Hello, my name is Ben Burrell and welcome back to Bob Dylan album by album, a podcast that takes an in-depth look at each Bob Dylan studio recording record by record.

I know I sound a bit like a broken record because I service at the start of every single episode.

But if you can follow us on Instagram or Twitter, that really helps us out.

You can find us at Bob Dylan podcast.

And actually on there at the moment is a

photo of Bob's notepad that he was using during the sessions we've covered most recently.

Definitely worth five minutes for your time. Have a look at Bob Dylan podcast. My throat is about

to give way because I've been doing way too much talking recently. So let's crack on with

part number four on a record that perfectly captured the most potent of human desires.

This is Blood on the tracks.

Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood. When blackness was a virtue, the road was full

of mud. I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form. Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the star.

With this record, Bob did something that even the best musicians and songwriters have found difficult to do,

and that is producer classic, perhaps even his finest work, away from his initial hot streak.

Coming almost 10 years after the exhausting quality of

bringing it all back home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde,

blood on the track saw Dylan engage in full love poet mode.

A state that people like Dylan Scholar and literary critic Christopher Ricks

argues is his most adored form in places like England, Europe

and pretty much everywhere outside the United

States. These songs might not have the sweeping grandeur of say, blonde on blonde, the atmosphere

of later recordings like Oh Mercy, the fresh blue-eyed verse of bringing it all back home, or the

...