By the time of this 1965 release, Dylan had already proven himself a lyrical master and a new legend in the folk universe. With his electrified performance at the Newport Folk Festival, and this half-electric/half-acoustic LP, he showed that he was not only far from done with pushing the envelope, but that he'd really only begun. In particular, his music and subject matter were now catching up to his revolutionary words and lyrical structures.

The album opens full-bore with the blistering word-puzzle "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Backed by a vamping electric blues band, Dylan is at once a protesting outsider, a sardonic social critic, and a free-associating poet. It stands on its own as an incredible piece of rock music, but as the introduction to Dylan's fifth LP, it was something of a warning shot. The electric blues return for the near-rockabilly arrangement of "Maggie's Blues" and a Chuck Berry (ala "Memphis") styled "Outlaw Blues." In between, Dylan crafted extraordinary ballads, including the acidic "She Belongs to Me" and one of his best-ever love songs, "Love Minus Zero/No Limit."

Side two (tracks 7-11) retreats to mostly acoustic presentations, but even here Dylan expanded upon his earlier work, with the surreal story of "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" and the poetic folk-rock standard "Mr. Tambourine Man." The latter stretches to over 5-1/2 minutes and includes a trio of verses dropped by The Byrds in their hit cover. One of the album's most effective cuts is the 7-1/2 minute "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," a song Dylan had been performing live for several months before recording it. Though recorded with only an acoustic guitar, the venomous lyrics spare no target in their criticism, providing as much fire as any of the electric tunes on side one.

All in all, this is as good a portrait of Dylan's inventions as can be found. It's a showcase for his brilliant writing, his evolving musical exposition and his ability to parlay an unconventional voice into some of the world's most expressive and effective vocals.

This is a brilliant album: wonderful songs, beautifully executed. This can't be said for all Dylan albums.

It's easy to overlook, 42 years later, how original this material was when it came out. It was in the months leading up to this album's creation that the Beatles motivated Dylan to move on from his acoustic-folk music, and he motivated the Beatles to move on from their "Twist and Shout" type crap. They moved on to "Revolver" and "Sgt Pepper" and became a brilliant studio-only band, and Dylan moved on to "Highway 61" and "Blond on Blonde" and became an icon. It can be said that this album marked the beginning of modern rock music.

"She Belongs to Me" and "Love Minus Zero" are wonderful love songs; "On the Road Again" and "Dylan's 115th Dream" are hilarious satires; and "Gates of Eden" and "It's alright Ma" are dark, deep cynical masterpieces. How could a 23 year-old put all this together on one album?

People who have been introduced to Dylan by "Time out of Mind" and later material have no idea what a voice he used to have. It has never sounded as good as it does here, especially "It's all Over Now, Baby Blue". I will never get tired of this song.

I have a big part of Dylans output and I think this CD showcases his voice and his songwriting best. "Highway 61" has a kind of garage-band sound that you have to be in the mood for, and "Blonde on Blonde" has a bit of filler, but "Bringing it all Back Home" has no weaknesses.

Critics have been trying to interpret the songs on this album for over 40 years now, especially "It's all Right Ma" and "Gates of Eden", attaching huge significance to words that Dylan himself chose simply because they rhymed. He wasn't trying to change the world; he was just trying to write songs people would enjoy.

So get this CD and enjoy it - there isn't a weak song on it. Make sure you get the digitally re-mastered version, released in '03 - the sound is much better than on the older analog CD (ADD vs AAD). Look for the date on the back.

This is IT.

This is where, in retrospect, it all started. I didn't realize it at the time but I do now. There were two sixties, the early 60-64, Beach Boys, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, early Beatle "I Want to Hold you Hand", crew-cut, clean-cut, A-line dress, beehive hair, Bass Weejun, khaki, American Graffiti sixties, and the other sixties, the Revolver, Sgt Pepper, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Cream, United States of America, hippy sixties that everyone today thinks was the sixties, happened AFTER 1965. And it all started with this album!

Bob Dylan, the antiwar, civil-rights, Woody Guthrie-imitating darling of the folksingers, the Voice and Conscience of his Generation, after penning "Blowin in the Wind", and "The Masters of War", stunned his purist followers with "Bringing it All Back Home". Electric instruments and a turn from trying to change the world by preaching at it to a bemused surreal satire. This, and "Revolver" are the two most influential albums of the sixties, maybe of music history. I remember.

