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{{Short description|1966 studio album by Bob Dylan}}
{{About|the Bob Dylan album|other uses|Blonde on Blonde (disambiguation)}}
{{featured article}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2024}}
{{use american english|date=March 2024}}
{{Infobox album
| name       = Blonde on Blonde
| type       = studio
| artist     = [[Bob Dylan]]
| cover      = Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde.jpg
| border     = yes
| alt        = A blurry photograph of Dylan
| released   = {{start date|1966|6|20}}<!--- Find talk page consensus before changing to May 16 ---->
| recorded   = January{{nbsp}}25{{snd}}March{{nbsp}}10, 1966<ref group=a>An overdub to "Fourth Time Around" was recorded in June{{nbsp}}1966 ({{harvnb|Heylin|2011|p=264}}).</ref>
| studio     = 
*[[Columbia Records#Studio A|Columbia 7th Ave]], New York City
*[[Bradley Studios#Columbia Studios|Columbia]], Nashville
| genre      = {{flatlist|
* [[Folk rock]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lawrence |first1=Jack |title=Essential Albums: Bob Dylan – Blonde On Blonde |url=http://www.redbrick.me/music/essential-albums-bob-dylan-blonde-blonde/ |website=[[Redbrick (newspaper)|Redbrick]] |date=February 6, 2017|access-date=March 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170331033836/http://www.redbrick.me/music/essential-albums-bob-dylan-blonde-blonde/|archive-date=March 31, 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* {{nowrap|[[blues rock]]<ref name="Genre">{{cite magazine |last1=Dolan |first1=Jon |title=Inside Bob Dylan's 'Blonde on Blonde': Rock's First Great Double Album |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/inside-bob-dylans-blonde-on-blonde-rocks-first-great-double-album-164769/ |date=May 16, 2016|access-date=July 21, 2022}}</ref>}}
* {{nowrap|[[country rock]]<ref name="Genre"/>}}
* {{nowrap|[[rock and roll]]<ref name="Wilentz122">{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=122–124}}</ref>}}
}}
| length     = {{duration|m=72|s=57}}
| label      = [[Columbia Records|Columbia]]
| producer   = [[Bob Johnston]]
| prev_title = [[Highway 61 Revisited]]
| prev_year  = 1965
| next_title = [[Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits]]
| next_year  = 1967
| misc       = {{Singles
 | name        = Blonde on Blonde
 | type        = studio
 | single1     = [[One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)]]
 | single1date = February 14, 1966
 | single2     = [[Rainy Day Women ♯12 & 35|Rainy Day Women #12 & 35]]" / "[[Pledging My Time]]
 | single2date = April 1966
 | single3     = [[I Want You (Bob Dylan song)|I Want You]]
 | single3date = June 10, 1966
 | single4     = [[Just Like a Woman]]" / "[[Obviously 5 Believers]]
 | single4date = September 1966
 | single5     = [[Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat]]" / "[[Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine]]
 | single5date = April 1967
}}
}}

'''''Blonde on Blonde''''' is the seventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter [[Bob Dylan]], released as a [[double album]] on June 20, 1966,<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2017|p=288n54}}: "After endless debates about the actual release date of ''Blonde On Blonde'', and ludicrous suggestions it was during the tour itself, a Sony database of album release dates, for all titles in the vinyl era, confirms once and for all that it came out on June 20[,] 1966{{nbsp}}..."</ref> by [[Columbia Records]]. Recording sessions began in New York in October 1965 with numerous backing musicians, including members of Dylan's live backing band, [[The Hawks (band)|the Hawks]]. Though sessions continued until January 1966, they yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—"[[One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)]]". At producer [[Bob Johnston]]'s suggestion, Dylan, keyboardist [[Al Kooper]], and guitarist [[Robbie Robertson]] moved to the [[Columbia Records#The 1960s|CBS]] studios in [[Nashville, Tennessee]]. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville's top session musicians, were more fruitful, and in February and March all the remaining songs for the album were recorded.

''Blonde on Blonde'' completed a trilogy of Dylan rock albums that began with 1965's Dylan's ''[[Bringing It All Back Home]]'' and ''[[Highway 61 Revisited]]''. Critics often rank ''Blonde on Blonde'' as one of the greatest albums of all time. Combining the expertise of Nashville session musicians with a [[Modernism|modernist]] literary sensibility, the album's songs have been described as operating on a grand scale musically, while featuring lyrics one critic called "a unique mixture of the visionary and the colloquial".<ref name="Grayp5"/> It was one of the first [[double album]]s in rock music.

The album peaked at number nine on the [[Billboard 200|''Billboard'' Top LPs]] chart in the US, where it eventually was certified double platinum, and it reached number three in the UK. ''Blonde on Blonde'' spawned two singles that were top-twenty hits in the US: "[[Rainy Day Women ♯12 & 35|Rainy Day Women #12 & 35]]" and "[[I Want You (Bob Dylan song)|I Want You]]". Two additional songs—"[[Just Like a Woman]]" and "[[Visions of Johanna]]"—have been named as among Dylan's greatest compositions and were featured in ''[[Rolling Stone]]'''s "[[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time|The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time]]" list in 2003. In 1999, the album was inducted into the [[Grammy Hall of Fame]], and was ranked number 38 in ''Rolling Stone''{{'}}s list of the "[[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time|500 Greatest Albums of All Time]]" in 2020.
{{TOC limit|3}}

==Background==
After the release of ''[[Highway 61 Revisited]]'' in August 1965, Dylan set about hiring a touring band. Guitarist [[Mike Bloomfield]] and keyboard player [[Al Kooper]] had backed Dylan on the album and at [[Electric Dylan controversy|Dylan's controversial electric debut]] at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. However, Bloomfield chose not to tour with Dylan, preferring to remain with the [[Paul Butterfield Blues Band]].<ref>{{harvnb|Gray|2006|p=62}}</ref> After backing him at concerts in late August and early September, Kooper informed Dylan he did not wish to continue touring with him.<ref name=Heylin235>{{harvnb|Heylin|2003|p=235}}</ref> Dylan's manager, [[Albert Grossman]], was in the process of setting up a grueling concert schedule that would keep Dylan on the road for the next nine months, touring the U.S., Australia, and Europe. Dylan contacted a group who were performing as [[Levon and the Hawks]], consisting of [[Levon Helm]] from Arkansas and four Canadian musicians: [[Robbie Robertson]], [[Rick Danko]], [[Richard Manuel]] and [[Garth Hudson]]. They had come together as a band in Canada, backing American rocker [[Ronnie Hawkins]].<ref>{{harvnb|Gray|2006|p=33}}</ref> Two people had strongly recommended the Hawks to Dylan: Mary Martin, the executive secretary of Grossman, and blues singer [[John P. Hammond|John Hammond Jr.]], son of record producer [[John Hammond (record producer)|John Hammond]], who had signed Dylan to Columbia Records in 1961; the Hawks had backed the younger Hammond on his 1965 album ''So Many Roads''.<ref>{{harvnb|Gray|2006|p=292}}</ref>

Bob Dylan rehearsed with the Hawks in Toronto on September 15, where they were playing a hometown residency at Friar's Club,<ref name=Heylin235/> and on September 24, they made their debut in [[Austin, Texas]].<ref name = "Heylin82">{{harvnb|Heylin|1996|p=82}}</ref> Two weeks later, encouraged by the success of their Texas performance,<ref name = "Heylin82"/> Dylan took the Hawks into Studio A of Columbia Records in New York City.<ref name="Heylin83">{{harvnb|Heylin|1996|pp=83–84}}</ref> Their immediate task was to record a hit single as the follow-up to "[[Positively 4th Street]]", but Dylan was already shaping his next album, the third one that year backed by rock musicians.<ref name="Heylin83"/>

== Recording ==

===New York sessions===
Producer [[Bob Johnston]], who had overseen the recording of ''Highway 61 Revisited'', started work with Dylan and the Hawks at Columbia Studio A, 799 Seventh Avenue, New York, on October 5. They concentrated on a new arrangement of "[[Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?]]", a song recorded during the ''Highway 61 Revisited'' sessions but not included on that album. Three further numbers were attempted, but none progressed into completed songs. Both the fragmentary "Jet Pilot" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover", a quasi-parody of [[the Beatles]]' "[[I Wanna Be Your Man]]", finally appeared on the 1985 box set retrospective, ''[[Biograph (album)|Biograph]]''. Also attempted were two takes of "Medicine Sunday", a song that later evolved into "[[#"Temporary Like Achilles"|Temporary Like Achilles]]".<ref>{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=109–110}}</ref>

On November 30, the Hawks joined Dylan again at Studio A, but drummer [[Bobby Gregg]] replaced Levon Helm, who had tired of playing in a backing band and quit.<ref name="Wilentz110">{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=110–113}}</ref> They began work on a new composition, "Freeze Out", which was later retitled "[[Visions of Johanna]]", but Dylan was not satisfied with the results. One of the November 30 recordings was eventually released on ''[[The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack]]'' in 2005.<ref>{{harvnb|Gorodetsky|2005}}</ref> At this session, they completed "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" The song was released as a single in December, but only reached number 58 on the American charts.<ref name="Wilentz110"/><ref>{{harvnb|Björner 2011 (1)}}</ref>

Dylan spent most of December in California, performing a dozen concerts with his band, and then took a break through the third week in January following the birth of his son [[Jesse Dylan|Jesse]].<ref>{{harvnb|Björner|2000}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Gray|2006|p=197}}</ref> On January 21, 1966, he returned to Columbia's Studio A to record another long composition, "[[She's Your Lover Now]]", accompanied by the Hawks (this time with Sandy Konikoff on drums).<ref name=heylin282-284>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=282–284}}</ref> Despite nineteen takes, the session failed to yield any complete recordings. Dylan did not attempt the song again, but one of the outtakes from the January 21 session finally appeared 25 years later on ''[[The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991]]''.<ref name=heylin282-284/><ref name=bauldie>{{harvnb|Bauldie|1991}}</ref> (Although the song breaks down at the start of the last verse, Columbia released it as the most complete take from the session.<ref name=heylin282-284/>) Since 2015, this same outtake plus three other ones are available on ''[[The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966]]''.

