"Blood On The Tracks" - Bob Dylan

I think I would rate Blood On The Tracks as my favourite Bob Dylan album. I'm a huge Dylan fan, so it is not an easy choice. Highway 61 Revisited and John Wesley Harding are right up there. But I would give Blood On The Tracks the edge. It is one of his most emotional albums and is consistently strong.

The album opens with one of Dylan's most perfect compositions, "Tangle Up In Blue". Much has been made about how the songs on this album were influenced by his divorce to his wife, and indeed it does seem to be one of Dylan's most personal and intimate albums. The final three songs on the album are all emotional stunners and are instantly memorable. "If You See Her, Say Hello"deals with a painful separation and a desire to see his former love again, whom he has never forgotten. "Shelter From The Storm" is one of the most subdued but uplifting songs on the album, while the sparse closing track ("Buckets Of Rain") is the most quietly lonely track and a stunning closer. The longest and densest track is the inscrutable tale "Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts" which takes many readings of the lyrics to get the story! The next longest song is one of the most well-known songs on the album, the spiteful "Idiot Wind," featuring lines such as "You’re an idiot, babe, it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe".

 Blood On The Tracks is a fairly dense album, and one that only improves upon repeated listenings. Be sure to give it a listen sometime.