can only believe so much coming from a damaged lover.

Conceptually, it’s a total success, but what elevates this record to its rarefied brilliance is the astonishing execution of the material. For as great as the lyrics are across the board, Bob graces every single song with a melody that’s just as good, and furthermore, delivers a cogent, passionate vocal on each one. Regardless of which tracks derive from the original New York sessions (shoutout to Tony Brown’s exceptional bass work on these songs in particular) or the last-minute Minneapolis sessions, the soundscapes provide the right amount of musicality and tunefulness without detracting from the lyrics’ emotional impact.

I suppose each statement in the last two paragraphs should have the obligatory “in my opinion” attached to it, given the subjectivity of art in general. This has been a subjective ranking, after all. More so than any other Dylan record, though, the heights of Blood on the Tracks feel about as close to objective or undeniable as possible. For me, it’s apparent right from the opening of “Tangled Up in Blue”; I’m completely hooked even before Bob’s flawless lyric, vocal, and melody enter. The blend of acoustic and electric guitars with Gregg Inhofer’s subtle keyboard pad is a sound as glorious as anything ever committed to tape, and anchors the nearly-six-minute journey with sheer elegance. After all these years, it’s still a top 20 Dylan track for me.

“Simple Twist of Fate” and “Shelter from the Storm”, both from the New York sessions, also rank among my top 20, and deserve every bit of praise they’ve received over the last 50 years. Bob’s storytelling and imagery are as effective as they’ve ever been on these two tracks, with both receiving an added boost of distinct, dynamic emotionalism. “You’re a Big Girl Now” and “If You See Her, Say Hello” are equally stunning and particularly devastating, featuring two of the most impressive vocal performances on the record. And with all due respect to the numerous instances of first-class songwriting between John Wesley Harding and Planet Waves, “Idiot Wind” is Bob’s most ambitious, industrious accomplishment since Blonde on Blonde, and for my money, an absolute triumph. To this day, the last verse never fails to make me shake my head in awe (“You’ll never know the hurt I’ve 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”).

Hell, I even love the occasionally-maligned “Meet Me in the Morning”. The blues have been a large part of Bob’s musical DNA from day one, so it seems fitting to me that he would include a blues number on an album centered around heartbreak. I dig everything about it, especially Bob’s soaring vocal and the perfect tones of each electric guitar. It’s never felt out of place to me, and regardless of how much love is given to the outtake “Up to Me”, I wouldn’t trade this track for anything.

I must admit that I gravitate towards a few alternate takes of these songs. Give me take two from the New York sessions of “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”, featured on More Blood, More Tracks. As much as I love the album cut of “You’re a Big Girl Now”, I return even more to the outtake originally issued on Biograph. It’s even a close call on “Idiot Wind”; the album version is a top 30 Dylan track for me, due in part to his fiery delivery and excellent band performance, but I like the acoustic version from The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 at least just as much.

But really, it’s basically irrelevant at this point. We’re talking about Blood on the Tracks here. I could sit here and attempt to further delineate the majesty of these songs, but there’s nothing I could say to do any of them justice, and most anyone reading this understands the overwhelming power of this album anyway. I feel truly lucky to live in a world where Blood on the Tracks exists. I’ll never take it for granted.

Least favorite track: “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”. To my ears, this one has always felt more out of place than “Meet Me in the Morning”. I don’t dislike it; it’s an intriguing story (one that honestly still confounds me) and another solid vocal from Bob. After living with this album for decades, it’s continued to grow on me. But every now and then, the organ still feels over-prominent to me, especially given the song’s length (one of the main reasons I much prefer the acoustic take). It’s the only track that wouldn’t land in my top 100 Dylan songs.

Favorite track: “Buckets of Rain”. From a compositional standpoint, my answer would be “Tangled Up in Blue”, “Simple Twist of Fate”, “Idiot Wind”, or “Shelter from the Storm”, all of which are among my top 30 favorite Bob songs. But there’s a magic to this song, both on its own and in context of the record, that deeply affects me every single time I listen to it. The musical conversation taking place between Dylan’s magnificent guitar work and Brown’s dancing bass line is simply one of the most serene sounds ever captured. Bob’s vocal is as wistful and splendidly straightforward as the lyrics, and each line, no matter how simple, packs such a strong emotional punch. It’s the perfect closing track for this record, and often closes out any Dylan playlist I make. A top 10 personal favorite for me. Pure greatness.

5+/5

The 1001 has shown me that I like Bob Dylan, but I question how necessary this album was to include. Sure, I get the history - it was Dylan's comeback album so it might have "historic" significance, but it's not so different from his 60s writing to warrant including it. It didn't help that a few of the songs were a little on the long side (e.g., Idiot Wind, which got a little grating after a while, and Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts) and honestly I found most of Side 2 pretty boring (except Shelter from the Storm - nice track, good lyrics). It's a shame, too, because I really enjoyed the first few tracks, particularly Tangled Up in Blue and Simple Twist of Fate. On the one hand, I want to call it a 4 with the aim of digging deeper, but I'm ready to move on, which makes it a 3.

The writing here is simply amazing. This is him “going back to his roots” and it’s done really well. Really great album cover too.

Should go on the albums to listen to at least 1001 times before you die list.

From start to finish, this is Dylan's greatest achievement. It's his most literary record b/c it's his most confessional, his most sustained, his most motivated and focused. I guess love will do that to you - will exalt a writer to brass tacks. Featuring a vindictive storyteller getting his get back ('Idiot Wind'), and a nearly nine min interlude about Big Jim and the Jack of Hearts, the album tells it like it is by telling his version of it. As much as I revere 'Blowin' in the Wind,' 'Like a Rolling Stone,' and 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall,' I love those records b/c they speak to something culturally or societally universal. Here, Bob jettisons the cultural and societal for the personal - and he may just be a tad deeper b/c of that.

Pretty nice-sounding cozy folk songs; however, the harmonica parts are a little loud.

Probably a top ten album of all time. Probably Dylan's best album. So much good stuff. Idiot Wind is savage, regretful and sad. You're a Big Girl Now, Simple Twist of Fate, Shelter From the Storm. These are towering achievements of song. So much truth here.

agradável, mas não é música de todo dia pra mim não.
no mais, é bob dylan e é isso aí. acredito que não mude muito de album pra album não. dá de ouvir uma vez ou outra, mas toda vez, acho que deve cansar.

no mais, acho ele um bom letrista e gosto do vocal meio paia dele. 3 sólido esse aqui.

I feel like I should have paid a lot more attention to this, but I liked what I actually paid attention to.

Really enjoyed this