Blood on the Tracks

Blood on the Tracks is the fifteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 20, 1975[1][2] by Columbia Records. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia Records after a two-album stint with Asylum Records. Dylan began recording the album in New York City in September 1974. In December, shortly before Columbia was due to release the album, Dylan abruptly re-recorded much of the material in a studio in Minneapolis. The final album contains five tracks recorded in New York and five from Minneapolis.

For the Japanese manga series by Shūzō Oshimi, see Blood on the Tracks (manga).

Blood on the Tracks
Studio album by
Bob Dylan
ReleasedJanuary 20, 1975 (1975-01-20)
RecordedSeptember 16–19, 1974, at A & R Recording in New York City and December 27–30, 1974, at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
GenreFolk rock
Length51:42
LabelColumbia
ProducerBob Dylan
Bob Dylan chronology
Before the Flood
(1974)		 Blood on the Tracks
(1975)		 The Basement Tapes
(1975)
Singles from Blood on the Tracks
  1. "Tangled Up in Blue" / "If You See Her, Say Hello"
    Released: January 17, 1975

Blood on the Tracks initially received mixed reviews, but has subsequently been acclaimed as one of Dylan's greatest albums by both critics and fans. The songs have been linked to tensions in Dylan's personal life, including his estrangement from his then-wife Sara. One of their children, Jakob Dylan, has described the songs as "my parents talking".[3] The album is considered an outstanding example of the confessional singer-songwriter's craft, having been called "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape".[4] In interviews, Dylan has denied that the songs on the album are autobiographical.

The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts and No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart, with the single "Tangled Up in Blue" peaking at No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The album remains one of Dylan's best-selling studio releases, with a double-platinum U.S. certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[5] In 2015, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[6] It was voted number 7 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's book All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000),[7] in 2003, the album was ranked No. 16 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, rising to the No. 9 spot in the 2020 revision of that same list. In 2004, it was placed at No. 5 on Pitchfork's list of the top 100 albums of the 1970s.[8]

A high-definition 5.1 surround sound edition of the album was released on SACD by Columbia in 2003.[9]

Recording

Pre-production

At the conclusion of his 1974 tour with the Band, Dylan began a relationship with a Columbia Records employee, Ellen Bernstein, which Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin has described as the beginning of the end of Dylan's marriage to his wife Sara.[10] In spring 1974, Dylan was in New York for several weeks while he attended art classes with the painter Norman Raeben.[11] Dylan subsequently gave Raeben credit in interviews for transforming his understanding of time, and during the summer of 1974 Dylan began to write a series of songs in a red notebook which used his new knowledge:

[Raeben] taught me how to see ... in a way that allowed me to do consciously what I unconsciously felt ... when I started doing it, the first album I made was Blood on the Tracks. Everybody agrees that was pretty different, and what's different about it is there's a code in the lyrics, and also there's no sense of time.[11]

Dylan subsequently spent time with Bernstein on his farm in Minnesota and there he completed the 17 songs from which Blood on the Tracks was formed—songs which Heylin has described as "perhaps the finest collection of love songs of the twentieth century, songs filled with the full spectrum of emotions a marriage on the rocks can engender".[12]

Before recording the songs that would constitute Blood on the Tracks, Dylan previewed them for a number of friends in the music world, including David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, Tim Drummond and Peter Rowan.[13] Nash recalled that Stills disliked Dylan's private performance of his new songs; immediately after Dylan left the room, Stills remarked to Nash, "He's a good songwriter ... but he's no musician."[13]

Initially, Dylan considered recording Blood on the Tracks with an electric backing group, and contacted Mike Bloomfield who had played lead guitar on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album. When the two met, Dylan ran through the songs he was planning to record, but he played them too quickly for Bloomfield to learn.[14] Bloomfield later recalled the experience: "They all began to sound the same to me; they were all in the same key; they were all long. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. He was sort of pissed off that I didn't pick it up." In the end, Dylan rejected the idea of recording the album with a band, and instead substituted stripped-down acoustic arrangements for all of his songs.[14] On August 2, 1974, Dylan signed a contract with Columbia Records. After releasing his two previous albums, Planet Waves and Before the Flood, on Asylum Records, Dylan decided his new album would benefit from the commercial muscle of the record label that had made him famous, and his new contract gave him increased control over his own masters.[15]

