Bringing It All Back Home is the fifth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Released by Columbia Records in April1965, the album was Dylan's first to incorporate electric instrumentation. It was so different from his earlier work that it caused controversy and divided the contemporary folk scene.Irwin Silber, editor of folk magazine Sing Out! described Dylan's new music as "a freak and a parody". Bob Dylan by Anthony Scaduto, Abacus Books, 1972, p. 188
On the first half of the album—the songs on side one of the original LP—Dylan is backed by an electric rock and roll band. The second half features mainly acoustic songs. The album abandons the protest music of Dylan's previous records for more surreal, complex lyrics.
The album reached 6 on Billboards Pop Albums chart, the first of Dylan's LPs to break into the US Top 10. It topped the UK charts later that spring. The first track, "Subterranean Homesick Blues", became Dylan's first single to chart in the US, peaking at No.39. Bringing It All Back Home has been described as one of the greatest albums of all time by multiple publications. In 2003, it was ranked number 31 on Rolling Stone'''s list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time"; it was ranked number 181 in the 2020 edition.
Recording
Dylan spent much of the summer of 1964 in Woodstock, a small town in upstate New York where his manager, Albert Grossman, had a place. When Joan Baez went to see Dylan that August, they stayed at Grossman's house. Baez recalls that "most of the month or so we were there, Bob stood at the typewriter in the corner of his room, drinking red wine and smoking and tapping away relentlessly for hours. And in the dead of night, he would wake up, grunt, grab a cigarette, and stumble over to the typewriter again." Dylan already had one song ready for his next album: "Mr. Tambourine Man" was written in February 1964 but omitted from Another Side of Bob Dylan. Another song, "Gates of Eden", was written earlier that year, appearing in the original manuscripts to Another Side of Bob Dylan; it's unclear whether subsequent lyrical changes were made that August in Woodstock. At least two songs were written that month: "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" and "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". Dylan's lyrics became increasingly surreal, and his prose grew more stylistic, often resembling stream-of-consciousness writing. Letters he wrote in 1964 became increasingly intense and dreamlike as the year wore on.
Dylan returned to the city, and on August 28, he met the Beatles for the first time in their New York hotel. The meeting influenced Dylan, whose next three albums would invoke a rock sound. Dylan would remain on good terms with the Beatles, and as biographer Clinton Heylin writes, "The evening established a personal dimension to the very real rivalry that would endure for the remainder of a momentous decade."
Dylan and producer Tom Wilson were soon experimenting with their own fusion of rock and folk music. The first unsuccessful test involved overdubbing a "Fats Domino early rock & roll thing" over Dylan's earlier, acoustic recording of "House of the Rising Sun", according to Wilson. This took place in the Columbia 30th Street Studio in December 1964.Heylin, Clinton, Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions, 1960–1994, Macmillan, 1997. Cf. p.33-34 for record producer Tom Wilson's use of the 30th Street Studios for some of Dylan's work, and other references in the book. It was quickly discarded, though Wilson would more famously use the same technique of overdubbing an electric backing track to an existing acoustic recording with Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence". In the meantime, Dylan turned his attention to another folk-rock experiment conducted by John P. Hammond, an old friend and musician whose father, John H. Hammond, originally signed Dylan to Columbia. Hammond was planning an electric album around the blues songs that framed his acoustic live performances of the time. To do this, he recruited three members of the Hawks, an American/Canadian bar band he met the previous year: guitarist Robbie Robertson, drummer Levon Helm, and organist Garth Hudson. (The Hawks would go on to become the Band.) Dylan was very aware of the resulting album, So Many Roads; according to his friend, Danny Kalb, "Bob was really excited about what John Hammond was doing with electric blues. I talked to him in the Figaro in 1964 and he was telling me about John and his going to Chicago and playing with a band and so on…"
However, when Dylan and Wilson began work on the next album, they temporarily refrained from electric experimentation. The first session, held on January 13, 1965, in Columbia's Studio A in New York, was recorded solo, with Dylan playing piano or acoustic guitar. Ten complete songs and several song sketches were produced, nearly all of which were discarded. Take one of "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" would be used for the album, but three would eventually be released: "I'll Keep It With Mine" on 1985's Biograph, and "Farewell Angelina" and an acoustic version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on 1991's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Other songs and sketches recorded at this session: "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", "She Belongs to Me", "On the Road Again", "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", "You Don't Have to Do That", "California," and "Outlaw Blues", all of which were original compositions.