The Beatles were wildly popular with younger listeners, but generally dismissed by music critics of the time as being a wildly sucessful but totally Pop phenominon. Dylan said they were "Bubblegum". Dylan's friend Al Aronowitz (sp?), said that the Beatles weren't that bad. Dylan and friend were introduced to the Beatles at a certain party in Manhattan AUG 64, whereat someone offered Lennon his first smoke. Lennon "took a drink from Dr Robert's special cup". Dylan and Lennon talked and found they had a lot in common. Dylan suggested Lennon should put more of his feelings into his songs. Following this party, the Beatles became much better, more introspective, and a few months later "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver'!. See DVD "No Direction Home" directed by Martin Scorsese for details...

"Subterranean Homesick Blues"

Johnny's in the basement

Mixing up the medicine.

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government.

The man in the trench coat

Badge out, laid off,

Says he's got a bad cough

Wants to get it paid off.

"Look out kid

It's somethin' you did,

God knows when

But you're doin' it again

You better duck down the alley way

Lookin' for a new friend."

The man in the coon-skin cap

And a Bic pen

Wants eleven dollar bills

You only got ten.

Maggie comes, fleet foot,

Face full of black soot,

Talkin' that the Heat put

Plants in the bed, but,

The phone's tapped anyway.

Maggie says "the Many say

They must bust in early May,

Orders from the DA".

"Look out kid,

Don't matter what you did.

God knows when, but you're doin' it again!

Better walk on your tip toes

Don't try, 'No Doz'.

Better stay away from those

That carry around a fire hose.

Keep a clean nose

Watch for Plainclothes,

You don't need a Weatherman

To know which way the wind blows".

Get sick, get well.

Hang around the ink well.

Hang bail, hop tail,

If anything you're going to sell.

Try hard, get barred

Get back, ride rail,

Get jailed, jump bail. Join the army, if you fail.

Look out kid

You're gonna get hit

By losers, cheaters,

Six-time users

Hangin' around the theaters.

Girl by the Whirlpool

Is lookin' for a new fool.

Don't follow leaders.

Watch the parkin' meters.

Ah get born, keep warm

Short pants, romance, learn to dance

Get dressed, get blessed

Try to be a suck-cess.

Please her, please him, buy gifts

Don't steal, don't lift

Twenty years of schoolin'

And they put you on the dayshift.

"Look out kid

They keep it all hid.

Better jump down a manhole

Light yourself a candle

Don't wear sandals

Try to avoid the scandals.

Don't wanna be a bum

You better chew gum".

The pump don't work

'Cause the vandals took the handles.

How that for starting off with a (paranoid) bang? The first rap song about being surveilled in a police state.

the Weatherman faction of the SDS (some 60s anarchists) too thier name from this song!

(and where are those Weathermen, now that we need them... ?)

or how about the heartfelt:

"...She's got everything she needs

she's an artist

She don't look back.

she can take the dark out of the nighttime

and paint the daytime black..."

or the workaday world of:

"...He hands you a nickel,

He hands you a dime,

He askes you with a grin if you're having a good time?

And he fines you every time you slam the door.

I aint gonna work on Maggie Farm no more..."

(have you had bosses like that?)

or the surreal 115th dream:

"I was riding on the Mayflower when I thought I spotted land

I yelled for captain Arab, I'll have you understand,

Who came running to the deck, said 'boys, forget the whale

we're goin over yonder, cut the engines, change the sail' ...

...I think I'll call it 'America' I said as we hit land.

I took a deep breath, I fell down, I could not stand...

...A telephone was ringing, it just about blew my mind,

When I picked it up and said 'Hello', this foot came through the line...

...I repeated that my friends were all in jail with a sigh,

He gave me his card, he said 'call me if they die'..."

"...I said,'you know, they refused Jesus, too'

he said 'you're NOT Him'..."

or from It's all Right Ma, I'm only Bleeding:

"...While preachers preach of evil fates

Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates

Goodness hides behind its gates

But even the president of the United States

Sometimes must have

To stand naked..."

(I can't wait for George W Bush standing naked to be judged by the American people)

Anthony Soprano (the teen) in the last Sopranos episode, listened and comments "there it is, Dylan said it ALL and he did it 40 years ago!"

Now those are lyrics!

Pure poetry, funny, insightful. The sheer volume of Dylan's genius is so overwhelming you can only get it in small amounts - I remember I didn't understand all at first. I still hear new ideas in these songs after all these years. Notes from the Underground.