Recording sessions

Dylan commenced recording at A & R Recording Studios in New York City on September 16, 1974. Bernstein has stated "the theme of returning ran through the sessions", so "it made a lot of sense to do it at A&R".[15] A & R Studios was the former Columbia Records "Studio A", where Dylan had recorded six albums in the 1960s.[15] The musicians quickly realized that Dylan was taking a "spontaneous" approach to recording.[14] The session engineer, Phil Ramone, later said that Dylan transitioned from one song to another as if they were part of a medley. Ramone noted:

Sometimes he will have several bars, and in the next version, he will change his mind about how many bars there should be in between a verse. Or eliminate a verse. Or add a chorus when you don't expect.

Eric Weissberg and his band, Deliverance, originally recruited as session men, were rejected after two days of recording because they could not keep up with Dylan's pace.[14] Dylan retained bassist Tony Brown from the band, and soon added organist Paul Griffin (who had also worked on Highway 61 Revisited) and steel guitarist Buddy Cage.[14] After ten days[14] and four sessions[16] with the current lineup, Dylan had finished recording and mixing, and, by November, had cut a test pressing of the album. Columbia began to prepare to release the album before Christmas.[17]

Dylan played the test pressing for his brother, David Zimmerman, who persuaded Dylan the album would not sell because the overall sound was too stark. Robert Christgau also heard the early version of the album and called it "a sellout to the memory of Dylan's pre-electric period".[18] At his brother's urging, Dylan agreed to re-record five of the album's songs in Sound 80 in Minneapolis, with backing musicians recruited by David. The new takes were accomplished in two days at the end of December 1974. Blood on the Tracks was released into stores on January 20, 1975.[19] The version on the original test pressing was given a limited release in 2019 for Record Store Day.[20]

Autobiographical interpretation

The songs that constitute Blood on the Tracks have been described by many Dylan critics as stemming from his personal turmoil at the time, particularly his estrangement from his then-wife Sara Dylan.[21] One of Bob and Sara Dylan's children, Jakob Dylan, has said, "When I'm listening to Blood On The Tracks, that's about my parents."[22]

Dylan has denied this autobiographical interpretation, stating in a 1985 interview with Bill Flanagan, "A lot of people thought that album pertained to me. It didn't pertain to me ... I'm not going to make an album and lean on a marriage relationship."[23] Informed of the album's popularity, Dylan told Mary Travers in a radio interview in April 1975: "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean ... people enjoying that type of pain, you know?" Addressing whether the album described his own personal pain, Dylan replied that he didn't write "confessional songs".[14] However, on the live At Budokan album, Dylan seems to acknowledge the autobiographical nature of the song "Simple Twist of Fate" by introducing it as "Here's a simple love story. Happened to me."

According to Rolling Stone, in Dylan's lyric notebook, the working title of Simple Twist of Fate was 4th Street Affair; Dylan and Suze Rotolo lived at 161 W. 4th St. The narrator of the song memorializes an affair of ten years ago instead of singing about Dylan's marriage.[24]

In his 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Vol. 1, Dylan stated that the songs have nothing to do with his personal life, and that they were inspired by the short stories of Anton Chekhov.[25]

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[26]
Chicago Tribune[27]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[28]
Music Story[29]
MusicHound Rock5/5[30]
Pitchfork10/10[31]
Q[32]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[33]
Sputnikmusic5/5[34]
The Village VoiceA[18]

Released in early 1975, Blood on the Tracks initially received mixed reviews from critics.[35] Rolling Stone published two assessments. The first, by Jonathan Cott, called it "Dylan's magnificent new album". The second reviewer, Jon Landau, wrote that "the record has been made with typical shoddiness."[36] In NME, Nick Kent described "the accompaniments [as] often so trashy they sound like mere practice takes",[36] while Crawdaddy magazine's Jim Cusimano found the instrumentation incompetent.[35]

