Bob Dylan on the only albums that captured his defining “wild mercury” sound
Very few artists are worshipped for their songwriting abilities on a level close to that of Bob Dylan. The cheeky teenage rock ‘n’ roll enthusiast from Hibbing, Minnesota, underwent a dramatic transformation in his late teens as he became infatuated with the American folk tradition. His education leant heavily on the shoulders of eminent stalwarts like Woody Guthrie and Odetta, and very soon, his knowledge spanned the history of recorded music and beyond.
In his early 20s, Dylan moved to New York to join the city’s thriving folk scene and meet Guthrie in hospital, where he was sadly suffering from Huntington’s disease. As the youngster began circling smoky coffee shop venues, impressing punters with early covers and songwriting attempts, a distinctive vocal approach and natural charisma helped him to garner a crucial local fanbase.
Dylan recorded and released his eponymous debut album before his 21st birthday. The scattering of covers and his structurally borrowed ode ‘Song to Woody’ promised excellence heading into a sophomore attempt, but little could prepare fans for the unmatched wonders of 1963’s acoustic-era masterpiece, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
The album was a tour de force that displayed the staggering breadth of Dylan’s folk education. Stand-out songs like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, ‘Masters of War’, and ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’ bore a timeless quality that humbles and impresses in equal measure considering the artist was 22 at the time of release.
At this point, Dylan was only just firing up the engines, with his most enduringly revered material just around the corner. Thanks to his increasing affection for Beat Generation literature, Dylan’s lyrics began to take on a more abstract guise approaching the mid-1960s. He established an important friendship with poet Allen Ginsberg, which seemed to open his mind ahead of releases like Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, which coincided with an electric folk-rock divergence.
In many fans’ opinions, this initial embrace of an electric rock style marked the zenith of Dylan’s vast catalogue. Dylan seems to concur with this opinion and regards the three albums between 1965 and ’66 as those most representative of his ideal sound.
In a past interview with Playboy, Dylan discussed his departure from acoustic folk. “I couldn’t go on being the lone folkie out there, you know, strumming ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ for three hours every night,” he explained. I hear my songs as part of the music, the musical background.”
Continuing, the Nobel laureate revealed that, although songs start out in his head as a stripped-back acoustic demo of sorts, “I always hear other instruments, how they should sound.” He then noted that 1966’s Blonde on Blonde is the closest he ever got to the sound rattling in his head. “The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album,” he continued. “It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s my particular sound.”
Dylan also noted that he found the “wild mercury” sound in the two albums preceding Blonde on Blonde. “I haven’t been able to succeed in getting it all the time,” he conceded. “Mostly, I’ve been driving at a combination of guitar, harmonica and organ, but now I find myself going into territory that has more percussion in it and … rhythms of the soul.”
Although Dylan may have tried to chase the same highs, it doesn’t always work out: the lyrics may not suit a particular sound, and the band he assembles might not create the right sonic atmosphere. Lamenting his struggle to rebuild the same bands for each album, Dylan concluded: “People change, you know, they scatter in all directions. People’s lives get complicated. They tend to have more distractions, so they can’t focus on that fine, singular purpose.”
Listen to ‘I Want You’, a song from Blonde on Blonde that Bob Dylan identified as having the “wild mercury” sound.
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