Record: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Release: May 1963
Label: Columbia
Songs / length: 13 / 50:04
Release: May 1963
Label: Columbia
Songs / length: 13 / 50:04
Listening to this record immediately after Dylan's debut LP makes it obvious how much of a quantum leap he made in the year from spring 1962 to spring 1963. That time was a really fertile songwriting period for Dylan, kicked off with songs like The Death of Emmett Till, which was inspired by his engagement with the civil rights movement. Dylan also learned to slow down and ruminate more with his songs. For example, compare an early version of Don't Think Twice, It's Alright – available on the Live at the Gaslight 1962 album – with the more meditative version that appears on Freewheelin'. Another factor in this album's instant success is that it retains the humour and appreciation of musical heritage of the first record (but now veering into British folk), and fuses it with love songs and a growing consciousness of contemporary issues.
For context, here's a list of key events from the tumultuous early 60s:
• Birth control pill approved in May 1960
• Muhammad Ali gold medallist in summer 1960
• JFK elected in November 1960
• Yuri Gagarin first man in space (April 1961)
• Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961
• Berlin Wall built in August 1961
• Marilyn Monroe dies in August 1962
• Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962
• March on Washington in August 1963
• JFK assassinated in November 1963
• Beatlemania starts in Feb 1964 with their Ed Sullivan appearance
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 introduced, ending racial segregation
It was also a time that heralded a huge explosion in youth culture, and the afros, bouffants and miniskirts that came with it, and this trend was largely driven by demographics. It's easy to see Dylan and The Beatles as geniuses that kickstarted a social revolution, but it's perhaps convenient to forget that population changes – in other words, the Baby Boomers that created a bulge in teenagers in the early 60s – very much created this huge appetite for youth culture. The graph below shows the leap in under-18s in US society from the 50s to the 60s, and how that age group made up over a third of society (36%), a share that is unlikely to ever be matched again, barring a catastrophe like WWII. Whether he liked it or not, Dylan became a spokesman for this emerging generation.
Part of Dylan's appeal to young people was that he was rough and unpolished compared to smooth 50s crooners like Frank Sinatra. Easy listening was still the dominant taste in pop music in the early 60s, which explains why it took Peter, Paul & Mary to make a success of Dylan's first classic song from this album, Blowin' In The Wind, with a smoothed out and slightly bland cover. Such was the song's success that it instantly became a folk protest standard, along side much more established songs like We Shall Overcome. Dylan also appealed to the growing youth underground movement, especially with his refusal to go on the Ed Sullivan show (the same one that made The Beatles famous in the States) just weeks before Freewheelin' was released. You can read the full account of it here, but suffice to say that not appearing on the show did more to boost Dylan's profile, and reputation for integrity among the cool kids, than performing on air.
Another anecdote worth telling in relation to Freewheelin' is Dylan's first TV acting job, in a play called Madhouse on Castle Street on the BBC. Directed by Philip Saville, it was shot in December 1962 and broadcast on British TV in January 1963; apparently, Dylan was paid 500 guineas, which equates to about £525. Applying inflation, this would be around £8,000 today, so it's easy to see why Dylan was enticed away from New York. The (now lost) production came about after Saville had seen Dylan performing in Greenwich Village and insisted he fly over to London specifically to take part in the Sunday night 9pm TV play. Apparently, it was a strange production about a man who renounces the world and how the people around him react to his decision, and Dylan's "haunting music" provided the backdrop, with performances of Blowin' In The Wind, Ballad of The Gliding Swan, The Coo Coo Song and Hang Me Oh Hang Me. Only poorly recorded audio extracts remain; I honestly can't fathom the stupidity of the BBC's decision to destroy the film in 1968.
If you're interested, this wonderful 2005 BBC Arena documentary gives the full picture. I love it for various reasons; it helps visualise Dylan's first trip outside his homeland to an ice-bound Britain; it evokes the cheesy music, including Cliff Richard's Shadows, that dominated the airwaves at the time; and how, in this musical context, Dylan's charisma and original take on folk music won so many new followers. Dylan's London trip is perhaps even more notable for the fact it introduced him to the British folk scene, including Martin Carthy, whose version of Scarborough Fair influenced the way that Dylan composed one of my favourite tracks on Freewheelin', Girl From The North Country. After London, Dylan flew to Italy to see the Coliseum in Rome, from where he sent a postcard to his one true love at that time, Suze Rotolo, who appears with him on the front cover of Freewheelin'.
