How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?
1. Blowin' in the Wind
Bob Dylan 2:49
2. Girl from the North Country
Bob Dylan 3:23
3. Masters of War
Bob Dylan 4:38
4. Down the Highway
Bob Dylan 3:32
5. Bob Dylan's Blues
Bob Dylan 2:28
6. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
Bob Dylan 6:53
7. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Bob Dylan 3:40
8. Bob Dylan's Dream
Bob Dylan 5:02
9. Oxford Town
Bob Dylan 1:50
10. Talkin' World War III Blues
Bob Dylan 6:27
11. Corrina, Corrina
Traditional 2:44
12. Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance
Bob Dylan / Henry Thomas 2:00
13. I Shall Be Free
Bob Dylan 4:47
Review: It might be his 2nd album, but The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is the folk maestro's first album of any significant and lasting importance. And what significance it is!
Within 5 seconds of pushing the play button, the listener hears the familiar refrain "How many times..." of 'Blowin' in the Wind,' one of the great American folk songs of the 1960's and all time for that matter. Of course it was a bigger hit for the more conventional voices of the group 'Peter Paul and Mary,' but Bob's voice is confident and powerful throughout this record. His voice has deepened a bit and he sounds like he's singing with his voice, not trying to sound like someone else as he did on some cuts from his debut album Bob Dylan. Despite his youth, Bob sounds like a much older man, with the knowledge and experience of someone who has seen much. He doesn't yet have the drawl, mock, and sneer that he would gather for his mid 60's trilogy of Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, but he sounds like Bob Dylan, if a bit better at this point than many of the imitators would have you believe.
What else can be said about 'Blowin' in the Wind'? I leave that to the listener to decide. Suffice to say it is still relevant today, like many of Bob Dylan's anthems on this album and it's follow-up, 'The Times They Are A-Changin'. Sadly, it will likely still be relevant in 50 years.
Bob follows up 'Blowin' with the beautiful love song 'Girl from the North Country.' He borrows the melody from 'Scarborough Fair' but the song is separate enough from 'Fair' to stand on its own.
Next we get another protest song, 'Masters of War.' If Eddie Vedder did a magnificent cover at the 30th Anniversary Concert in 1992 (and numerous other times in concert), Bob's vocal is focused and angry, effectively conveying his sense of disdain and fury towards those who would send our kids off die. Bob would later claim the song was geared toward the Military Industrial Complex, and this is heard early on in phrases such as "Those who build the big bombs" and "Those who build the death planes." Still, it is hard not to see this is an antiwar song. Bob played it in a ramshackle fashion in 1991 at the Grammy Awards, when operation Desert Storm was in effect. Quite clearly he was protesting. These 3 songs have frequented Bob's live set throughout much of his career, and rightfully so.
After 2 less complex songs - 'Down The Highway' and 'Bob Dylan' Blues', Bob performs the magnificent 'A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall.' A jaw-dropping lyric with a fine melody to match.
Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
The above is just one verse out of five equally brilliant ones. If anyone still doubted Bob's lyrical ability at this point, surely this song put those doubts to rest. In just under seven minutes, Bob essentially writes a treatise on the fear and unease many had at this time with respect to nuclear war. But instead of writing it in a straightforward manner he writes words a poet would be proud to have signed.
As if that wasn't enough, Bob drops another masterpiece on the listener next with 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.' A goodbye to a one night stand or a relationship? Either way, "I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind / you could've done better but I don't mind / you just kinda wasted my precious time / but don't think twice it's alright." Some of the best acoustic finger-picking of his career thus far (Girl of the North Country is another good example) and a whining low harp solo after each lonely verse.
7 songs in at this point, and 5 of them are downright classics.
The rest of the album is more scattershot: A (rare) sentimental ode to his friends, 'Bob Dylan's Dream;' the brief protest song 'Oxford Town;' The semi-funny 'Talkin' World War III Blues;' a fine full band arrangement of 'Corrina, Corrina' that effectively shows a bit of Bob's vocal chops. The final 2 songs are reminiscent of the earlier run of 'Bob Dylan's Blues' and 'Down The Highway': The silly 'Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance' and a song called 'I Shall Be Free' which is never as funny as Bob seems to intend it to be. 'Dream' and 'Corrina' are the best of this latter-half lot. 'Corrina' shows that Bob is capable of performing with a full band, albeit entirely acoustic, and 'Dream' is a fine song showing a side of Bob we rarely see, speaking fondly of his friends who he will apparently never see again, "ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat, I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that."
A vast improvement over his first album, obviously due to the inclusion of his original songs. There are some songs here you can skip, but even those are better than the filler on much of his first album. The original songs here - notably those first 5 of 7 tracks - are so great, and so enshrined in American culture, that I can't rate this album any higher than the maximum, Bob would follow up this masterpiece with more protest material with his next release, 'The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Rating: 10/10 **********/**********
Best Song: A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall (today, anyway)
Best 3-Track Run: Blowin' in the Wind / Girl from the North Country / Masters of War
Tier A: Blowin' in the Wind, Girl from the North Country, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Don't Think Twice It's Alright, Masters of War
Tier B: Bob Dylan's Dream, Corrina, Corrina, Oxford Town
Tier B-: Talkin' World War III Blues, I Shall Be Free
Tier C: Down the Highway, Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance, Bob Dylan's Blues
Song I'm most likely to skip: Probably none of them, but if I had to choose ... 'Down the Highway' has a guitar part that is repetitive and its stuck in between so many classics...
Steven Sroczynski is an author and attorney from Massachusetts. He can be reached at Steve.Sroczynski@gmail.com
Copyright 2015 by Steven Sroczynski. All rights reserved.
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