Dylan and Wilson held another session at Studio A the following day, this time with a full, electric band. Guitarists Al Gorgoni, Kenny Rankin, and Bruce Langhorne were recruited, as were pianist Paul Griffin, bassists Joseph Macho Jr. and William E. Lee, and drummer Bobby Gregg. The day's work focused on eight songs, all of which had been attempted the previous day. According to Langhorne, there was no rehearsal, "we just did first takes and I remember that, for what it was, it was amazingly intuitive and successful." Few takes were required of each song, and after three and a half hours of recording (lasting from 2:30 pm to 6:00 pm), master takes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Outlaw Blues", "She Belongs to Me", and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" were all recorded and selected for the final album.
Sometime after dinner, Dylan reportedly continued recording with a different set of musicians, including John P. Hammond and John Sebastian (only Langhorne returned from earlier that day). They recorded six songs, but the results were deemed unsatisfactory and ultimately rejected.
Another session was held at Studio A the next day, and it would be the last one needed. Once again, Dylan kept at his disposal the musicians from the previous day (that is, those that participated in the 2:30 to 6:00 pm session); the one exception was pianist Paul Griffin, who was unable to attend and replaced by Frank Owens. Daniel Kramer recalls:
The session began with "Maggie's Farm": only one take was recorded, and it was the only one they'd ever need. From there, Dylan successfully recorded master takes of "On the Road Again", "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", "Gates of Eden", "Mr. Tambourine Man", and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", all of which were set aside for the album. A master take of "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" was also selected, but it would not be included on the album; instead, it was issued as a single-only release in Europe, but not in the US or the UK.
Though Dylan was able to record electric versions of virtually every song included on the final album, he apparently never intended Bringing It All Back Home to be completely electric. As a result, roughly half of the finished album would feature full electric band arrangements while the other half consisted of solo acoustic performances, sometimes accompanied by Langhorne, who would embellish Dylan's acoustic performance with a countermelody on his electric guitar.
Songs
Overview Bringing It All Back Home consists mainly of blues and folk and, as a result of Dylan's adoption of a more electric sound, is considered to have been instrumental in the birth of folk rock. On his following albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, he would further develop the genre, influencing American folk acts such as Buffalo Springfield and Simon and Garfunkel as well as British Invasion bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to innovate, producing more introspective lyrics and allowing the latter two groups to expand out of the confines of their pop rock roots. According to Pete Townshend of the Who, Dylan's folk style also influenced the writing of one of their most successful songs, the 1965 single "My Generation". In the Beatles' case, the results of this innovation — the albums Help! and Rubber Soul — would help push folk rock into the mainstream.
Side one
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" The album opens with "Subterranean Homesick Blues", heavily inspired by Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business". "Subterranean Homesick Blues" became a Top 40 hit for Dylan. "Snagged by a sour, pinched guitar riff, the song has an acerbic tinge … and Dylan sings the title rejoinders in mock self-pity," writes music critic Tim Riley. "It's less an indictment of the system than a coil of imagery that spells out how the system hangs itself with the rope it's so proud of."
"She Belongs to Me" "She Belongs to Me" extols the bohemian virtues of an artistic lover whose creativity must be constantly fed ("Bow down to her on Sunday / Salute her when her birthday comes. / For Halloween buy her a trumpet / And for Christmas, give her a drum.")
"Maggie's Farm" "Maggie's Farm" contains themes of social, economic and political criticism, with lines such as "Well I try my best to be just like I am/But everybody wants you to be just like them" and "Well, I wake up in the morning, fold my hands and pray for rain/I got a head full of ideas that are drivin' me insane". It follows a straightforward blues structure, with the opening line of each verse ("I ain't gonna work...") sung twice, then repeated at the end of the verse. The third to fifth lines of each verse elaborate on and explain the sentiment expressed in the verse's opening/closing lines. It references working for Maggie, her father, her mother, and her brother on a farm.
"Love Minus Zero/No Limit" "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" is a love song. Its main musical hook is a series of three descending chords, while its lyrics articulate Dylan's feelings for his lover, and have been interpreted as describing how she brings a needed zen-like calm to his chaotic world. The song uses surreal imagery, which some authors and critics have suggested recalls Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and the biblical Book of Daniel. Critics have also remarked that the style of the lyrics is reminiscent of William Blake's poem "The Sick Rose".
"Outlaw Blues" "Outlaw Blues" is an electric blues song that lyrically follows a fugitive traveling through harsh conditions ("Ain't it hard to stumble and land in some muddy lagoon?/Especially when it's nine below zero and three o'clock in the afternoon") as he resents the life of being on the run.
"On the Road Again" "On the Road Again" catalogs the absurd affectations and degenerate living conditions of bohemia. The song concludes: "Then you ask why I don't live here / Honey, how come you don't move?"
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"