20 January 2025
Living songsmith legend BOB DYLAN released his 15th LP BLOOD ON THE TRACKS
on 20 January 1975, today 50 years ago. One of his most memorable ones.
Pitchfork: “Filled with open-ended and often gender-specific pronouns, the yous, hers, hes, shes, and theys remain unnamed on all but one of the 10 songs on the moody 1975 epic, each a glowing invitation for listeners to fill in the blanks with their own nearest available emotional devastations. Often referred to as Dylan’s “breakup album,” it’s likewise become just that for many listeners, both expressing and absorbing great aloneness. Dylan himself professed confusion about the album’s popularity. “It’s hard for me to relate to that,” he said the year Blood on the Tracks was released. “I mean, people enjoying that kind of pain.”
As with the narratives of the songs themselves, Blood on the Tracks continues to absorb yesterday, today, and tomorrow, promising it can sustain new listeners as much as new meanings, should it ever have to be called back into service.”
Full review here. Score 10/10.
Bob en Sara Dylan, 1968. Photo by Eliott Landy
TUTV: It’s simple. Dylan is my all-time favorite singer-songwriter and this grandiose LP
is one of my all-time favorite Dylan albums. A brutal mixed-emotions masterpiece that never wither. Whether it’s not about his divorce from his first wife Sara Lownds (now aged 85) or not (their son Jakob says it was/is, Dylan himself said – as he usually does when he gets asked if he writes autobiographical songs – that it could have been about any couple) it’s a superb, everlasting record.
The LP went to #1 in the US, Canada, New Zealand and
several European countries. In the UK it peaked at #4.
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Back sleeve
