The 20th of February 1974
Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 17th to Saturday the 23rd of February 1974
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 16th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 17th,
and published on Wednesday the 20th of February 1974.
Bob Dylan
Planet Waves
At No.11, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 2nd Birthday, is Bob Dylan with Planet Waves.
An overlooked gem…
…(mainly due to the next studio album it would end up preceding) is spending its first week in the chart this week, and marks the third time in my fledgling life that I cross paths with Bob along my own personal musical road so far; with the first two of his visits featuring in the UK Album Chart on the day of my birth.
Now, there’s no way…
…that I’ve ever been a big Dylan fan. Far from it in fact. I mean that’s not for the want of trying a few times over the years. I personally own two of his albums; an original copy of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan“, which I managed to snag for literally pennies, when I used to tread the fields of car-boot sales back in the early nineties, when record owners were virtually giving away their old vinyl collections, replacing them with CD’s. The other was a re-issued vinyl copy of “Bringing It All Back Home“, a gift which must have been for a birthday around that time from my big sister Susan.
I’ve played both, and enjoyed both, in the way a casual listener would. I knew that both albums held some sort of supernatural essence within their grooves, but like many others of my generation or later, I’ve never managed to work out what all the fuss was about.
That is, until now.
The magic of this project…
…of mine, is that I get to go back to a time in my own life, where I can revisit a musical past which undoubtedly existed, but has been lain mostly untrodden. One such example, I’ve only recently experienced of this, was around a year or so ago, when I stumbled upon the Beach Boys’ “Holland” album and discovered for the first time in my life “Sail On Sailor“. And for those who dismiss this confession as pure ignorance of music history, I’m relieved to say that I myself am not the only one, as acclaimed artist, producer and multi-everything Mark Ronson has been another who discovered that very same song in similar accidental circumstances. In his case, when his dad played it casually in the car.
Anyway, I’ve digressed far enough,..
…but that example stands, and it seems that spark of interest is happening again. A happy accident has occurred, and I’ve finally begun to get the first symptoms, of that indescribable pull, into a world which, up until now, had completely passed me by.
And in that frame of mind, I’ll set the scene for where I had to go back into Bob’s own world, and keep it necessarily brief, as others have already documented this journey quite sufficiently already.
And it also stems from, though not a happy accident, but an inevitable one. Bob’s infamous motorcycle crash on the roads of Woodstock, way back at the end of July 1966. So for those who, like me, are not aware of what happened, let me lay it out in laymen’s terms as well as I can.
At that point in Bob’s life,..
…nearly eight years previously in the summer of 1966, he was pretty much destined to crash in some shape or form.
The pressures of being held up as some type of ethereal being for so long over the past few years, where a now huge following were looking, not to the appointed powers which the majority had voted into governments, but to himself instead for the answers, was proving to be now so overwhelming to him, that either his motorcycle was going to crash or his heart would. He was taking huge amounts of amphetamines just to keep up, and I’m pretty sure, that if he’d have kept going, it undoubtedly would have taken his own life eventually.
So, not one for taking the same course as anyone, he forced himself to take his own different road once again.
In some insane comical way in my head, from this vantage point in the future, I see this almost as that scene in Monty Python‘s Life of Brian, where instead of Brian, it’s Bob who runs home to his then wife (and I wish to apologise to Sara, who in no way went by the looks of the character who played Brian’s mother, Terry Jones in ancient drag), who then has to send the press away herself from the family home, shouting from the window “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”
Jokes aside though,..
…it seems that the after-shock of that one event had a completely seismic effect on the rock world community, that nowadays it’s difficult to put into context; but somehow I’m going to try in some sort of way.
Ok, imagine that when the Beatles, walked off the stage that one final time at Candlestick Park, which was destined to happen exactly a month to the day after Bob’s fall from his motorcycle, and that was it. Try and imagine if they never returned for the rest of the sixties. It’s impossible to get your head around. After Revolver, that’s it. Nothing.
For those that own the Red and Blue albums, throw the Blue one away, as in this parallel universe, it doesn’t exist.
Well, that was Bob.
While the whole western world of modern music was about to dive into the multi-kaleidoscopic Psychedelic realms of the (un)real world, Mr.Dylan was nowhere to be found.
