MAY 18, 2017
“LOVE MINUS ZERO/NO LIMIT” (WRITER: BOB DYLAN)
ARTIST: BOB DYLAN
RELEASED 1965 ON BRINGING
IT ALL BACK HOME LP
On 1964’s Another Side
of Bob Dylan, the title hero began to pull away from the structures and
orthodoxies of traditional folk music to sing more ‘personal’ songs.
Those who felt that Bob Dylan’s job was to write songs for a
political or social movement were dismayed. Others were happily shocked to hear
him apply his gifts to different types of lyrics.
For his fifth album, 1965’s Bringing it All Back Home, he took another step from expectations
and featured an electric backing band on each of side one’s seven great songs. New
York studio musicians Paul Griffin, Bobby Gregg, Al Gorgoni, Bruce Langhorne,
and others helped Dylan chart relatively new territory. (Dylan had intensely
disliked his only previous experience with a band, back in 1963.)
For this album, he also wrote some spot-on love songs. One
of them, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” described his lover in wordplay, Biblical
and literary images, and naked, simple wonder.
“Love Minus Zero” spoke in several musical languages. The
groove owes something to Buddy Holly and the beguiling rhythm is almost Latin.
The electric guitars interlock and the drums swing. Dylan delivered one of his loveliest
melodies with rich sweetness.
Both the stereo and mono versions of the recording are
recommended; the whole album sounds wonderful, with clean engineering and good
balancing.
The first editions of the Bringing it All Back Home album printed the song title this way on
the label:
Love Minus Zero
No Limit
Dylan said that he intended the title to be a fraction. The
actual number would be infinite.
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