LISTENING PARTY: Under the Blood Red Sky

LISTENING PARTY: Under the Blood Red Sky

I was exposed to most of the music I listened to growing up through my parents’ record collections. (Well, primarily my father’s, as my mother wasn’t exactly a music buff.) And my father, I like to imagine, grew up in some kind of South Shore version of Quadrophenia, where there was a clear line of demarcation with regards to popular music. Hence, growing up, I really had little knowledge of the music of the Beatles (except a charming and I’m sure now worth a fortune if I could find it copy of Alvin and the Chipmunks Sing the Beatles) because my father was a Stones fan. And while I grew up with an appreciation for the high pitched strained singing of Neil Young, there was no Bob Dylan in my house. In fact, looking back on it now, the first time I probably heard any Dylan (except maybe “Rainy Day Women” on the FM radio) was his vocal contributions to “The Traveling Wilburys” Volume I, one of my and my father’s favorite records in the late 80s. Dylan teamed up with Tom Petty, Roy Orbinson, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne from ELO. He had obviously come a long way from Greenwich Village.



So, suffice to say, I think I made my Dylan journey from a different starting point than many others, and while I have an appreciation for his early records--I own Bringing it All Back Home through John Wesley Harding--I find a lot more enjoyment in his later, weirder works. The only “classic” Dylan album that I really really love--it’s my favorite Dylan album and one of my top ten favorite albums of all time--is Blood on the Tracks. But even that is tainted by my spotty pop culture history. I picked it up at the end of my senior year of high school because the film Jerry Maguire featured “Shelter from the Storm” over its closing credits. Show me the shame, Jerry.

And I was so enamored with that record, I went to Tower records--truly dating myself here-- and scoured the Dylan bin for another masterpiece. And what I came up with was Under the Blood Red Sky. I don’t know why I chose this particular record, instead of Highway 61 Revisited, or Down in the Groove (on either end of the quality spectrum) but instead ended somewhere right in the middle. And Under the Blood Red Sky is pretty much in the middle. It followed Dylan’s “comeback” album (his , like, 50th by that point) Oh Mercy and was so trashed at the time of release that the fact that Dylan did not release any new original material for seven years was not exactly something that caused mourning among music listeners. But I love this record. A lot of it is nostalgia, but that’s why we love any record. Also, I love how much fun Bob Dylan seems to be having pissing everybody off.

“Wiggle Wiggle” I don’t even think I need to comment on this. Look at this title! “Wiggle wiggle wiggle like a swarm of bees/ wiggle on your hands and knees” This album was produced by Don Was, who was pretty famous as a producer in the late eighties early nineties for producing modern AOR (album oriented rock--code words for albums dads think are cool.) So it sounds a little like a Bonnie Raitt album, but some part of Dylan must’ve enjoyed that. Maybe he was hoping he'd run into her during recording and then he could put the wiggle-wiggle on her. Or something.

“Under the Blood Red Sky” Dylan is clearly just ripping off nursery rhymes for this one. “There was a little old man who lived in the moon, one day he came passing by.” And there’s something about a little girl getting a diamond as big as her shoe, as long as she continues to live under a blood red sky. Although I don’t know who would want a diamond that big because I’m guessing wearing it as a ring would break your finger. But don’t worry, she’s not going to get that diamond after all, because Dylan informs us that she and the little boy are getting baked into a pie. Is that something that happened a lot? Did deviants kidnap children and bake them into pastries? Could you imagine Chris Hanson from Dateline stinging those guys? “Is that cinnamon in your pocket? Are you telling me you came to see an underage girl with cinnamon in your pocket and you weren’t planning on turning her into some kind of turnover?”

“Unbelievable” This is one of those almost rockabilly numbers that is probably more fun to play than to listen to. Somebody’s having fun playing a B3 organ, and there’s somebody playing a piano that plays like one note every fourteen bars, and he sounds like he’s having a good time. Like if you were a musician and Bob Dylan wanted you to play on his record, what would you do? Would you be jazzed, and then show up and he says “Wndwnafjw;ioe;qnfmd;afni’” which then the producer would translate for you as “We’re going to play a number called ‘Unbelievable’.” And you’d be psyched, imagining the organ part of “Like A Rolling Stone” and then Dylan played this number. It’s like having your parents tell you that Christmas has come early this year, except the whole family just converted to Judaism.




