Blonde on Blonde

Blonde on Blonde was released on June 20, 1966, as a double album, one of the first of its kind by a major rock artist^[1]. It arrived at the peak of an extraordinary creative run, following Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, and it pushed Dylan's fusion of surreal, literary lyricism and electric rock arrangement even further.

The record was not born easily. Initial sessions in New York, running from October 1965 into January 1966, yielded almost nothing usable, aside from "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"^[1]. Producer Bob Johnston pushed to move the sessions to Nashville, where a pool of versatile session musicians could keep pace with Dylan's unpredictable, often improvisatory working method; Dylan's manager Albert Grossman resisted the idea at first, but Dylan ultimately agreed^[1]. The bulk of the album came together quickly once the sessions relocated, recorded in February and March of 1966 with keyboardist Al Kooper, guitarist Robbie Robertson, and Nashville regulars including Charlie McCoy, Wayne Moss, Joe South, Kenny Buttrey, and Hargus "Pig" Robbins^[1].

Across its four sides, the album circles relationship dissolution, desire, and entrapment, moving between wisecracking humor and genuine melancholy, often within the same song^[1]. Critics have long pointed to its combination of a modernist, literary sensibility with the loose, unpolished feel of a working Nashville studio band as the source of its enduring power^[1]. "Visions of Johanna," recorded during those same February 1966 sessions, stands as one of the album's most acclaimed tracks, an interior, insomniac counterpart to the record's more outward-facing, wisecracking songs^[2].