John Wesley Harding

This album has been added to 3 public lists:

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  1967

  James

  After the sprawling intensity of his mid-1960s work, Dylan abruptly turns toward brevity, ambiguity, and sparse arrangements. The songs feel biblical, Western, and dreamlike all at once, populated by drifters, saints, thieves, and morally uncertain narrators. “All Along the Watchtower” distills apocalypse into just a few verses, while “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” and “Dear Landlord” deepen the album’s strange spiritual atmosphere. The simplicity of the backing band is crucial; nothing distracts from the writing’s stark clarity. The album rejects psychedelic excess without sounding reactionary. Its restraint became hugely influential on later folk and Americana music.

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  Frames

  Rachel Cabitt

  Released 1967 on Columbia. Photography by John Berg.

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  Best Albums

  Eli