Another Side Of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Another Side Of Bob Dylan is the rather poor title that the record company stuck on this Bob Dylan's fourth album. This album came out in 1964 the same year as it's preceding album The Times They Are A-Changin' yet it is remarkably different. The title is a poor one because this is so obviously showing another side of Bob Dylan to that seen in his first three albums.

The story of the recording of this album is one that is so utterly ...
.../>
This is another word-heavy song of a more personal nature to the previous Dylan catalogue. The guitar is more prominent on this tune and we return to a little more than a supporting strum/tune and get a few nice little tricks thrown in. The harmonica also gets an airing and that's when you realise the guys are by now really quite drunk it seems. The production of this track is just plain drunk and the harmonica blows right down the microphone ... more

Another Side Of Bob Dylan is the rather poor title that the record company stuck on this Bob Dylan's fourth album. This album came out in 1964 the same year as it's preceding album The Times They Are A-Changin' yet it is remarkably different. The title is a poor one because this is so obviously showing another side of Bob Dylan to that seen in his first three albums.

The story of the recording of this album is one that is so utterly 'Dylan'. It was all recorded and done in one single night. The session was heavily fuelled by cheap wine. Dylan loved cheap wine, not sure why cheap wine rather than not cheap wine but he's full of quirks like that. And well I'll let the track by track review tell the story, all I'll say now is that it might be a good idea to get drunk yourself to listen to the album.. or even read a review of it, here goes..

~~~~The Music~~~~

1- All I Really Want To Do [4:02]

This a simple guitar strum with Dylan enthusiastically singing along and having a good blow on his harmonica in between verses. Listen out for the note Dylan hits on the word "do" it's perhaps a little drunk, perhaps a bit cringe-inducing whilst being amusing but most certainly it's full of charisma. It's actually a really good song too the first verse I've seen quoted in books of quotations:

"I ain't lookin' to compete with you,
Beat or cheat or mistreat you,
Simplify you, classify you,
Deny, defy or crucify you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you."

It's quite a fitting opening to the album also because of course the last album was full of heavily political songs, so this much more personal approach is really what the 'other side' is all about. Dylan has a little laugh on one line near the end that is a nice reminder of the remarkable spontaneous nature in which these songs are being captured. I like this song, it's an endearing message from Dylan to you the listener. He says he doesn't want you to be like him, he just wants to be friends with you that's all, bless.

2- Black Crow Blues [3:12]

Oh my, oh my. No guitar just Dylan and a piano with a little harmonica sprinkled here and there. I adore this tune the piano work is really engaging in its sleepy and clumsy jingle jangle way. An interesting verse of this song is:

"Sometimes I'm thinkin' I'm
Too high to fall.
Sometimes I'm thinkin'
I'm Too high to fall.
Other times I'm thinkin' I'm
So low I don't know
If I can come up at all."

I think this is the first sign of what's really going on in Dylan's head. He'd won the trust of the world through previous album and it had made him start to think about the nature of how people followed him. Everyone said he was a really high, a modern day prophet, but he himself knew in his own mind that he was just an ordinary human being making music. Boy does he make music here though, but you really can picture those bottles of cheap wine now flowing and the people starting to sway from side to side. The song ends with the lines: "I just don't feel much like a / Scarecrow today"

3- Spanish Harlem Incident [2:23]

We have a return to the acoustic guitar stumming for this interesting song. Dylan really wails this one, and it's probably not to everyone's taste. The rhyme is pretty good and he comes up with some good lines such as "I got to know, babe, will I be touching you/So I can tell if I'm really real." Not the highlight of the album it must be said, but not bad.

4- Chimes Of Freedom [7:08]

Over seven minutes is a long time for a song made up mostly by the vocals with only a gentle acoustic guitar underneath it for support. Make no mistake this is an awful listen if you don't listen to the words. It's absolutely not suitable for background music and easy listening. You have to take an interest in the words or it will grate at you. Also Dylan doesn't really sing this song, he more talks it through more than actually sings and that can be quite prickly at times. After a seemingly very long time there is a very brief harmonica break but soon you're thrust back into the words. This is a good song so long as you aren't a lightweight. In fact thinking about the words is one of the greatest ways I can think of burning up some spare time- Dylan is a fantastic poet.

5- I Shall Be Free No. 10 [4:46]

After the long-winded monologue of the previous song this song really picks you back up. The tune is upbeat and fast with an excellent combination of guitar and harmonica. Dylan only semi-sings this song, but it's all irrelevant because you'll be too busy laughing. This is a very humourous song

And in Dylan's humour you can pick up an underlining concern about his position in society, for example the following verse:

"Now I gotta friend who spends his life
Stabbing my picture with a bowie-knife
Dreams of strangling me with a scarf
When my name comes up he pretends to barf.
I've got a million friends!"

Some less cutting humour has I confess had me just about rolling around on the floor in giggles, there sometime about BOB DYLAN singing:

"Well, I set my monkey on the log
And ordered him to do the Dog
He wagged his tail and shook his head
And he went and did the Cat instead
He's a weird monkey, very funky."

..that I just can't stop giggling at. The absurd and bizarre imagery just flowing out of the same mouth that had just 'won' the respect of the intellectual 'elite' with his protest songs. I love it.

6- To Ramona [3:50]

Dylan's voice is wonderfully sweet here, and very tuneful. This song seems to be offering comfort to Ramona and is really quite charming. The way Dylan is writing it appears he is somewhat disillusioned with the way the world works. Of course he was before, but here he seems to almost be accepting that it isn't really going to change. This is probably reading too much into things with hindsight, for at the time Dylan remained the figure of social revolution and that revolution lasted until 1969 (murder at Rolling Stones gig etc is usually deemed as the official end). The tone is perhaps best illustrated by the line: "I can see that your head/ Has been twisted and fed/ By worthless foam from the mouth." Whilst it's still attacking those things, he seems to be much more remote from them. The guitar is tranquil.