An influential review of the album was written by Dylan critic Michael Gray for the magazine Let It Rock. Gray argued that it transformed the cultural perception of Dylan, and that he was no longer defined as "the major artist of the sixties. Instead, Dylan has legitimized his claim to a creative prowess as vital now as then—a power not bounded by the one decade he so affected."[37] This view was amplified by Clinton Heylin, who wrote: "Ten years after he turned the rock & roll brand of pop into rock ... [Dylan] renewed its legitimacy as a form capable of containing the work of a mature artist."[37] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote that although the lyrics occasionally evoke romantic naiveté and bitterness, Blood on the Tracks is altogether Dylan's "most mature and assured record".[18]

Since its initial reception, Blood on the Tracks has been viewed by critics as one of Dylan's best albums.[35] In Salon.com, Wyman wrote: "Blood on the Tracks is his only flawless album and his best produced; the songs, each of them, are constructed in disciplined fashion. It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years."[38] Bell, in his critical biography of Dylan, wrote that Blood on the Tracks was proof that "Dylan had won the argument over his refusal to argue about politics. In this, he began to seem prescient."[39] Bell concluded the album "might well count as one of the best things Dylan ever did".[40] Novelist Rick Moody called it "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape".[4]

A result of the acclaim surrounding the album has been that when critics have praised one of Dylan's subsequent albums, they have often described it as "his best since Blood on the Tracks".[41][42] According to music journalist Rob Sheffield, Blood on the Tracks became a benchmark album for Dylan in the years that followed because it was "such a stunning comeback".[33]

The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[43]

A film adaptation of the album is currently in pre-production, under the direction of Luca Guadagnino.[44]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Bob Dylan.

Side one
No.TitleRecordedLength
1."Tangled Up in Blue"December 30, 1974, in Minneapolis5:42
2."Simple Twist of Fate"September 19, 1974, in New York City4:19
3."You're a Big Girl Now"December 27, 1974, in Minneapolis4:36
4."Idiot Wind"December 27, 1974, in Minneapolis7:48
5."You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"September 17, 1974, in New York City2:55
Side two
No.TitleRecordedLength
1."Meet Me in the Morning"September 16, 1974, in New York City4:22
2."Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts"December 30, 1974, in Minneapolis8:51
3."If You See Her, Say Hello"December 30, 1974, in Minneapolis4:49
4."Shelter from the Storm"September 17, 1974, in New York City5:02
5."Buckets of Rain"September 19, 1974, in New York City3:22
Total length:51:42

Outtakes

Until November 2018, only one of the five New York acetate recordings that were subsequently replaced on the official album was officially released: "You're a Big Girl Now", released on 1985's Biograph. Although alternate takes of "Tangled Up in Blue", "Idiot Wind", and "If You See Her, Say Hello" from those same sessions were released on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1–3, these were not the same takes that were initially slotted for inclusion on the official album. That collection also includes "Call Letter Blues", an outtake/early version of "Meet Me in the Morning" with alternate lyrics. "Up to Me", another outtake from these sessions, was also released on 1985's Biograph. An alternate take of the song "Shelter From the Storm" is featured in the original soundtrack album for Jerry Maguire (1996). An alternate take of "Meet Me in the Morning" was released on the B-side of the Record Store Day 2012 release of "Duquesne Whistle." "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" was, until 2018, the only song from the New York sessions that had not been officially released in any form.[45] Now all of these, as well as more than 70 previously unreleased recordings, are available on the 6-disc deluxe edition of More Blood, More Tracks, volume 14 of Dylan's ongoing archival Bootleg Series.[46]

Personnel

For personnel details, see Heylin, 1996[45] and Björner, 2014.[47] Track numbers refer to CD and digital releases of the album.

