Saturday 25 July 2009

A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks

by Andy Gill & Kevin Odegard

By the end of April 1974, Dylan was back in New York, hanging out at his old haunts in Greenwich Village, catching up with old chums like Dave Van Ronk and Phil Ochs, and even, at the latter's behest, giving a somewhat sozzled performance at a Friends of Chile benefit Ochs had organized at the Felt Forum. With Sara remaining on the West Coast, rumors soon began to circulate about the state of their marriage, particularly when he started spending a lot of time with Ellen Bernstein, a young A&R executive at Columbia Records, who was later widely believed to be the subject of the most emotionally upbeat of the Blood on the Tracks songs, "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." He also started taking a course of classes given by art teacher Norman Raeben, which would have a (literally) dramatic effect on his songwriting.

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