The "Highway 61 Revisited" Liner Notes - Essay by Les Kokay
Revised 28 January, 2024.
 Columbia CS 9189 (USA) - detail of rear, scan by Hans Seegers (first release - "meaningful") |
Meaningful
or Meaningless In "Isis 210", Tim Charlton
contributed a rather good article on "Bob Dylan’s Album Liner Notes".
However when discussing Highway 61
Revisited he mentions the liner notes and in particular Henry Hansen
spotting different words when compares the “original vinyl sleeve notes to
the later releases”. I felt that this was a rather “UK-centric” statement,
so I set about writing this article to give a more detailed view and to set
the record straight as far as I could. |
 Columbia CS 9189 (USA) - detail of rear, scan by Hans Seegers (second release "meaningless") |
 "The Telegraph" issue 50 (Winter 1994) |
 "Isis" issue 210 (Winter 2020) |
Rod Macbeath in “Telegraph 50” (Winter 1994)
suggests that since the UK liner notes do not have a copyright notice that it is
an early draft of Dylan’s writings. When these liner notes appeared on the US
Albums they had the copyright notice © Bob Dylan 1965 / All rights reserved.
Similarly when published in “Writings & Drawings” (Jonathan Cape 1973, Panther
Books 1974 and other later ones) they have the same copyright notice. However,
the published versions are not identical to the liner notes. Obviously these
later published versions don’t have “meaningful” but the later “meaningless”
edit. However further differences between the later US liner notes and the
published version in “Writings & Drawings” are apparent. Firstly, there are
differences in the ‘dots’ that are used to link the sentences (see table) and
two further changes: an apostrophe has been added to youre in the line “What do
you mean youre Autumn and without you there’d be no spring!” and anymore has
been made into two words in the line “I cannot say the word eye anymore”, so the
published version has “you’re” and “any more”.
he "Telegraph 50" article then goes on to correct
and extend an article that appeared in the American magazine “Music World”, that
lists the differences between the US and UK liner notes.
The comparison of the liner notes (corrected and extended by me).
The "Telegraph" (or the “Music World” source)
introduced several errors. I haven’t seen the “Music World” original article, so
I can’t tell if the errors in the comparison chart were introduced in the
Telegraph or are in the original article. The first “Arabian crossing” had no
American sleeve entry (Abrabian crossing). Three entries: Savage Rose & Fixable,
Savage Rose & Openly and the clown have no line number references and are just
leftover text. Finally “summertime & thummertime & the living is easy” should
just read “summertime & the living is easy”.
Returning to the Australian vinyl release, this is the only vinyl that has “you’re” instead of “youre”, and the linking dots are different to both the US copies and Writings & Drawings as follows:
luxury 4/3/3 (Australian vinyl/US
vinyl/Writings & Drawings)
unhappy
3/4/3
John 4/4/3
children 3/4/3
hipguard 3/4/3
easy 3/4/3
Harlem 3/4/3
sleep 3/4/3
control 3/4/3
strangers 3/4/3
train 1/-/-
right 4/4/3
anymore 3/4/3
remember 3/4/3
demolished 3/4/3
The Australian vinyl liner notes were never updated to be the same as the later US liner notes and are unique. They have always had “meaningless” on all releases, mono, or stereo.
The New Zealand vinyl liner notes are identical the early US mono/stereo liner notes and always have “meaningful”. They were never updated to match the later US liner notes.
The UK liner notes have always been the ‘early draft’ version and were never updated to match the US ones. These all have “meaningless”.
The Canadian and US liner notes all started with “meaningful” and were later changed to “meaningless”. The mono versions underwent this change in late 1965, but it is less clear when the change occurred for the stereo LPs. Searching For A Gem states that from 1977 all stereo versions had “meaningless” which doesn’t tell you when the change occurred. I would expect that the change also occurred in late 1965 when the mono liner notes changed. My early US stereo (with the “From a Buick 6” outtake) has “meaningful” which is consistent with my reasoning but as this edition wasn’t withdrawn but allowed to sell-out, this doesn’t provide an exact date of when this version was replaced. On the other hand, the Japanese vinyl always had the “From a Buick 6” outtake and has “meaningless” so probably these liner notes were copied after the change to the US ones were made, to confuse matters even more.
All CDs and SACDs that have liner notes which I have checked have “meaningless”.
Les Kokay, 12 Jan 2024
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