Before the Flood released: June 20, 1974 BUY

Recorded in January and February of 1974 during Dylan's North American tour with The Band, Before The Flood is, like Planet Waves, a document of a transitional period in Dylan's life and art. In later years Dylan seems to have disowned the music made on, and the motives for, the tour, saying that it was as if he was "playing" himself and the Band was playing the Band. At many points Dylan seem to be hurling himself at his own familiar songs (there is no new Dylan repertoire on the album, not even anything from Planet Waves) as if against the walls of a prison cell. The result is exciting at many points, if not particularly reflective or subtle. The original double album also included several tracks by the Band, who had become a major rock attraction in their own right, in the years after they had backed Dylan on the road in 1966. Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine | listen | Lay, Lady, Lay | listen | Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 | listen | Knockin' on Heaven's Door | listen | It Ain't Me, Babe | listen | Ballad of a Thin Man | listen | Up on Cripple Creek | listen | I Shall Be Released | listen | Endless Highway | listen | The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down | listen | Stage Fright | listen | Don't Think Twice, It's All Right | listen | Just Like a Woman | listen | It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) | listen | The Shape I'm In | listen | When You Awake | listen | The Weight | listen | All Along the Watchtower | listen | Highway 61 Revisited | listen | Like a Rolling Stone | listen | Blowin' in the Wind | listen |