Suze was a huge influence on Dylan in many ways; her political views as an activist working for both an anti-nuclear group and the Congress of Racial Equality, her love of European writers like Arthur Rimbaud and Bertolt Brecht and the fact she besotted him and later caused him heartache. At least one of the songs on Freewheelin' – Don't Think Twice, I'm Alright – was influenced by their love affair. This track, as well as Girl From The North Country and Corrina, Corrina, marked a departure for Dylan, not exactly into love songs (they're too sharp for that) but exploring the workings of the human heart. That said, the main focus of the record is war, a theme that Dylan tackles with both humour – as in Talkin' World War III Blues – and real gravity, notably on A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, arguably Dylan's greatest achievement on this record.
What I find so musically powerful about the song is how Dylan's deeply troubling visions are offset by the gentle strum of the guitar. Hard Rain is also a precursor of a particular style of song that Dylan would pioneer, described later by Allen Ginsberg as "chains of flashing images", each new line the potential opening of a new song or poem. At nearly 7 minutes long, Hard Rain was also unusually lengthy for the time, showing that Dylan's imagination was spreading far beyond the confines of the standard pop song, travelling like the "blue-eyed son" whose addressed by the song's narrator to remote new territories. For me, Hard Rain is really exhibit A in the case supporting Dylan's 2016 award of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his earliest masterpiece. There are so many lines worth picking out for their artistic merit, but the one that sticks with me is, "the executioner's face is always well hidden", a poetic way of expressing the deep truth that powerful leaders who start wars are most often insulated from their decisions, far from the front line.
Masters of War sees Dylan making another sharp attack on the military-industrial complex, but this time his words are more plain and his intent more simple: peace. Though Dylan would later disown these songs to Joan Baez and others, to free himself from the "spokesman of a generation" tag that was starting to saddle him, it's clear from the urgency of both songs that his intent was sincere. On Oxford Town, his desire to highlight civil rights issues is also clear, and this is something Dylan developed further on his next record. The record's only drawback for me are the three songs he recorded for the album's third session, in July 1962: Bob Dylan's Blues, Down the Highway and Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance, which are all a little throwaway. To my mind, it would have been better to replace them with some of the tracks from the very early pressing of Freewheelin' – like Let Me Die In My Footsteps and Talkin' John Birch Blues – but I think Columbia decided to suppress the latter for the same reason the Ed Sullivan show did (potentially libellous).
All in all though, Freewheelin' is undoubtedly a classic and with songs like Blowin' In The Wind and Hard Rain, it's impact was arguably more immediate than any other Dylan release. Without going too far into laboured analysis of the lyrics, my understanding of Blowin' In The Wind has changed over the years – at first, I thought he meant uncertain, as in the answer to all these questions was hard to pin down, but now I see it as meaning slowly coming in with the winds of change. Either way, one thing I love about the song is Dylan's phrasing; he may not be a great singer, but he could emphasise words and add more depth with his singing than more polished performers. The list of 60s artists that have openly credited the album's impact on their artistic development, from The Beatles to Van Morrison and Paul Simon, is beyond compare. It also captures Dylan's unique ability at the time to soak up like a sponge all the events around him, as well as his emotions about the sense of an impending apocalypse precipitated by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his sense of burning social injustice, and synthesise it all into a powerful musical statement.
Album rating: A
For context, here's a list of key events from the tumultuous early 60s:
• Birth control pill approved in May 1960
• Muhammad Ali gold medallist in summer 1960
• JFK elected in November 1960
• Yuri Gagarin first man in space (April 1961)
• Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961
• Berlin Wall built in August 1961
• Marilyn Monroe dies in August 1962
• Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962
• March on Washington in August 1963
• JFK assassinated in November 1963
• Beatlemania starts in Feb 1964 with their Ed Sullivan appearance
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 introduced, ending racial segregation
It was also a time that heralded a huge explosion in youth culture, and the afros, bouffants and miniskirts that came with it, and this trend was largely driven by demographics. It's easy to see Dylan and The Beatles as geniuses that kickstarted a social revolution, but it's perhaps convenient to forget that population changes – in other words, the Baby Boomers that created a bulge in teenagers in the early 60s – very much created this huge appetite for youth culture. The graph below shows the leap in under-18s in US society from the 50s to the 60s, and how that age group made up over a third of society (36%), a share that is unlikely to ever be matched again, barring a catastrophe like WWII. Whether he liked it or not, Dylan became a spokesman for this emerging generation.
