Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks: Acoustic Version Review

Revisiting Blood on the Tracks is always a treat. Whether it is to hear how the bitterness and grief evolved alongside one another or to hear earlier versions of these career-best works, the rich sense of purpose from this Bob Dylan peak is marvellous. Blood on the Track: Acoustic Version is as the title would suggest. Stripped-back, alternate editions of some of his most defiant and rage-induced work. He may claim these were the adaptations of Anton Chekov, but to get to the source of this argument found in his book, Chronicles, we must pull away at as many layers as we can. Isolate the man without his mystique, without his range of wild and wonderful arrangements. Blood on the Tracks: Acoustic Version, the unofficial bootleg which shares many similarities with Bringing it All Back Home: Acoustic Versions, is handled with the same brilliant care.  

Where much of this is a rip on More Blood, More Tracks, those exceptional pieces are given an extra kick. Little lyrical changes for opener Tangled Up in Blue seem, in hindsight, inevitable. That constantly changing piece was pulled through a multitude of lyrical arrangements across live shows to follow. Blood on the Tracks went through change after change. It remains a miracle it comes through as a tight and well-woven piece of work. From New York recordings to acoustic originals, the finished set of ideas is a staggering insight into the life of someone who had, as Tangled Up in Blue makes clear, become withdrawn. There are wonderful parallels to be heard on You’re a Big Girl Now. An isolation of Dylan’s vocal choices is the real killer – a slight vulnerability to his voice as he bids farewell to someone who, by the sounds of it with this acoustic addition, has outgrown him

Gone is the anger of Idiot Wind, in its place some alternate lyrics and those desires for the taste of peace. That living hell Dylan mentions is a staggering moment, a pull of amazing depth from a man who deals brutal blow after blow. Idiot Wind may be his finest moment not just on Blood on the Tracks, but of all. Both versions detail such a hurt and unambiguity. Additions elsewhere to Blood on the Tracks: Acoustic Version makes all the difference. Some cut tracks in the form of Up to Me and Call Letter Blues are fine examples of Dylan’s backlog, a treasure trove-like box of classics never meant to see the light of day. Recontextualising the words and work of a great artist is never easy. Few can even return to their work with fresh ideas. Dylan manages to bring fresh emotional turmoil, a different meaning entirely, to these acoustic versions.  

Blood on the Tracks, whatever its form, remains a comfort. Take a listen on a warm summer day while lounging on the couch or in the shower trying to ease the pain of a pulled chest muscle. All the intimacies and flickers of romance, the lacklustre after-effects of it, feel so valuable. These acoustic renditions are just as charming, an openness with the lack of arrangements and overdubs comes to the front. It is a different vulnerability from the one heard on the studio release. Just staggering from start to finish. Truly one of the great bootlegs. This may be buoyed somewhat by a month-long marathon listen of Blood on the Tracks, but our hunger for more, our desire to turn those little pebbles which may provide us a new read on an old favourite, is appeased with this acoustic collection.