#53 Bob Dylan- John Wesley Harding
- agalvin19
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Dylan goes back to the future…
(CBS)
Released: February 23rd 1968
Producer: Bob Johnston
Topped the chart:
3rd March 1968 (for 10 weeks)
19th May 1968 (for 3 weeks)
13 weeks total
John Wesley Harding was a sales behemoth in 1968, surprising considering how quiet and reflective this is in Bob Dylan’s catalogue. Filled with some of his densest and most inscrutable poetry, this is a transitional album that’s very singular in its arrangements, with only one hit (for someone else) and very little concession to the casual listener.
So why was this such an event on release, despite Dylan’s own efforts to downplay the record? Well, to begin with, absence begets fondness of the heart. Following the release of 1966’s Blonde on Blonde and a potentially dramatic motorcycle crash that July (full details of his injuries have never been released), Dylan had all but disappeared from public life. Two years between albums is barely a heartbeat these days, but back when most artists were still getting a pair of albums in the shops annually, it was practically a lifetime.
A change in style is a significant factor, too. Though his blues trilogy (1965’s Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, the aforementioned Blonde) would go on to be held up among rock’s most formative artefacts, the fact that only one of these topped the UK album chart is significant compared to the word-of-mouth success of 1963’s Freewheelin’ mix of traditional and protest folk. The suggestion could be made that the general public preferred Dylan’s acoustic sounds and, on the surface at least, this is what John Wesley Harding represented.
Except, that’s not quite what you get when you put the needle down. Yes, most of the songs are just Dylan and a small acoustic band, but the sound here strips things back even further than his breakthrough era. Gone are the intricate pickings of his earliest releases, replaced with more of a focus on acoustic riffs or, in most cases, rhythmic strumming. As a result, the tracks on the album tend to blend into one, with very little change in tempo or arrangement. There are two exceptions though that are among the best tracks on the album. All Along the Watchtower needs little introduction thanks to the Jimi Hendrix cover later in the year, but the doomy, cloudy riffs swirl in darkness and really bring a glowering mood to proceedings. Drifter’s Escape, meanwhile, is a jaunty piano number in the same vein as Laura Nyro’s delirious Sweet Blindness.
Vocally, Dylan finds himself in a liminal space between the nasal whine of his previous recordings and the country crooning that would feature on his next album, 1969’s Nashville Skyline. Here, Dylan has made himself sound even older than before, often more than double his 27 years at the time of the album’s release—the reedy pant that he would adopt through the majority of the 70s and 80s. It’s a sound particularly strong on the likes of Down Along the Cove and As I Went Out One Morning. For the most part, his voice is an easier sell than what came before, though the speak-singing he adopts on the rambling The Ballad of Frankie Lee… and I Pity the Poor Immigrant outstay their welcome very quickly.
The honking, squawking elephant in the room is Bob Dylan’s harmonica. Perhaps the most…let’s say divisive element of his music from the 60s. On his early albums, the instrument for the most part sat well in the mix, and there was something wonderfully rebellious about its tuneless squall during his blues phase, but here it’s often painful on the ears. It’s high in the mix of pretty much every track with very little relief from the noise, and it just doesn’t fit over such elegant and simple strumming. Justice for poor dog listeners.
For us non-canines, the quality of Dylan’s writing cannot be denied, to the point that it’s almost impossible not to dive into pretentious hyperbole when diving into it. The songs are populated by a string of outlaws, fallen women and criminals saved from the gallows by divine intervention; these are exactly the kind of people that Dylan sang about in his earliest days performing traditional folk songs. John Wesley Harding himself is described as “a friend to the poor” who “never hurt an honest man," a sketch that sets the tone for the rest of the album, and it’s a step forward. Where Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde was songwriting as Renaissance painting, the characters and situations here feel more like scenes from arthouse films- a courtroom struck by lightning, a character finding himself in a biblical scene from Revelations in I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine, a conversation in the ramparts between, yes, a joker and a thief in All Along the Watchtower.
All these songs feel more active than what’s come before, with the narrator often a character in the middle of the action. But there’s the sense that nothing is quite what it seems- every song feels like a metaphor for…something, it just isn’t very clear what exactly that is. It’s what’s so brilliant and so frustrating about Bob Dylan all at once- there’s so much to dive into, but you can’t help but feel it might all be a bit too clever for us plebs.
There is a lot to admire about John Wesley Harding but not an awful lot to love. Many chins could be stroked for decades to come on exactly what Dylan is saying with these songs, but there’s a lack of dynamism in the songs, which often makes this album feel like homework rather than something to sit and enjoy at the stylus. Perhaps predictably, it’s an album beloved of Dylan bores who are, quite frankly, welcome to it.
Score: 6/10
Tracklisting:
SIDE A
1. John Wesley Harding
2. As I Went Out One Morning
3. I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine
4. All Along the Watchtower
5. The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
6. Drifter’s Escape
SIDE B
7. Dear Landlord
8. I am a Lonesome Hobo
9. I Pity the Poor Immigrant
10. The Wicked Messenger
11. Down Along the Cove
12. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
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