"Bringing It All Back Home" by Bob Dylan (March, 1965)

Dad's Take:

"Bringing It All Back Home" didn't make Dylan many friends in the folk world, with its full side of electric music, but it further cemented his place as one of the greatest influences of sixties music.

It's hard to find three better songs to open a record than "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (Dylan's first single to chart in the U.S.), "She Belongs To Me," and "Maggie's Farm." With a start like that, you'd expect it to be all downhill from there, but it's not. As much I like the acoustic Dylan, the first side of this album, with its electric rock and roll sound, is one of my favorite sides ever recorded.

Side two is just as good. It might be acoustic, but it's not typical folk music. Dylan moved beyond the folky protest songs and wrote lyrics that are more personal and poetic, and often abstract. The obvious highlights on side two are "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," but the other songs on the side are just as good. The side includes one of his most ambitious compositions, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," interestingly a scathing critique of commercialism (and other things, especially hypocrisy) on his most commercial album so far. It's a song full of grim images and brilliant wordplay, set to a classic blues guitar.

Dylan's gamble paid off. This album hit number 6 on the Billboard albums chart, his biggest seller up to that time. It was also highly influential with important rock and roll bands like the Beatles and the Byrds, and other bands that were not misspelled animals. It was during the sessions for this record when Dylan met the Beatles and reportedly turned them on to marijuana.

47 years later, this still one of Dylan's best, and one of my favorite albums of all time.

Brad's Take:


This is the second Bob Dylan album out of the few on our list. It's also the second album on our list that I went into borderline dreading... Although I didn't hate the first one we reviewed, I have a hard time getting used to the fact that I will be listening to another entire Bob Dylan album, almost forcibly, and then a few more later on down the list. But here we go!

Once again, we have another album full of stories and politically charged lyrics put to some (mostly acoustic) folk music. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always Dylan.

This album feels a lot more free and fun than the mega political The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Kind of ironic. The hysterical laughter at the beginning of "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" even got me laughing along.

Overall, I think I enjoyed Freewheelin' more. It was more interesting because it felt like it was a snapshot and a good representation of the civil rights movement, as a whole. This album didn't hold my attention at all really. Sorry Daddy-o!