58. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

1. Like a Rolling Stone*

2. Tombstone Blues

3. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry

4. From a Buick 6

5. Ballad of a Thin Man

7. Queen Jane Approximately

8. Highway 61 Revisited

9. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues*

10. Desolation Row*

A

J.R.R. Tolkien once made the observation that he detested allegory, and instead strove for applicability in his work. It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, as I recently rewatched Persona and Black Bear. These are works that people have approached as puzzles to be decoded, but I think it's more accurate to view them as experiences which the authors have created designed to force us to confront things in ourselves. Rather than attempting to find the hidden, "true" meaning, we should be using them as mirrors in which to examine ourselves - our own anxieties and hang-ups and hopes and fears. 

I think this is pretty relevant to Bob Dylan's writing on most of the songs on Highway 61 Revisited. While a few of them are pretty straightforward, most of them are rambling, impressionistic assaults on the senses, with lyrics that hint at countless things going on the mid-60s but never resolve into straight allegory and in many cases actively resist interpretation. The result is a sort of sprawling fever dream of an album. The title refers to a road that runs from Dylan's home town of Duluth straight down through the American heartland and into the deep south, and in a way it's pretty appropriate - Dylan is cutting straight through the heart of America, indulging in Americana, and switching to a more amplified, bluesy sound. Of course at this point Bob Dylan was also a borderline autistic amphetamine addict burned-out by years on the road, so very little of what he has to say is particularly coherent. 

Things kick off with "Like a Rolling Stone", which is one of the most astonishing songs ever written. Musically it sets the tone for the album, sounding like literally nothing else at the time. It's a bizarre mish-mash of blues, rock and folk music, all anchored by a gorgeous organ riff. The density of the music makes it sound claustrophobic and yet epic at the same time. And the lyrics, which tell of a socialite who used to laugh at the down-and-out but has now become one of them, are both a viciously intimate story of revenge and a warning about the state of the Establishment in the mid-60s, just as the counterculture is about to break though. My favourite lyric? Probably verse two:

Aw, you've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely

But ya know ya only used to get juiced in it

Nobody's ever taught ya how to live out on the street

And now you’re gonna have to get used to it

You say you never compromise

With the mystery tramp, but now you realize

He's not selling any alibis

As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes

And say, “Do you want to make a deal?"

It's a grim and wonderful song, and every private school kid who dreams of being poor and authentic should be forced to listen to it on repeat until it clicks.

After that opus, you get "Tombstone Blues", which is a rollicking number with a great guitar solo that contrasts depictions of the high and mighty with the refrain "Momma's in the factory, she ain't got no shoes. Daddy's in the alley, he's looking for food. I am in the kitchen with the tombstone blues".

Unfortunately, the next two songs are kind of bad, and the reason I didn't give this album an A+. "It Takes a Lot to Lugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" is as pointless and rambling as its title. And "From a Buick 6" is I guess an attempt by Dylan to write one of his comedy songs, but there's not much to it beyond rambling about some mother earth death goddess he knows, and it's not very interesting musically.

As for "Ballad of a Thin Man", I really don't know what to make of it. I mean, I kind of like the song, and I like the way it describes a member of the old guard and how completely out of touch he is, but the lyrics and imagery are kind of stupid. 

(worst lyric:

Now you see this one-eyed midget

Shouting the word "Now"

And you say, "For what reason?"

And he says, "How?"

And you say, "What does this mean?"

And he screams back "You're a cow

Give me some milk or else go home"

)

Musically, it's very interesting, though - it's slow, minor-key doom and gloom anchored by a chiming piano, and it sounds great.

