Live Oak Blues What happens.

Records That Will Change You (Or Not)

Back in the day, the good radio stations would play a pre-released record in its entirety. This was an Event and folks anticipated it with something approaching giddiness. Although my father has never in his life been “giddy,” he was one of the many who stayed up late one night in 1975 to record Bob Dylan’s new release, “Blood On The Tracks.” And I will be forever grateful. From the next day forward, I played that tape hundreds of times: car, house, Walkman. I still have it. In fact, I have “BOTT” on cassette, vinyl, CD, and mp3. This, and “London Calling,” are the most played records in my obscenely massive collection.

BOTT is Dylan’s finest hour, and I’m not really going out on a limb to say that. The back story, for those who don’t already know it, is that Dylan was breaking up with his longtime (in Rock & Roll years) wife, Sara, and he was hurting. The result of this pain was the transcendent “Shelter From The Storm,” “Buckets Of Rain,” the gold standard Fuck You song, “Idiot Wind,” and the finest Love Never Really Lasts song ever penned, “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” Oh, and he recorded the whole thing in an Open D guitar tuning that many refer to simply as “Dylan D.”

I can’t pretend that I knew what I was listening to when I heard it first at 11, but it has revealed itself to me with increasing, fathomless depth ever since, through more relationships than I’m proud of, divorce, fatherhood, and every other life change imaginable. I’m not even sure Dylan himself knew what he was unleashing on the world, but such is genius. I’ve told folks who don’t feel the way I do about this record to keep listening, but that may or may not work for you. It hooked me somehow at first listen and has been a elder statesmen in my life long after I passed Dylan’s age when he recorded it.