7- Motorpsycho Nitemare [4:32]

The second humour-based song, and this is even better than the last. This tells the story of a Doctor travelling who looks for somewhere to stay, he stumbles across a farm. At first the farmer has the gun stuck in the Doctor's guts thinking he is a travelling salesman (you see hatred of door-to-door salesmen isn't a new thing!). Eventually the farmer offers him a place to stay for the night:
I said, "Yes, ten thousand miles
Today I drove."
He said, "I got a bed for you
Underneath the stove.
Just one condition
And you go to sleep right now,
That you don't touch my daughter
And in the morning, milk the cow."

So he's deep into his sleep when Rita, the farmer's daughter, awakes him. She makes a pass at him, Oh no no thinks Doctor Bob. As Rita asks if he'd like to take a shower he knows he has to split but realises he promised to milk the cow so the only way to get away was to be chased out by the farmer. So Doctor Bob shouts out at the top of his voice: "I like Fidel Castro and his beard." The farmer goes mental and starts to attack him yelling out: "You unpatriotic, Rotten doctor Commie rat." Dylan paints some fantastic imagery in this story, the frantic getaway continues:
Well, he threw a Reader's Digest
At my head and I did run,
I did a somersault
As I seen him get his gun

My favourite part to this very funny story is that it ends with a serious point about the lack of freedom of speech in the USA at the time of the cold war. And make no mistake, it's still the same today as enemies are created for the sake of political gain.

8- My Back Pages [4:21]

This is the highlight of the album, a true masterpiece.

~~Lyrics~~
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
~~Lyrics~~

In some ways this turn around in attitude from The Times They Are A-Changin' may seem too quick to fathom, but I know exactly where he's coming from. It's often just before you give up on change that your desire for it is greatest. Dylan really went to war in the last album, since then he has realised that his youthful idealism involves far too much maintenance. But the words explain this song and this album so well that I needn't bore you with my theories.

The tune is a classic and has a real catchiness, Dylan sings brilliantly and man I love this song! The concept of those words: "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now" is outstanding. It really hits a nail with me, having been an adult by the age of say 12 and gradually becoming younger ever since. So even though this is a very meaningful song in terms of Bob Dylan it resonates as much as any of his previous songs within me.

9- I Don't Believe You [4:20]

This is another word-heavy song of a more personal nature to the previous Dylan catalogue. The guitar is more prominent on this tune and we return to a little more than a supporting strum/tune and get a few nice little tricks thrown in. The harmonica also gets an airing and that's when you realise the guys are by now really quite drunk it seems. The production of this track is just plain drunk and the harmonica blows right down the microphone with a few breaths of air (waft-waft style). Then Dylan is on the edge of laughing and I think you hear someone in the background laughing as Dylan carries on. An effort free performance, you feel as if he's just messing about in a basement at times, but hey some of his best work came from a basement! You know, such as Quinn the Eskimo and This Wheels On Fire. In other words this may be off putting to those used to heavily produced artists who stick together about a hundred takes on a song, but it's like a drug to us into the whole Dylan kink.

10- Ballad In Plain D [8:15]

The inconspicuous name hides away a beautifully crafted song, and a heartfelt story. This is about a love whom was delicate and abused by her jealous family and the narrator loves her but has done something terrible to her, he has lied to her. As she finds out and he becomes involved in a screaming match with the girl's horrible parasite sister we are left wondering what exactly the lie is. The narrator realises all is lost but hopes to himself that whoever she is now with realises how precious she is. Finally the last verse answers our questions:

Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"
And I answer them most mysteriously,
"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"

So it turns out he is an ex-con, yet this is a subtle message that could have been on Dylan's socially aware previous album. For he treasures the girl and cares for her far more than anyone else including her family and yet because of his mistakes of the past he is tarred for life and never given a chance. And what a classic Dylan way to say it that last line is.

11- It Ain't Me Babe [3:31]

This is the final true masterpiece on this album and of course a concert and greatest hits song (okay it's the last song too, cop-out-me-do). Dylan's voice makes this song. It's his voice that provides the real tune and he sings so thoughtfully and with a real passion. And never mind this being directed at a love, as I see it this is directed at all those followers who proclaimed Dylan the next Jesus. There could be no more fitting end to this whole concept album.

~~Lyrics~~
Go 'way from my window,
Leave at your own chosen speed.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I'm not the one you need.
You say you're lookin' for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an' defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Go lightly from the ledge, babe,
Go lightly on the ground.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I will only let you down.
You say you're lookin' for someone
Who will promise never to part,
Someone to close his eyes for you,
Someone to close his heart,
Someone who will die for you an' more,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Go melt back into the night, babe,
Everything inside is made of stone.
There's nothing in here moving
An' anyway I'm not alone.
You say you're looking for someone
Who'll pick you up each time you fall,
To gather flowers constantly
An' to come each time you call,
A lover for your life an' nothing more,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.
~~Lyrics~~

~~~~Conclusions~~~~

At times the drunkenness shows, a lot. At times the spontaneity obviously gets in the way of quality At times it's quite dull. At times it's the best thing ever made. This album has highs and lows and is reflective of the mind of Dylan. It's a must for Dylan fans, but not the place to get into him because it's roughness is darn right scary to those not full prepared.

This was the mental change in Dylan before he set about making his new style music. You hear the first signs that Dylan is turning the Super-tanker around. The folk purists weren't happy that most of the album seemed to be rather self-indulgent and about Bob Dylan rather than about saving the world, but this is really the calm before the storm.

Some moments of exceptional writing and some moments of drunkenness, a great album all things considered though.
 

...less