Musicians

Technical

Charts

Notes
  • A ^ Denotes personnel performing at the Minneapolis recording sessions.
  • B ^ Denotes personnel performing at the New York recording sessions.

References
  1. "Shelter From The Storm – the inside story of Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks". Uncut Magazine. Archived from the original on November 29, 2014. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  2. Fraser, Alan. "Blood On The Tracks 1975". www.searchingforagem.com. Archived from the original on August 4, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
  3. Sounes 2001, p. 284
  4. Hedin 2004, p. 109
  5. "The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. November 1, 2003. Archived from the original on April 15, 2012. Retrieved March 22, 2007.
  6. "GRAMMY Hall Of Fame". The GRAMMYs. Archived from the original on June 26, 2015. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
  7. Colin Larkin, ed. (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 35. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.
  8. "Staff Lists: Top 100 Albums of the 1970s". Pitchfork. June 23, 2004. Archived from the original on April 22, 2013. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  9. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on January 29, 2020. Retrieved January 29, 2020.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. Heylin 2011, pp. 362–363
  11. Clinton Heylin (April 1, 2011). Behind the Shades: The 20th Anniversary Edition. Faber & Faber. pp. 368–369. ISBN 9780571272419.
  12. Heylin 2011, p. 372
  13. Gill & Odegard 2005, pp. 42–44
  14. Williamson, Nigel (2004). The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan. London: Rough Guides. pp. 111–113. ISBN 1-84353-139-9.
  15. Heylin 2011, p. 378
  16. Bjorner, 1974 On the Road Again: Calendar Archived November 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Bjorner's As the Years Passed the Door. Retrieved September 3, 2010
  17. Heylin 2011, pp. 381
  18. Christgau, Robert (1975). "Consumer Guide (52)". The Village Voice (January 27). New York. Archived from the original on August 3, 2014. Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  19. Heylin 2011, pp. 381–383
  20. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 6, 2020. Retrieved February 6, 2020.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  21. Gill & Odegard 2005, pp. 186–188
  22. Gray 2006, p. 199
  23. Flanagan 1990, pp. 96–97
  24. /music/lists/100-greatest-bob-dylan-songs-20160524 '100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs.' Archived March 12, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Rolling Stone, 24 mei 2016. Simple Twist of Fate is ranked 15.
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  29. "Blood on the Tracks". Acclaimed Music. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
  30. Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel (eds) (1999). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Visible Ink Press. pp. 369, 371. ISBN 1-57859-061-2.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
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  32. Q. London (December): 131. 1993. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  33. Sheffield, Rob (2004). "Bob Dylan". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon & Schuster. pp. 262, 264. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  34. Butler, Nick (June 26, 2006). "Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks". Sputnikmusic. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  35. Williamson 2004, p. 113.
  36. Heylin 2011, p. 383
  37. Heylin 2011, p. 384
  38. "Bob Dylan". Salon.com. May 5, 2001. Archived from the original on October 28, 2012. Retrieved May 13, 2013.
  39. Bell 2012, p. 556
  40. Bell 2012, p. 558
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  42. Christgau, Robert (March 1998). "Not Dead Yet". Spin. Archived from the original on December 30, 2006. Retrieved March 22, 2007.
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  45. Heylin 1996, pp. 151–153
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  47. Björner 2014
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  53. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 5, 2019. Retrieved November 10, 2019.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  54. "Discography Bob Dylan". irish-charts.com. Hung Medien. Archived from the original on December 8, 2016. Retrieved July 28, 2012.
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  56. "French album certifications – Bob Dylan – Blood on the tracks" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique.
  57. "InfoDisc : Les Meilleurs Ventes d'Albums "Tout Temps" (33 T. / Cd / Téléchargement)". www.infodisc.fr. Archived from the original on September 29, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2018.
  58. "British album certifications – Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks". British Phonographic Industry. Select albums in the Format field. Select Gold in the Certification field. Type Blood on the Tracks in the "Search BPI Awards" field and then press Enter.
  59. "American album certifications – Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH. 

Sources:

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