The Law Can't Touch Her at All: Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home

As indicated by the thread title, my vote goes to "She Belongs to Me." I'd put it against "I've Just Seen a Face" in a Dylan/Beatles love-song showdown.

Feels like a cliched choice, but Mr. Tambourine Man

Between "She Belongs to Me", "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Subterranean" for me.

Shocked this hasn't been done! There are many classics here but for me it's "Subterranean" as the song I heard a few seconds of in a TV documentary my parents were watching about rock and roll, that made me have to hear the whole thing, and then hear it again, and again, and again. I was probably 14? I'd liked music before but this was unearthly brilliant and mind-blowing. Then "Tambourine Man" did it to me again (I had found the Greatest Hits record in the basement). I still find that one totally mesmerizing and sui generis, it probably sounds like tons of other Dylan songs in reality but in my ears it's unique, calls forth all kinds of feelings and mysteries no other recording does. But "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was the gateway, and from there to the Beatles and to so much more for me. I didn't get this album until probably five or six years later at least; the big discovery then was probably "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" which is probably the most slapstick-hilarious of all his rambling gag songs.

Man, this is a good record!

Always loved the first side and thought the acoustic stuff on the second side dragged a little but will relisten before so vote.

Before I vote

tambourine man is his best melody.

almost voted it's alright ma, but what i usually put on is the 1964 bootleg performance (amazing) or the one on before the flood (fun). amusing to compare crowd reactions to the line about the president.

voted baby blue: a surreal standard. this was the first dylan album i ever heard and i remember assuming it was his final album because what would you record after it's all over now baby blue. i hadn't heard a lot of albums by anyone to be clear.

some great vocal drones in gates of eden.

(bootleg series, i mean to say. the halloween show. got my bob dylan mask on.)

Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" vs. the Byrds?

^^^ i made some other attempts to grasp "Mr. Tambourine Man" here but appropriately, he always slips away.

Another vote for Baby Blue, but it wasn't an easy choice. I'm probably in the minority, but this is my favorite Dylan album.

This is my third favorite of the Big Three, which means it is my third favorite of his, but it’s a close third.

"Love Minus Zero/No Limit"

"Love Minus Zero/No Limit." One of the best love songs ever written & one of my favorite songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMi3h_lKuyQ

Can count the number of songs on one hand that capture, at this level, the feeling of being in love.

I can't get over the number of incandescent classics on this record - each one I think my god, what could be better than that? and then I look down the list and see another. "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "She Belongs to Me", "Maggie's Farm", "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", "Gates of Eden", "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" are all like that for me.

otm this is a near perfect record

Subterranean Homesick Blues is surely one of the most powerful, creative, funny and restlessly energetic attempts at conveying the fragmented chaos of (post)modern life, probably gets my vote

An amazing set of songs and one of them is even "Mr. Tambourine Man," but only one of them is "It's Alright, Ma."

"Love Minus Zero/No Limit" because it's an equation

Instinctively, It's Alright Ma, but damn what a tracklist.

Then again, how can there be a better song than She Belongs To Me?

This album is an apotheosis. Recorded in two days, essentially, and with very few takes. I find it almost impossible to choose between 7 of these songs, which are absolute masterpieces. I guess I'll go with "Mr. Tambourine Man" but "It's Alright, Ma" is close.

On the Road Again.

Just kidding. It's Alright Ma

"Love Minus Zero/No Limit"

Nearly impossible to choose between the last two tracks.

while Outlaw Blues and On the Road Again are both lesser songs, the only possible dud on this album is Gates of Eden which verges on parody but mostly reads like a very tired person on amphetamine:

The motorcycle black Madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins

reads like a very tired person on amphetamine

also reads like bruce springsteen's first three albums, verbatim

the "Gates of Eden" from the Halloween show is better because it's even more tired & deliberate.

agree that "gates of eden" ends up seeming a bit like a parody of dylan's surrealist songs, but i was just listening to this live electric version from 1988 and he really sells the song there. totally vicious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXsNi02mRPw

could pick anything from the second side honestly, all of which are duking it out with SHB and Maggie's Farm. as much as I love Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, etc., Bringing It All Back Home is the album I usually return to, and the one with my favorites of all his lyrics.

i always overlook this record, among the pre-motorcycle crash electric records i always go to highway 61 first

subterranean homesick blues is nuts, that pure manic energy, distillation of the beats, rock n roll, chuck berry, speed, the mid-60s zeitgeist, that kind of shit that made me obsessed w/ that decade. i love the video he did, rabbi ginsberg lurking around in the background

"She Belongs to Me", with "...Baby Blue" in a close second (the upper registers in his vocals on that one always send shivers up my spine).

xp oh hell yeah that's a great live version, it needed a little preaching up!

