Bringing It All Back Home (Reis) [Original recording remastered]

Bob Dylan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 1, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00026WU9Q
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #697 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #7 in Music > Folk > Contemporary Folk > Singer-Songwriters
  • #15 in Music > Folk > Contemporary Folk > General
  • #33 in Music > Rock > Blues Rock

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

"You sound like you're having a good old time," a purist Dylan fan is spotted telling the artist in the documentary Don't Look Back just after the release of this, his first (half-)electric album. He certainly does. Updating Chicago blues forms with hilarious, tough lyrics--in fact, all but stealing the meter of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" for "Subterranean Homesick Blues"--on one side, dropping some of his most devastating solo acoustic science ("It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Mr. Tambourine Man") on the other, the first of Dylan's two 1965 long-players broke it right down with style, substance, and elegance. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dylan's signature LP, December 27, 2004

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Bringing It All Back Home (Reis) (Audio CD)

By the time of this 1965 release, Dylan had already proven himself a lyrical master and a new legend in the folk universe. With his electrified performance at the Newport Folk Festival, and this half-electric/half-acoustic LP, he showed that he was not only far from done with pushing the envelope, but that he'd really only begun. In particular, his music and subject matter were now catching up to his revolutionary words and lyrical structures.

The album opens full-bore with the blistering word-puzzle "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Backed by a vamping electric blues band, Dylan is at once a protesting outsider, a sardonic social critic, and a free-associating poet. It stands on its own as an incredible piece of rock music, but as the introduction to Dylan's fifth LP, it was something of a warning shot. The electric blues return for the near-rockabilly arrangement of "Maggie's Blues" and a Chuck Berry (ala "Memphis") styled "Outlaw Blues." In between, Dylan crafted extraordinary ballads, including the acidic "She Belongs to Me" and one of his best-ever love songs, "Love Minus Zero/No Limit."

Side two (tracks 7-11) retreats to mostly acoustic presentations, but even here Dylan expanded upon his earlier work, with the surreal story of "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" and the poetic folk-rock standard "Mr. Tambourine Man." The latter stretches to over 5-1/2 minutes and includes a trio of verses dropped by The Byrds in their hit cover. One of the album's most effective cuts is the 7-1/2 minute "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," a song Dylan had been performing live for several months before recording it. Though recorded with only an acoustic guitar, the venomous lyrics spare no target in their criticism, providing as much fire as any of the electric tunes on side one.

All in all, this is as good a portrait of Dylan's inventions as can be found. It's a showcase for his brilliant writing, his evolving musical exposition and his ability to parlay an unconventional voice into some of the world's most expressive and effective vocals.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Historical and Brilliant, September 16, 2006

By 

Erik "Honest Dylan Fan" (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bringing It All Back Home (Reis) (Audio CD)

This is a brilliant album: wonderful songs, beautifully executed. This can't be said for all Dylan albums.

It's easy to overlook, 42 years later, how original this material was when it came out. It was in the months leading up to this album's creation that the Beatles motivated Dylan to move on from his acoustic-folk music, and he motivated the Beatles to move on from their "Twist and Shout" type crap. They moved on to "Revolver" and "Sgt Pepper" and became a brilliant studio-only band, and Dylan moved on to "Highway 61" and "Blond on Blonde" and became an icon. It can be said that this album marked the beginning of modern rock music.

"She Belongs to Me" and "Love Minus Zero" are wonderful love songs; "On the Road Again" and "Dylan's 115th Dream" are hilarious satires; and "Gates of Eden" and "It's alright Ma" are dark, deep cynical masterpieces. How could a 23 year-old put all this together on one album?

People who have been introduced to Dylan by "Time out of Mind" and later material have no idea what a voice he used to have. It has never sounded as good as it does here, especially "It's all Over Now, Baby Blue". I will never get tired of this song.

I have a big part of Dylans output and I think this CD showcases his voice and his songwriting best. "Highway 61" has a kind of garage-band sound that you have to be in the mood for, and "Blonde on Blonde" has a bit of filler, but "Bringing it all Back Home" has no weaknesses.

Critics have been trying to interpret the songs on this album for over 40 years now, especially "It's all Right Ma" and "Gates of Eden", attaching huge significance to words that Dylan himself chose simply because they rhymed. He wasn't trying to change the world; he was just trying to write songs people would enjoy.

So get this CD and enjoy it - there isn't a weak song on it. Make sure you get the digitally re-mastered version, released in '03 - the sound is much better than on the older analog CD (ADD vs AAD). Look for the date on the back.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There Are No Sins Outside The Gates Of Eden, May 23, 2008

By 

Alfred Johnson (boston, ma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bringing It All Back Home (Reis) (Audio CD)

It seems hard to believe now both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). It is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.

Others have, endlessly, gone on about Bob Dylan's role as the voice of his generation (and mine), his lyrics and what they do or do not mean and his place in the rock or folk pantheons, or both. I just want to comment on a couple of songs here. Obviously, no one will ever really unravel what the meaning of Subterranean Homesick Blues is about except that it has produced one of the most famous lines of the 1960's- `you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows' (although if the truth be known you do) that I am fond of using anytime I get a change to use it as a political cutting edge. Love Minus Zero No Limit is one of the great modern love songs that will along with a few others define what love, longing and companionship meant for our generation ('my love is like some raven at my window with a broken wing' says more above love than half the sonnets every written).

Needless to say Gates of Eden is the modern equivalent of John Milton's Paradise Lost (and I do not mean to use that praise hyperbolically). If Milton was explaining the ways of god to man in the aftermath of the defeat of the English Revolution then Dylan was attempting to give his take on the eternal verities for modern times.