Canter Bridge

From this considerable distance, ‘masterpiece’ begins to seem an unexaggerated assessment of Dylan’s 1966 double-album, now conveniently remastered and available on CD.

More than a whiff of the child genius is to be discerned in the brilliantly erratic lyrics of these tracks. One wonders how much winking was going on in the shadows as listeners sought profound mysteries in lines that are simply gorgeous for their semi-random articulateness. At this early stage, Dylan played as much, perhaps, with words as with ideas.

The result is no less enduring, for he turns out to be a fantastically creative wordsmith. This is particularly true of his ballads (say, ‘Visions of Johanna’). There is enough coherence that the listener feels himself drawn along by the thread of a story line. Yet, ever the self-conscious artist, Dylan ornaments that thread with the exquisite cotton of ever-layering allusion. You’re not sure what he’s talking about, but you feel that things will come clear in another line or two. Then another. And another …

The poet can also be gorgeously gripping with an opening. Again, ‘Visions of Johanna’:

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handfull of rain, tempting you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

Who’s going to hang up now?

Dylan also shows his creative cards with a love song like ‘I Want You’. It sounds like the kind of thing you might sing to your lover after you have both become really, really crazy. Odder still, that doesn’t seem like such a bad aspiration.

This is classic Dylan, perhaps a culpable understatement. Dylan fans far more knowledgeable than this one surface Blonde on Blonde as arguably the man’s greatest album. Whether it’s still too early to make that call, this reviewer certainly attests to the album’s greatness.

Things were coming apart at the seams in 1966. The young Bob Dylan was often and usually by default considered to be a troubadour of the New Disorder. From this distance, it looks as though he may simply been having an awful lot of fun.