Side two of the album, however, is all great. "Queen Jane Approximately" is one of those bitter, world-weary, yet tender love songs that Dylan is so good at writing. "Highway 61 Revisited" is almost derailed by the world's most annoying slide whistle, but rescued by funny and interesting lyrics in which various people with absurd problems ranging from a lack of shoes to a desire to stage World War III are all advised to head over to the titular highway and try their luck there. (Personally, I prefer the PJ Harvey version, but the original is pretty good too). "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is another song I love as a cover version - in this case, Nina Simone's gorgeous piano ballad version. At first I found the original a little off-putting, but really I suppose Dylan's raw and harrowed interpretation makes more sense for this description of a nightmare sojourn in a Mexican border town.

The final song, "Desolation Row", is a song I didn't really get at first. I think part of the problem is that after an entire album of sense, fast, claustrophobic music, the sudden appearance of a world-weary acoustic track threw me a little. I guess maybe listener's fatigue. But I listened to it again yesterday and I get it now. It's very much the song on this album that made me think about that allegory-vs.-applicability thing. I mean, I defy anyone to explain what this song is "about", but it's a beautiful and terrifying song and Dylan reins in his vocal excesses to give a genuinely moving performance. By the end of the song I still wasn't sure if he hated or loved Desolation Row - possibly both - but it's a wonderful parade of strange characters and sad little observations and a fitting close to an excellent but deeply peculiar album.

Well, that's that. If I'm being honest, I didn't enjoy this as much as the previous two Dylan albums on the list. There are a lot of great songs, but the style of music isn't really my cup of tea and I missed the humour and the gentle love songs of Freewheelin' and Bringing It All Back Home. Still, this is a great album and an obviously pivotal moment in popular music. I look forward to struggling through Blonde on Blonde.

Maybe one day I'll write a short review of a Bob Dylan album. That would be nice.

57. The Byrds - Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)

1. Mr. Tambourine Man*

2. I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better*

3. Spanish Harlem Incident

4. You Won't Have to Cry

5. Here Without You

6. The Bells of Rhymney

7. All I Really Want to Do*

8. I Knew I'd Want You

9. It's No Use

10. Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe

11. Chimes of Freedom

12. We'll Meet Again

A

Listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Greatest Hits for the first time was an "Ah hah!" moment. Suddenly, I had come across the point of origin for so much music that I loved. And the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man is another such moment. It's not so much that this music has been influential, as it's become a part of the very DNA of rock music. The sound of this album - jangling, chiming, twelve-string guitars, a steady English-influenced beat, wonderfully odd harmony singing and an elevated position for the bass guitar - is everywhere in the music that came afterwards. I can't imagine Love, Big Star, Tom Petty or REM existing without this music as a bedrock for their various styles. And by extension, it makes sense to tip the hat to the Byrds as the progenitors of what we now consider indie rock, even if everyone always points to the Velvet Underground.

Influence is one thing, quality is another. And this album is great from start to finish. It's mostly covers, and mostly covers of Bob Dylan, but they're all done wonderfully, and are highly idiosyncratic. A good example is the title track, which strips the Dylan original of its metaphysical elements and presents it as a straight piece of drug-worshipping sunshine pop. Then there's second single "All I Want to Do", the verses for which honestly are virtually indistinguishable musically from Tom Petty. It's not all covers, though. Gene Clarke steps up and presents the magnificent "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", which would have to be one of the most marvellous kiss-offs in music, and the melancholy "Here Without You".

In a lot of ways, this is the point where the 60s really arrived. The jangly guitars and stoned-out Beatles-inspired harmonies are trippy without being overtly psychedelic. The cover, obviously inspired by Bringing It All Back Home, shows the group reflected in a convex mirror, dressed in casual, hippyish street cloths instead of the suits favoured by most A-list bands at the time. The whole folk rock thing - meshing modern rock with intelligent lyrics and musical experimentation - helped to drag the counterculture into the spotlight. I mean, this is pre-internet. Mr. Tambourine Man helped to bring hippy culture into the suburban bedrooms of teenagers across the world. 

