Title: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

Length: 50 min 4 sec

Number of songs: 13

Best tracks: Blowin’ in the Wind, Masters of War, Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall, Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright

Freshlyworded rating: 8.5/10

Thoughts: From the iconic cover – a hunched-up Bob Dylan walking the cold, snow-covered streets of Greenwich Village, New York with his then girlfriend Suze Rotolo – to the iconic opening song, Blowin’ in the Wind, Dylan’s second album is a superb follow-up to his debut of the previous year that announced his immense talent to the world.

Firmly embedded in the storytelling folk genre, it showcases Dylan’s incredible acoustic guitar and harmonica playing and his songwriting – all but one of the tracks are original compositions.

As mentioned already, the album kicks off with one of Dylan’s most famous protest anthems, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. He was just 23 or thereabouts when he wrote one of the all-time classics, a song about injustice, about callousness, about indifference to suffering (and a song that’s been covered by many other artists).

Another classic protest song – a scathing attack on the people and institutions that create the machinery of mass destruction – is Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’. It contains some brilliant lyrics my favourite being the final two stanzas, delivered with great loathing and power:

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I’ll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand over your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead

Another classic track, and one of Dylan’s first long songs is A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall, which also made me listen to the great rock version by Roxy Music. It’s a song filled with complex, dreamlike and nightmarish imagery and is rightly regarded as one of his masterpieces. I am still trying to figure out what it all means, but it’s a real cracker.

My favourite track on the album though, and across the first two albums is “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”. I was listening to this beautiful ballad about Dylan’s anger and regret at a broken relationship as I walked down a quiet country road, and it just blew me away. Its power is the way its sung, almost without malice. I immediately listened to it again and have played it many times since getting into this album. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time. Ironically, given the album cover, the song relates to the woman depicted on it, Suze Rotolo, who was leaving him at the time to stay in Italy.

But I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
But we never did too much talking anyway
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

The heaviness of the album ends with a light-hearted song “I Shall be Free” which has some very funny and unusual lyrics.