Includes liner notes by Pete Hamill.

Following on the heels of an album where he repudiated his past with his greatest backing band, Blood on the Tracks finds Bob Dylan, in a way, retreating to the past, recording a largely quiet, acoustic-based album. But this is hardly nostalgia -- this is the sound of an artist returning to his strengths, what feels most familiar, as he accepts a traumatic situation, namely the breakdown of his marriage. This is an album alternately bitter, sorrowful, regretful, and peaceful, easily the closest he ever came to wearing his emotions on his sleeve. That's not to say that it's an explicitly confessional record, since many songs are riddles or allegories, yet the warmth of the music makes it feel that way. The original version of the album was even quieter -- first takes of "Idiot Wind" and "Tangled Up in Blue," available on The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3, are hushed and quiet (excised verses are quoted in the liner notes, but not heard on the record) -- but Blood on the Tracks remains an intimate, revealing affair since these harsher takes let his anger surface the way his sadness does elsewhere. As such, it's an affecting, unbearably poignant record, not because it's a glimpse into his soul, but because the songs are remarkably clear-eyed and sentimental, lovely and melancholy at once. And, in a way, it's best that he was backed with studio musicians here, since the professional, understated backing lets the songs and emotion stand at the forefront. Dylan made albums more influential than this, but he never made one better. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

By the mid-'70s, even Dylan's most ardent supporters began taking his artistic decline for granted. Albums like NEW MORNING and PLANET WAVES were fine works, but lacked the visionary spark of his seminal '60s recordings. At 34 he was already being written off as a has-been. That presumption is what made BLOOD ON THE TRACKS such a glorious sucker-punch of a record.

One of Dylan's most mournful efforts, this album, which easily ranks among his best, is full of stories about lost love and the struggle for peace of mind. With a simple, country-flavored backing somewhat akin to NASHVILLE SKYLINE, he recounts shattered love affairs in heart-breaking detail on songs like "Simple Twist Of Fate" and "If You See Her Say Hello." On the vengeful "Idiot Wind" he rails mercilessly against the ignorant and self-obsessed a la "Like A Rolling Stone." The difference here, and the major breakthrough for Dylan, is that by the end of the song, he's lumping himself in with those he excoriates so vehemently.