“Born in Time” This is a really pretty song, and one that I’ve read was left over from the Oh, Mercy sessions, which might be why it sounds like Dylan actually wrote a song instead of just making one up on the spot. I also like the phrase “born in time” and the way Dylan uses it differently throughout the song. The drums do sound like they were recorded in outer space, though, which is unfortunate. And somebody is singing harmony vocals with Dylan, which seems as challenging as trying to put a brassiere on a jellyfish.



“TV Talking Song” Well that was nice while it lasted. This is Dylan just trying to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” except way, way, way shittier. I have to admit I’ve never listened to what Dylan was talking about before, and now that I am I wished that I haven’t. It’s some kind of story about Dylan being in London, which he helpfully explains is a town, which is good, because that’s the only time he deals with anything specific. There’s some kind of riot and the TV cameramen jump over Bobby D and so he goes home and watches it on TV. So I guess it’s some kind of commentary on the way television detaches us from events, except that Dylan seems detached from this song the whole time. He sings it the same way I answer my girlfriend’s questions when I’m watching TV. We’re both trying to tell you something, but oh, what’s that shiny thing over there.


“10,000 Men” I’m a big title guy, so when I buy an album I look at all the song titles and try and guess which ones I will like the best based on those titles. I did not have high hopes for “10,000 Men” and my guess was right. He does say that he has “10,000 women in his bed” and he makes it sound like it’s right this second, which means he should probably finish this song up and get back to them, because if they’re anything like the 10,000 women Bret Michaels has in his bed during “Rock of Love” somebody’s going to end up dead soon if Bobby D doesn’t get on top of it.

“2 X 2” I’m sure someone might have fun analyzing this, but while I didn’t like the title 10,000 Men, I was excited about 2 X 2. It’s not bad.

I guess a note here about the album’s cover, and Dylan record covers in general. Has there ever been a major artist who has released so many albums without any of them having really great covers? His two most recent, “Modern Times” and “Together Through Life” feature some nice black and white photography, but for almost every other Dylan album it’s a picture of him, shot seemingly by an instamatic camera. Like the album artwork was due two days earlier and he hasn’t gotten around to it, so he hands some lady passing by his disposable camera and asks her to take a snapshot like he was a tourist. Which I guess he kind of is. A tourist of Earth. This cover is him crouching in the dirt, looking like he lost a quarter.

“God Knows” This is another song that was written for the Oh, Mercy sessions and sounds like he spent more than forty seconds thinking about it. I’d love to hear the Oh Mercy version, because that album was produced by Daniel Lanois, who while occasionally overbearing, at least knows how to provide proper atmosphere. The lead guitarist on this album sounds like the one who plays in your dad’s cover band. The one that plays family parties and on the town common on the Fourth of July. I don’t know why Dylan decided that this version of the song was the one he wanted to release, but maybe he just needed the money. He does have 10,000 women back home to feed. This song fades out in the middle of a lyric. Who does that? Dylan doesn’t even get to finish his sentence. It’s like when an old guy accepts his lifetime achievement award at the Oscars and he gets to thank his wife and his (cue music-we’ve got a Debi Allen dance number to get to). Unacceptable.


“Handy Dandy” I’m guessing this song excited the band when they heard it. It does kind of sound like “Like A Rolling Stone” complete with prominent B3 organ. And the lyrics are absurd. I don’t know who this Handy Dandy is he’s talking about, but I guess it might be somewhat autobiographical, because you probably need to be a dandy to score 10,000 women, and you certainly need to be handy if you’re going to bed them all at the same time. This might be the best song on the record.



“Cat’s in the Well” Man this guy has got his hands full. He’s got a harem the size of a small town and now his cat is down in the well, and apparently his horse is going bumpety-bump. That sounds severe. This song is a lot of fun, too. It reminds me a lot of Dylan’s last couple of record where it seems like he gives his band a light little song template (here’s a boogie number, let’s do a rockabilly one) and let’s them have fun with it. Then he just makes shit up on top of it. I think if I’d written the lyrics to “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” I’d kind of put my feet up a bit, too. There are more words in that song than there are in most Tom Clancy novels.

I’m sure I haven’t done a good job of selling you folks on this record. Which isn’t really my intent, I suppose. It is a listening party, and this just happens to be one of those parties that doesn’t work out so well, a kind of “Costume party in July” listening party. Only half of the people dressed up and nobody’s dancing to the music. So we’re all just going to stand around, holding our empty glasses and stare at each other until the record’s over.

What does it say about me that while I know intrinsically that “Blonde on Blonde” is a vastly superior record, given the choice I’d probably rather listen to this one? The one that I spent a forty minutes listening to intently in the attempt to talk about why I liked it.

Is this new wallpaper?