Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan | Format: MP3 Music

Product Details

• Original Release Date: June 1, 2004
• Label: Columbia
• Copyright: Originally Released 1965 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
• Record Company Required Metadata: Music file metadata contains unique purchase identifier. Learn more.
• Total Length: 51:30
• Genres:
  • Rock
• ASIN: B00136NYR6
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (368 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,123 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

162 of 172 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dylan's Masterpiece September 22, 2004

By Michael J. Raymond

Format:Audio CD

There are many dividing lines in rock and roll. Before Elvis and after Elvis, before The Beatles and after The Beatles, and so on. "Highway 61 Revisted" invites such a watershed moment in rock and roll. Prior to the release people such as Steve Allen would gather great laughs just from reciting the lyrics to rock and roll songs. For example, Steve Allen would read "Be bop a lu bop, she's my baby", and audiences would guffaw loudly. When "61" was released, it was evident that rock and roll had meaning, it was an viable art form. Dylan's fury and wounded ego can be heard throughout the album snarling and pleading to those seemingly unaffected by the times they lived in. "How does it feel", is rock and roll's preeminent and ultimate question. How DOES it feel? This album, in my humble opinion, is the greatest rock album ever produced. Dylan, Bloomfield, and Kooper on organ, transcend popular music and sent it spinning into areas artists are still exploring. Rock's first great masterpiece and Dylan's ticket to immortality.

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not only important, but essential July 12, 2001

By Bill R. Moore

Format:Audio CD

One of the records essential to understanding the genuis that is Bob Dylan. Not his best album, but one of his most defining. An epoch not just in the career of Dylan, but in rock itself. Highway 61 Revisited was a turning point, a defining moment; the point where Bob Dylan dropped the folk mystique and went straight-ahead into rock. The electric half of Bringing It All Back Home (and, in particular, Subeterranian Homesick Blues) took rock in another direction entirely, and this album is the logical extension of that. Backed by a full rock band, Dylan lifts off the album with one of his most instantly-recognizable songs, the epic Like A Rolling Stone (which, significantly, broke radio's "three minute" barrier.) Many people consider this the first actual "rock" song; and, though that is a bit of an exaggeration, it is definately an extremely important early icon of the rock generation. This song is followed by the pure garage rock of Tombstone Blues. Next up is the excellent slow blues, It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry. Other highlights of the album include the hilarously surreal Ballad of A Thin Man, the lyrically and musically avant-garde title track, and the closing, thoughtful, apocalyptic epic Desolation Row. It is obvious even from the titles of the songs that Dylan lyrically was here attempting something very avant-garde and impressionistic. Some of the lyrics are unquestionably profound (Rolling Stone, Desolation Row), others seemingly non-sensical (Thin Man), but all brilliant. The music here is rock rooted in blues, and we get more than a few fine blues licks here and there from guitarist Michael Bloomfield, and some fine acoustic playing on Desolation Row. On top of all this, Dylan would rarely play his harmonica this good again. An absolute must-own.

78 of 88 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Listen up, Abraham! August 11, 2005

By Preetam Datta

Format:Audio CD

I started listening to Bob Dylan when I was eighteen years old and lived in Calcutta, India. This was before the 'glory' days of corporate globalization and the global brands hadn't painted the nation with its broad strokes of corporate colour. No MTV, just a state controlled basic TV for under 30 hours a week in all meant that we listened to good music and read good books. We realized early that good music, like good literature had no political boundaries, yet so much of it was pure politics.

Arindam Mitra, an old friend of mine, now settled in Mumbai, gave me the vinyl LP and swear to god, I probably listened to it a 100 times in a short span of time. It wasn't my first Dylan album, but it was one that would have an indelible mark on a young mind.

Music, as you know, in its best form, can change your life.

I wonder if there's one performer these days who even comes close to having the ability to make a record of this stature. The words are like burning coal, the music like rolling thunder and hits you like a jet plane.

I do not recommend that you go and buy this album unless you are exploring what real music is all about. On the other hand, if you do decide to listen to Highway 61 for the first time, it may well change your life.

If you do possess this album, go and listen to it again. Mr. Dylan may tell you something completely different this time.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "She walks like Bo Diddley, and she don't need no crutch" February 10, 2008

By finulanu

Format:Audio CD

Bob Dylan is a frustratingly inconsistent artist. The worst albums in his catalog - and there are a lot of those - are pretty much insufferable. But if you catch Dylan on a good day, when his creative powers are at their height and his lyrics are some of the best known to man - and there are a lot of those, too - every good word you've heard about the guy suddenly turns true. This is definitely one such album, and his most famous, acclaimed work. It may not be as revolutionary as Bringing it All Back Home or as personal as Blood on the Tracks, but the lyrics here are better than on ANY other Dylan album, or any other album, period.
So, right. It's Dylan vs. the establishment here. And if you aren't betting on Dylan, you're betting on the wrong horse. The most fierce attack on the "straight" (in more senses than one, if you're reading between the lines) culture is on "Ballad of a Thin Man", a creepy, organ-driven track with Dylan's sneering at its best. And the lyrics are brilliant, as usual. Another favorite of mine is the resident classic, "Like a Rolling Stone", which was later covered by everyone from Bob Marley to the Replacements to Jimi Hendrix. In other words, it's an across-the-board standard, and it just might be Dylan's signature song. It's not just the infamously nasty lyrics that make it the masterpiece it is, either (though that sure is part of it), but the melody, the triumphant organ part, and the little guitar fills, provided by Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, respectively. In short, it's Dylan at his peak as a songwriter, lyricist, and arranger. It's more or less as good as a song can get.... Sharply contrasting this carefully arranged song are the several literally offbeat (as in, the bass and drums aren't even together) garage-rockers: "Tombstone Blues" is a propulsive, ramshackle rant against everything, taking "Subterranean Homesick Blues" to a new level; "From a Buick 6" is a funny blues rave-up parody with a great bass line and several great lyrics such as "I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead, I need a dump truck mama to unload my head" and various others that only Dylan could come up with. The title track is hilarious - the satirical lyrics ("God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son', Abe said, 'Man, you must be puttin' me on'") are gutbusters, and who doesn't love that little toy police siren? "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is more of Dylan at his finest, a witty travelogue with several sly, subtle references to prostitution, drugs, corrupt authorities, and general decadence. Let us not forget Dylan's sarcastic, satirical love song "Queen Jane Approximately" either, or the gentle majesty of the straightforward blues "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry".
And then there's "Desolation Row", arguably the most cryptic piece in Dylan's discography. It's more than eleven minutes long, and the entirety of it is played on an acoustic guitar with Dylan calmly intoning downright apocalyptic lyrics. It's certainly an ambitious piece, namechecking Ophelia, the Phantom of the Opera, Casanova (in the same verse!), Quasimodo, Cain & Abel, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and containing more than one reference to genocide. By anyone else it would fall apart, but there's something about Dylan's presence here that makes it arguably the best song on the album. I myself haven't the faintest idea of what he's getting at here - I suspect that "desolation row" itself is an afterlife of sorts - but the words sure do sound good together, whatever they're supposed to convey.
In conclusion, this was probably the album that gave the name "Bob Dylan" the messianic undertone it conveys. But here's what separates Bob from his many imitators. It's clear that he wasn't even TRYING to be the voice of his generation here - if he was, he probably would've put a lot more care into producing this album and DEFINITELY would've fixed all those little mistakes the band makes that just add to how GOOD this record is - but he succeeded in it just the same. Everyone else who tries it fails. See? That's what's so good about him. Read more ›