Highway 61 Revisited | Bob Dylan

Highway 61 Revisited | Bob Dylan | How does it feel?

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Highway 61 Revisited

	Highway 61 Revisited Bob Dylan Sony, 2003 average customer review:based on 104 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Dylan was virtually gushing great songs when this masterpiece arrived in the summer of 1965. From the epochal opening of "Like a Rolling Stone" through the absurdly apocalyptic closer, "Desolation Row," his command of surrealistic language was daring and amazing. As a vocalist, he was rewriting the rules of the game. Jimi Hendrix made note of Mr. Z's technically suspect pitch and decided that he too was a singer. And the backing, though ragged, is precisely right. Is this the essential Dylan album? It's certainly one of them. --Steven Stolder

absolute greatness

I always felt the best way to listen to this album was driving around with the windows down and BLASTING this sucker. Yes, even Desolation Row. Blonde on Blonde was also genius, but this one had such unbridled energy and freedom just pouring out of it, Dylan just sounds so loose and wild with his words whereas Blonde (and the albums after it) seemed more mannered and deliberately "poetic." This one is definitely a "deserted island" one for me---it would be in my top 10 albums to have with me if I was ever lost at sea. Long live Bob!

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How does it feel?

What is there left to say about Highway 61 Revisited that hasn't already been said? As the United States of the twenty-first century willfully dives into the hole of its own making, let us remember the things that have made us truly great as a culture. One of those is the collected works of Bob Dylan, and of those works, Bringing It All Back Home stands near the pinnacle. Just looking over the track list is an excursion into the soul of the modern age. Everything is there. I can't analyze it all in an Amazon review. By this time almost too much has been written about Dylan, but it's all there when you listen to the words and the music together. All I can say is at very end of the very last song.

Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

Listen and you'll find it.

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a dylan primer for beginners

Just in case someone reading this is new to Dylan, I thought I'd offer some pretty conventional but hopefully useful advice. Start out with the three Dylan albums listed below, all readily and inexpensively available. If these get you hooked, start exploring the others. If not, might I suggest the collections Elvis #1 or the Beatles #1. If none of those do it for you, try Mozart. If Wolfgang leaves you cold too, may God help you.

Anyway, here are those three Dylan albums:
Blood on the Tracks
Blonde on Blonde
Highway 61 Revisited.

Have fun.

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The electrified Mr. Zimmerman

Highway 61 Revisited is a loose, epic, surrealist, rambling, back alley daydream stroke of musical genius. It's gritty rock 'n' roll, starry-eyed folk, and vicious poetry all at once, shot through with strains of blues and country and soul, all of it united under the umbrella of Bob Dylan's bizarrely visionary ideas of what good music is supposed to sound like. It also freaking rocks.

The album sounds like masterpiece right from the get-go: It opens with the stunning "Like A Rolling Stone," a musical masterpiece in every sense of the word. Just listen to those gorgeous swells of melody, to the relentless drive of its rhythms, to Bob's strange, hypnotic vocal incantations! And listen to those lyrics! Listen to that broken, vengeful, dreamy, and acidic poetry! One of the greatest uses I've ever found for my ears, and it's only the first song on the album. After that comes the broken-down hillbilly car chase/ gut-bustingly funny surrealist ramble that is "Tombstone Blues," and lush, sardonic pop of "Queen Jane, Approximately." There's the apocalyptic, piano driven "Ballad Of A Thin Man," and the barroom daydream of "From A Buick 6." "Desolation Row" is a gorgeous, doom-laden acoustic ballad, and "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" is pure wheezing blues. "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is full of wonderfully resigned sarcasm and sparkling pianos, while the title track is a hilarious series of slightly absurd (and sharply satirical) visions.

Rock out, friends.

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Clean sound, but...

Yup, it's Dylan alright, sounding better than my 40 year old LP! I bought the SACD version and am impressed with the clarity of sound, but was a bit disappointed in that the SACD layer (also has a regular CD layer) is only 2 channel - NOT multi-channel. But if you have good front speakers, you won't be disappointed in the improved sound quality: the harmonica in"Like a Rolling Stone" and honky tonk style piano in"It Takes a Lot To Laugh, etc." and "Ballad of a Thin Man" are especially noticeably better than on the LP. The SACD version is even clearer and more intense, making me wonder why they didn't put a multi-layer (5.1) on the hybrid CD.

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