What came next? I pulled out HIGHWAY 61 & BLONDE ON BLONDE again when I was 16 or so. Now I was hooked. Harmonica-forward wacky lyric rock & roll. I didn’t know anyone who was into Dylan. It felt like my own little discovery. Ha!
My dear friend Marianne took a listen to one of the albums I was playing in my bedroom. With mild distaste she said something like, “He’s just saying any random words he thinks of.” I shrugged.
I can’t remember if next came BIOGRAPH or the first two albums, the eponymous BOB DYLAN and TIMES THEY ARE A’CHANGIN. All purchased for me by my sweet boyfriend, who could kind of take Dylan or leave him. Though he was a fan of the song “Positively 4th Street” – he was a cynical sort.
BIOGRAPH is a 10-sided compilation, really a fabulous mix of stuff artfully curated & arranged. But it doesn’t have very good representation of the 70s. Mostly it’s awful Rolling Thunder Revue stuff. I liked a few late acoustic numbers like “Every Grain of Sand” and “You’re a Big Girl Now.” But I decided I was firmly a 1960s Dylan fan. I started collecting all the albums and stopped at PAT GARRET & BILLY THE KID.
Did it end there? Oh no…
Tytania 