#0064: Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde []

I suppose I should be grateful that all 35 of this self-satisfied, eternally ready for a close-up of his own prostate's drivel are not on the list.  It's not surprising he's so prolific.  At my most prolific I was writing 8 songs a month.  I go for a shit twice a day.  Case closed.

This particular collection of slowly putrefying offal is #9 on the Rolling Stone list and the second most highly rated of his albums.  Considering what a ball-piercing waste of time Highway 61 Revisited-Over-My-Dead-Body was I will not afford this the same attention.  It's not like I haven't listened to it before.  I remember being told his definitive work was to be found on this and Blood On The Tracks.  I listened to them both at the time - a good ten years ago - and didn't get on with them then.  I think that's when I started developing my fierce animosity towards him.  How dare he squander my attention with this appalling display of amateur doggerel?

Onto the album.  Rainy Day Women #12 and #35 is the opening track and I like the oompa slash New Orleansy kind of feel but after the novelty of that and the cheeky giggle you get on "everybody must get stoned" you're left with "they'll stone you" followed by a random reference which if it does have meaning is esoteric and shuts off the piece in a pretentious little box.  And what a stupid title.  Do the lyrics shed any light on it?  Of course not.  What a cunt.

The next track - who gives a fuck what it's called - is a vehicle for his shit-sucking harmonica playing.  Harsh and abrasive, it cuts through my head like a bread knife through a tin of beans resulting in instant migraine and fury.

"They sent for the ambulance and one was sent.  

They said he got lucky but it was an accident."

He says that like it's meant to be clever.  Wanker.

Visions Of Johanna starts well and indeed has a nice groove but there are three things working against this piece.  His voice, his harp and the fact he refuses to edit his words so we end up with 7:34 of extraneous bum mustard.  There's still 5 minutes left of it but I've heard enough of this tosser to know it's not getting any better.  I've had hangovers where I felt less suicidal than listening to this.

"These visions of Johanna kept me up past the dawn."  

Well maybe they did, Bob.  Maybe they did.  But maybe they kept you up so late because there's three hundred and seventy fucking eight of them!

More of the same dry heaving vocal for another couple of tracks until we get to the next seven minute editing fail.  No effort made to make the song interesting.  Just verse after verse after random, senseless, tuneless verse.  

A few interminable tracks later, "she makes love just like a woman but she breaks like a little girl".  That's nicely put I suppose.  There's a bunch of reputable singers who have covered this.  Maybe I'll listen to their versions.  Actually, I think anybody who covers a Bob Dylan song should be given a writing credit for the melody they sing.  It's not like they had one to start with is it?  Somebody should get the credit who actually did the work, right?

Temporary Like Achilles is an interesting title.  Let's see what an abortion he can make of it.  Yep.  Same "note" repeated for the words, same hideous harmonica like a buzzsaw through a creche.   Five minutes and three seconds later, I'm thinking he needs to look up "Temporary".

Listening to this is like being in a sort of Hellish Narnia.  The witch Dylania cuts the webbing between your fingers and toes with a blunt razor soaked in chilli sauce and does it slowly over the course of 3 hours and when you come back to this world only a minute has passed.  How in the name of all that's holy can anyone bear to listen to this?  It is physically painful.  It is so shit that no stars is not low enough.  I'm gonna have to go back and take a star off one of the other reviews to make up for it. 

Last track.  Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands.  Eleven minutes twenty one seconds.  What can you possibly have to say that the preceding three sides of the album did not already cover with saturated ambiguity?  Huh? 

"With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims"

Good words but not exactly a new idea is it, genius?  Why don't you fuck off, Bob? Fuck off and die in a fucking hole with a live piranha up your arse you fucking detestable little twat.