Around this time, Dylan became disillusioned about using the Hawks in the studio. He recorded more material at Studio A on January 25, backed by drummer Bobby Gregg, bassist Rick Danko (or [[Bill Lee (musician)|Bill Lee]]),<ref group=a>The booklet accompanying ''[[The Original Mono Recordings]]'' re-issue of ''Blonde on Blonde'' lists Will Lee as the bass player ({{harvnb|Marcus|2010|p=47}}). Wilentz insists that "the playing and talk on the session tape show conclusively that [[Rick Danko]] was the bassist on 'One of Us Must Know'" ({{harvnb|Wilentz|2009| p=113}}).</ref> guitarist Robbie Robertson, pianist [[Paul Griffin (musician)|Paul Griffin]], and organist Al Kooper.<ref name = "Marcus47"/> Two more new compositions were attempted: "[[Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat]]" and "[[One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)]]". Dylan was satisfied with "One of Us Must Know"; the January 25 take was released as a single a few weeks later and was subsequently selected for the album.<ref name="Heylin285-286">{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=285–286}}</ref>

Another session took place on January 27, this time with Robertson, Danko, Kooper and Gregg. Dylan and his band recorded "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" and "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" again, but Dylan was not satisfied with the recorded performance of either song.<ref>{{harvnb|Björner 2011 (2)}}</ref> Also at this session Dylan attempted a rough performance of "[[I'll Keep It with Mine]]", a song which he had already recorded twice as a demo. The musicians added some tentative backing in a rendering biographer [[Clinton Heylin]] described as "cursory".<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|p=205}}</ref> The recording was ultimately released on ''The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3'' in 1991.<ref name=bauldie/>

A shortage of new material and the slow progress of the sessions contributed to Dylan's decision to cancel three additional recording dates. Six weeks later Dylan confided to critic [[Robert Shelton (critic)|Robert Shelton]], "Oh, I was really down. I mean, in ten recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song&nbsp;... It was the band. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that".<ref>{{harvnb|Shelton|2011|p=248}}</ref>

===Move to Nashville===
Recognizing Dylan's dissatisfaction with the progress of the recordings, producer Bob Johnston suggested that they move the sessions to [[Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville]]. Johnston lived there and had extensive experience working with Nashville session musicians. He recalled how Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, was hostile to the idea: "Grossman came up to me and said 'If you ever mention Nashville to Dylan again, you're gone.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'You heard me. We got a thing going here'".<ref>{{harvnb|Sounes|2001|p=194}}</ref> Despite Grossman's opposition, Dylan agreed to Johnston's suggestion, and preparations were made to record the album at [[Bradley Studios#Columbia Studios|Columbia Studio A]] in Nashville's [[Music Row]] in February 1966.<ref>{{harvnb|Sounes|2001|p=200}}</ref>

In addition to Kooper and Robertson, who accompanied Dylan from New York, Johnston recruited harmonica player, guitarist and bassist [[Charlie McCoy]], guitarist [[Wayne Moss]], guitarist and bassist [[Joe South]], and drummer [[Kenny Buttrey]]. At Dylan's request, Johnston removed the baffles—partitions separating the musicians so that there was "an ambience fit for an ensemble".<ref name="Wilentz117">{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|p=117}}</ref> Buttrey credited the distinctive sound of the album to Johnston's re-arrangement of the studio, "as if we were on a tight stage, as opposed to playing in a big hall where you're ninety miles apart".<ref name="Wilentz117"/> Dylan had a piano installed in his Nashville hotel room which Kooper would play to help Dylan write lyrics. Kooper would then teach the tunes to the musicians before Dylan arrived for the sessions.<ref name=Gill134>{{harvnb|Gill|2011|p=134}}</ref>

On the first Nashville session, on February 14, Dylan successfully recorded "Visions of Johanna", which he had attempted several times in New York. Also recorded was a take of "[[4th Time Around]]" which made it onto the album and a take of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" which did not.<ref name="Wilentz118"/>

On February 15 the session began at 6&nbsp;p.m. but Dylan simply sat in the studio working on his lyrics while the musicians played cards, napped and chatted. Finally, at 4&nbsp;am, Dylan called the musicians in and outlined the structure of the song.<ref name="Wilentz118">{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=118–119}}</ref> Dylan counted off and the musicians fell in, as he attempted his epic composition "[[Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands]]". Kenny Buttrey recalled, "If you notice that record, that thing after like the second chorus starts building and building like crazy, and everybody's just peaking it up 'cause we thought, Man, this is it&nbsp;... This is gonna be the last chorus and we've gotta put everything into it we can. And he played another harmonica solo and went back down to another verse and the dynamics had to drop back down to a verse kind of feel&nbsp;... After about ten minutes of this thing we're cracking up at each other, at what we were doing. I mean, we peaked five minutes ago. Where do we go from here?"<ref name=heylin>{{harvnb|Heylin|2003|p=241}}</ref> The finished song clocked in at 11 minutes, 23 seconds, and would occupy the entire fourth side of the album.<ref name="Wilentz118"/>

The next session began similarly—Dylan spent the afternoon writing lyrics, and the session continued into the early hours of February 17, when the musicians began to record "[[Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again]]". After several musical revisions and false starts, the fourteenth take was the version selected for the album.<ref name="Wilentz119-120">{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=119–120}}</ref>

===Nashville recording dates===
Most accounts of recording ''Blonde on Blonde'', including those by [[Clinton Heylin]] and [[Michael Gray (author)|Michael Gray]], agree that there were two blocks of recording sessions: February 14–17 and March 8–10, 1966.<ref name="encyclopedia59">{{harvnb|Gray|2006|p=59}}</ref><ref name = "Heylin90">{{harvnb|Heylin|1996|pp=90–92}}</ref> This chronology is based on the logs and files kept by Columbia Records.<ref name="Wilentz119-120"/><ref group=a>The booklet accompanying ''The Original Mono Recordings'' re-issue of ''Blonde on Blonde'' gives recording dates for each track of the double album, confirming the Nashville recording sessions were in two blocks ({{harvnb|Marcus|2010|pp=48–49}}).</ref>

Dylan and the Hawks performed concerts in Ottawa, Montreal, and Philadelphia in February and March,<ref name = "Heylin90"/> and then Dylan resumed recording in Nashville on March 8. On that date, Dylan and the musicians recorded the take of "[[Absolutely Sweet Marie]]" that Dylan selected for the album. Historian [[Sean Wilentz]] observed that "with the sound of 'Sweet Marie', ''Blonde on Blonde'' entered fully and sublimely into what is now considered classic rock and roll".<ref name="Wilentz122">{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=122–124}}</ref> The same day saw the successful takes of "[[Just Like a Woman]]", and "[[Pledging My Time]]", the latter "driven by Robertson's screaming guitar".<ref name="Wilentz122"/>

According to Wilentz the final recording session, on March 9–10, produced six songs in 13 hours of studio time.<ref name="Wilentz122"/> The first number to be recorded to Dylan's satisfaction was "[[Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine]]", when McCoy reinforced on trumpet a musical phrase Dylan played on his harmonica, changing the sound of the song radically.<ref name="Wilentz122"/> Dylan and his band then quickly recorded "Temporary Like Achilles". The session atmosphere began to "get giddy" around midnight when Dylan roughed out "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" on the piano.<ref name="Wilentz122"/> Johnston recalled commenting; "That sounds like the damn [[Salvation Army]] band". Dylan replied; "Can you get one?"<ref name = "Black"/> Johnston then telephoned trombonist Wayne Butler, the only additional musician required, and Dylan and the band, with McCoy again on trumpet, played a high-spirited version of the song.<ref name = "Black">{{harvnb|Black|2005}}</ref>

In quick succession Dylan and the musicians then recorded "[[Obviously 5 Believers]]" and a final take of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" powered by Robertson's lead guitar.<ref name="Wilentz122"/> The session concluded with "[[I Want You (Bob Dylan song)|I Want You]]" on which, as Wilentz notes, "Wayne Moss's rapid-fire [[sixteenth note]]s on the guitar" are an impressive element of the recording.<ref name="Wilentz122"/>

Al Kooper, who played keyboards on every track of ''Blonde on Blonde'', has contested the conventional account that there were two blocks of recording sessions in Nashville. In comments on Michael Gray's website, Kooper wrote: "There was only ONE trip to Nashville for Robbie and I, and ALL THE TRACKS were cut in that one visit", stating that Dylan merely broke for an outstanding concert. [[Charlie McCoy]] agreed with Kooper's version.<ref>{{harvnb|Kooper|2006}}</ref> Wilentz analyzed the recording of ''Blonde on Blonde'' in his book ''Bob Dylan in America'', concluding that the "official" documented version fits Dylan's known touring schedule, and notes that five of the eight songs first recorded after "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", but none of those recorded earlier, include a [[Middle eight|middle-eight]] section—Dylan's first extensive foray as a writer into that conventional structure".<ref name="Wilentz119-120"/>

===Mixing===
Dylan mixed the album in Los Angeles in early April, before he departed on the Australian leg of his [[Bob Dylan World Tour 1966|1966 world tour]].<ref name="Wilentz122"/><ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|1996|p=94}}</ref> Wilentz writes that it was at this point it became "obvious that the riches of the Nashville sessions could not fit onto a [[LP record|single LP]]",<ref name="Wilentz122"/> and they had "produced enough solid material to demand an oddly configured [[double album]], the first of its kind in contemporary popular music".<ref name="Wilentz119-120"/> According to producer Steve Berkowitz, who supervised the reissue of Dylan's LPs in mono as ''[[The Original Mono Recordings]]'' in 2010, Johnston told him that they carefully worked on the mono mix for about three or four days whereas the stereo mix was finished in about four hours.<ref group=a>Johnston said: "We mixed that mono probably for three or four days, then I said, 'Oh shit, man, we gotta do stereo.' So me and a coupla guys put our hands on the board, we mixed that son of a bitch in about four hours!&nbsp;... So my point is, it took a long time to do the mono, and then it was, 'Oh, yeah, we gotta do stereo'" ({{harvnb|Ford|2010|p=3}}).</ref>

==Songs==
===Side one===
===="[[Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 & 35 |Rainy Day Women #12 & 35]]"====
{{Listen
| filename     = Rainy Day Women -12 & 35.ogg
| title        = "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"
| description  = [[Robert Shelton (critic)|Robert Shelton]] described the opening song on ''Blonde on Blonde'' as "Dylan at his most truculent—toying with the title, the raggle-taggle ensemble singing, the giggling, the manic instrumentation, and a variety of implied games about liquor or dope."<ref name="Shelton224">{{harvnb|Shelton|2011|p=224}}</ref>
}}

According to author Andy Gill, by starting his new album with what sounded like "a demented marching-band&nbsp;... staffed by crazy people out of their mind on loco-weed", Dylan delivered his biggest shock yet for his former folkie fans.<ref name="Gill95">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=135–136}}</ref> The elaborate puns on getting stoned combine a sense of paranoiac persecution with "nudge-nudge wink-wink bohemian hedonism".<ref name="Gill95" /> Heylin points out that the [[Old Testament]] connotations of getting stoned made the Salvation Army-style musical backing seem like a good joke. The enigmatic title came about, Heylin suggests, because Dylan knew a song called "Everybody Must Get Stoned" would be kept off the airwaves. Heylin links the title to the [[Book of Proverbs]], chapter 27, verse 15: "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=309–310}}</ref> Released as a single on March 22, 1966,<ref name="Marcus53">{{harvnb|Marcus|2010|p=53}}</ref> "Rainy Day Women" reached number two on the ''Billboard'' singles chart<ref name="billboardsingles">{{harvnb|Blonde on Blonde: Billboard Singles}}</ref> and number seven in the UK.<ref name="Gill95" /><ref name="Official Charts">{{harvnb|Bob Dylan: Top 75 Releases}}</ref>

