36. Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Artist: Bob Dylan
Album: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Year: 1963

First, The Beatles. Now, Bob Dylan. Titans of popular music history. We'll be seeing a lot of Mr. Dylan throughout the 1001 albums here, seven times in all. Perhaps too much?

I haven't had a great experience with Bob Dylan over the years. I've never really been all that interested in listening to him, really. Must be the voice, which is annoyingly nasally, whiny, and headache-inducing. That said, I've actually seen Dylan live in concert, back around 2000 when he was doing a college tour with Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. It was me and about 2000 pot-smoking hippies in a Cornell gymnasium. Not my scene, really.

I can't say I've ever listened the whole way through a Bob Dylan album, start to finish, until right now. I feel kind of un-American to admit that, but it is what it is.

Listening to a Dylan album in full was much less painful than I imagined it would be. I think I'd only ever heard the first track on this album before, "Blowin' in the Wind." Great song, that one is. Great melody, and the raspy vocals fit the style well here. But what takes this song and the album on the whole to the next level are the lyrics.

Here's the thing. Up to this point in the 1001 albums, it's been mostly cheesy cliched love songs and instrumentals. And I get it, love songs sell albums. There are a few artists that deviated from this formula: The Louvin Brothers sang about ghastly murders out in the woods, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott rambled on about what he had for lunch that day and whatever else came to mind. Dylan takes it to the next level. You actually have to think about what his lyrics mean. Example:

"How many roads must a man walk down,
before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove fly,
before she sleeps in the sand?
And how many times must a cannonball fly,
before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,
the answer is blowing in the wind."

Famous war protest song this is, with question #3 right there. Poetry, many would say. This is more thought-provoking stuff than this:

"It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah
It won't be long yeah, yeah, yeah
It won't be long yeah
'Til I belong to you."

The Beatles there, ladies and germs.

So, did I actually like this Dylan album? Well, for the most part, yes. There are some totally knockout tunes here. "Blowin' in the Wind" is just classic, "Girl from the North Country" is a really pretty love song that sounds kind of like Van Morrison to me, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" has a really nice melody, and I liked the light-hearted fare of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." Some of the more stream-of-consciousness stuff did not work so well for me. It just seems like lazy songwriting to me. Hmmm, I wonder why I don't like rap...

I look forward to listening to some of Dylan's other albums. It'll be interesting to see where the gentle folk-pop of this album leads once he goes electric. For now, it's nice to hear some music where the lyric sheets contain something beyond the frivolity of mostly all that came before. In that sense, this is the most modern of the 36 albums I've listened to.

Rating: Worth repeated listens.