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Leamington Letters #92: Bringing it all back home

19/3/2015

11 Comments

 
Picture
Before I even get to the music, I have the sleeve.

This is, as he references by the inclusion of the eponymous album in the shot, ‘another side of Bob Dylan’: another another side. Bob looks moodily and directly into Daniel Kramer’s lens. He is surrounded by cultural artefacts: albums by Lotte Lenya, The Impressions, Eric von Schmidt, Robert Johnston, Ravi Shankar; a copy of Time has Lyndon B Johnson on its cover; a fall-out shelter sign sits in the foreground. In front of the fireplace is Sally Grossman, a lady in red, sultry and siren-like but no less direct. Even the cat is staring straight at the camera.

It is difficult to convey the reaction this album cover provoked back in March 1965. No track listing. No pretty boy PR shot. The image is square, the surround white, the text in red and blue centred, the lens soft-edged to focus our attention on the iconography. I didn’t know it at the time – back then, I didn’t even know the word in this context – but this is a concept.

And then I carefully remove the black vinyl from its paper sleeve, and place it on the turntable. The stylus hisses. ‘Johnny’s in the basement, mixin’ up the medicine. I’m on the pavement, thinkin’ about the government.”

Oh, wow.

“Look out kid, it’s somethin’ you did. God knows when, but you’re doin’ it again.”

Jeez.

I hadn’t seen anything like the cover before. I hadn’t heard anything like this music before. Critics were concerned that it was electric. For me, it was electrifying. It was speaking directly to me on track after track. I listen, I laugh, I admire. I adopt lines and repeat them. I sit silent in reverence.

And then I turn over the album.

Just four songs. But each of them remarkable. Not electric, but even more electrifying in their very particular vision of the loss of innocence. Tambourine Man (“Though I know that evening’s empire has vanished into sand”), Gates of Eden (“There are no truths outside the gates of Eden”), It’s Alright Ma (“So don’t fear, if you hear, a foreign sound to your ear”) and then, finally, the infinitely beautiful It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (“Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you’”.

This is personal. And this is political. This is about Bob moving on. This is about me.

These epiphanic 45 minutes or so took place 50 years ago. Bringing It All Back Home is half a century old on the 22nd of March. Listening to it again has brought it all home.

11 Comments
Tony
19/3/2015 04:55:54

This is good. And you are right to focus on the album as a package. A concept album? I suppose it was, maybe the first. It is staggering to realise how quickly these 50 years have gone. Thanks for bringing it all back home.

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Allan
19/3/2015 06:11:57

Quite right. This was a rite of passage for me as well. In these digital days, we don't recognise the importance of the sleeve, but you have shown how Kramer listened first, and created second. Good.

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Bob (but not that Bob!)
19/3/2015 06:47:35

It was the wit of the album. Funny of course in 115th dream, but witty throughout. Confident in his moving away from folkie, hippiedom. Confident in his ability and talent. Proven in this and the next two albums.

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Sean
19/3/2015 06:52:41

I'm beginning to have a sneaking suspicion you quite like Bob Dylan.

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Max
20/3/2015 03:36:25

It's only a hobby! Next one will be the Sox - now that is obsessive!

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Tom
19/3/2015 09:49:42

It is a sensational photograph, full of reference and allusion. As is the album. Together, one of the great releases. Crucial for me and my generation - of which you are clearly one. Enjoy your blogs.

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Allan
20/3/2015 03:30:38

Yes, it is political. Even turning his back on overt politics is political. It is also of course about his personal musical journey - a foreign sound to your ear - which is also a political journey. Of war and peace, the truth just twists ...

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Max
20/3/2015 04:34:42

Two comments - I'm honoured. And both spot on.

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Martin
25/3/2015 01:35:09

Re: the cover. In your blog you omit the most prominent album on display (curiously, as does Wikipedia, is it a conspiracy to airbrush him out as Bob’s “I taught him everything” mentor?), namely the great HANK WILLIAMS.

I think Nick Cohn’s ‘Rock Dreams’ seems to get close to Bob at the time, more or less contemporary with BABH, the famous montage of Bob crouching in the back of a limousine behind dark glasses and smoked-screens. A deliberate reference to the BABH cover with the cat and all, Bob the protector of and needer of the gentle.


photo BobDylanGuyPeellaertRockDreams.jpg

There is quite a good sequence, starting with Bob hanging with his chums in Greenwich (that’s Phil Ochs beside him)

http://bluesonline.weebly.com/uploads/6/1/1/2/6112056/6441624_orig.jpg


Then Bob the hobo

http://bluesonline.weebly.com/uploads/6/1/1/2/6112056/8651262_orig.jpg

And, of course, the cover was Bob hanging with the rock aristocracy, last supper-ish, Bob as Jesus with the disciples, I think we know where Nick was at.

https://superradnow.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/elvis-jim-mick-john-bob-drinking-coffee-rock-dreams-guy-peellaert.jpg

Ah, happy days. Thank you for bringing them back to mind.

As for BABH, it’s just Bob discovers LSD really, isn’t it? And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not the drug that writes the songs. A great many people have tried LSD , but as far as I know none has written side 2 of BABH. Of course, if we had listened to what Bob had listened to, we’d have written ‘It’s all Over Now Baby Blue’, too. Yeah, right, Bob.

Martin

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Max
25/3/2015 01:40:43

And another point, which we discussed yesterday, is the timing of this album. We were circa 15. Two years either way and its significance for each of us, its impact on us personally, would not have been as it was.

Hank Williams. Profound apologies and embarrassment. My vinyl is in France, so I was looking at an internet image. But no excuses.

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Rick Hough
25/3/2015 11:33:56

Magnetic North, with an effect so intrinsic that for years I barely realized I have always gone to it to tag-up. In that precious moment when one recognizes not being whole while still recognizing what wholeness might even feel like, this record has always been both wellspring and lodestone.
Beautiful piece, Max. Thanks.

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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