I wasn’t doing much reading in 1966, so I’m glad Crawdaddy! put this on their website today (and thanks to Jay for the tip): Paul Williams’ both clear-eyed and far-sighted review of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde from back when it was originally released. It’s quite a bit more than just an album review, actually, and it’s titled “Understanding Dylan.”

Perhaps the favorite indoor sport in America today is discussing, worshipping, disparaging, and above all interpreting Bob Dylan. According to legend, young Zimmerman came out of the West, grabbed a guitar, changed his name, and decided to be Woody Guthrie. Five years later he had somehow become Elvis Presley (or maybe William Shakespeare); he had sold out, plugged in his feet, and was rumored to live in a state of perpetual high (achieved by smoking rolled-up pages of Newsweek magazine). Today, we stand on the eve of his first published book (Tarantula) and the morning after his most recent and fully realized LP (Blonde On Blonde), and there is but one question remaining to fog our freshly minted minds: what the hell is really going on here?

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