===="[[Pledging My Time]]"====
Following the good-time fun of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", the [[Chicago blues]]-influenced "Pledging My Time" sets the album's somber tone.<ref name="Trager492">{{harvnb|Trager|2004|p=492}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Williams|1994|p=193}}</ref> It draws on several traditional blues songs, including [[Elmore James]]'s recording of "[[It Hurts Me Too]]".<ref>{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|p=308}}</ref> For critic [[Michael Gray (author)|Michael Gray]], the lines "Somebody got lucky but it was an accident" echo the lines "Some joker got lucky, stole her back again" from [[Robert Johnson]]'s "[[Come On in My Kitchen]]", which is itself an echo of [[Skip James]]'s 1931 recording "Devil Got My Woman". Gray suggests that "the gulping movements of the melodic phrases" derive from the melody of "[[Sitting on Top of the World]]", recorded by the [[Mississippi Sheiks]] in 1930.<ref>{{harvnb|Gray|2006|p=345}}</ref> The couplet at the end of each verse expresses the theme: a pledge made to a prospective lover in hopes she "will come through, too".<ref name="Trager492" /><ref name="Lyrics192">{{harvnb|Dylan|2004|p=192}}</ref> Besides Dylan's vocals and improvised harmonica breaks, the song's sound is defined by Robbie Robertson's guitar, [[Hargus Robbins|Hargus "Pig" Robbins']] blues piano and Ken Buttrey's snare drum rolls.<ref name="Wilentz122" /><ref>{{harvnb|Gill|2011|p=138}}</ref> The song was released in edited form as the B-side of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" in March.<ref name="Marcus53" />

===="[[Visions of Johanna]]"====
{{Listen
| filename     = Visions_Of_Johanna.ogg
| title        = "Visions of Johanna"
| description  = [[Wilfrid Mellers]] describes "Visions of Johanna" as one of Dylan's finest songs poetically. For Mellers, "The blurring of time and consciousness is marvelously realized&nbsp;... when Johanna becomes a mythic ''[[femme fatale]]'' as well as a real woman, floating in and out of the 'museums where infinity goes up on trial'."<ref>{{harvnb|Mellers|1984|p=146}}</ref>
}}

Considered by many critics one of Dylan's masterpieces,<ref name="Wilentz110" /><ref name="Gill97">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=138–139}}</ref><ref name="Heylin273">{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=273–279}}</ref> "Visions of Johanna" proved difficult to capture on tape. Heylin places the writing in the fall of 1965, when Dylan was living in the [[Hotel Chelsea]] with his wife [[Sara Dylan|Sara]].<ref name="Heylin273" /> In the New York recording studio, on November 30, Dylan announced his epic composition: "This is called 'Freeze Out'."<ref name="Wilentz110" /> Gill notes that this working title captures the "air of nocturnal suspension in which the verse tableaux are sketched&nbsp;... full of whispering and muttering."<ref name="Gill97" /> Wilentz relates how Dylan guided his backing musicians through 14 takes, trying to sketch out how he wanted it played, saying at one point, "it's not hard rock, The only thing in it that's ''hard'' is Robbie."<ref name="Wilentz110" /> Wilentz notes that, as Dylan quiets things down, he inches closer to what will appear on the album.<ref name="Wilentz110" />

Ten weeks later, "Visions of Johanna" fell into place quickly in the Nashville studio. Kooper recalled that he and Robertson had become adept at responding to Dylan's vocal and also singled out Joe South's contribution of "this throbbing&nbsp;... rhythmically amazing bass part".<ref name="Gill97" /> Gill comments that the song begins by contrasting two lovers, the carnal Louise and "the more spiritual but unattainable" Johanna. Ultimately, for Gill, the song seeks to convey how the artist is compelled to keep striving to pursue some elusive vision of perfection.<ref name="Gill97" /> For Heylin, the triumph of the song is in "the way Dylan manages to write about the most inchoate feelings in such a vivid, immediate way."<ref name="Heylin273" />

===="[[One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)]]"====
When Dylan arrived at the studio on January 25, 1966, he had yet to work out the lyrics and title for what was to become the closing track on ''Blonde on Blonde''{{'}}s first side.<ref name="Heylin285-286" /><ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2003|p=741}}</ref><ref name="Wilentz113-114">{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=113–114}}</ref> With Dylan piecing together the song's sections, and the chorus that gives the song its title only emerging on take five, the session stretched through the night and into the next morning.<ref name="Wilentz113-114" /> Only on the 15th take was a full version recorded. Dylan and the band persisted until they recorded take 24, which closed the session and made it onto the album four months later.<ref name="CuttingEdge" /> Critic Jonathan Singer credits Griffin's piano for binding the song together: "At the chorus, Griffin unleashes a symphony; hammering his way up and down the keyboard, half [[George Gershwin|Gershwin]], half gospel, all heart. The follow-up, a killer left hand figure that links the chorus to the verse, releases none of the song's tension."<ref>{{harvnb|Singer|1999}}</ref>

"One of Us Must Know" is a straightforward account of a burned-out relationship.<ref name="Wilentz113-114" /> Dissecting what went wrong, the narrator takes a defensive attitude in a one-sided conversation with his former lover.<ref name="Trager470-471">{{harvnb|Trager|2004|pp=470–471}}</ref><ref name="Gill140-141">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=140–141}}</ref> As he presents his case in the opening verse, it appears he is incapable of acknowledging his part or limiting the abuse: "I didn't mean to treat you so bad. You don't have to take it so personal. I didn't mean to make you so sad. You just happened to be there, that's all."<ref name="Trager470-471" /><ref>{{harvnb|Dylan|2004|p=195}}</ref> "One of Us Must Know" was the first recording completed for ''Blonde on Blonde'' and the only one selected from the New York sessions.<ref name="Trager470-471" /> The song was released as the first single from the album on February 14, the same day Dylan began to record in Nashville.<ref name="Marcus47" /> It failed to appear on the American charts, but reached number 33 in the UK.<ref name="Official Charts" /><ref name="Gill140-141" />

===Side two===
===="[[I Want You (Bob Dylan song)|I Want You]]"====
Andy Gill notes that the song displays a tension between the very direct tone of the chorus, the repeated phrase "I want you", and a weird and complex cast of characters, "too numerous to inhabit the song's three minutes comfortably", including a guilty undertaker, a lonesome organ grinder, weeping fathers, mothers, sleeping saviors, the Queen of Spades, and the "dancing child with his Chinese suit".<ref>{{harvnb|Gill|2011|p=142}}</ref>{{sfn |Gilliland |1969 |loc=show 40, track 1}}<ref group="a">Gill reports that "the dancing child" was rumored to be a reference to [[Brian Jones]] of [[the Rolling Stones]] ({{harvnb|Gill|2011|p=142}}). Heylin agrees there may be substance to this because the dancing child claims that "time was on his side", perhaps a reference to "[[Time Is on My Side]]", the Rolling Stones' first US hit ({{harvnb|Heylin|2009|p=312}}).</ref> Analyzing the lyrics' evolution through successive drafts, Wilentz writes that there are numerous failures, "about deputies asking him his name&nbsp;... lines about fathers going down hugging one another and about their daughters putting him down because he isn't their brother". Finally Dylan arrives at the right formula.<ref name="Wilentz122" />

Heylin points out that the "gorgeous" tune illustrates what Dylan explained to a reporter in 1966: "It's not just pretty words to a tune or putting tunes to words&nbsp;... [It's] the words and the music [together]—I can hear the sound of what I want to say."<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=312–313}}</ref> Al Kooper has said that of all the songs that Dylan outlined to him in his hotel, this was his favorite, so Dylan delayed recording it to the very end of the Nashville sessions, "just to bug him".<ref name="Wilentz122" /> Released as a single on June 10, 1966,{{sfn|Heylin|2021|p=455}} shortly before the album, "I Want You" reached number 20 in the US<ref name="billboardsingles" /> and number 16 in the UK.<ref name="Official Charts" />

===="[[Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again]]"====
Recorded at the third Nashville session, this song was the culmination of another epic of simultaneous writing and recording in the studio. Heylin calls this song 'a masterpiece of the first order'. Wilentz describes how the lyrics evolved through a surviving part-typed, part-handwritten manuscript page, "which begins 'honey but it's just too hard' (a line that had survived from the very first New York session with the Hawks). Then the words meander through random combinations and disconnected fragments and images ('people just get uglier'; 'banjo eyes'; 'he was carrying a 22 but it was only a single shot'), before, in Dylan's own hand, amid many crossings-out, there appears 'Oh MAMA you're here IN MOBILE ALABAMA with the Memphis blues again'."<ref>{{harvnb|Wilentz|2007}}</ref>

Inside the studio, the song evolved through several musical revisions. Heylin writes, "It is the song's arrangement, and not its lyrics, that occupies the musicians through the wee small hours."<ref name="Heylin297">{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=297–298}}</ref> On the fifth take, released in 2005 on the ''[[The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack|No Direction Home Soundtrack]]'', midtake Dylan stumbles on the formula "Stuck ''inside of'' Mobile" on the fourth verse, and never goes back.<ref name="Heylin297" /> The song contains two oft-quoted pieces of Dylan's philosophy: "Your debutante just knows what you need/ But I know what you want" and "here I sit so patiently/ Waiting to find out what price/ You have to pay to get out of/ Going through all these things twice".<ref name="Gill100">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=143–144}}</ref>

===="[[Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat]]"====
"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a satire of [[materialism]], fashion and faddism.<ref name="Gill144-145">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=144–145}}</ref><ref name="Trager368-369">{{harvnb|Trager|2004|pp=368–369}}</ref> Done in Chicago-blues style, the song derives its melody and part of its lyrics from [[Lightnin' Hopkins]]'s "[[Automobile Blues|Automobile (Blues)]]".<ref>{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|p=113}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Gray|2006|p=406}}</ref> [[Paul Williams (Crawdaddy)|Paul Williams]] writes that its caustic attitude is "moderated slightly when one realizes that jealous pique is the underlying emotion".<ref>{{harvnb|Williams|1994|p=195}}</ref> The narrator observes his former lover in various situations wearing her "brand new leopard-skin [[pill box hat|pill-box hat]]", at one point finding his doctor with her and later spying her making love with a new boyfriend because she "forgot to close the garage door". In the closing lines, the narrator says he knows what her boyfriend really loves her for—her hat.<ref name="Lyrics201">{{harvnb|Dylan|2004|p=201}}</ref>

The song evolved over the course of six takes in New York, 13 in the first Nashville session, and then one on March 10, the take used for the album.<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|p=287}}</ref> Dylan, who gets credit on the liner notes as lead guitarist, opens the song playing lead (on the center-right stereo channel), but Robertson handles the solos with a "searing" performance (on the left stereo channel).<ref name="Wilentz122" /><ref name="Gill144-145" /> A year after the recording, "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" became the fifth single released from ''Blonde on Blonde'', making it to number 81 on the [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]].<ref name="Gill144-145" /><ref name="Trager368-369" />

===="[[Just Like a Woman]]"====
According to Wilentz's analysis of the session's tapes, Dylan felt his way into the lyrics of one of his most popular songs, singing "disconnected lines and semi-gibberish" during the earlier takes. He was unsure what the person described in the song does that is just like a woman, rejecting "shakes", "wakes", and "makes mistakes".<ref name="Wilentz122" /> This exploration of female wiles and feminine vulnerability was widely rumored—"not least by her acquaintances among [[Andy Warhol]]'s [[The Factory|Factory]] retinue"—to be about [[Edie Sedgwick]].<ref>{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=146–149}}</ref> The reference to Baby's penchant for "fog&nbsp;... amphetamine and&nbsp;... pearls" suggests Sedgwick or a similar debutante, according to Heylin.<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|p=304}}</ref>