And the backup band isn't "The Band", as I always thought, it's blues guitar great Michael Bloomfield and Al Kooper, trying to learn organ.

After this brilliant album, Dylan met and influenced the Beatles. The folkies (who had played for years in coffee shops where they learned to play and sing harmony and write meaningful songs) all picked up electric instruments. Country Joe and the Fish, Lovin Spoonful, etc. The Byrds did an electric version of his Pied Piper song "Mr Tambourine Man" ("...take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind..."). Then came Donovan's "Sunshine Superman", Vanilla Fudge's "You Keep me Hangin On". After that, there was a sea change in culture and in popular music. There was an explosion.

It started here.

This album cannot be recommended too highly (despite the fact that Dylan doesn't have a singing voice like Jim Morrison or Frank Sinatra).

Long having denied the implication that he created the folk-rock genre, rather giving the credit to Gene Clark of The Byrds, this release by the Bard from Hibbing would undoubtedly serve as the cornerstone of folk-rock through the ages! "Bringing It All Back Home" continues Dylan's introspection from "Another Side Of Bob Dylan" while adding electric instruments to the mix (a fact that, for some reason, would be acceptable to fans on record but not live at Newport). Here, Dylan can be at his most romantic one minute, with the Baez-inspired "Love Minus Zero / No Limit" or "She Belongs To Me," and simultaneously prophetic and surreal the next!

Introducing classics like "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Maggie's Farm" alongside concert stalwarts "Gates Of Eden" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," this release would be the first of a trilogy ended all too soon by Dylan's supposed "motorpsycho nitemare." The other two albums in this trilogy are, of course, "Highway 61 Revisited" and the double-disc "Blonde On Blonde."

Many will say that this is Dylan at his finest, placing the artist into an uncomfortable categorization or time capsule, but he would continue to produce highly creative and innovative work both with The Band and The Traveling Wilburys, as well as via his solo career throughout the 1970's and 80's. "Bringing It All Back Home" merely brings folk-rock to the forefront, introduces his audience to "Another Side Of Bob Dylan," and provides some excellent entertainment for the unsuspecting yet open-minded listener.

Released in 1965, Bringing it All Back Home is a pivotal moment in the history of rock `n' roll, a sparkling jewel in the Bob Dylan catalogue, and one of the greatest albums ever recorded. The record combined the earthy poetics of folk music with the freeform, electrified joys of rock, birthing a whole new sound in the process. The music is by turns gritty, dreamy, propulsive and beautiful, an intoxicating swirl of acoustic and electric, of driving rhythms and rolling melodies. The lyrics are pure poetry, a series of mind-bending verses and stark dreamscapes, a vast mixture of poignancy, humor, anger, and longing. Classic Dylan, if I do say so myself.

In its original (vinyl) incarnation, the record was split right down the middle: Side 1 of the original LP was devoted to amped up, blues-soaked folk-rock, while side 2 featured nothing but acoustic ruminations. Both sides were totally awesome. The electric half featured classics such as "Subterranean Homesick Blues," a hard-drivin' blast of electrified blues-rock boogie, with s rhythm that is pure Chuck Berry. The lyrics are a head-spinning surrealist ramble with some deliciously subtle social commentary and warped character sketches. "Maggie's Farm" is a broken-down protest number with a mutilated honky-tonk vibe. "Outlaw Blues" and "One the Road Again" are gin-soaked ramblers with some fantastically bizarre lyrics, and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" is a just-plain hilarious slab of distorted Americana. "She Belongs To Me" and ""Love Minus Zero/No Limit" are gentler numbers, with lilting melodies and nuanced vocals.

The acoustic side is, somehow, even better. "Mr. Tambourine Man" is one of Dylan's most stunningly beautiful songs- it's a dreamy, ethereal reverie with lyrics that ring with love, longing, and nostalgia. It communicates an uncanny amount of emotion, mapping the contours of pain and joy with an unbelievable finesse. And then there's "Gates of Eden," a haunting labyrinth of sound and poetry. The lyrics feature some of Dylan's most striking imagery. "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" is a post-modern protest song, an apocalyptic epic that sees Dylan firing shots at the hollow, materialistic pitfalls of modern life, while his guitar radiates pure tension. Closing out the album is "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," a rolling ballad that manages to be both mournful and scathing. Nice. So yeah, it's a masterpiece. Get it.