Over the next year,..
…there’d be the odd murmur, but nothing more. The world outside his was rapidly changing and instead, Bob was happily wrapped warmly in ever-growing family bliss; culminating in welcoming a new child into the world for each year up until the end of the decade, whilst privately recording material as and when he needed to release it from his other bulging sack in his brain (actually that’s quite a gross metaphor – I’ll leave it in nonetheless for now).
When he did make any type of public appearance, such as the memorial concert for Woody Guthrie, it was a massive event. When he did finally release new material, the expectations for it were so impossibly high, that it was bound to leave anyone disappointed.
Did he care? No, of course he didn’t. He knew what he had to do, whether it was completely out of touch with the mainstream, or not. He was on a far more important road. The one to recovery. Not so much because of physical injuries sustained from the crash, but more-so from re-attaining his own self-belief in his own worth (something I feel I’ve experienced in my own far more incomparable personal journey at a quite recent point in my own life), and that sort of deep shadow can get extremely scary.
For Bob, he was fortunate that fellow musician Johnny Cash, an artist who had himself also approached the edge of his own darkness, and had survived to live another day, reached out to Dylan along his own unnervingly quiet and terrifying time, and helped him find his way slowly out of it.
By the inevitable closing of the decade,..
…followers and the media, thought they may have found a way to bring him back into their own sphere again, this by way of arranging an event literally on his doorstep. The Woodstock Festival promised to be a love-in music spectacle like no other, and was allegedly placed in that area, conspiringly by the organisers, in an effort to entice their targeted sage out of his home, to be welcomed back like royalty. Bob, however, was having none of it.
Having succumbed also to a severe case of writers block (again, something I can wholly sympathise with, having been scared to even type on a keyboard for over a year), Bob was understandably hesitant to be seduced to play in front of anyone. Especially in his own backyard.
Instead, he was drawn into the invitation to play across the ocean, on the small diamond shaped island, the Isle of Wight, the very island I now currently live.
Now, there are perfectly good reasons…
…why he decided to dip his toe into the live performance lifestyle here. It was out of the way, even for the British public, completely cut off from the U.K. mainland, with The Solent providing a suitable moat to separate all but the most dedicated to witness him perform, also the chance to seclude himself and his family into the privacy of the expansive countryside was probably a factor; but I think the biggest reason was to avoid his own country’s press, who would have plastered his performance all over their own publications and radio stations for good or ill; and Bob, who was still in a very delicate state in so many different and varied ways, wasn’t prepared to let that happen.
So, in the presence of a whole field of music lovers, including three Beatles (Paul and Linda having had to unfortunately stay back due to Linda giving birth to Mary three days before), who brought along an acetate of their recently completed album Abbey Road for him to listen to afterwards, made the pilgrimage especially to welcome him back, Bob took the first tentative anticipated return step into the spotlight, three years before I was even born.
As this new decade dawned,..
…so material would be recorded, with Dylan pulling on his influences in an attempt to get that spark back, and new albums would be released. Slow tentative small steps in recovery, all happening in controlled relaxed situations at a pace he could manage happily. Some of the efforts panned by critics, such as Rolling Stone’s now infamous critique of “Self Portrait“; others, such as the swift follow-up “New Morning” were applauded.
Everything he did during these first months and years of the seventies was all part of his inward healing process, his own personal journey through, and out into, a new and unknown future. From finally releasing his book “Tarantula“, through releasing an unexpected protest song (due possibly to a conversation with a dangerously unstable and unhinged “Pig” who had been rifling through his rubbish for information, eventually scaring his children and wife, to which Bob eventually took it upon himself to beat the shit out of him outside his own home), to making a much more confident surprise appearance on home soil, most probably due to having the close support of George and a number of other close trusted friends to back him up.
With his confidence and self-belief…
…beginning to return, Bob’s next venture was an unexpected one. Initially approached by his good friend Kris Kristofferson, who asked him if he would contribute a couple of musical pieces to Kris’ next film “Pat Garret and Billy the Kid“, Bob’s interest in the film itself grew to the point that he managed to claim a small part in the cast as ‘Alias’.