Discussing the lyrics, literary critic [[Christopher Ricks]] detects a "note of social exclusion" in the line "I was hungry and it was your world".<ref>Ricks, Christopher, in {{harvnb|Rietberg|2011}}</ref> In response to the accusation that Dylan's depiction of female strategies is misogynistic, Ricks asks, "Could there ever be any challenging art about men and women where the accusation just didn't arise?"<ref>{{harvnb|Ricks|2009}}</ref> The song reached number 33 in the US.<ref name="billboardsingles" />

===Side three===
===="[[Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine]]"====
A bright blues "stomper" about lovers parting, "Most Likely You Go Your Way And I'll Go Mine" is one of the more literal songs Dylan recorded in 1965–66.<ref name="Gill148" /><ref name="Shelton226">{{harvnb|Shelton|2011|p=226}}</ref> The narrator has tired of carrying his lover and is going to let her "pass".<ref name="Gill148" /><ref>{{harvnb|Dylan|2004|pp=203–204}}</ref> As in "Just Like a Woman" and "Absolutely Sweet Marie", he waits until the end of each verse to deliver the punch line, which in this case comes from the title.<ref name="Heylin307-308">{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=307–308}}</ref> "Most Likely You Go Your Way" was issued as a single a year later, in March 1967, on the B-side of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat".<ref>{{harvnb|Björner|2001}}</ref>

===="[[Temporary Like Achilles]]"====
This slow-moving blues number is highlighted by Hargus "Pig" Robbins's "dusky barrelhouse piano"<ref name="Wilentz122" /> and Dylan's "brief wheeze of harmonica".<ref name="Gill148">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=148–149}}</ref> The narrator has been spurned by his lover, who has already taken up with her latest boyfriend.<ref name="Shelton226" /><ref name="Trager609">{{harvnb|Trager|2004|p=609}}</ref> Calling his rival "[[Achilles]]", the narrator senses the new suitor may be discarded as quickly as he was.<ref name="Gill148" /><ref name="Trager609" /> The refrain that ends each of the main verses—"Honey, why are you so hard?"—is a [[double entendre]] Dylan had been wanting to work into a song.<ref name="Gill148" /><ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|p=308}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Dylan|2004|p=205}}</ref>

===="[[Absolutely Sweet Marie]]"====
This song, described as "up-tempo blues shuffle, pure [[Culture of Memphis, Tennessee#Music|Memphis]]"<ref name="Shelton226" /> and an example of "obvious pop sensibility and compulsive melody", was recorded in four takes on March 7, 1966.<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=302–303}}</ref> Gill sees the lyrics as a series of sexual metaphors, including "beating on my trumpet" and keys to locked gates, many deriving from traditional blues.<ref name="Gill105">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=149–150}}</ref> Nonetheless, the song contains what has been termed "one of the most oft-repeated of Dylan's life lessons", that "to live outside the law you must be honest", which was later invoked in many bohemian and [[Counterculture of the 1960s|countercultural]] contexts.<ref name="Gill105" />

===="[[4th Time Around]]"====
When [[the Beatles]] released their sixth studio album, ''[[Rubber Soul]]'', in December 1965, [[John Lennon]]'s song "[[Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)|Norwegian Wood]]" attracted attention for the way Lennon disguised his account of an illicit affair in cryptic, Dylanesque language.<ref name="Heylin292">{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=292–293}}</ref> Dylan sketched out a response to the song, also in 3/4 time, copying the tune and circular structure, but taking Lennon's tale in a darker direction.<ref name="Heylin292" /> Wilentz describes the result as sounding "like Bob Dylan impersonating John Lennon impersonating Bob Dylan".<ref name="Wilentz118" />

===="[[Obviously 5 Believers]]"====
{{Listen
| filename     = Obviously 5 Believers.ogg
| title        = "Obviously 5 Believers"
| description  = Critic Andy Gill describes this blues song as steaming along like "a basic love moan", except for its apparently arbitrary references to 15 jugglers and five believers.<ref name="Gill106"/> Heylin notes that every song Dylan recorded in Nashville relied the caliber of the backing musicians, but this song was "entirely ''dependent'' on them."<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|p=311}}</ref>
}}

"Obviously 5 Believers", ''Blonde on Blonde''{{'}}s second-to-last track, is a roadhouse blues love song similar in melody and structure to [[Memphis Minnie]]'s "[[Chauffeur Blues]]",<ref>{{harvnb|Trager|2004|p=461}}</ref> and was described by Robert Shelton as "the best [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]] song on the album".<ref name="Shelton227" /> Recorded in the early morning hours of the March 9–10 Nashville session under the working title "Black Dog Blues", the song is driven by Robertson's guitar, Charlie McCoy's harmonica and [[Ken Buttrey]]'s drumming.<ref name="Wilentz122" /><ref>{{harvnb|Gill|2011|pp=150–151}}</ref><ref name="Heylin310-311">{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|pp=310–311}}</ref> After an initial breakdown, Dylan complained to the band that the song was "very easy, man" and that he did not want to spend much time on it.<ref name="Wilentz122" /><ref name="Heylin310-311" /> Within four takes, the recording was done.<ref name="Wilentz122" />

===Side four===
===="[[Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands]]"====
Written in the CBS recording studio in Nashville{{sfn |Gilliland |1969 |loc=show 40, track 2}} over the space of eight hours on the night of February 15–16, "Sad Eyed Lady" eventually occupied all of side four of ''Blonde On Blonde''.<ref name="Wilentz118" /> Critics have observed that "Lowlands" hints at "Lownds", and Dylan biographer [[Robert Shelton (critic)|Robert Shelton]] wrote that this was a "wedding song" for [[Sara Dylan|Sara Lownds]], whom Dylan had married just three months earlier.<ref name="Shelton227">{{harvnb|Shelton|2011|p=227}}</ref><ref group="a">Bob Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965, at a judge's office on [[Long Island, New York]]. The only guests were Albert Grossman and a maid of honor for Sara; there was no publicity ({{harvnb|Sounes|2001|p=193}}).</ref> In his [[paean]] to his wife, "[[Sara (Bob Dylan song)#Sara|Sara]]", written in 1975, Dylan sings that he stayed "up for days in the Chelsea Hotel/Writin' 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you".<ref name="Gill106">{{harvnb|Gill|2011|p=152}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Dylan|2004|p=369}}</ref>

When Dylan played Shelton the song, shortly after recording it, he claimed, "This is the best song I've ever written."<ref>{{harvnb|Shelton|2011|p=249}}</ref> Around the same time, Dylan enthused to journalist [[Jules Siegel]], "Just listen to that! That's old-time religious carnival music!"<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|2009|p=296}}</ref> But in 1969, Dylan told ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' editor [[Jann Wenner]], "I just sat down at a table and started writing&nbsp;... And I just got carried away with the whole thing&nbsp;... I just started writing and I couldn't stop. After a period of time, I forgot what it was all about, and I started trying to get back to the beginning [''laughs'']."<ref>{{harvnb|Cott|2006|p=158}}</ref>

Heard by some listeners as a hymn to an otherworldly woman,<ref name="Shelton224" /> for Shelton "her travails seem beyond endurance, yet she radiates an inner strength, an ability to be reborn. This is Dylan at his most romantic."<ref name="Shelton227" /> Wilentz comments that Dylan's writing had shifted from the days when he asked questions and supplied answers. Like the verses of [[William Blake]]'s "[[The Tyger]]", Dylan asks a series of questions about the "Sad Eyed Lady" but never supplies any answers.<ref>{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|p=126}}</ref>

===Outtakes and ''The Cutting Edge''===
The following outtakes were recorded during the ''Blonde on Blonde'' sessions.
{| class="wikitable collapsible"
|-
! Title
! Status
|-
| "[[I'll Keep It with Mine]]"
| Released on ''[[The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991]]''<ref name="bauldie" />
|-
| "I Wanna Be Your Lover"
| Released on ''[[Biograph (album)|Biograph]]''<ref name="Cameron">{{harvnb|Crowe|1985}}</ref>
|-
| "Jet Pilot"
| Released on ''Biograph''<ref name="Cameron" />
|-
| "Medicine Sunday"
| Released on ''[[Highway 61 Interactive]]'' CD-ROM<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|1995|pp=45–46}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Dunn|2008|p=321}}</ref>
|-
| "Number One"
| Released On "The Cutting Edge"<ref>{{harvnb|Dunn|2008|p=361}}</ref>
|-
| "[[She's Your Lover Now]]"
| Released on ''The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3''<ref name="bauldie" />
|}

In 2015, Dylan released Volume 12 of his Bootleg Series, ''[[The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966|The Cutting Edge]]'', in three different formats. The 18-disc ''Collector's Edition'' was described as including "every note recorded during the 1965–1966 sessions, every alternate take and alternate lyric."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bobdylan.com/us/news/bob-dylan-cutting-edge-1965-1966-bootleg-series-vol-12 |title=Bob Dylan&nbsp;– ''The Cutting Edge 1965–1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12'' |publisher=Bob Dylan |date=September 24, 2015 |access-date=May 2, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160207000434/http://www.bobdylan.com/us/news/bob-dylan-cutting-edge-1965-1966-bootleg-series-vol-12 |archive-date=February 7, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The 18 CDs contain every take of every song recorded in the studio during the ''Blonde on Blonde'' sessions, from October 5, 1965, to March 10, 1966.<ref name="CuttingEdge">{{cite web |url=http://bobdylan.com/thecuttingedge_completetracklisting/ |title=The Cutting Edge: Complete Track Listing |date=November 10, 2015| access-date = May 2, 2016 |publisher=BobDylan.com| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160502002409/http://bobdylan.com/thecuttingedge_completetracklisting/| archive-date = May 2, 2016| url-status = live}}</ref>

The New York sessions comprise: two takes of "Medicine Sunday", one take of "Jet Pilot", twelve takes of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?", seven takes of "I Wanna Be Your Lover", fourteen takes of "Visions of Johanna", sixteen takes of "She's Your Lover Now", four takes of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", twenty-four takes of "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)", one take of "I'll Keep It with Mine", and one take of "Lunatic Princess".<ref name="CuttingEdge" />

The Nashville sessions comprise 20 takes of "Fourth Time Around", four of "Visions of Johanna", 14 of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", four of "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands", 15 of "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", three of "Absolutely Sweet Marie", 18 of "Just Like a Woman", three of "Pledging My Time", six of "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)", four of "Temporary Like Achilles", four of "Obviously Five Believers", five of "I Want You", and one of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35".<ref name="CuttingEdge" /> The 18 CDs also contain brief recordings of guitar and keyboard inserts.<ref name="CuttingEdge" />

