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

Copyright 2015 by Steven Sroczynski.  All rights reserved.  
This blog may not be reproduced, whole or in part, without the express written consent of its author, Steven Sroczynski. 

The Times, They Are A-Changin' (1964)

1. The Times, They Are A-Changin' (3:15)
2. Ballad of Hollis Brown (5:06)
3. With God on Our Side (7:08)
4. One Too Many Mornings (2:41)
5. North Country Blues (4:35)
6. Only A Pawn in Their Game (3:33)
7. Boots of Spanish Leather (4:40)
8. When the Ship Comes In (3:18)
9. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (5:48)
10. Restless Farewell (5:32)

All songs written by Bob Dylan








Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam 
and admit that the waters around you have grown


Review: Bob Dylan opened his previous album, 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,' with 'Blowin' in the Wind,' which quickly became a folk standard, popularized by the folk trio Peter Paul & Mary.

He opens this album in similar fashion, with the anthemic 'The Times, They Are A-Changin.'  Like 'Blowin' and many other songs Bob wrote around this time period, 'The Times' would be covered by myriad other artists - Peter Paul & Mary put it on their live album released the same year - but unlike 'Blowin,' Bob's version probably remains the most famous cut,  It's inclusion in the opening sequence of the 2009 blockbuster film 'Watchmen' gets across the song's timelessness.

Despite the apparent optimism in the opening title track, this is an album with a lot of despair.

The next track, 'Ballad of Hollis Brown,' is a 5 minute bluesy riff about a farmer who runs out of money, crops, and friends, and the song ends in shocking fashion, although a glimmer of hope is seen in the very end "...seven new people born."

From the farms to the schoolyard for the history lesson of 'With God On Our Side,' a song that is never quite as clever as it seems to try to be.  Still, an attack on faith back in 1964 - this was unheard of!  Perhaps Bob's inclusion of Biblical figure - Jesus, Judas - in traditional fashion placated the church and religious folks.  The final line, "If Gods on our side, he'll stop the next war" also could be taken a couple of ways.  The second protest song on the album, it is also one of the weakest tracks.  It was a concert favorite, Bob often performing it with his partner Joan Baez.  Still, its a laborious melody and it goes on for far too long.  The harmonica, which was used to great effect on 'The Times' and would be likewise used on the following track, is a bit grating and overwrought here.  A weak link on an otherwise strong fence.

'One Too Many Mornings' is another song of heartbreak, in the same vein as 'Dont Think Twice' from the previous album.  A beautiful little song.  'You are right from your side, I am right from mine.'  Bob is peerless in poetically stating the simple truths of life.

From pleasant to sour, 'North Country Blues' is a commentary on the closing of a mine and the subsequent effect on the jobs of the community.  Sung well, the song paints a bleak, hopeless picture of life for the miners and their families when they lose their jobs.

Back to protest songs with 'Only a Pawn in Their Game,' a song that opens with the death of Medgar Evers, it's refrain aimed towards poor white folks who are used by the rich white folks and divided against blacks.

The heartbreaking 'Boots of Spanish Leather' is one of Bob's best.  Quite similar to 'Girl of the North Country' from his previous album in melody and guitar, it describes a narrator communicating with his love who sailed across the ocean, the narrator trying to convince her to come back until finally accepting their separate fates in the end.

'When The Ship Comes In' is an attack on the powerful.  There is a lot of venom behind this song, though you might not know that in listening to it - Bob sings it sweetly enough.  A nice little chestnut that has been mostly forgotten.

'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' is Bob's second track here about a black person killed by a white person.  But unlike 'Only a Pawn in Their Game,' here the entire song is about this injustice.  Lyrically the song is brilliant.  Bob may take some creative license with the facts (a harbinger of things to come), but the song couldn't be spoken any better.  Bob continues his habit of last verses/lines that strike the listener to the bone.

The closer is 'Restless Farewell,' the most unique song in the set.  Sung in first person, it seems to have Bob looking back a bit wistfully.  In talking about his friends the song has something in common with 'Bob Dylan's Dream,' but whereas that song was pure nostalgia, here Bob is making a proclamation - farewell - to the past.  Indeed, he would not return to protest songs for several years, much to the dismay of his fans.  Again the last line is telling "...I'll bid farewell, and not give a damn."  The folk crowd would learn this a year later in harsh fashion.

Overall another excellent collection of material from Bob.  Even more amazing is how many terrific songs he wrote but did not include on both this album and Freewheelin'.  In 1991 The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 would reveal many of these songs.

If the only weak points on the album are a live favorite (With God On Our Side) and maybe the 2 song stretch of 'North Country Blues' and 'Only A Pawn,' your songwriting is tremendously strong.

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

Best song: The Times, They Are A-Changin' (but One Too Many Mornings and Boots of Spanish Leather are right there)

Best 3 song run: Boots of Spanish Leather/When the Ship Comes In/The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

Song I'm most likely to skip: With God on Our Side

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.  
This blog may not be reproduced, whole or in part, without the express written consent of its author, Steven Sroczynski.