Review #38: Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan

Karla Clifton
2 min readFeb 19, 2021

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#38: Blonde On Blonde, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan looks like he’s fronting an emo band from 2007 on this album cover. Look at that checked scarf.

That’s about all the enthusiasm I can muster about this Bob Dylan album. I don’t really remember listening to it for the first time, and I can’t hum any tunes from any of these songs. Apologies to Bob Dylan.

FAVORITE SONGS:

“Visions of Johanna” — This one is pretty! But it does not need to be nearly so long.

“Stuck Inside Of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” — This one felt really relatable for some reason; maybe I just like the title.

“Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” — I love a good 12-bar blues, plus the lyrics of this are insane!

“Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)” — Okay fine this one is fun.

“Absolutely Sweet Marie” — I was writing a very critical paragraph about Bob Dylan when this came on, but I started JAMMING, so I had to delete the paragraph.

“Fourth Time Around” — This song is bar-none gorgeous.

“Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” — To tell you the truth, I’m a poetry fan, so I love when Bob Dylan makes 12-minute ballads. This is a good closer to this album.

LEAST FAVORITE SONGS:

“One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)” — I don’t particularly dislike this song; this was just when I realized that I was about to listen to the same song 14 times.

“Just Like A Woman” — As a rule, I hate any song that compares grown women to little girls.

“Temporary Like Achilles” — When will this album end??

IS RS FULL OF IT?

Look: We, as a society, need to get over our infatuation with Bob Dylan. He’s a genius who wrote about a thousand songs that middle class white men born at a certain point in history can relate to, and that is significant!

But since Bob Dylan’s prime, we have learned that a lot of people in the world are not middle class white men, much to music’s benefit. Bob Dylan couldn’t write a bad album, but this was not his best. Besides, Blonde on Blonde came out in 1966, and so much music has come out since then, from a much wider variety of musicians. Bob Dylan doesn’t get to dominate every “best” list just because we all know who he is.

In this spirit, I submit that the first Shrek soundtrack is the 38th best album of all time.

Review #37: The Chronic, Dr. Dre

Review #39: Remain In Light, Talking Heads

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Karla Clifton
Karla Clifton

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