I guess I sound like I'm gushing, but the point is that this is the first album in quite a while that features music in a style that I genuinely like, and would listen to voluntarily outside the confines of this list. It's not a perfect album (the cover of "We'll Meet Again", for example, leaves a bit to be desired), but it is an incredibly good one. The thing I really love about it is the sound. Just the sound of this album makes me feel good. And what's more, this is a signpost on the outskirts of one of my favourite periods in music. It's been a bit of a struggle at times so far, but we're finally entering into the modern era of rock and pop.

Apparently the Byrds would go on to better music and significantly worse commercial success. I'm really looking forward to hearing from them again.

56. Bert Jansch - Bert Jansch (1965)

1. Strolling Down the Highway

2. Smokey River

3. Oh How Your Love Is Strong

4. I Have No Time*

5. Finches

6. Veronica

7. Needle of Death*

8. Do You Hear Me Now

9. Rambling's Gonna Be the Death of Me

10. Alice's Wonderland

11. Running from Home*

12. Courting Blues

13. Casbah

14. Dreams of Love

15. Angie

A

So I've noticed a pretty big mistake on the part of the editors of the Book. It turns out that for the year 1965, three albums that were released prior to Rubber Soul were listed after it. Now this wouldn't be that big a deal except that the current positioning makes it seem like Rubber Soul predates (and presumably influenced) the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man and Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. In fact both came out months before Rubber Soul, and really when you listen to that album with this knowledge in mind, it becomes obvious just how big an influence both works were on the Beatles. It's very frustrating, because exact dates of release aren't included in the Book, and so I have to trust it when I'm trying to contextualise the various albums and the influence they had on each other. In any case, it makes Rubber Soul seem even less impressive knowing that the Beatles were copping from Dylan and the Byrds, and not the other way round.

Anyway, on to Bert Jansch. Is it Yansch or Djansch? Most say the former but Bert himself said the later. So at least that's cleared up.

This is a pretty great album, anyway. Jansch is one of the most astonishing acoustic guitarists I've ever heard. Frequently it sounds like two or three guitars are playing at once. His style is also pretty amazing - a strange mix of British folk, American blues, jazz and classical, all mixed-up with the various influences he picked-up from spending the first half of the Sixties wandering Europe and North Africa. Neil Young, Nick Drake, Jimmy Page and Donovan all acknowledged him as a primary influence. And on top of that, he's also a fine singer and wrote most of the songs here - all very cryptic and impressionistic and mysterious, referencing nature and the affairs of the heart. Above all this is a pretty album - there's a dark beauty to all the songs that makes for a very strange and rewarding listen. 

Really, I'm very fond of this sort of music. During the 2000s, back when I used to listen to new music and was very passionate about the whole subject, there was a not-insignificant revival of interest in this sort of folk. The result is that I ended-up being exposed to wonderful bands like the Pentangle, the Fairport Convention, Anne Briggs and the Incredible String Band. And Bert Jansch (who was friends with Briggs and a member of Pentangle) is a lovely addition to the fold. This is a deceptively simple album - just a man and a guitar. But Jansch's approach to song writing and melody is something new, at least within the albums in the Book. His singing is odd - the melodies are all over the place stylistically, and there's virtually no recourse to standard folk or blues patterns. And his guitar is truly amazing - Neil Young once called him the Hendrix of the accoustic guitar. And covered the utterly heart-breaking "Needle of Death", easily the best song on this album and one of the best anti-heroin songs ever recorded (written about a friend who overdosed). If only all the people who set out to write about drugs did so with a quarter of the intelligence and perception of Bert Jansch in this song. I mean, what do you make of the lines:

"Through ages, man's desires

To free his mind, to release his very soul

Has proved to all who live

That death itself is freedom for evermore"

?

It really hits the nail on the head. True, most people who use heavy drugs will be all "Drugs are fun!" or some other simplistic and equally inadequate rationalisation, but when you get to know them they're usually just trying to kill the rational part of their mind and it rarely ends well. I don't want to drag out my BA, but Freud did highlight the death drive as one of the principal motivators in the human psyche.