Been ages since I played the actual album (as opposed to my favourite songs)--truthfully, I can't remember how "Outlaw Blues" or "On the Road Again" go. I'm sure I'd immediately remember them within a few seconds. After "She Belongs to Me," I'd go with "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Maggie's Farm," "Love Minus Zero," "Mr. Tambourine Man," and "Baby Blue." Great album cover, although I'd probably still go with the next two for cover art.

this record really is great. even those throwaways you mention — "outlaw blues" and "on the road again" get by on pure attitude.
might go w/ love minus zero ... just such wonderful lyrics:

The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold n' rainy
My love, she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing

like clemenza, I can't remember the last time I played this album. Probably my favorite sixties Dylan after JWH, though.

"bob dylan's 115th dream" was my favorite thing in the world for like two months after i discovered it, i remember writing a short story for high school in sophomore year loosely based on it. still think it builds to one of the best endings of any story-song i've ever heard -- maybe the best, feels as complete and satisfying as, like, "casey and the bat" or something. and nobody says GOOD LUCK quite like bob.

You say "How are you? Good luck," but you don't mean it...

They'll stone you, and then they'll say "Good luck"...

Total weak setup line: "I asked the captain what his name was and how come he didn't drive a truck."

It's in there for no reason except to set up the rhyme "He said his name was Columbus and I just said 'good luck'."

I always thought that if he recorded the song about 10 years later, he could've said "I asked the captain what his name was, as if I gave a fuck."

Oh well.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Friday, 11 February 2005 18:34 (thirteen years ago) Permalink

"bob dylan's 115th dream" was my favorite thing in the world for like two months after i discovered it, i remember writing a short story for high school in sophomore year loosely based on it.

No way, we did a skit based on it freshman year.

I feel bad saying this, but it feels to me like a warm-up for Tombstone Blues.

Welp, I voted for Gates of Eden, and I'm not sorry. It's not necessarily the best song on here, but to me it's maybe the one that's the most intense and visionary. Seems to be fearlessly exploring some other woozy dimension. To be honest I feel it feels kind of of a piece with "It's Alright Ma...". They compliment each other.

No way, we did a skit based on it freshman year.

― timellison, Tuesday, April 10, 2018 3:39 AM (thirty-three minutes ago)

haha that is awesome!

"and how come he didn't drive a truck" seems like a very bob dylan thing to ask someone, somehow

Shocked at 1) no Love Minus Zero consensus 2) people aren't totally sick of Subterranean Homesick Blues

Only other real contender here is Mr. Tambourine Man. Great record, but it has Love Minus Zero.

I'm just coming out and saying that I refuse to choose.

i said, you know, they refused jesus, too. he said, you're not him.

she talks to all the servants about Man and God and Law. everybody says she's the brains behind pa.

THEN HE FINES YOU EVERY TIME YOU SLAM THE DOOR

well he hands you a nickel, he hands you a dime
he asks you with a grin if you're havin' a good time

it's that "with a grin" that makes the line for me

otm

maggie's brother is the most immediately hateful one: the paymaster and enforcer. cruel smile on display. but behind him, pa capital, walled up and guarded (yet still smoking in yr face)-- probably worse. and behind him... what? an idea? an eye in the pyramid kind of deal? when force is gone, there's always mom

also, where is maggie? what does she do? have always wondered.

Welp, I voted for Gates of Eden, and I'm not sorry. It's not necessarily the best song on here, but to me it's maybe the one that's the most intense and visionary.

feel u, certainly it has some fairly jumbled verses but it also has some of my fave images on the album (dogs on the beach, rotting kingdoms, "the princess and the prince discuss / what's real and what is not" is superior to pound and eliot in the tower imo), a droning vortex melody that makes the clumsier lines at least spooky, and (my fave moment)
the drawled assonance on the phrase "i try to harmonize".

voted Dream just cos it's so much fun. feels like one of those 60's comedies with Peter Sellers or whoever and a house full of random partiers.

really love when he sings "An Englishman said 'fab'", it just comes out of nowhere so it's extra funny. it's just so plainly stated, it doesn't need any spin to it, just the idea of an Englishman saying "fab" in this whirlwind of insanity instantly gets the joke across.

also, where is maggie? what does she do? have always wondered.

