Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

 

Ah, but I was so much older then

I'm younger than that now

1. All I Really Wanna Do (4:07)

2. Black Crow Blues (3:16)

3. Spanish Harlem Incident (2:29)

4. Chimes of Freedom (7:13)

5. I Shall Be Free No. 10 (4:51)

6. To Ramona (3:55)

7. Motorpsycho Nitemare (4:36)

8. My Back Pages (4:28)

9. I Don't Believe You (4:26)

10. Ballad In Plain D (8:21)

11. It Ain't Me, Babe (3:35)

Coming on the heels of Bob's most prolific protest period, 'Another Side of Bob Dylan' must have been a minor shock to Bob's fans.  Of course these fans, those that stayed at least, would quickly become accustomed to the expecting the unexpected from this voice of freedom.

A year earlier Bob opened 'Freewheelin' with the folk classic 'Blowin' in the Wind.'  Earlier in 1964 Bob opened 'The Times They Are A-Changin' with the title folk anthem.  And he opens 'Another Side' by singing "All I really wanna do ... is baby be friends with you!?"

Expectations aside, the opener is a great catchy little tune, Bob expanding his vocal range about as much as possible.  Bob may not be changing national politics with this song, but he sure is having fun singing it.

'Black Crow Blues' and 'Spanish Harlem Incident' are two relatively minor songs in Bob's vast canon.  First person storytelling and joking abound on these tracks and indeed throughout much of the album.

On the fourth track we finally get a glimpse at the singer-songwriter's legendary abilities with 'Chimes of Freedom,' one of Bob's most complex tracks to this point.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild whipping hail / the sky cracked its poems in naked wonder / the ringing of the church bells ...leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder / striking for the gentle, striking for the kind, striking for guardians and protectors of the mind / and the poet and the painter far beyond his rightful time / and we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Is it a protest song?  Most likely.  But rather than the straightforward approach taken on his previous albums with songs such as 'Only A Pawn In Their Game,' 'Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' and the title track, here his protest lyrics are couched in wild, surreal, imaginative imagery.  If he strains to sing the right notes, Bob can be forgiven for this on account of the edge-of-your-seat lyrics.  "Each un-harmful gentle soul misplaced inside a jail."  A decade later Bob would write 'Hurricane' which spelled this thought out with real life situations and people, narrating each chapter of the gentle soul's story, but here he let the imagery do the talking.  Grand and noble ideas and philosophies were hinted at, but stories were not told, at least not in traditional realistic fashion.

'Chimes of Freedom' is notable for signaling the beginning of the surreal, dense, often confusing or illogical imagery that he would become famous for in the trifecta of albums that followed this one.  It is certainly a brother in song to 'Mr. Tambourine Man' which would appear on his next album.

And in typical fashion, Bob follows up this grand declaration of freedom with the hokey "I Shall Be Free No. 10."  The references (Goldwater, Cuba) are dated but the song gets by with a recurring guitar/harp riff that Bob takes the time to explain at the end of the song: "Its nothin ... its somethin' I learned over in England."  

Switching it up yet again, we get a more traditional love song with 'To Ramona,' which sounds out as a straightforward plea to a former lover.

Back to more comedy with 'Motorpsycho Nightmare' ... Cuba gets another mention, as does Fidel Castro.  Bob's "funny" songs never seem as funny as he thinks they are, at least not the ones that made his early albums.

'My Back Pages' has become a near-classic, second only to 'Chimes' in complexity on the album.  30 years later this would become the highlight of Bobfest, the verses sung in succeeding fashion by Bob's contemporaries and buddies Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison, along with Bob himself.

'I Don't Believe You' is a genuine surprise highlight of this album.  A great guitar accompaniment and vocal performance by Bob surpass the one-joke-ness of the lyric.  Always a fun song.

'Ballad in Plain D' is a rare misfire of a ballad by Bob.  An autobiographical song that seems to apologize to a former lover for falling in love with her sister, even the poetic question that closes the 8 minute song fails to strike a meaningful chord with the listener.

Luckily, Bob doesn't end the album there; we get an 11th track, the superb 'It Ain't Me, Babe.'  Probably the signature track of the album, a genuinely excellent anti-love song in a career full of them.

Overall the album is split between songs I could do without - the jokey numbers along with the Ballad - and songs that are essential to Bob's canon.  This is well shown in Bob's live sets, with It Ain't Me Babe, I Don't Believe You, Chimes of Freedom, Ramona, and My Back Pages thankfully getting just about all of the time in Bob's setlists.  The other songs, if they appeared at all, would quickly be eliminating from Bob's setlists from 1965 onward.  If Bob could at times be a questionable judge of his own work, his after-the-release selections of live material, at least from this album, were spot-on.

Thankfully, the great songs on this album - notably It Ain't Me, Babe, Chimes of Freedom, and I Don't Believe You - and to a slightly lesser extent My Back Pages, To Ramona, and All I Really Wanna Do - are so strong that they overcome the slight numbers that round out the album.

Rating: 8/10     ******** / **********

Best Song: Chimes of Freedom 

Best 3-song run: Chimes of Freedom / I Shall Be Free No. 10 / To Ramona (Ballad in Plain D, all 8 minutes of it, ruins what would be winner in 'I Don't Believe You' through 'It Ain't Me, Babe' to close the album)

Song I'm most likely to skip: Ballad in Plain D

Tier A+: Chimes of Freedom, It Ain't Me, Babe
Tier A-:  I Don't Believe You, My Back Pages
Tier B+: To Ramona, All I Really Wanna Do
Tier B:    I Shall Be Free No. 10
Tier C:   Black Crow Blues, Spanish Harlem Incident, Motorpsycho Nitemare
Tier D:   Ballad in Plain D


Steven Sroczynski is an author and attorney from Massachusetts.  He can be reached at Steve.Sroczynski@gmail.com

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