Another Side of Bob Dylan - The Songs

The Songs

As Dylan told Nat Hentoff in The New Yorker, "there aren't any finger-pointin' songs" on Another Side of Bob Dylan, which was a significant step in a new direction.

"As a set, the songs constitute a decisive act of noncommitment to issue-bound protest, to tradition-bound folk music and the possessive bonds of its audience," writes music critic Tim Riley. "The love songs open up into indeterminate statements about the emotional orbits lovers take, and the topical themes pass over artificial moral boundaries and leap into wide-ranging social observation."

"Chimes of Freedom" can be traced to "Lay Down Your Weary Tune", an outtake from The Times They Are A-Changin'. "Its sense of the power of nature...closely mirrors 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune,'" writes Clinton Heylin. "Unashamedly apocalyptic...the composition of 'Chimes of Freedom' represented a leap in form that permitted even more intensely poetic songs to burst forth."

"The compassion that laces all the complaints in 'All I Really Want to Do' and 'It Ain't Me, Babe' is round with idealism and humor," writes Riley. "That work off a pure Jimmie Rodgers yodel only makes their ties to wide-open American optimism that much more enticing (even though they are both essentially reluctant good-byes)."

"It Ain't Me, Babe" also reworks the same "Scarborough Fair" arrangement that was written into Dylan's earlier compositions, "Girl from the North Country" and "Boots of Spanish Leather." Johnny Cash would record his own hit version of this song soon after Another Side of Bob Dylan was released, while The Turtles' version would chart even higher.

Riley describes "My Back Pages" as "a thorough X-ray of Dylan's former social proselytizing...Dylan renounces his former over-serious messianic perch, and disowns false insights." ("I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now.")

According to Heylin, "Ballad in Plain D" takes its melody and refrain ("my friends say unto me...") from the Scottish folk song, "I Once Loved A Lass (The False Bride)". "The song graphically details the night of his breakup with Suze," writes Heylin. "Dylan's portrayal of Carla as the 'parasite sister' remains a cruel and inaccurate portrait of a woman who had started out as one of biggest fans, and changed only as she came to see the degrees of emotional blackmail he subjected her younger sister to." Asked in 1985 if there were any songs he regretted writing, Dylan singled out "Ballad in Plain D", saying "I look back at that particular one and say...maybe I could have left that alone."

"'Spanish Harlem Incident' is a new romance that pretends to be short and sweet," writes Riley, "but it's an example of how Dylan begins using uncommon word couplings to evoke the mysteries of intimacy...her 'rattling drums' play off his 'restless palms'; her 'pearly eyes' and 'flashing diamond teeth' off his 'pale face.'"

Described by Heylin as "the most realized song on Another Side", "To Ramona" is one of the most celebrated songs on the album. A soft, tender waltz, Riley writes that the song "extends the romance from ideals of emotional honesty out into issues of conditioned conformity ('From fixtures and forces and friends / That you gotta be just like them')...in 'Spanish Harlem Incident,' using flattery as a front for the singer's own weak self-image; in 'To Ramona,' he's trying to save his lover from herself if only because he knows he may soon need the same comfort he's giving her."

Described by Riley as "the unalloyed sting of a romantic perfidy", "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" would be dramatically rearranged for a full-electric rock band during Dylan's famous 1966 tour with The Hawks.

Four songs from Another Side of Bob Dylan were eventually recorded by The Byrds: "Chimes of Freedom", "My Back Pages", "Spanish Harlem Incident", and "All I Really Want to Do". In addition, they were introduced to their breakthrough hit single "Mr. Tamborine Man" through a copy of Dylan's unreleased recording from the June 9, 1964 album session. All received their share of critical acclaim.