A Million $ Bash Roundtable
The 1974 album Planet Waves marked a series of firsts for Bob Dylan. It was his first official album with The Band. It was his first record not on the Columbia label. And it was, believe it or not, his first No. 1 album.
The music represents, if not a return to form, a reset after the release of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and the Columbia-compiled revenge album called simply Dylan. Compositionally, itâs a musical way station between 1970âs New Morning and 1975âs Blood on the Tracks.
The songs feel personal and even, at times, intimate. And the influence of The Band on the music is unmistakableâparticularly Robbie Robertsonâs always superb lead guitar and Garth Hudsonâs meandering organ, which constantly threatens to explode the arrangements yet paradoxically is what holds them together. Dylanâs harmonica is pretty special too.
The albumâs opener, âOn a Night Like This,â is a jaunty, accordion-driven love song. The lyrics are simple, rhyming ânight like thisâ with âtouch of blissâ for instance. It stands in contrast to the magisterial cast iron song that follows: âGoing, Going, Gone,â with its heavy guitar work and heavier lyrics speaking of âthe top of the end.â And that song in turn gives way to the outright jocularity of âTough Mamaâ with her âmeat shaking on her bones,â which leads into the torch ballad, âHazel.â
Donât worry. Iâm not going to catalog the albumâs 10 songs and 11 tracks here. But itâs worth noting that discrepancy: 10 songs but 11 tracks.
Thatâs because there are two versions of âForever Young,â the most famous song on the album and a perennial favorite. One is the anthemic hymn we are most familiar with, which closes side one of the vinyl album. Side two opens with the same song done as a country rock honky-tonk. This song, by the way, was quoted by Howard Cosell when Muhammed Ali defeated Leon Spinks in 1978: âIt occurs to us that Bob Dylan struck the proper note in his great song âForever Youngâ: âMay your hands always be busy, may your feet always be swift, may you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.ââ In 1980 Cosell reprised with, âEven Muhammed Ali cannot be forever young. His hands are no longer busy, his feet no longer swift.â
MDB Roundtable Panelists:
