helu. how are you all. as you may have gathered by the reviews i started with, i'm a bit of a bob dy...
helu. how are you all. as you may have gathered by the reviews i started with, i'm a bit of a bob dylan fan. i'm trying to get through my bob collection, as his section on ciao is fairly pitiful. anyway...
Member since:11.09.2000
Reviews:26
Members who trust:2
NB... this is an opinion on Highway 61 revisited. not the double album. i have reviewed JWH separately. but ciao so far have refused to move this op.
a major major step onward and upward from "bringing it all back home" (AKA "subterrranean homesick blues"), this album has a very similar musical feel, but the lyrics are quite a few notches above those of its predecessor. for the most obvious examples of this being the powerful opening track, "like a rolling stone" and the closing track, "desolation row"...
now the scope of this album is set out by those two tracks framing the album... it's ambitious to lead and end with amazingly strong tracks if the filler is just filler. but bob has not become the most respected songwriter ever for producing just filler... the songs in between these majestic highlights are all highlights themselves.
"tombstone blues" is a dirty drum-driven bleeding organ of a rock song. the fuzziness of the guitar sounds, the subtlety of the rhythm guitar, the perfectly p(l)aced organ and the sublime delivery are all just right.
"it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry" is almost as much fun to say as it is to listen to. a vox tour-de-force takes a back seat to the harmonica-piano interplay on an incredible track. it contains the one dylan lyric i'd like to change... "and if i die on top of the hill, and if i don't make it, i know my guitar will" that's my version, see if you can spot what i changed...and i'd appreciate your opinions on whether you like the original better...
"from a buick 6" is a little too reminiscent of "tombstone blues" for my liking. and the weakest on the album, but to be honest i only think that because he included "tombstone blues", and it's a perfectly good song... surely he could've put "positively 4th street" on instead?
"ballad of a thin man" is an amazing song, and it is a piano and organ song over which dylan weaves rivulets of verse and outrageous melody lines into a torrent of resentment and surrealist insults. pure genius.
and now to to the highlights:
"like a rolling stone" is much too embedded in the rock psyche for me to say anything original about it... suffice to say, it's damn good.
"desolation row" is the comedown from the tambourine man's high, it's a clear picture of a madhouse world. it's despair of and ridicule at the expense of political and social machinations, it's a great guitar driven song and probably the best end to an album i've ever heard...
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
very helpful by (67%):
helpful by (33%):
![Song's Best Friend, A (The Very Best Of John Denver) [Remastered] - John Denver](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/201/prod_small-5738201.jpg)