Although the film itself suffered initially at the box office, mainly due to the hatchet job which took place in the editing suite prior to the release (but which was fortunately remedied back to it’s intended cut several years after), the resulting soundtrack included what would become one of Dylan’s most appreciated and covered songs, “Knocking On Heaven’s Door“.
Over these past years,..
…Bob himself had been through the ringer so severely, that it had literally taken over half a decade to recover from the damage he’d caused within himself, prior to his crash and withdrawal from musical and lyrical existence, to now conceivably contemplate putting himself back out into the live circuit and also offering himself back to the people.
One factor of this may well have been witnessing the new wave of singer / songwriters who had filled the huge vacuum he’d left behind, the James Taylor‘s and Neil Young‘s, amongst many others, who had looked up to him, while they themselves were learning their craft, and who were now having hits of their own.
The world had kept on spinning in his absence, and now he finally felt the urge to plant himself back into the music industry’s conscience; and one of the first things he did was change record labels. Something possibly to make him feel more contemporary.
Over in the States it would be David Geffen‘s Asylum label. That would be reflected over here with his first album through Island; and it’s this album, which I feature here, and whose chart run begins this very week of my second birthday.
What I discovered…
…when listening to this album is of an artist reborn, metamorphosed from what he’d become, to what he now became. A personal album which bore the hands of the artist on the cover, just like self portrait had done, but this one more upbeat, more positive, more looking to the future.
Yes, Bob was still a little unsure of what may work, that’s why he allegedly took it personally when the girlfriend of a friend of his apparently dismissed his slow rendition of “Forever Young” as Bob getting mushy in his old age. The producer then had to fight the song’s corner to keep it on the album, just because of some girl’s flippant remark she made, probably half joking when she did. Paranoia of his own powers against what the world may now think of him? Possibly. Even now, there was still a fight going on inside him. Maybe “Dirge” is about that exchange, who knows. I personally think that particular track is aimed at his old record label Columbia.
I, myself also don’t go along with the undercurrents some critics have floated under this album’s narrative. I also don’t think the marriage to Sara began to crumble until the tour itself started.
The cheap shot at “Going Going Gone” being about the dark days immediately after, sort of rings true, but I really don’t feel it’s Bob feeling suicidal at all. To me, it’s more him letting go of his past after the motorcycle crash. The need that had been pressed upon him, to please the crowds, the record company. It faded until he didn’t feel the need anymore. Remember, that at that time, he wanted to disappear, but only to become a family man. Think John Lennon ten years after Dylan’s crash, baking bread, watching the wheels. I also feel the pull of the sea of Malibu through that song. Maybe that’s just me.
Bob’s words…
…are there for everyone to interpret how they will.
For me, I feel this album is an uplifting one, with moments of self reflection, from the torment, and emotional wrestling, and also the mental breakdown which led to his withdrawal.
He is a human-being after all, just like you and me. He’s not a naughty boy (unless he faked the whole crash to get off the treadmill in desperation). He’s not the messiah either. He feels everything just like we all do.
He’s just so much better at expressing it all than we are.
Some songs and albums…
…are meant to be discovered at certain times of life. If I’d have come across this in my twenties, or at any other time, I don’t think I would have paid much notice. I’m appreciative that this album crops up at this moment in my own journey; and here I am, back at the point of mentioning a happy accident.
And so, I hope that in some slightly effectual way, that the opening of my own personal door into Bob’s world, can inspire others with the same affliction of disinterest I had, to somehow discover and open their own.
Because, just like Bob, if you go through a long dark journey of discovery and, after a number of years, slowly begin to come back out the other side, it’s entirely worth it.
The album…
…as I’ve already mentioned, is a new entry this week. Landing just outside the Top 10, while the world responds to the news that, after seven and a half years, Bob Dylan is heading back on tour.
From here,..
…the album will shoot straight into the Top 3 to see out the rest of February, then slide several places to No.7 at the beginning of March.
Throughout that month, the LP will proceed to exit back out of the Top 10, and glide slowly back through the mid-chart, before it departs after the first week of April.
There will be one brief week-long showing, when it returns during the middle of that month, but so far, with a tidy collection of 8 weeks, that’s it for now.
Side 1
Side 2
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