CD Review: Bob Dylan "Blood on the Tracks"

When Bob Dylan was once asked how he felt about the success of "Blood on the Tracks", he replied (and I'm paraphrasing), "Why would people enjoy listening to me in so much pain?". For the beleaguered Dylan, this couldn't be farther from the truth. In "Tracks", we are not celebrating the hurt and anger felt by the failure of his marital union with Sara Lowndes. In fact, with every lyric and turn of chord, we are sharing a universal, human condition experienced by all mankind: loneliness and the devastation of a love lost.

Although overused in the description of "Tracks", the album is cathartic. It's as if the dissolution of his marriage unleashed a hoard of remembrances of past loves, like a picture book of pain. It begins in "Tangled up in Blue" - a sweeping reminiscence of fateful love and people touched by heartbreak, mirroring his own, who are swallowed by the miles and passage of time - to the finale, "Buckets of Rain", a bookend of wisdom, holding together a work of self revelation.

Indeed, the arrangements, perfected during the Minnesota sessions, with painful guitar turns and gentle sound pervade; yet, the album can be held in high esteem for its lyrical intensity alone. The elegant execution, clever phrase and sheer literature of each stanza present Dylan at his most honest, and perhaps his best. Each song has a scattering of wisdom that lends itself as solace or advice. "I've been in the dark too long. When something's not right, it's wrong", as written in "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go". Sung with a tear in his eye and a smile on his face, the words are stunning in their simplicity. The stinging wrath of "Idiot Wind" is a barreling freight train of emotion, "You'll never know the hurt I suffer, and all the pain I rise above. And they'll never know, the same about you, your holiness, or your kind of love, and it makes me feel so sorry." One can feel his fist shaking at a stream of faceless nemeses, unleashing a miasma of anger with himself, his sycophants, his estranged wife, and the world governed around him. With the lazy bluesy slide guitar of "Meet Me in the Morning", and western drama of "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", the ache of "Simple Twist of Fate", "You're a Big Girl Now" or "Shelter From the Storm", no matter what rythmn or scenario Dylan has chosen, heartbreak and delusion foster the thread that lace each song. For every split up in the dark at night, for every image of flowing chestnut hair, the listener can relate to the blood shed on each track.

The concept that this album is Dylan's "best" is irrelevent. However, it is a masterpiece. It stands alone as a benchmark in a career of an artist who has produced many albums deemed "the best". However, "Blood on the Tracks" defines a chapter in this artist's life that can be described as an emotional crossroad. It should be listened to when the mood is right, and when one's personal pain is not on the surface. It exists as a reminder that we are all human, we are all infallible, and so is Bob Dylan.