Another anecdote worth telling in relation to Freewheelin' is Dylan's first TV acting job, in a play called Madhouse on Castle Street on the BBC. Directed by Philip Saville, it was shot in December 1962 and broadcast on British TV in January 1963; apparently, Dylan was paid 500 guineas, which equates to about £525. Applying inflation, this would be around £8,000 today, so it's easy to see why Dylan was enticed away from New York. The (now lost) production came about after Saville had seen Dylan performing in Greenwich Village and insisted he fly over to London specifically to take part in the Sunday night 9pm TV play. Apparently, it was a strange production about a man who renounces the world and how the people around him react to his decision, and Dylan's "haunting music" provided the backdrop, with performances of Blowin' In The Wind, Ballad of The Gliding Swan, The Coo Coo Song and Hang Me Oh Hang Me. Only poorly recorded audio extracts remain; I honestly can't fathom the stupidity of the BBC's decision to destroy the film in 1968.
If you're interested, this wonderful 2005 BBC Arena documentary gives the full picture. I love it for various reasons; it helps visualise Dylan's first trip outside his homeland to an ice-bound Britain; it evokes the cheesy music, including Cliff Richard's Shadows, that dominated the airwaves at the time; and how, in this musical context, Dylan's charisma and original take on folk music won so many new followers. Dylan's London trip is perhaps even more notable for the fact it introduced him to the British folk scene, including Martin Carthy, whose version of Scarborough Fair influenced the way that Dylan composed one of my favourite tracks on Freewheelin', Girl From The North Country. After London, Dylan flew to Italy to see the Coliseum in Rome, from where he sent a postcard to his one true love at that time, Suze Rotolo, who appears with him on the front cover of Freewheelin'.
Suze was a huge influence on Dylan in many ways; her political views as an activist working for both an anti-nuclear group and the Congress of Racial Equality, her love of European writers like Arthur Rimbaud and Bertolt Brecht and the fact she besotted him and later caused him heartache. At least one of the songs on Freewheelin' – Don't Think Twice, I'm Alright – was influenced by their love affair. This track, as well as Girl From The North Country and Corrina, Corrina, marked a departure for Dylan, not exactly into love songs (they're too sharp for that) but exploring the workings of the human heart. That said, the main focus of the record is war, a theme that Dylan tackles with both humour – as in Talkin' World War III Blues – and real gravity, notably on A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, arguably Dylan's greatest achievement on this record.
What I find so musically powerful about the song is how Dylan's deeply troubling visions are offset by the gentle strum of the guitar. Hard Rain is also a precursor of a particular style of song that Dylan would pioneer, described later by Allen Ginsberg as "chains of flashing images", each new line the potential opening of a new song or poem. At nearly 7 minutes long, Hard Rain was also unusually lengthy for the time, showing that Dylan's imagination was spreading far beyond the confines of the standard pop song, travelling like the "blue-eyed son" whose addressed by the song's narrator to remote new territories. For me, Hard Rain is really exhibit A in the case supporting Dylan's 2016 award of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his earliest masterpiece. There are so many lines worth picking out for their artistic merit, but the one that sticks with me is, "the executioner's face is always well hidden", a poetic way of expressing the deep truth that powerful leaders who start wars are most often insulated from their decisions, far from the front line.
Masters of War sees Dylan making another sharp attack on the military-industrial complex, but this time his words are more plain and his intent more simple: peace. Though Dylan would later disown these songs to Joan Baez and others, to free himself from the "spokesman of a generation" tag that was starting to saddle him, it's clear from the urgency of both songs that his intent was sincere. On Oxford Town, his desire to highlight civil rights issues is also clear, and this is something Dylan developed further on his next record. The record's only drawback for me are the three songs he recorded for the album's third session, in July 1962: Bob Dylan's Blues, Down the Highway and Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance, which are all a little throwaway. To my mind, it would have been better to replace them with some of the tracks from the very early pressing of Freewheelin' – like Let Me Die In My Footsteps and Talkin' John Birch Blues – but I think Columbia decided to suppress the latter for the same reason the Ed Sullivan show did (potentially libellous).
All in all though, Freewheelin' is undoubtedly a classic and with songs like Blowin' In The Wind and Hard Rain, it's impact was arguably more immediate than any other Dylan release. Without going too far into laboured analysis of the lyrics, my understanding of Blowin' In The Wind has changed over the years – at first, I thought he meant uncertain, as in the answer to all these questions was hard to pin down, but now I see it as meaning slowly coming in with the winds of change. Either way, one thing I love about the song is Dylan's phrasing; he may not be a great singer, but he could emphasise words and add more depth with his singing than more polished performers. The list of 60s artists that have openly credited the album's impact on their artistic development, from The Beatles to Van Morrison and Paul Simon, is beyond compare. It also captures Dylan's unique ability at the time to soak up like a sponge all the events around him, as well as his emotions about the sense of an impending apocalypse precipitated by the Cuban Missile Crisis and his sense of burning social injustice, and synthesise it all into a powerful musical statement.
Album rating: A
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