Blood on the Tracks (original: 1975; edição: 1975)

The folk singer/songwriter's first big come-back album.

3/4 (Good).

It has a couple of his best songs, and a few bad ones. The performances are mediocre at best, often terrible. But everything fits together and feels like it belongs on the album. ( )

My personal favorite of his albums, and I would argue his best, as he continues creating his own mythology and symbolism. I seem to remember Rolling Stone running multiple reviews of it, but it's gotten to be a very long time ago and I'm no longer sure. ( )

Bob Dylanin Blood on the Tracks -albumia on pidetty omaelämäkerrallisena tilityksenä Dylanin välirikosta silloiseen vaimoonsa Saraan. Levyn lyriikat kuvaavat rakkautta ja erityisesti rakkaussuhteen menettämiseen liittyviä tunteita kuten katumusta, kaipausta, surua, vihaa. Lyriikoissa kuvataan kadoksissa olevaa rakastettua, jota yritetään etsiä kaikkialta, mutta joka on tavoitettavissa enää vain muistoissa ja unissa, yhteisten lasten kasvoissa. Dylanin lyriikat ovat upeita (tälläkin levyllä):
"Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory
And all your ragin’ glory."

Bob Dylan wrote mainly love songs for this album, laments for ended affairs, story ballads, sly invitations to an affair, even a spiritual / philosophical musing. His writing was consistently good to great. His singing of his songs was uneven. He sang about half of them – including “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Simple Twist of Fate” – almost as well as they deserved to be. Too many times, he tried to do things with his voice that his voice couldn’t do well and didn’t do his songs justice. One example stands out to me because I heard it covered by a better singer. Dylan sang “You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” with a sly charm but he was also too flat and too fast. Madeleine Peyroux sang it rich and slow and got much out of it. I didn’t care for “Idiot Wind” for another reason: he let his rage over a mistress who dumped him turn his song into a tirade. ( )