“Blood on the Tracks,” Dylan’s Most NY Centric Album Was Recorded Here 50 Years Ago This Month

Fifty years ago, in September 1974, Bob Dylan started recording the New York sessions for his masterpiece, “Blood on the Tracks.”

When you think of Dylan’s greatest “New York-centric” albums, you might immediately flash to his early acoustic gems and the landmark “Highway 61 Revisited.” But I’ll suggest that “Blood on the Tracks” stands as Dylan’s most New Yorkesque album.

Even before you listened to the music, you got a feeling that Dylan was making a New York statement. Remember, Pete Hamill, one of the greatest and most distinctive New York writers of all time, wrote the liner notes to “Blood on the Tracks.” That, alone, tells you how much Dylan wanted this album to be a reflection of his adopted hometown. Dylan could have chosen Hunter Thompson or just about any other famous journalist to write the notes. But he picked someone whose name symbolized the grittiness of the town. Only Jimmy Breslin, at the time of the mid-1970s, could rival Hamill as a voice of the city.

At the time, New York needed all the help it could get. The city was famously going through a financial crisis. The Daily News would publish its infamous “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” page one headline (on Oct. 30, 1975, to be exact).

Finding His NYC Mojo

It’s not so much that Dylan name-checks New York places throughout the album. It is more a case of revealing a way of thinking. New York is not mentioned incessantly in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver,” but could you imagine that movie taking place in any other city?

Dylan reflects the vitality of New York. He seems to be in a hurry to make his points. He skillfully combines his craft with his adrenaline. The esteemed pop-culture critic Greil Marcus cited “the impossibility of getting out of his way” on this album. In the five boroughs, people know where they are going–and we are in a rush to get there. The city forces us to have a purpose.

Rolling Stone magazine co-founder Jann Wenner had said New York was “the city where people with ambition lived.”

Dylan must have tacitly agreed with Wenner’s remark. He had plenty of ambition for the songs that would appear on “Blood on the Tracks.” His marriage to Sara was going through a rough time. He had stories to tell. He had a lot to get off his chest.

The acoustic songs that he recorded from Sept. 16-19 at A&R Studios boast a kind of toughness. Like the city itself, there is no artifice. On “Blood on the Tracks,” Dylan reflected the most New York of identities: a lonely romantic, someone who is determined to find love among the millions of people, millions of piles of garbage in the streets–and millions of bagels, slices of pizza and dim sum treasures.

The origin of “Blood on the Track” can be traced to the time in the spring of when Dylan took art classes in a studio near Columbus Circle. He had just wrapped up his highly successful comeback Tour 74 concerts with The Band and was looking for fresh inspiration before returning to the recording studio for his follow-up album to Planet Waves. He found it in the classes, which he has said taught him about the fragmentation of time.

Even though Dylan had relocated to Los Angeles in early 1973, New York was where he found inspiration. In October 1973, when he had the task of writing new songs for his next studio album, which would turn out to be “Planet Waves,” he chose to return to his home in Greenwich Village. (It must’ve been an exciting time to be visiting the city–the Mets were playing the Oakland A’s in the World Series and the very early punk scene was taking shape in Max’s Kansas City).

New York had been the location for some of Dylan’s greatest achievements, such as “Highway 61 Revisited” in 1965. Now, he needed the city to turn him on anew. Since the release of “Blonde on Blonde” in 1966, critics and fans lamented that Dylan’s music had lost much of its fire. Dylan needed to feel the special energy on the streets that New York serves up.

I hear New York references all over “Blood on the Tracks.” The brilliant song “A Simple Twist of Fate” mentions “in the park,” perhaps referring to Central Park. The song could be interpreted as an homage to his romance with Suze Rotolo, his first serious girlfriend after he moved to New York in January 1961. New York gives Dylan a sort of freedom to dig deep into his intellect and his heart. No other town does that.

Re-recording

Dylan eventually decided to re-cut five of the songs in a Minneapolis recording studio. The story goes that when he played the stripped-to-the-bone New York tapes to his brother David, himself a music producer in the Twin Cities, David urged Dylan to re-record songs and create a deeper musical atmosphere.

No matter. “Blood on the Tracks” to this day remains a hallmark of New York.

Dylan, of course, went on to record dozens of albums. Thanks to his “Never-Ending” Tour, signifying his heavy touring schedule since 1988, he has been available to fans all over the world.

Still, “Blood on the Tracks” is the album both diehard and casual fans pour over. Recently, I attended an event at the New School, sponsored by the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK. I asked a member of the audience, a young woman who attended the New School, to tell me her favorite Dylan albums. “‘Highway 61’ and ‘Blonde on Blonde’,” she said a little shyly. Then she added vigorously, “and ‘Blood on the Tracks!’”

The album still resounds with Dylan fans. It contains artful songs about longing and regret. The Bard sings them with great urgency and emotion. And it stands as a symbol of New York.