― difficult listening hour, Friday, April 13, 2018 5:25 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maggie thatcher, obv

dylan always was ahead of his time

http://phildellio.tripod.com/homesick.JPG

I'm guessing a quarter of the people I work with already think I'm senile, so really, this can only help.

SHB is classic, more than ever. for me the cards have transcended from cool to overused cliche to now legendary, its an Instagram post, its a selfie, a meme, complete with celebrity photo bomb cred. the funny thing about being ahead of your time is that doesn't stop being true in fact it only seems for prophetic as time goes on.

really love the Nilsson/Lennon version on "Pussy Cats", it has a real cool dirty Voorman bass line. Dylan's original band recording is of course perfection, the ultimate junkyard rock. like a wheezing huffing punk steam engine dying in slow motion.

I play tambourine carefully and, I think, reasonably well. Good tambourine players are few, and what they do is subtle and song-enhancing. I love a well-played tambourine.

HOWEVER. There is no one in the history of ever who has "played a song" on the tambourine, as if it were a solo instrument capable of harmony, melody, or song structure.

And, I will further postulate, if it were possible to "play a song" on the tambourine, no one who "played a song" on the tambourine did so in a way that was sensorally transformative to the assembled listeners.

I always thought Mr. Tambourine Man’s primary instrument was guitar and that Turkish tambourine was just an extra.

Have you ever played a tambourine...on acid?

I always thought Mr. Tambourine Man’s primary instrument was guitar

Based on... what exactly?

If his primary instrument is guitar, then we would call him Mr. Guitar Man. Or Mr. Guitar Man Who Also Happens to Have a Tambourine.

Hendrix, Dylan, and Lennon all occasionally played bass. But would you refer to any of them as "Mr. Bassist"?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/21/bruce-langhorne-obituary

Right. Langhorne was... a guitarist who sometimes played tambourine.

If his primary instrument is guitar, then we would call him Mr. Guitar Man. Or Mr. Guitar Man Who Also Happens to Have a Tambourine.

― fleetwood machiavellian (Ye Mad Puffin)

are Mr. Airplane Man's primary instrument airplane?

Also, if you don't feel transported by tambourine solos perhaps you will enjoy solos on the the maracas and cajón:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlhYAKfilYk

But yeah, the truth be told I once asked my self exactly the same questions as you, YMP, about what was the nature of his “song.”

If his primary instrument is guitar, then we would call him Mr. Guitar Man. Or Mr. Guitar Man Who Also Happens to Have a Tambourine.
There was a street musician in my town for a few summers, when I was a teenager, an American with a guitar playing rock classics, and I'd often run into him with friends when out partying late. He had these small film containers half-filled with rice that he would use as rhythm eggs, and at some point he gave me one of those, said it was a "wonder-shaker", and I accompanied him for a few songs. I took it home with me and I keep it to this day. We called him the wonder-shaker man, and I always think of him when I think of mr. Tambourine Man.

so many lines from SHB regularly pop into my mind, especially
Twenty years of schoolin’
and they put you on the day shift

Me and my brother went to the same high-school and my brother got real fed up with it at some point. I admitted to him that I had also been fed up with it and that for a long time while riding my bike to school I would sing from the top of my lungs (in Danish translation): "I AIN'T GONNA GO TO [name of school] NO MORE!". To my surprise, he told me that he'd been singing the exact same silly translation for weeks!

This album rules.

If I had to rate these songs, I think I'd put them in the following order (favorite to least).

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
"Maggie's Farm"
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit
"Subterranean Homesick Blues"
"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"
"Gates of Eden"
"She Belongs to Me"
"On the Road Again"
"Mr. Tambourine Man"
"Outlaw Blues"

There is no one in the history of ever who has "played a song" on the tambourine

as usual with Dylan im pretty sure it's half earnest half jerking your chain but mostly there for color.

for me it conjures up travelling minstrels, saying "guitar player" would be a bit too modern, it's as much of an oddly formed anachronism as Dylan's role as pop "folk" musician. on that tip tambourine is an accessible instrument to all whereas guitar has skill/technical barriers to entry, it's a bit of communal creation/breaking down barriers between artist and audience.

