"Blood on the Tracks (1975)"
This is my favorite Bob Dylan album, it hit me the night I decided to do this and I randomally was putting on various Dylan albums and I was blown away by this. Before I thought it a good album, maybe the best he released in the 70s but it never really captured me the way Blonde on Blonde or Freewheelin did right from the start. I'd heard it several times and didn't think much of it. I don't really know what to say about this album, it's relaxed but in a very good way. Dylan seems more in control of himself here and focuses less on being a poet and more on being a musician and the songwriting is so improved from the seething Idiot Wind to the sorrowful Simple Twist of Fate.
This album is a much different album than anything Dylan had done before. Musically it's not much different from some of the stuff before it, this just seems more in control and polished than prior albums before it. Here he seems at times disappointed, distraught, confused and heartbroken. Which may sound unappealing coming from the fire-filled voice of the 60s but I've heard The Times They Are A-Changin and Highway 61 Revisited I liked them, but I'll take Blood On the Tracks over them any day.
Favorite Lyric: "We had a falling-out, like lovers often will / And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill / And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart / She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart / If you get close to her, kiss her once for me / I always have respected her for doing what she did and getting free / Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way / Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay."
Favorite Songs: Idiot Wind, If You See Her Say Hello, Tangled Up in Blue, Shelter From the Storm, Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, Simple Twist of Fate, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go