Anyway I'm rambling, but then again this is my blog and no-one reads it so I can do what I like. For example:

There once was a man from Nantucket

Whose di- no, never mind

Anyway this is a great album and if you like folk or the acoustic guitar you should definitely buy it. Not that it would help Jansch's estate much - he sold the rights for £100, only for it to go on to sell over 100,000 copies.

55. The Beatles - Rubber Soul (1965)

1. Drive My Car

2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

3. You Won't See Me

4. Nowhere Man*

5. Think for Yourself

6. The Word

7. Michelle*

8. What Goes On

9. Girl*

10. I'm Looking Through You

11. In My Life

12. Wait

13. If I Need Someone

14. Run for Your Life

B+

Now don't get me wrong. Musically, this album is brilliant. The Beatles had all (except McCartney, bless him) experimented with LSD, and they were all four of them high as kites on pot. In addition, they had just completed a mind-blowing tour of the USA that saw them meeting Elvis, Dylan and the Byrds, and hearing all sorts of amazing shit on the radio. Add to this an unprecedented opportunity to spend time in the studio, uninterrupted by touring or television commitments, and you have a group primed to risk their reputations on a bold experiment in pop music. Rubber Soul is a thick stew of country, soul, pop and folk that sounded like nothing else when it was released - it's really a watershed moment in pop music.

Unfortunately, the musical experimentation on display can't quite be matched by the lyrics. Yes, this album has the haunting "Nowhere Man", the penetrating "Think for Yourself", and the sombre and reflective "In My Life". It also has "Run for Your Life", which is just about the shittiest, most misogynistic song anyone ever recorded (Lennon is literally threatening to kill a woman if she leaves him). And really, John Lennon does not come off well with this album. Yes, he wrote "Nowhere Man" and the emotionally stark "Girl". He also wrote "Norwegian Wood", which is about a guy burning a woman's flat down because she wouldn't sleep with him, and "The Word", which is not only an annoying song musically but a moronic exhortation to embrace universal love that aims for depth but just highlights how fucking simplistic and ill-conceived the whole hippy venture was to begin with. 

But let's not lay all the blame at the feet of John Lennon. Paul McCartney wrote (or at least, sang) "You Won't See Me", which seems to be about a guy who's angry because a girl he likes won't fuck him. And fair enough, he was young. I know it's a phase I had to grow out of. The difference is that I was never in the world's biggest band, and never released a song on the subject. 

Really, where the fuck do four potheads from Liverpool get off telling me how to live my fucking life?

The rest of the album, however, is great. I particularly like "Michelle", because I am a sucker for McCartney's music hall romps. And "Drive My Car" is kind of stupid, but in a knowing and hilarious way. 

So this album marks a very important moment in pop music, when studio experimentation and the album as artform began to take hold. In many ways, it's one of the most important works of art of the twentieth century. But unfortunately. it's also wildly uneven. It may have blown a lot of minds with its eschewing of the conventions of pop rock, its lyrical ambition, and its grab-bag approach to sonic experimentation (this album has, I think, the first instance of the sitar in rock music, for example). Unfortunately, it's also kind of stupid. The Beatles had done better, and they would do better again. This album is massively important, but not terribly good. 

54. B.B. King - Live at the Regal (1965)

1. Every Day I Have the Blues

2. Sweet Little Angel *

3. It's My Own Fault

4. How Blue Can You Get

5. Please Love Me

6. You Upset Me Baby *

7. Worry, Worry

8. Woke Up This Mornin'

9. You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now

10. Help the Poor *

A

Well this is a nice album. B.B. King was a fine singer and an astonishing blues guitarist, and the band he had backing him for this recording plays some tight, complex, but earthy music, with piano and saxophone to fill out the sound. I don't know that I have all that much to say about it, though - this is very well-executed, but it's also pretty much standard blues stuff. It's a lot more complex, lyrically, than something like Muddy Waters. I was reading, and apparently this is considered uptown blues - a slightly jazzier, more polished approach to the genre. But then you have a song like "Help the Poor", which is very Latin in style and sounds more like Santana than something you'd hear in a Chicago blues joint. 

