On Blonde On Blonde, Dylan’s lyricism, for which he rightfully was awarded the Nobel Prize for in 2016, is clever, insightful, and beautiful, showing a literary giant at the peak of his career. It’s so completely juvenile, yet somehow, in a way unique only to Dylan, it’s complex and ambiguous, a gutsy risk that makes for an off-kilter hallmark of his catalogue. But whatever it’s about, “Rainy Day Women” is sneakily brilliant. It’s cheeky, and considering that it’s the first taste of the album given to listeners, it’s unbelievably daring. Upon further inspection, past the pun that correlates the punishment of stoning with, well, getting stoned, the lyrics sound confrontative, maybe a bite back at the folkies Dylan disavowed when he went electric. Just the plodding drums and bass, the tambourine slightly out of sync, inebriated, rinky-dink piano, and the dissonant, mournful howls of the harmonica and a muted trumpet, all seemingly detached from Dylan’s near-sobbed vocals and the egging-on of the audience. I actually double-checked my headphones to see if they were broken. Which is why the opening track, “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”, shocked me more than the frigid hellhole of Minnesota ever could. I was aware of the prolificness of Dylan’s 60’s output, so I went into the record assuming that I’d hear the apex of his sound, something streamlined and focused beyond all measure. Some sort of convoluted sentiment was involved, noting that Dylan was indeed a Minnesotan, and listening to a Minnesotan artist in Minnesota would be poetic in my pretentious mind. It was that story that first inspired me to find Blonde On Blonde on Apple Music, an act mostly done in boredom due to the fact that my flight from Minnesota had broken down, stranding me in a city where the highest temperature of the day was negative. There, he reached out to some members of the thriving music scene, drafting a ramshackle band of musicians into the sessions of what would become his magnum opus. After frustrations reached fever pitch and productivity plummeted, Dylan packed up his equipment, took his band, and dragged them all the way down to the Columbia session studio down in Nashville, Tennessee. Dylan, coming off of touring for the equally magnificent Highway 61 Revisited, took some of the Hawks, his touring crew, and went into the Columbia Studio in New York to create his next musical work. The story behind Bob Dylan’s masterpiece, Blonde On Blonde, is one of the most iconic in all of popular music.
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