Classic album: Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

No difficult second album here. For my money, this is an album almost without peer in terms of the leap made from first to second album.

It would feature in most people’s lists if they did a top 10 second albums of all time (alongside Fun House, Nevermind, The Bends, This Year’s Model, Chairs Missing, Closer and few others). Not only that but even approaching 50 years on Dylan will likely be playing two songs a night from the first side of this LP, not something that the McCartney would likely to be doing off With The Beatles or The Stones with any version of their second album you want to pick.

To think that Dylan was still only 21 when he was writing these lyrics is a mind blowing concept to behold. When you even consider that the performances and song writing in songs left off this album, recorded in the first session, like ‘The Death of Emmett Till’, ‘Rambling, Gambling Willie’, and ‘Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’, showing us our first glimpses of Dylan the protest singer. Opening the record is ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ one of the most well known Dylan songs from the opening of his career mainly in part to Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of the song which reached #2 in the USA. It is thought to be Dylan’s most covered song. Unlike many of his other protest songs, it doesn’t reference any particular event or injustice and it’s for that reason that this is the one that people latch on to the most. It deals with the general not the case of one particular person that may fade into history and is still being used as an anti-war and anti-oppression song to this day. It is said that Dylan wrote the first and last verses within minutes one night after a lengthy discussion on politics were it was concluded that remaining silent on an issue was tantamount to condoning it and it was a civic responsibility to stand up for other people’s rights. Borrowing the tune from Negro spiritual song ‘No More Auction Block’ (performed in 1962 by Dylan in Greenwich a number of times and to be found on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991). The song was published in folk sheet music publication Sing Out! making it a popular song to be covered and parodied even before Dylan himself had recorded it, this was key to winning round the likes of Van Ronk on the song who couldn’t understand the meaning of the title phrase. Now of course the phrase has entered the lexicon and the opening line even sees itself put forward as the question to the ultimate answer in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. How a scruffy 21 year old Jewish kid could have come up with a song like this that speaks for and to so many people across age, race and country is so impressive I can barely find the words to capture it. John Baez summed it up when she remarked that had Dylan never recorded another note after this song he would have still done enough for one lifetime.

‘Masters of War’ is a more direct song, not an anti-war song per se but more aimed at the confluence of Government and the Military in the US at the time. Dylan himself has said it’s more of a pacifist song then anything. Again the melody is borrowed, (from ‘Nottamun Town’ for what it’s worth) but the power of the song is in the sheer viciousness attacking those who profit from what was, and largely continues to be, American foreign policy (“Even Jesus would never forgive what you do” he spits.) ‘Bob Dylan’s Blues’ was the original title of the record and along with ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’ (Based on ‘Lady Franklin’s Lament’) sees Dylan in a more wistful, nostalgic mode and could have musically fit on to his debut album with the strong presence of Guthrie hanging over them, as well as nodding to social ills. He was also experimenting with metre and phrasing of more absurdest songs and even funny lyrics on ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ and closer ‘I Shall be Free’ For example check out that final couplet at the end of the record as well as his witty reply to JFK or in the rambling tale of ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ he’s left on hold by the talking clock and the doctor remarking that he had had the same dream about surviving a nuclear holocaust but hadn’t seen Dylan there.

The first recipient of a 10 mark goes to ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’, written at first in a long poem style and set to music in late 1962. Not directly influenced by (It was performed live in September) but in the the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis and fearing that he may not have many more opportunities to write a song the six and a half minute stream of consciousness was recorded in a single take. Dylan has said that each line in the song could have warranted a song of it’s own and it’s hard to disagree. From the imagery of the black branch dripping with blood, the thousand talkers with their tongues all broken and the young child beside a dead pony it’s a song that contains seemingly nonsensical and yet profound statements that on other, later songs it could be argued are used merely for the way they sound not what they mean (more on this duly, of course). It’s often assumed that the hard rain is fall out from a nuclear holocaust but it is actually, as Dylan clarified at the time, referring to the poison that permeates the media and the lies that they sow. Although the line “Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world” is likely to refer to the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. A crushing end to the first side of the record.

The other side to Dylan’s bow at this stage in his career were long songs inspired by the album’s cover star Suze Rotolo, who of course can probably take some claim for helping Dylan to become aware of the subject matter of many of his protest songs. The first one on here is not just about her though. ‘Girl From The North Country’ with it’s simple strummed nostalgia was written whilst Dylan was in England in early 1963 and hoping that he would be seeing Rotolo, who had been sent to university in Italy the September before by her parents to get her away from Dylan amongst other things, in Rome later on the tour (ironically, she was actually already back in New York at this point and would be living with Dylan again within weeks) and channelling this in with nostalgic remembrance of former girlfriends from Minnesota (Echo Helstrom and Bonnie Beecher). Despite the homesickness and lack of Suze the song does incorporate part of the melody to ‘Scarborough Fayre’ the English folk song as well as the ‘Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine’ outro showing that influences were still seeping into him.

When Rotolo first travelled to Europe leaving a lovesick Dylan behind it inspired him to write his first great love song, earning a second 10.0 on this album from me. Unlike many of his other love songs there’s little in the way of spite or malice here (bar the line about wasting his precious time) just a guy tenderly coming to terms with the absence of the girl he loved with a richness of language ,set to another borrowed, lilting melody (Paul Clayton and Dylan’s people agreed a settlement and the two remained threads) with a slightly touchy and self-pitying manner running though it. We’ve all been there guys though right? If Rotolo felt uncomfortable about Peter, Paul and Mary signing a song that was so obviously about her that was nothing compared to John Baez introducing the song at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 as being “about a love affair that had gone on too long” confirming for her the whispers about Baez’s relationship with Dylan. She would shortly move out soon after and they split for good by March of 1964; Dylan covers this elsewhere.

The record tapers off slightly on the second half, the pleasant reworking of ‘Corrina, Corrina’ and the cover of ‘Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance’ don’t add that much to the record but with the wealth of fantastic material here it seems churlish to criticise it for that, especially as ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ and ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’ were two of the late additions when the four songs, including ‘Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’ were pulled. There’s also along with the Cold War commentary of ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ the underrated ‘Oxford Town’ which tells the tale of the first black student to be enrolled in University of Mississippi, James Meredith that September. Typical of the pace Dylan was working he had the song released by November as sheet music and recorded in early December.

A second album almost unrivalled for growth and maturity by any act in popular music, Dylan would go on to make other albums with songs as good as the best ones here but it’s arguable that despite all he would do in the next three and a bit years, four of his greatest ever songs appear here. It also help to revolutionise the concept of the album containing mainly original work by the artist; The Beatles would be doing the same within a year.

All this by a guy described as (manager) “Hammond’s Folly” at CBS in the lead up to this record.