Describing the process of listening to all these alternative versions, [[Neil McCormick]] wrote: "''The Cutting Edge'' allows fans to bear witness to perhaps the most astonishing explosion of language and sound in rock history, a new approach to song being forged before our very ears."<ref>{{cite news |last=McCormick |first=Neil |date=November 11, 2015 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/bob-dylan-bootleg-series-vol-12-the-cutting-edge-review-fascinating/ |title=Bob Dylan 1965–66: The Cutting Edge, review: 'a fascinating act of deconstruction' |website=The Telegraph |location=London |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216083607/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/bob-dylan-bootleg-series-vol-12-the-cutting-edge-review-fascinating/|archive-date=February 16, 2017 |access-date=November 24, 2016}}</ref>

==Packaging==
===Origin of album title===
Al Kooper recalled that both the album title, ''Blonde on Blonde'', and song titles arrived during the mixing sessions. "When they were mixing it, we were sitting around and Bob Johnston came in and said, 'What do you want to call this?' And [Bob] just like said them out one at a time&nbsp;... Free association and silliness, I'm sure, played a big role."<ref>{{harvnb|Sounes|2001|p=205}}</ref> Dylan himself has said of the title: "Well, I don't even recall exactly how it came up, but I know it was all in good faith&nbsp;... I don't know who thought of that. I certainly didn't."<ref>Wenner, Jann. "Interview with Jann S. Wenner", ''Rolling Stone'', November 29, 1969, in {{harvnb|Cott|2006|p=158}}</ref>

Several explanations have been put forward in an attempt to shed light on the identity or meaning of the blondes superimposed in the title. Two of these explanations are contemporary with the album and lead to personalities in Dylan's entourage at the time. To [[Edie Sedgwick]], firstly, a short-lived celebrity in the New York underground in the mid-1960s, with blond hair and a pale complexion.<ref group="a">The assumption was echoed by [[Patti Smith]], in the poem she dedicated to Sedgwick's memory in 1972: "Everyone knew she was the real heroine of ''Blonde on Blonde''. oh it is not fair / oh it is not fair / how her ermine hair / turned men around / she was white on white / so blonde on blonde" ({{cite web |date=January 3, 2015 |title=edie sedgwick (1943–1971) |url=https://phoebejbarrett.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/edie-sedgwick-by-patti-smith/}} In {{harvnb|Smith|1972|p=}}).</ref> Then to [[Brian Jones]] and the blond couple that the founder of the [[Rolling Stones]] formed with the actress [[Anita Pallenberg]].<ref group="a">"The two of them, Brian and Annita, even looked alike after she dyed their already blond hair an even lighter color. They were a pair of incestuous, impossibly glamorous, twins." ({{harvnb|Davis|2001|p=147}}).</ref>

Since the publication of Dylan's autobiographical ''[[Chronicles: Volume One|Chronicles]]'' in 2004, another hypothesis has taken shape: that ''Blonde on Blonde'' is a tribute to ''Brecht on Brecht'', a musical performance of [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s songs which Dylan attended in 1963 and which had a profound effect on him. In addition to this analogy, it has become classic to point out that the initials of the title reproduce Dylan's first name, as a wink. Oliver Trager, for instance, in 2004: "Its title is at least a riff on ''Brecht on Brecht'', a rather literary touch for rock ’n’ roll at the time. And let's not forget that the first letter of each word in the title form an anagram {{small|{{bracket|''sic'', acronym}}}} that spells the word 'Bob'."<ref name="Trager51-52">{{harvnb|Trager|2004|pp=51–52}}</ref>

In 2012, another theory was espoused in [[David Dalton (writer)|David Dalton]]'s book ''Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan''. Dalton writes that "the title of the album itself is a double entendre that refers to a rock star's endless harem as well as to [[Kazimir Malevich]]'s constructivist painting ''White Square on White''. Avant-garde art sandwiched between serial blondes"{{sfn|Dalton|2012|p=282}} (the painting is actually titled ''[[White on White|Suprematist Composition: White on White]]'').

A new interpretation appeared in a French essay published in 2021. According to ''Like a Rolling Stone Revisited : Une relecture de Dylan'' [A Re-Reading of Dylan] by Jean-Michel Buizard, the title refers to two guitars that together form the musical heart of the album, two light wood and beige guitars, "blonde" in English usage – like the [[Gibson (guitar company)|Gibson]] Nick Lucas Special and the [[Fender (company)|Fender]] acoustic that Robertson and Dylan play face to face in a 1966 scene from the documentary ''[[Eat the Document]]'': "two guitars of the same colour playing with each other, melodic line on rhythmic line, blonde on blonde."<ref>{{harvnb|Buizard|2021|p=166}}</ref> This interpretation is essentially based on two ideas drawn from Dylan's lyrics. On the one hand, the understanding that, in his most important and enigmatic songs of the 1965–1966 period, Dylan never stops talking about his music and, with it, about his place in the history of the blues. On the other hand, the discovery that a whole troupe of famous bluesmen, modern or old, parade through these same songs, each of them accompanied by his guitar disguised in a personified or metaphorical form.

=== Cover photo ===
The cover photo of ''Blonde on Blonde'' shows a 12-by-12-inch close-up portrait of Dylan. The [[double album]] [[gatefold]] sleeve opens to form a 12-by-26-inch photo of the artist, at three quarter length. The artist's name and the album's title only appear on the spine. A sticker was applied to the shrink wrap to promote the release's two hit singles, "I Want You" and "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35".<ref name="Trager51-52" /><ref name="BillboardJuly16" />

The cover shows Dylan in front of a brick building, wearing a suede jacket and a black and white checkered scarf. The jacket is the same one he wore on his next two albums, ''[[John Wesley Harding]]'' and ''[[Nashville Skyline]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Williams|1990|p=78}}</ref> The photographer, [[Jerry Schatzberg]], described how the photo was taken:
{{blockquote|I wanted to find an interesting location outside of the studio. We went to the west side, where the Chelsea art galleries are now. At the time it was the [[Meatpacking District, Manhattan|meat packing district of New York]] and I liked the look of it. It was freezing and we were very cold. The frame he chose for the cover is blurred and out of focus. Of course everyone was trying to interpret the meaning, saying it must represent getting high on an [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]] trip. It was none of the above; we were just cold and the two of us were shivering. There were other images that were sharp and in focus but, to his credit, Dylan liked that photograph.<ref name="schatzberg46">{{harvnb|Schatzberg|2006|p=46}}</ref>}}

Research by rock historian Bob Egan suggests the location of the cover photo was at 375 West Street, at the extreme west of [[Greenwich Village]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.popspotsnyc.com/blonde_on_blonde/ |title=Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (1966) |author=Egan, Bob| access-date = May 17, 2016 |publisher=popspots.com| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160515010643/http://www.popspotsnyc.com/blonde_on_blonde/| archive-date = May 15, 2016| url-status = live}}</ref> The original inside gatefold featured nine black-and-white photos, all taken by Schatzberg and selected for the sleeve by Dylan himself.<ref name="schatzberg53">{{harvnb|Schatzberg|2006|p=53}}</ref> A shot of actress [[Claudia Cardinale]] from Schatzberg's portfolio was included but later withdrawn because it had been used without her authorization and Cardinale's representatives threatened to sue,<ref name="schatzberg53"/> making the original record sleeves a collector's item.<ref name=schatzberg>{{harvnb|Zoom sur le mythe Dylan|2006}}</ref> Dylan included a self-portrait by Schatzberg as a credit to the photographer.<ref name="schatzberg53"/> The photos, for Gill, added up to "a shadowy glimpse of [Dylan's] life, including an enigmatic posed shot of Dylan holding a small portrait of a woman in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other: they all contributed to the album's air of reclusive yet sybaritic genius."<ref name="Gill95"/>

==Release and reception==
''Blonde on Blonde'' reached the Top 10 in both the US and UK album charts, and also spawned a number of hits that restored Dylan to the upper echelons of the singles charts. In August 1967, the album was certified as a gold disc.<ref>{{harvnb|Marqusee|2005|p=222}}</ref>

A high-definition 5.1 [[surround sound]] edition of the album was released on SACD by Columbia in 2003.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.highfidelityreview.com/columbia-releases-15-bob-dylan-albums-on-hybrid-sacd.html |title=Columbia Releases 15 Bob Dylan Albums on Hybrid SACD |date=September 16, 2003}}</ref>

The album received generally favorable reviews. [[Pete Johnson (rock critic)|Pete Johnson]] in the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' wrote, "Dylan is a superbly eloquent writer of pop and folk songs with an unmatched ability to press complex ideas and iconoclastic philosophy into brief poetic lines and startling images."<ref>{{harvnb|Johnson|1966}}</ref> The editor of ''[[Crawdaddy!]]'', [[Paul Williams (Crawdaddy)|Paul Williams]], reviewed ''Blonde on Blonde'' in July 1966: "It is a cache of emotion, a well handled package of excellent music and better poetry, blended and meshed and ready to become part of your reality. Here is a man who will speak to you, a 1960s bard with electric lyre and color slides, but a truthful man with x-ray eyes you can look through if you want. All you have to do is listen."<ref>Williams, Paul. "Tom Paine Himself: Understanding Dylan", ''Crawdaddy!'', July 1966, in {{harvnb|Williams|2000|p=33}}</ref>

To accompany the songbook of ''Blonde on Blonde'', [[Paul Nelson (critic)|Paul Nelson]] wrote an introduction stating, "The very title suggests the singularity and the duality we expect from Dylan. For Dylan's music of illusion and delusion—with the tramp as explorer and the clown as happy victim, where the greatest crimes are lifelessness and the inability to see oneself as a circus performer in the show of life—has always carried within it its own inherent tensions&nbsp;... Dylan in the end truly UNDERSTANDS situations, and once one truly understands anything, there can no longer be anger, no longer be moralizing, but only humor and compassion, only pity."<ref>Nelson, Paul. ''Bob Dylan Approximately'', 1966, reprinted in {{harvnb|McGregor|1972|pp=171–172}}</ref> In May 1968 for ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', [[Robert Christgau]] said Dylan had "presented his work at its most involuted, neurotic, and pop—and exhilarating—in ''Blonde on Blonde''."<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-aow/column3.php|access-date=March 20, 2020 |via=robertchristgau.com |last=Christgau |first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau |date=May 1968 |title=Dylan-Beatles-Stones-Donovan-Who, Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield, John Fred, California |magazine=Esquire}}</ref>

===Date discrepancy===
''Blonde on Blonde'' was released on June 20, 1966, but for many years, May 16 was thought to be the correct date.{{sfn|Heylin|2011|p=264}} Michael Gray, author of ''The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia'', had contended that the release date was actually around late June or early July.<ref name="encyclopedia59"/> This coincides with the album's promotion in ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'', which carried a full-page Columbia advertisement on June 25,<ref>{{harvnb|Bob Dylan's New Smash|p=19}}</ref> selected the album as a "New Action LP" on July 9,<ref>{{harvnb|Album reviews (Billboard)|p=36}}</ref> and ran a review and article on July 16.<ref name="BillboardJuly16">{{harvnb|Dylan Disks Showcased|p=41}}</ref> In 2017, after viewing a Sony database of album releases, Heylin found that the release date was in fact June 20.{{sfn|Heylin|2017|p=288}} This is supported by the fact that an overdub on "Fourth Time Around" was recorded in June.{{sfn|Heylin|2011|p=264}}

