50 Years Later: Bob Dylan Teams Up With The Band Again For Graceful ‘Planet Waves’

50 years after it was released, Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves (released 1/17/74) can still elicit markedly opposing reactions upon successive listenings. And perhaps that only makes perfect sense: it’s most famous song. “Forever Young,” appears in two distinctly different arrangements. 

The slow, graceful take that ends side one, featuring the most extended (and pertinent) solos and fills Robbie Robertson plays on the LP, is the flip side of a coin featuring the jaunty uptempo take that begins side two. Purportedly inspired by his offspring, this song of Dylan’s works equally effectively as a gentle benediction and a celebratory recognition.

Kudos to Bob’s long-time collaborators, The Band, for handling each approach with the appropriate sensitivity and jollity. The Nobel Laureate called upon those musicians he once dubbed ‘gallant knights’ (for their staunch support of him on the tumultuous 1966 tour) to record this fourteenth studio album of his after he agreed to leave his long-time home at Columbia Records.

But signing with David Geffen’s Asylum label called for some ‘product’ to accompany Dylan and company’s return to the road for the first time in eight years. Spending less than a week at Village Recorders in Los Angeles–all the participants in which sessions had moved to the West Coast from Woodstock at this point–begs the question of how much more polished Planet Waves might’ve been. Yet there’s no denying the shared pleasure in the musicianship and singing for the fitting opening of “On A Night Like This.” 

The inviting air of that countrified polka leads into much more foreboding territory. “Going Going Gone” is the sound of a haunted individual reluctantly navigating a crossroads, while the dark, piano-dominated “Dirge” and a skeletal acoustic cut, “Wedding Song,” compel theories about how autobiographical are these ominous compositions of Bob’s: the performances sound that close to his heart.

Sluggishly as it’s played, “Something There Is About You” nevertheless imparts a certain logic to all these proceedings, if only because Dylan’s vocal radiates a certainty missing from more than a few of these eleven tracks. A theme of reflection and recollection arises from his mention of people, time and place there, all of which notions Garth Hudson punctuates in the same understated fashion the multi-instrumentalist so colorfully decorates “Tough Mama.”   

And if The Bard sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of the sentimental desire he’s expressing in that latter number, perhaps it’s only because in contrast to his abandoned vocal jubilance on “You Angel You”–plus the agility of the Rick Danko and Levon Helm rhythm section–his voice rings more than slightly hollow. As is also the case with “Never Say Goodbye” where the detached tone of his vocal belies the tune’s title. 

There are more than a few instances besides that one and “Hazel” where the icon sounds like he’s rushed (or perhaps under pressure to produce creatively?). And while it’s dangerous to assign hard and fast interpretations to any of Bob Dylan’s work, it’s difficult if not impossible to sense the ambivalence that pervades Planet Waves‘ material; only heightens that sensation by contrast is the consistently restrained and focused musicianship of The Band (including that of the low-profile pianist/drummer listed as Richard ‘Manual’). The legendary ensemble’s natural unity is fully comparable to that which appears on their own albums like 1968’s Music From Big Pink,.

Take into account too that the album was titled and assigned a release date to coincide with the tour when the Nobel Laureate changed his mind. He decided against calling it Ceremonies of the Horsemen–a reference to his song “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” from 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home–but still went on to highlight the liner notes he had composed to accompany his own cover artwork. Little of that content, however, clarifies his intent or purpose in the short term or long.

Dylan’s later assessment of the 1974 experience ratified such ostensible early misgivings. As does the exclusion of the hackneyed “Nobody ‘Cept You,” a tune Bob already had on hand at the outset of these proceedings, but subsequently never used (it eventually showed up on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991). 

Still, with the retrospect of five decades, Planet Waves stands as a significant marker in the man’s career arc. Arguably comparable (or superior) in quality to his prior studio release, 1970’s New Morning, the presence of his famed accompanists lends it more than a little cachet. And it is precursor to one of the most active periods in Dylan history, including the epochal 1975 album, Blood On The Tracks, as well as the mythic Rolling Thunder Revue.

The road work after the late 1973 studio effort (engineered by the skilled and forthright Rob Fraboni) did yield a double concert album, Before The Flood, released roughly six months after the tour commenced. Almost as much of a credible commercial success as its counterpart, the highlights of those ninety-some minutes are, oddly enough (or perhaps not), those segments where The Band and Bob Dylan perform separately.

 So if, in retrospect, Planet Waves sounds like a somewhat uneasy alliance over its forty-two minutes, its successor only reaffirms that impression. It is thus little wonder then that, some five decades since the LP was issued, the former so vividly recalls a decidedly murky narrative that ultimately morphed into a signpost to the future.