Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Released - May 1963

Genre - Folk

Producer - John Hammond & Tom Wilson

Selected Personnel - Bob Dylan (Vocals/Guitar/Harmonica/Keyboards); Leonard Gaskin (Bass); Herb Lovelle (Drums); Dick Wellstood (Piano)

Standout Track - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

It's not a popular opinion amongst music-lovers, but Bob Dylan is a craze I've never really caught onto. I no longer view his music with the total misunderstanding and distaste I used to, but it's also far from being music I relish or truly admire. I'm sure that perhaps sometime in my life I'll find time to give Dylan more of a chance and perhaps he'll grow on me, but based on the few albums I've heard, I can take or leave him. For me, I feel that Dylan's great significance and strength lies not as a musician but as a lyricist - it's the potent lyrics of political discontent or romantic longing that make people obsess over Dylan rather than his musical inventiveness or prowess. For me, a great lyricist is only one part of what makes a great musician, and a lot of the time I feel that the music on offer, other than its lyrical inventiveness or incisiveness, is lacking something. Personally, Dylan's finest moment ever is an obscure early song called "I Was Young When I Left Home," one of the first Dylan songs I heard, and for me there's little else that lives up to its fine example.

This is admittedly an odd way to kick off an entry for a Bob Dylan album in a "Best Albums" list. The truth is that, much as Dylan as an overall sensation has never grasped me, his first truly significant album is a great piece of work. It's still much longer than it needs to be, and features a lot more redundant material than most Dylan fans will have you believe. But there's enough classic stuff on there to make it an important work and one worth listing.

At this stage in his career, Dylan was little more than just another folk singer with little to recommend him as any different to the countless others crowding the folk scene, and was even on the point of being dropped from his record label despite the protestations of manager John Hammond. Recognising that Dylan's great strength would be in songwriting rather than in interpreting the songs of others, Hammond pushed Dylan to focus on creating original material for his second album, which ended up being The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The invisible figure of huge significance on this album is Dylan's girlfriend of the time Suze Rotolo (invisible musically at least, she appears on Dylan's arm on the cover art). Rotolo's political activism and strong opinions on nuclear disarmament and civil rights awoke the first glimmerings of political ire in Dylan himself, which would go on to be the touchstone of his greatest songs, including many on Freewheelin', from the specific angry pro-disarmament tirade of "Masters of War" to the more general freedom anthem "Blowin' in the Wind." Lyrics were Dylan's main focus in his composition, with most of the melodies adapted from traditional folk songs and spirituals ("Blowin' in the Wind" being lifted from the familiar African-American spiritual "No More Auction Block.") But Rotolo was also the inspiration for the album's less politically-charged compositions as well, from the plaintive and world-weary blues of "Down the Highway," lamenting her departure to Italy, to the truly beautiful and contemplative "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," a reflection on the news that Rotolo was potentially considering staying in Italy long-term. The song is in equal parts a hugely mature statement of selfless love, and at the same time a self-pitying statement of reproach. The other standout is "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," another song where Dylan manages to load political statement and ire into a song without the need to tie it to specific issues or events, merely layering apocalyptic images one on top of the other to create a vastly complex work that would go on to become one of his most lasting songs.

For me, those classics are more or less all this album has to recommend itself, but any other artist would be deeply envious of any one of these great songs. "Girl From the North Country" is lovely, and "Corrina, Corrina" is a nice little song, but most of the rest I find fairly forgettable and, in the worst instances, vaguely irritating (I'm thinking mainly of "Talking World War III Blues" here). Dylan's musicianship, too, is never interesting enough to really hold much attention beyond those classics, being largely a rather workmanlike rendition of familiar-sounding folk songs. His voice can be a great strength as well as a great weakness, in some places capturing a kind of strained, world-weary anger and yearning that's startling for someone in their early twenties, whereas elsewhere the nasal quality to his singing and the lack of any polish or neatness to his voice can make some of the songs sound almost flippant or childlike. 

So, for me, it's an album that hits some stratospheric highs but never quite does enough to become a truly solid piece of work. It's possible that time will change my mind over Dylan and I'll come to look back on this review as embarrassing, but hey, I at least included it on the list, which means I must be at least a little bit open-minded, right?

Track Listing:

All songs by Bob Dylan, except where noted

1. Blowin' In The Wind

2. Girl From The North Country

3. Masters Of War

4. Down The Highway

5. Bob Dylan's Blues

6. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

7. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

8. Bob Dylan's Dream

9. Oxford Town

10. Talkin' World War III Blues

11. Corrina, Corrina (Traditional)

12. Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance (Bob Dylan & Henry Thomas)

13. I Shall Be Free