The album debuted on ''Billboard''{{'}}s [[Billboard 200#History|Top LPs]] chart on July 23 at number 101<ref>{{harvnb|Billboard Top LP's|p=54}}</ref>—just six days before [[Bob Dylan#Motorcycle accident and reclusion|Dylan's motorcycle accident]] in Woodstock removed him from public view.<ref>{{harvnb|Heylin|1996|p=195}}</ref> By contrast, another contemporary LP which has an official 1966 release date of May 16, ''[[Pet Sounds]]'' by [[the Beach Boys]], entered the ''Billboard'' LP chart less than two weeks after release on May 28 at number 105.<ref>[http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/60s/1966/Billboard%201966-05-28.pdf American Radio History website retrieved 5 May 2016; Billboard Top LPs, p. 40]</ref>

''Blonde on Blonde'' has been described as rock's first studio [[double album|double LP]] by a major artist,<ref name = "RollingStone500">{{harvnb|500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Blonde on Blonde}}</ref><ref name="Time on Blonde">{{harvnb|Tyrangiel|2006}}</ref> released just one week before ''[[Freak Out!]]'', the double album by [[the Mothers of Invention]].{{sfn|Miles|2004|p=117}}

==Reappraisal and legacy==
{{Music ratings
| title = Retrospective professional reviews
| rev1 = [[AllMusic]]
|rev1Score = {{rating|5|5}}<ref name="AllMusicErlewine">{{harvnb|Erlewine||}}</ref>
| rev2 = ''[[The Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]''
| rev2Score = {{rating|5|5}}<ref name=larkin>{{cite book|author=Colin Larkin|author-link=Colin Larkin|title=[[The Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]|edition=4th|volume=3|date=2006|publisher=Muze, [[Oxford University Press]]|page=178{{ndash}}184|isbn=978-0-19-531373-4|chapter=Dylan, Bob|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpo0003unse_w1c2/page/178/}}</ref>
| rev3 = ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]''
|rev3Score = A+<ref>{{harvnb|Flanagan|1991}}</ref>
| rev4 = ''[[The Great Rock Discography]]''
| rev4Score = 10/10<ref>{{cite book |last1=Strong |first1=Martin C. |title=The Great Rock Discography |date=2004 |publisher=Canongate |location=New York |page=461 |ol=18807297M}}</ref>
| rev5 = ''[[MusicHound|MusicHound Rock]]''
| rev5Score = 5/5<ref name=hound>{{cite book|editor1=[[Gary Graff]]|editor2=Daniel Durchholz|title=[[MusicHound|MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide]]|edition=2nd|date=1999|publisher=[[Visible Ink Press]]|page=369{{ndash}}371|isbn=1-57859-061-2|chapter=Bob Dylan|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/musichoundrockes0000unse_j0b4/page/369/}}</ref>
| rev6 = ''[[The Rolling Stone Album Guide]]''
| rev6Score = {{rating|5|5}}<ref>{{harvnb|Brackett|2004|p=262}}</ref>
| rev7 = [[Tom Hull (critic)|Tom Hull]]
| rev7Score = A−<ref>{{cite web |last=Hull |first=Tom|author-link=Tom Hull (critic) |date=June 21, 2014 |url=http://www.tomhull.com/ocston/arch/rhap/rh1406-1.php |title=Rhapsody Streamnotes: June 21, 2014 |website=tomhull.com|access-date=March 1, 2020}}</ref>
}}

Twelve years after its release, Dylan said: "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the ''Blonde on Blonde'' album. It's that thin, that wild [[Mercury (element)|mercury]] sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up."<ref>Dylan Interview, ''Playboy'', March 1978, reprinted in {{harvnb|Cott|2006|p=204}}</ref> For critics, the double album was seen as the last installment in Dylan's trilogy of mid-1960s rock albums. As [[Janet Maslin]] wrote, "The three albums of this period—''[[Bringing It All Back Home]]'' and ''[[Highway 61 Revisited]]'' both released in 1965, and ''Blonde on Blonde'' from 1966—used their electric instrumentation and rock arrangements to achieve a crashing exuberance Dylan hadn't approached before."<ref>{{harvnb|Miller|1981|p=225}}</ref> [[Mike Marqusee]] has described Dylan's output between late 1964 and the summer of 1966, when he recorded these three albums, as "a body of work that remains unique in popular music."<ref>{{harvnb|Marqusee|2005|p=139}}</ref> For Patrick Humphries, "Dylan's body of work during the 14-months period&nbsp;... stands unequalled in rock's 30-year history. In substance, style, ambition and achievement, no one has even come close to matching ''Bringing It All Back Home'', ''Highway 61 Revisited'' and ''Blonde on Blonde''."<ref>{{harvnb|Humphries|1991|p=55}}</ref> Music journalist [[Gary Graff]] points to ''Highway 61 Revisited'' and ''Blonde on Blonde'', along with [[the Beach Boys]]' ''[[Pet Sounds]]'' (1966), as possible starting points to the [[album era]], as they each constituted "a cohesive and conceptual body of work rather than just some hit singles ... with filler tracks."<ref>{{cite news |last=Graff |first=Gary|author-link=Gary Graff |title=Brian Wilson Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Landmark 'Pet Sounds' |date=September 22, 2016 |newspaper=[[List of newspapers published by Digital First Media|Daily Tribune]]}}</ref>

Dylan scholar Michael Gray wrote: "To have followed up one masterpiece with another was Dylan's history making achievement here&nbsp;... Where ''Highway 61 Revisited'' has Dylan exposing and confronting like a laser beam in surgery, descending from outside the sickness, ''Blonde on Blonde'' offers a persona awash inside the chaos&nbsp;... We're tossed from song to song&nbsp;... The feel and the music are on a grand scale, and the language and delivery are a unique mixture of the visionary and the colloquial."<ref name="Grayp5">{{harvnb|Gray|2000|p=5}}</ref> Critic [[Tim Riley (music critic)|Tim Riley]] wrote: "A sprawling abstraction of eccentric blues revisionism, ''Blonde on Blonde'' confirms Dylan's stature as the greatest American rock presence since [[Elvis Presley]]."<ref>{{harvnb|Riley|1999|pp=128–130}}</ref> Biographer Robert Shelton saw the album as "a hallmark collection that completes his first major rock cycle, which began with ''[[Bringing It All Back Home]]''". Summing up the album's achievement, Shelton wrote that ''Blonde on Blonde'' "begins with a joke and ends with a hymn; in between wit alternates with a dominant theme of entrapment by circumstances, love, society, and unrealized hope&nbsp;... There's a remarkable marriage of funky, bluesy rock expressionism, and [[Arthur Rimbaud|Rimbaud]]-like visions of discontinuity, chaos, emptiness, loss, being 'stuck'."<ref name="Shelton224"/>

That sense of crossing cultural boundaries was, for Al Kooper, at the heart of ''Blonde on Blonde'': "[Bob Dylan] was the quintessential New York hipster—what was ''he'' doing in Nashville? It didn't make any sense whatsoever. But you take those two elements, pour them into a [[test tube]], and it just exploded."<ref name="Gill95"/> For Mike Marqusee, Dylan had succeeded in combining traditional blues material with [[modernism|modernist]] literary techniques: "[Dylan] took inherited idioms and boosted them into a modernist stratosphere. 'Pledging My Time' and 'Obviously 5 Believers' adhered to blues patterns that were venerable when Dylan first encountered them in the mid-fifties (both begin with the ritual [[Delta blues|Delta]] invocation of "early in the mornin"). Yet like 'Visions of Johanna' or 'Memphis Blues Again', these songs are beyond category. They are allusive, repetitive, jaggedly abstract compositions that defy reduction."<ref>{{harvnb|Marqusee|2005|p=208}}</ref>

''Blonde on Blonde'' has been ranked high in critics' polls of the greatest albums of all time. In 1974, the writers of ''[[NME]]'' voted ''Blonde on Blonde'' the number-two album of all time.<ref>{{harvnb|NME Writers All Time Top 100–1974}}</ref> It was ranked second in the 1978 book ''[[Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums]]'' and third in the 1987 edition.<ref>{{cite news |first=Jonathan |last=Taylor |title=Pop Critics Pick Rock's Top 100 |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-03-25-8701230198-story.html |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Daily News]] |date=March 25, 1987|access-date=November 12, 2019 |via=[[Chicago Tribune|chicagotribune.com]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191111151244/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-03-25-8701230198-story.html|archive-date=November 11, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1997 the album was placed at number 16 in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by [[HMV]], [[Channel 4]], ''[[The Guardian]]'' and [[Classic FM (UK)|Classic FM]].<ref>{{harvnb|The music of the millennium|1998}}</ref> In 2006, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine included the record on their 100 All-Time Albums list.<ref name="Time on Blonde"/> In 2003, the album was ranked number nine on ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine's list of "[[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time|The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]]",<ref name = "RollingStone500"/> maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, while dropping to number 38 in 2020.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/bob-dylan-blonde-on-blonde-53320/ |year=2012 |title=500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]| access-date=September 23, 2019| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191210150141/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/bob-dylan-blonde-on-blonde-53320/| archive-date=December 10, 2019| url-status=live}}</ref> In 2004, two songs from the album also appeared on the magazine's list of "[[The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time]]": "Just Like a Woman" ranked number 230 and "Visions of Johanna" number 404.<ref>{{harvnb|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004): 201–300}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004): 401–500}}</ref> (When ''Rolling Stone'' updated this list in 2010, "Just Like a Woman" dropped to number 232 and "Visions of Johanna" to number 413. Then in 2021, "Visions of Johanna" was re-ranked at number 317.)<ref>{{harvnb|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010): No. 232 "Just Like a Woman"}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010): No. 413 "Visions of Johanna"}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-of-all-time-1224767/bob-dylan-visions-of-johanna-2-1225021/ |title=Visions of Johanna ranked No. 317 on Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs List |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=September 15, 2021|access-date=October 8, 2021}}</ref> The album was included in [[Robert Christgau]]'s "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies]]'' (1981)<ref>{{cite book |last=Christgau |first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau |year=1981 |title=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies |publisher=[[Ticknor & Fields]] |isbn=0899190251 |chapter=A Basic Record Library: The Fifties and Sixties|chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg70/basics.php|access-date=March 16, 2019 |via=robertchristgau.com|title-link=Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies}}</ref>—and in critic Robert Dimery's book ''[[1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Dimery|2010|p=87}}</ref> It was voted number 33 in the third edition of [[Colin Larkin]]'s ''[[All Time Top 1000 Albums]]'' (2000).<ref name="Larkin">{{cite book |title=All Time Top 1000 Albums |editor=[[Colin Larkin]] |publisher=[[Virgin Books]] |date=2006 |edition=3rd |isbn=0-7535-0493-6 |page=50|title-link=All Time Top 1000 Albums}}</ref> It was inducted into the [[Grammy Hall of Fame]] in 1999.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.grammy.com/grammys/awards/hall-of-fame#b |title=Grammy Hall of Fame Letter B |work=Grammy |date=October 18, 2010|access-date=June 23, 2020}}</ref> When Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, Swedish Academy Secretary Sara Danius, when asked how to evaluate Dylan's literary merit, suggested listening first to ''Blonde on Blonde''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/prize-announcement/ |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016}}</ref>