i want to say also it took me some time but eventually it clicked that Lou Reed is trying to be Dylan on so many VU tracks ("baby be gooood/ do what you shouuuld/ you know it'll be alriiight").

ah im regretting not voting for "It's All Over Now Baby Blue". the chord change where he dives into "the carpet too is moving under you" is so unexpected it feels like like an emotional sucker punch. the rest of the song is just standard I/IV/V and the sudden unsteadiness never fails to take me back. it's like the brief time when you are going down a set of stairs and miss a step. or when you are in a relationship and someone says something and you get this feeling in your stomach. so beautiful, that fall.

and on that line!

the Them version of "Baby Blue" is also classic, the vibraphone lick fits the trippiness of the words. its a good fit for the soul vocals of Van Morrison ("look out the saints are coming through"). Beck, another Dylan acolyte, interpolated Dylan & Them for his "Jackass".

legendary is the "Don't Look Back" take of Dylan playing it to Donovan. this is what it's like when rock stars drunkenly crash each others parties chasing memes/feuds in the 60s. Dylan starts playing "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" at 2:49:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sqAhF6i9H4

that performance is so great. and for all the talk/myth/apocrypha about that night & its context, I always preferred the version of Love Minus Zero that Dylan plays in that hotel room over the version on the record. Again, it's the sublime & resigned chord changes paired with the devotional lyric. Negation and infinity.

i want to say also it took me some time but eventually it clicked that Lou Reed is trying to be Dylan on so many VU tracks ("baby be gooood/ do what you shouuuld/ you know it'll be alriiight").

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Donovan's "To Sing for You" is a really nice song. I've written lots about how Donovan is the god of pop-music soundtracks, even more than the Rolling Stones. I'm a big fan, and I was glad he went into the rock'n'roll HOF.

What makes that Pennebaker clip so great, though, is how overmatched he is by Dylan. He knows it (love his expression at 3:55), and Dylan knows it. Dylan really knows it, and he's basking in it (in a way that makes you smile, not hate him).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

my love

Can't argue with the results. There are at least 4 or 5 songs on here that I wouldn't argue with as a #1 though.

Voted for the favorite, but could just as easily have voted for “Outlaw Blues” as well as several others.

Huh! For whatever reason, LMZ/NL has never really done all that much for me. I like it fine, just surprised to discover it's a consensus favorite against so many heavy-hitters.

Clearly plenty of other people have seen something in the song, even beyond the "everybody covers every Dylan song" effect. A little searching turns up versions by Buck Owens, Leon Russell, the Walker Brothers, Joan Baez, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Judy Collins, Jackson Browne, the Turtles, Nana Mouskouri, and Ricky Nelson. I thought I'd heard the last one before, but realized belatedly I was thinking of his cover of "She Belongs To Me" - guy was into this album!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWPrtfE-TBI

Huh! For whatever reason, LMZ/NL has never really done all that much for me. I like it fine, just surprised to discover it's a consensus favorite against so many heavy-hitters.

yea same

it's one of my favorite Dylan melodies tbh

heh Love Minus Zero feels like coffee shop autopilot to me, one of the least impressive tracks on the album (shrug emoji)

Thirteenth Floor Elevators version of "It's All Over Now (Baby Blue)" is one of my all time favorite Dylan covers. That Joyce Carol Oates short story is really good too, that was a story that I got assigned in freshman lit in collage and really liked.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joyce-carol-oates-on-dylans-its-all-over-now-baby-blue-1432045329

heh Love Minus Zero feels like coffee shop autopilot to me, one of the least impressive tracks on the album (shrug emoji)

has there been a Dylan vs Rage Against the Machine “Maggie’s Farm” poll?

Surprised "Mr Tambourine Man" didn't get more votes. Though I voted for LMZ so I'm not complaining.

that's a great cover by Nelson, Dylan probably appreciated it (iirc he has only nice things to say abt Nelson in Chronicles)

I'd choose She Belongs to Me over LMZ, I think Dylan does the cynical love portrait better than the sincere, also I just love the melody

both rule though

well, maaaybe Dylan's fondness for wordplay amphetamine gets the best of him in the 3rd verse

https://www.brainyquote.com/photos_tr/en/b/bobdylan/154487/bobdylan1-2x.jpg

lol that's what i think of the last verse of mr. tambourine man. but both are great

DAMN:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofvsowhWPbc

quite faithful!

yeah I was surprised at that for 1976