Bob Dylan
Blonde On Blonde
Outtakes
Columbia Studios - New York and Nashville
1966
1. Mama You're so Hard - cut fragment
2. Instrumental
3. I Wanna Be Your Lover - fade ending
4. I Wanna Be Your Lover
5. Jet Pilot - cut fragment
6. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? - cut
fragment
7. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
8. CanYou Please Crawl Out Your Window? - alternate
9. I Don't Want To Be Your Partner - fragment
10. Visions of Johanna
11. Visions of Johanna - alternate
12. She's Your Lover Now- cut ending
13. She's Your Lover Now - alternate w/solo piano
14. I'll Keep It With Mine
15. Instrumental
16. Seven Days - fade ending
return
The album, Blonde On Blonde, was innovative in its own terms,
apart from the style and nature of the music. It was the first rock double
album. The longer format of this record made people believe that rock could
produce something more substantial than the 3-minute pop song. This length
of album allowed Dylan to present his talent in full. Dylan himself also
matured in the making of this album. His great skills as a lyricist is still
very much in evident but there was a greater depth in the songs, musically
and stylistically. This album was a far more experimental than anything
Dylan had ever attempted before. Consequently, this became his real
breakthrough album, much in the same vein as Van Morrison's Astral Week,
The Beatles Revolver, and The Beach Boys Pet Sounds.
Early in 1966 Dylan, Robertson, and Danko entered the studio in New York
to record some songs that Dylan had been working on while touring. They were
also joined by Paul Griffin on piano and Al Kooper on organ. A few
weeks into the gig, the recording the sessions were moved to Nashville Tennessee.
Robbie Robertson again helped out along with some top session men in Nashville,
Joe South, Charlie McCoy and Wayne Moss. Dylan did not fit in to the Nashville
scene and perhaps he knew this was just the sort of environment that would
shake him out of his folk roots.
Ok let's set the stage properly, remember, Nashville had a hard time accepting
Johnny Cash so you know they had trouble w/ a long-haired freak from New York.
Many viewed him with suspicion but he overcame the accepted conventions of
the Nashville recording system. His unorthodox approach of actually
playing together (groundbreaking, no?) at recording sessions (rather than
screening each instrument) seemed strange to the old hands at the studio.
On one song Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 the musicians swapped instruments,
and the drum kit was rearranged and cymbals were attached to chairs. The recording
began in the early hours of the morning and it only required three takes
to produce a wonderfully ramshackle ad-lib kind of sound. As the songs took
shape, a new kind of vibrancy in the music was evident and soon Dylan was
accepted more as an innovator rather than viewed as the New York folk-loving,
beatnick, wierdo, liberal with non-sensical lyrics (that he was in the public
eye, anyway).
When he entered the Nashville studio Dylan had not completed all the
songs that he was to record, most of them were still half thought out. He
used the recording sessions to find the missing elements to the songs. Often
he would play the completed chords to a song on a piano and then allow the
other musicians to improvise different musical accompaniments. Dylan was
aiming at a particular sound - one which evolved from the simplistic folk
sound he had developed in the past but not so far that it would sound like
the more production orientated pop music. He wanted the songs to sound rough
and ready; to have the sentiments of folk but the wild, up beat nature of
rock n roll. Humm, what shall we call this, Folk Rock perhaps?
Regardless of the label, he did find the sweet spot between folk and rock
music. Dylan had hit a target that few had imagined at the time. With Blonde
On Blonde Dylan abandoned his folk-protest roots but he gained a huge
number of new fans. This sound paved the way for others like The Byrds and
Crosby Still and Nash. Very few artists have the chance and the capability
to change the course of musical direction. This was Dylan's moment. And if
you ever wonder why he's revered in the music world, listen to Blonde
on Blonde, but listen to it as though it's 1966 - you're listening to
a history changing moment in time.