Anyway, this is a very fine album but I can't think of much to say about it. King is an excellent musician. He not only plays beautifully, but has a wonderful range to his voice. He can play it straight and sweet, or launch into a sexy growl, or even sing a sort of strange plaintiff falsetto like he does on "Worry, Worry". Lyrically, the album's not terribly interesting, but King makes up for it with stagecraft. He does a great job of talking to the audience, getting them riled up, embarking on little sermons regarding relationship advice and so forth. The result is a marvellously entertaining album of very beautiful and engaging music. 

We've had a lot of live albums on this List so far, and all of them have been excellent. I don't typically listen to live music, so I've really enjoyed it. I can see why some people prefer it. Studio recordings are more polished and allow for more complex arrangements, but live albums are more immediate, more thrilling in that you're never quite sure what will happen next, and the presence of an audience completely changes the dynamic of the music and the demeanour of the musician. I'm looking forward to the next one. 

53. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1965)

1. Part 1: Acknowledgement

2. Part 2: Resolution *

3. Part 3: Pursuance

4. Part 4: Psalm

[only one Editor's Pick this time, as there are only four songs on the album]

A+

I'll admit I'm not really a fan of John Coltrane. I have nothing against him, but nothing of his that I've heard has made me particularly interested in exploring his work. That said, it's hard to argue with this album. It manages to be raw and powerful and sometimes even aggressive, while at the same time maintaining an atmosphere of chilly beauty. The album was recorded in the middle of Winter in New Jersey, and I can't help projecting on to it the sense of a group of people huddled together, trying to evoke something warm and hopeful in the midst of the darkness. 

In fact, I think it's this "striving" quality that lends the album its power. Throughout the course of the album, Coltrane seems to be searching for something - a perfect breakdown, or a particularly beautiful theme. This is a very accessible album, because it's quite pretty throughout and there's a discipline to the frequent noodling and a tightness to the rhythm section that keeps the whole thing from going off the rails. The freeform experimentation on the album (frequently reminiscent of Ornette Coleman's atonal wandering) is anchored by beautiful little melodies which the band state, mutate, wander in an out of, and then revisit at unexpected moments. The result is a bold, strange album that you'll find yourself humming snatches from for days afterwards. 

The whole album is framed as a celebration of God and humanity's place in His plan, and while there's only one vocal on the album (Coltrane repeating the phrase "A Love Supreme" to the tune of Part 1's theme) this spiritual quality pervades the music. The final track even consists of Coltrane playing the words to a poem in praise of God (included with the liner notes) on his saxophone. (You can read the text of the poem here).

So while this album hasn't converted me to the Cult of Coltrane, I can't help but admire it. It's an astonishing piece of work. The music blends African, Middle Eastern and Latin elements, frequently abandoning the Blues altogether (although they frequently resurface as a sort of anchor for the music). The playing on this album also strongly influenced many guitar players - it's easy to forget, when reciting the history of Rock music, just how many guitarists based their playing off of the great Jazz horn players. I think I read somewhere, for example, that Jimi Hendrix was strongly influenced by Roland Kirk. But I'm wandering.

So while my favourite Coltrane remains Alice (whose album Journey in Satchidanada really deserves to be included in the Book), this really is one of those albums you have to hear before you die. It's one of the cornerstones of modern music, and pretty beautiful as well. 

For no reason, here's a link to Journey in Satchidananda on YouTube.