==Track listing==

{{ Track listing
| headline = Side one
| all_writing = [[Bob Dylan]]
| title1 = [[Rainy Day Women #12 & 35]]
| length1 = 4:36
| title2 = [[Pledging My Time]]
| length2 = 3:50
| title3 = [[Visions of Johanna]]
| length3 = 7:33
| title4 = [[One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)]]
| length4 = 4:54
| total_length = 20:53
}}
{{ Track listing
| headline = Side two
| title1 = [[I Want You (Bob Dylan song)|I Want You]]
| length1 = 3:07
| title2 = [[Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again]]
| length2 = 7:05
| title3 = [[Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat]]
| length3 = 3:58
| title4 = [[Just Like a Woman]]
| length4 = 4:52
| total_length = 19:02
}}
{{Track listing
| headline = Side three
| title1 = [[Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine]]
| length1 = 3:30
| title2 = [[Temporary Like Achilles]]
| length2 = 5:02
| title3 = [[Absolutely Sweet Marie]]
| length3 = 4:57
| title4 = [[4th Time Around]]
| length4 = 4:35
| title5 = [[Obviously 5 Believers]]
| length5 = 3:35
| total_length = 21:19
}}
{{ Track listing
| headline = Side four
| title1 = [[Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands]]
| length1 = 11:23
| total_length = 11:23 72:37
}}

==Personnel==
The personnel involved in making ''Blonde on Blonde'' is subject to some discrepancy:<ref name = "Marcus47">{{harvnb|Marcus|2010|pp=47–51}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Wilentz|2009|pp=105–128}}</ref><ref>Wilentz, Sean. [http://theband.hiof.no/articles/mystic_nights_tmobob.html "Mystic Nights: The Making of ''Blonde on Blonde'' in Nashville"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723032530/http://theband.hiof.no/articles/mystic_nights_tmobob.html |date=July 23, 2011 }}, ''[[Oxford American]]'' No. 58, 2007</ref>
*[[Bob Dylan]]&nbsp;– vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano

'''Additional musicians'''
*[[Robbie Robertson]]&nbsp;– guitar, vocals
*[[Al Kooper]]&nbsp;– organ, guitar
*Bill Aikins&nbsp;– keyboards
*Wayne Butler&nbsp;– trombone
*[[Kenneth Buttrey]]&nbsp;– drums
*[[Rick Danko]]&nbsp;– bass guitar (New York)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://theband.hiof.no/albums/blonde_on_blonde.html#:~:text=The%20music%2C%20meanwhile%2C%20has%20coalesced,every%20musician%20who%20hears%20it.&text=Rick%20Danko%20(bass)%20and%20Robbie,the%20musicians%20are%20studio%20musicians. |title=Blonde on Blonde}}</ref>
*[[Bobby Gregg]]&nbsp;– drums (New York)
*[[Paul Griffin (musician)|Paul Griffin]]&nbsp;– piano (New York)
*[[Jerry Kennedy]]&nbsp;– guitar
*[[Charlie McCoy]]&nbsp;– bass guitar, guitar, harmonica, trumpet
*[[Wayne Moss]]&nbsp;– guitar, vocals
*[[Hargus "Pig" Robbins]]&nbsp;– piano, keyboards
*[[Henry Strzelecki]]&nbsp;– bass guitar
*[[Joe South]]&nbsp;– bass guitar, guitar

'''Technical'''
*[[Bob Johnston]]&nbsp;– record producer
*[[Jerry Schatzberg]]&nbsp;– cover photographer

==Charts==
===Weekly charts===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Year
!Chart
!Position
|-
|rowspan="3"|1966
|''Billboard'' Top LPs<ref>{{harvnb|Blonde on Blonde: Billboard Albums}}</ref>
| style="text-align:center;"|9
|-
|UK Top 75<ref name="Official Charts"/>
| style="text-align:center;"|3
|-
|[[Productores de Música de España|Spanish Albums Chart]]<ref>{{Cite book|last=Salaverri|first=Fernando|title=Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002|publisher=Fundación Autor-SGAE|year=2005|isbn=84-8048-639-2|location=|pages=}}</ref>
| style="text-align:center;"|11
|}

===Singles===
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Year
!Single
!Chart
!Position
|-
|rowspan="6"|1966
|"One of Us Must Know"
|[[UK Top 75]]<ref name="Official Charts"/>
| style="text-align:center;"|33
|-
|rowspan="2"|"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"
|[[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]]<ref name=billboardsingles/>
| style="text-align:center;"|2
|-
|[[UK Top 75]]<ref name="Official Charts"/>
| style="text-align:center;"|7
|-
|rowspan="2"|"I Want You"
|[[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]]<ref name=billboardsingles/>
| style="text-align:center;"|20
|-
|[[UK Top 75]]<ref name="Official Charts"/>
| style="text-align:center;"|16
|-
|"Just Like a Woman"
|[[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]]<ref name=billboardsingles/>
| style="text-align:center;"|33
|-
|1967
|"Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat"
|[[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]]<ref name=billboardsingles/>
| style="text-align:center;"|81
|}

==Certifications==
{{Certification Table Top}}
{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|artist=Bob Dylan|title=Blonde on Blonde|type=album|award=Platinum|relyear=2004|certyear=2013|id=10236-3101-2}}
{{Certification Table Entry|region=United States|artist=Bob Dylan|title=Blonde on Blonde|type=album|award=Platinum|number=2|relyear=1966|certyear=2003}}
{{Certification Table Bottom | nosales=true}}

==See also==
*''[[50 Years of Blonde on Blonde]]'', a 2017 live album by Old Crow Medicine Show covering these songs

