MY NORTHERN SKIES

Hello, welcome to the My Northern Skies website, home of my two weekly radio shows, which alternate here each week, The Jazz File every Tuesday (8pm) and Flick the Dust Off every Friday (10am).

Featured Album | 401

Bob Dylan | Blonde on Blonde | CBS 66012 | 1966

If Timothy Leary’s oft-quoted slogan ‘Turn on, tune in, drop out’ was a thinly disguised call to mass substance abuse back in 1966, then Dylan’s opening song on Blonde on Blonde was perhaps much less ambiguous. “Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35” almost demands that the hoards attend the party. Like Dylan’s two previous releases, Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde has an immediately memorable opener, though the bar had perhaps been raised staggeringly high on the previous release, “Like a Rolling Stone” being Dylan’s definitive statement. Had Dylan hung around and stuck that song on this album, his first double set, then we might be talking of a near perfect album here. As the size of the album suggests, there’s a lot to go at, with one or two immaculate songs included, certainly “Just Like a Woman” and “Visions of Johanna”, with many of the others occupying their rightful place on Dylan’s set list for some time to come. Listeners tend to remember “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for one reason, that of being an over-long rambling ballad, but at just over ten minutes, it’s not quite as long as we tend to remember. The fact that it occupies an entire side is probably why we remember it in this way. I don’t mind long Dylan songs as long as they’re performed by Dylan himself. If Adele had recorded “Highlands”, “Tempest” or indeed “Murder Most Foul”, then I probably wouldn’t remember them with quite as much fondness as “Make Me Feel Your Love”. Recorded in both New York and Nashville, Blonde on Blonde is not just an essential Dylan album, it’s an essential album period.

Playlist:

Gypsy – Uriah Heep (Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble)

Alcohol – Kinks (Muswell Hillbillies)

Pledging My Time – Bob Dylan (Blonde on Blonde)

Dust My Broom – Fleetwood Mac (Mr Wonderful)

Heroes & Villains – Beach Boys (Smiley Smile)

Little Green – Joni Mitchell (Blue)

Chelsea Morning – Fairport Convention (Fairport Convention)

The Holmfirth Anthem – Robin & Barry Dransfield (Popular to Contrary Belief)

Dandelion Blues – Incredible String Band (Incredible String Band)

Reflected – Alice Cooper (Pretties for You)

Sofa No 1 – Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention (One Size Fits All)