52. The Beach Boys - The Beach Boys Today! (1965)

1. Do You Wanna Dance?

2. Good to My Baby

3. Don't Hurt My Little Sister

4. When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)*

5. Help Me, Ronda

6. Dance, Dance, Dance

7. Please Let Me Wonder

8. I'm So Young

9. Kiss Me, Baby*

10. She Knows Me Too Well*

11. In the Back of My Mind

12. Bull Session with the 'Big Daddy'

A-

So this is another two-for-one special. The first half is all big, bold pop songs more in the vein of what people expected from the Beach Boys at the time, but with a bit of a twist - none of the songs are about cars or surfing, instead dealing with more mature and introspective themes. The second half of the album, on the other hand, is like nothing else at the time - gorgeous, melancholy ballads that have more in common with the lush pop of the yet-to-come Pet Sounds. So I guess I'll deal with the album as it's presented, side by side.

Well, the first side is pretty good, but it doesn't boast anything to match the Beach Boys' best pop singles. There's no "Don't Worry Baby", "California Girls", "I Get Around" or "Fun, Fun Fun". There is an early draft of "Help Me, Rhonda", but it's not very well-recorded and for some reason Brian Wilson decided to screw around with the volume at the end of the track, so that it gets quiet and then loud in an odd way that made me think I was listening to a messed-up version of the track (a pity, as it really damages the song, which has one of the most glorious choruses in pop). "Do You Wanna Dance?" is a fun song, but I really think the Ramones did it better. I like "Don't Hurt My Little Sister", because I have a little sister who makes terrible romantic choices, although it's a bit creepy as the lyrics verge on the incestuous. The real standout is "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)", which sees Wilson ruminating on the changes that aging may put him through and whether growing up is a good or a bad thing. It's a smart, engaging song, and really quite unusual for the time.

So that's side one - a pretty good collection of songs but kind of a let down when you consider just how good the Beach Boys could be at writing fun pop. Side two is a different matter entirely. 

I really can't think of anything like it, before or perhaps since. Apparently Brian Wilson started smoking pot around this time, and it really shows. The songs are all slow, ethereal, and densely layered. The arrangements are more orchestral and the vocal harmonies are complex and gorgeous. The subject matter of the songs is pretty strange, too. "Please Let Me Wonder" is about a guy with a crush on someone, who prefers to remain in doubt as to their reciprocation of his affections rather than risk rejection by asking them outright. "I'm So Young" is about a couple who want to marry but are only kids, and all the uncertainties that entails (It also features an absolutely beautiful coda of wordless voices and gentle instrumentation that prefigures the astonishing breakdown at the end of "God Only Knows"). "Kiss Me, Baby" is a simple song about quarrelling lovers, elevated by complex harmonies and a gorgeous, slow and gentle hook. 

And then you have "She Knows Me Too Well". This song is capital "d" Dark. The narrator basically admits that he's a godawful person and treats his girlfriend like shit, that he wouldn't put up with any of that crap from her, and then cinches the whole "angels singing about killing yourself" vibe with the revelation that she will never leave him, because she knows deep down that he loves her. It's an astonishing song, both musically and lyrically. It really captures an essential truth about so many toxic relationships, and at the same time manages to sound like something you'd play at a wedding. It's pretty heart-breaking, and really presages the complexity of Pet Sounds, and Brian Wilson's willingness to examine the murky complexities of relationships while remaining committed to making truly beautiful music.

The only real misstep on this album (and boy is it a big one) is the baffling inclusion of the track "Bull Session with the 'Big Daddy'. I mean, it kind of makes sense to include a little interview at the end of an album.  Maybe it could have been interesting to hear the group's thoughts on the making of the album, and where they were coming from. But what we got instead is two minutes of them ordering grilled cheese sandwiches, debating the merits of kosher pickles, and then shooting the shit about what they liked best about their recent tour of Europe (I'll save you the trouble of listening to it - it was the bread). It's utterly pointless, faintly annoying, and coming at the end of such a wonderful sequence of songs it threatens to derail the entire enterprise. So if you happen to acquire this album digitally, maybe delete the last track. You're really not missing anything important.