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=a|30em}}

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist|20em}}

==References==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9BAEAAAAMBAJ&q=billboard+1966+dylan+%22blonde+on+blonde%22&pg=PA36 |title=Album Reviews |magazine=[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]] |date=July 9, 1966|access-date=April 1, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Album reviews (''Billboard'')}}}}
* {{cite AV media notes |first=John |last=Bauldie |year=1991 |publisher=Columbia Records |location=New York |title=The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 |others=Bob Dylan |type=booklet |id=COL438086 2}}
* {{Cite magazine |title=Billboard Top LP's |date=August 13, 1966 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AhEEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22million+dollar+lp%22&pg=PA54 |magazine=Billboard|access-date=April 3, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Billboard Top LP's}}}}
* {{cite web |first=Olof |last=Björner|author-link=Olof Björner |url=http://www.bjorner.com/65.htm#_Toc491265244 |title=Something Is Happening, Bob Dylan 1965|access-date=March 23, 2011 |year=2000 |work=Bjorner.com}}
* {{cite web |first=Olof |last=Björner |url=http://www.bjorner.com/67.htm |title=Ain't Goin' Nowhere, Bob Dylan 1967|access-date=April 13, 2011 |year=2001 |work=Bjorner.com}}
* {{cite web |first=Olof |last=Björner |url=http://www.bjorner.com/DSN00785%20(65).htm#DSN01200 |title=The 2nd ''Blonde on Blonde'' session, November 30, 1965 |work=Bjorner.com |date=June 3, 2011|access-date=July 11, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Björner 2011 (1)}}}}
* {{cite web |first=Olof |last=Björner |url=http://www.bjorner.com/DSN01225%20(66).htm#_Toc476200851 |title=The 5th ''Blonde on Blonde'' session, January 27, 1966 |work=Bjorner.com |date=June 3, 2011|access-date=September 27, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Björner 2011 (2)}}}}
* {{cite web |first=Louis |last=Black |url=http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2005-09-30/293992/ |title=Momentum and the Mountainside Sounds |date=September 30, 2005|access-date = July 7, 2011 |work=Austinchronicle.com}}
* {{cite web |url=http://allmusic.com/album/blonde-on-blonde-r6417/charts-awards/billboard-album |title=Blonde on Blonde: Billboard Albums |work=[[AllMusic]]|access-date=September 11, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Blonde on Blonde: Billboard Albums}}}}
* {{cite web |url=http://allmusic.com/album/blonde-on-blonde-r6417/charts-awards/billboard-single |title=Blonde on Blonde: Billboard Singles |work=AllMusic|access-date=September 11, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Blonde on Blonde: Billboard Singles}}}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MikEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22blonde+on+blonde%22+bob-dylan+billboard&pg=PA19 |title=Bob Dylan's New Smash Single, "I Want You" |magazine=Billboard |date=June 25, 1966|access-date=April 1, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Bob Dylan's New Smash}}}}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.theofficialcharts.com/artist/_/bob%20dylan/ |title=Bob Dylan: Top 75 Releases |work=Theofficialcharts.com|access-date=September 26, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Bob Dylan: Top 75 Releases}}|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111125221054/http://www.theofficialcharts.com/artist/_/bob%20dylan/|archive-date=November 25, 2011}}
* {{cite book |first=Nathan, with Christian Hoard |last=Brackett |title=The New Rolling Stone Album Guide |edition=4th |year=2004 |publisher=Fireside |isbn=0-7432-0169-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/newrollingstonea00brac}}
* {{cite book |language=fr |first=Jean-Michel |last=Buizard |title=Like a Rolling Stone Revisited : Une relecture de Dylan |publisher=Camion Blanc |year=2021}}
* {{cite book|editor-first=Jonathan|editor-last=Cott |title=Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton |year=2006 |isbn=0-340-92312-1}}
* {{cite AV media notes |first=Cameron |last=Crowe|author-link=Cameron Crowe |year=1985 |publisher=Columbia Records |location=New York |title=Biograph |others=Bob Dylan |type=booklet |id=CBS66509}}
* {{cite book |first=David |last=Dalton |title=Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan |publisher=Omnibus Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0857127792}}
*{{cite book |first=Stephen |last=Davis |title=Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-Year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones |year=2001 |publisher=Broadway Books |isbn=}}
* {{cite book|editor-first=Robert|editor-last=Dimery |year=2010 |edition=Revised and Updated |title=1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die |publisher=Universe |isbn=978-0-7893-2074-2}}
* {{cite book |first=Tim |last=Dunn |title=The Bob Dylan Copyright Files 1962–2007 |year=2008 |publisher=Authorhouse |isbn=978-1-4389-1589-0}}
* {{cite book |first=Bob |last=Dylan|author-link=Bob Dylan |title=Bob Dylan: Lyrics, 1962–2001 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |year=2004 |isbn=0-7432-2827-8}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SxIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA41 |title=Dylan Disks Showcased |magazine=Billboard |date=July 16, 1966|access-date=April 1, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Dylan Disks Showcased}}}}
* {{cite web |first=Stephen Thomas |last=Erlewine|author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine |url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/blonde-on-blonde-main-entry-r661161 |title=Blonde on Blonde: Review |work=AllMusic|access-date=March 19, 2011}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-19691231/blonde-on-blonde-bob-dylan-19691231 |title=500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Blonde on Blonde |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=May 31, 2009|access-date=May 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140326140146/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/bob-dylan-blonde-on-blonde-20120524|archive-date=March 26, 2014 |ref={{SfnRef|500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Blonde on Blonde}}}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs/page/3 |title=500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004): 201–300 |magazine=Rolling Stone|access-date=November 11, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080625061023/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs/page/3|archive-date=June 25, 2008|url-status=dead |ref={{SfnRef|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004): 201–300}}}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs/page/5 |title=500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004): 401–500 |magazine=Rolling Stone|access-date=November 11, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080625061023/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs/page/5|archive-date=June 25, 2008|url-status=dead |ref={{SfnRef|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004): 401–500}}}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-20110407/bob-dylan-just-like-a-woman-19691231|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111101235630/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-20110407/bob-dylan-just-like-a-woman-19691231|archive-date=November 1, 2011 |title=500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010): No. 232 "Just Like a Woman" |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=December 11, 2003|access-date=November 11, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010): No. 232 "Just Like a Woman"}}}}
* {{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-20110407/bob-dylan-visions-of-johanna-19691231|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111106105303/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-20110407/bob-dylan-visions-of-johanna-19691231|archive-date=November 6, 2011 |title=500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010): No. 413 "Visions of Johanna" |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=December 11, 2003|access-date=November 11, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010): No. 413 "Visions of Johanna"}}}}
* {{cite magazine |first=Bill |last=Flanagan|author-link=Bill Flanagan |url=http://redir.ew.com/ew/article/0,,313768,00.html |title=Dylan Catalog Revisited |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |date=May 29, 1991|access-date=September 10, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151120155035/http://www.ew.com/article/1991/03/29/bob-dylans-discography|archive-date=November 20, 2015}}
* {{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ford |url=http://www.rdf.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/MonoReissues/MonoInterview_ISIS153.pdf |title=Interview with Steve Berkowitz and Mark Wilder, ''Bob Dylan The Original Mono Recordings'' Box Set |work=Electric Dylan |date=October 1, 2010 |access-date=August 5, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120328125202/http://www.rdf.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/MonoReissues/MonoInterview_ISIS153.pdf |archive-date=March 28, 2012}}
* {{Cite book |first=Andy |last=Gill |title=Bob Dylan: The Stories Behind the Songs 1962–1969 |publisher=Carlton Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84732-759-8}}
*{{Gilliland |show=40 |title=Show 40 - Ballad in Plain D: Bob Dylan. [1966]}}
* {{cite AV media notes |first=Eddie |last=Gorodetsky |year=2005 |publisher=Columbia Records |location=New York |title=No Direction Home: The Soundtrack—The Bootleg Series Volume 7 |others=Bob Dylan |type=booklet |id=COL520358 2}}
* {{Cite book |first=Michael |last=Gray|author-link=Michael Gray (author) |title=Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan |publisher=Continuum |year=2000 |isbn=0-8264-5150-0}}
* {{Cite book |first=Michael |last=Gray |title=The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia |publisher=Continuum International |year=2006 |isbn=0-8264-6933-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/bobdylanencyclop00gray}}
* {{Cite book |first=Clinton |last=Heylin|author-link=Clinton Heylin |title=Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions, 1960–1994 |publisher=St. Martin's Griffin |year=1995 |isbn=0-312-15067-9}}
* {{Cite book |first=Clinton |last=Heylin |title=Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments: Day by Day 1941–1995 |year=1996 |publisher=Schirmer Books |isbn=0-7119-5669-3}}
* {{Cite book |first=Clinton |last=Heylin |title=Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited |publisher=Perennial Currents |year=2003 |isbn=0-06-052569-X}}
* {{Cite book |first=Clinton |last=Heylin |title=Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, Volume One: 1957–73 |publisher=Constable |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-84901-051-1}}
* {{Cite book |first=Clinton |last=Heylin |title=Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades: The 20th Anniversary Edition |publisher=Faber and Faber |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-571-27240-2}}
* {{Cite book |first=Clinton |last=Heylin |title=Judas! |publisher=Lesser Gods |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-944713-30-0}}
* {{cite book |first=Clinton |last=Heylin |title=The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling, 1941-1966 |year=2021 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |isbn=978-0-316-53523-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_NwDEAAAQBAJ}}
* {{Cite book |first=Patrick |last=Humphries |title=Oh No! Not Another Bob Dylan Book |publisher=Square One Books Limited |year=1991 |isbn=1-872747-04-3}}
*{{Cite news |first=Pete |last=Johnson |title=Blonde on Blonde: Review |work=Los Angeles Times |date=July 3, 1966|author-link=Pete Johnson (rock critic)}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |first=Al |last=Kooper| author-link = Al Kooper |url=https://bobdylanencyclopedia.blogspot.com/2006/11/planet-kooper-part-two.html |title=Planet Kooper—Part Two |date=November 1, 2006| access-date = July 7, 2011 |encyclopedia=Bobdylanencyclopedia.blogspot.com}}
* {{cite AV media notes |first=Greil |last=Marcus|author-link=Greil Marcus |year=2010 |publisher=Sony Legacy |location=New York |title=The Original Mono Recordings |others=Bob Dylan |type=booklet |id=COL MONO 88697761042}}
* {{Cite book |first=Mike |last=Marqusee |title=Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s |publisher=Seven Stories Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-58322-686-5}}
* {{Cite book |first=Craig |last=McGregor |title=Bob Dylan: A Retrospective |publisher=William Morrow & Co |year=1972 |isbn=0-688-06025-0}}
* {{Cite book |first=Wilfrid |last=Mellers |title=A Darker Shade of Pale: A Backdrop to Bob Dylan |publisher=Faber and Faber |year=1984 |isbn=0-571-13345-2}}
* {{Cite book |first=Barry |last=Miles |title=Zappa: A Biography |publisher=Grove Press |year=2004 |isbn=0-8021-4215-X|url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/zappa0000mile}}
* {{Cite book|editor-first=Jim|editor-last=Miller |title=The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll |publisher=Picador |year=1981 |isbn=0-330-26568-7}}
* {{cite web |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/50266.stm |title=The music of the millennium |date=January 24, 1998|access-date=July 26, 2011 |work=BBC News |ref={{SfnRef|The music of the millennium|1998}}}}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_writers.htm#100_74 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060106073832/http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_writers.htm#100_74 |url-status=usurped |archive-date=January 6, 2006 |title=NME Writers All Time Top 100–1974 |work=Rocklistmusic.co.uk|access-date=September 26, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|NME Writers All Time Top 100–1974}}}}
* {{cite web |first=Christopher |last=Ricks |url=http://www.mbl.edu/events/falmouthforum/events_fal_forum01_30_09.html|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110927084742/http://www.mbl.edu/events/falmouthforum/events_fal_forum01_30_09.html|archive-date = September 27, 2011 |title=Just Like a Man? John Donne, T.S. Eliot, Bob Dylan, and the Accusation of Misogyny |date=January 30, 2009|access-date = July 25, 2011 |work=MBL}}
* {{cite web |first=Katherine |last=Rietberg |url=http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/arts/bu-professor-visits-barnard-discusses-bob-dylan-and-misogyny |title=BU professor visits Barnard, discusses Bob Dylan and misogyny |date=February 9, 2011|access-date=July 25, 2011 |work=Columbia Spectator|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130102162635/http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/arts/bu-professor-visits-barnard-discusses-bob-dylan-and-misogyny|archive-date=January 2, 2013|url-status=dead}}
* {{Cite book |first=Tim |last=Riley |title=Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary |year=1999 |publisher=Da Capo Press |isbn=0-306-80907-9}}
* {{cite book |first=Jerry |last=Schatzberg |url=https://www.genesis-publications.com/book/0904351998/thin-wild-mercury |title=Thin Wild Mercury—Touching Dylan's Edge: The Photography |publisher=Genesis Publications |year=2006 |isbn=0-904351-99-8|access-date=April 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180122064720/https://www.genesis-publications.com/book/0904351998/thin-wild-mercury|archive-date=January 22, 2018|url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |first=Robert |last=Shelton |title=No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, Revised & updated edition |publisher=Omnibus Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-84938-911-2}}
* {{cite web |first=Jonathan |last=Singer |url=http://www.steelydan.com/griffin.html |title=Paul Griffin |date=March 4, 1999|access-date=July 12, 2011 |work=Steelydan.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716134347/http://www.steelydan.com/griffin.html|archive-date=July 16, 2011|url-status=dead}}
*{{Cite book |first=Patti |last=Smith |title=Seventh Heaven |publisher=Telegraph Books |year=1972}}
* {{cite web |first=Sid |last=Smith |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/hmjw/ |title=Blonde on Blonde: BBC Review |work=BBC |date=April 23, 2007|access-date=March 17, 2011}}
* {{Cite book |first=Howard |last=Sounes |title=Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan |publisher=Grove Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8021-1686-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/downhighwaylifeo0000soun}}
* {{Cite book |first=Oliver |last=Trager |title=Keys to the Rain |year=2004 |publisher=Billboard Books |isbn=0-8230-7974-0}}
* {{cite magazine |first=Josh and Light, Alan |last=Tyrangiel |url=http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1955625_1955765_1957010,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100903175745/http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1955625_1955765_1957010,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 3, 2010 |title=''Blonde on Blonde'' in The All-Time 100 Albums |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=November 13, 2006|access-date=July 4, 2011}}
* {{cite web |first=Sean |last=Wilentz |url=http://theband.hiof.no/articles/mystic_nights_tmobob.html |title=Mystic Nights: The Making of ''Blonde on Blonde'' in Nashville |date=September 1, 2007|access-date=July 26, 2011 |work=[[Oxford American]]}}
* {{Cite book |first=Sean |last=Wilentz |title=Bob Dylan in America |publisher=The Bodley Head |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-84792-150-5}}
* {{Cite book |first1=Paul |last1=Williams |title=Wanted Man: In Search of Bob Dylan |chapter=Photographing Dylan: Elliott Landy Interviewed by Paul Williams |editor=John Bauldie |publisher=[[Citadel Press]] |year=1990 |isbn=0-8065-1266-0}}
* {{Cite book |first=Paul |last=Williams |title=Bob Dylan: Performing Artist 1960–1973 |publisher=Omnibus Press |isbn=0-7119-3554-8 |year=1994}}
* {{Cite book |first=Paul |last=Williams |title=Outlaw Blues: A Book of Rock Music |publisher=Entwhistle Books |isbn=978-0-934558-35-8 |year=2000}}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/20061130.FIG000000132_zoom_sur_le_mythe_dylan.html |title=Zoom sur le mythe Dylan |work=Le Figaro |language=fr |date=November 30, 2006|access-date=April 3, 2011 |ref={{SfnRef|Zoom sur le mythe Dylan|2006}}|archive-date=May 31, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160531141344/http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/20061130.FIG000000132_zoom_sur_le_mythe_dylan.html|url-status=dead}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
* [http://theband.hiof.no/articles/mystic_nights_tmobob.html ''Mystic Nights: The Making of Blonde on Blonde in Nashville'' by Sean Wilentz]
* [http://www.bjorner.com/DSN01225%20(66).htm Still on the Road: 1966 ''Blonde on Blonde'' recording sessions and world tour]

{{Navboxes
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[[Category:1966 albums]]
[[Category:Albums produced by Bob Johnston]]
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