Was there ever a record like Blonde On Blonde?

It was the final step in the great progression of Dylan's early albums, and like its predecessors it still had the special energy of a young artist who had not yet stopped to look back. The previous album, Highway 61 Revisited, perhaps more obviously broke new ground, and certainly had a sharper edge; but Blonde On Blonde has a dimension of humour and warmth, of humanity, that for me sets it on a higher level. Add to that its sheer magnitude: it is still Dylan's longest studio album, and despite this it maintains the internal unity and consistency of all his finest works.

Then there is the quality of the music: thanks largely to the company of musicians assembled in Nashville - ace country session players nudged into a new groove by Dylan and his cohorts Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson - the backing has a complexity and level of musicianship unmatched by any of Dylan's records before or since. You could listen to it a thousand times and still be uncovering new delights in the layers of musical detail, in the seemingly effortless invention and interplay.

But there's another, stranger reason why I've found this particular record so compelling, and that is the practically endless range of subtly different forms in which it has appeared. Certainly other Dylan albums have displayed some variety - Highway 61 Revisited with two different back sleeves and the "Buick 6" out-take, the quadraphonic albums, even Biograph with its erroneous reissue - but none that can come near Blonde On Blonde for diversity. Look at what we've been given over the years:

• three differently mixed mono versions;
• two stereo vinyl versions, with the majority of the tracks differently mixed;
• four different digital versions, each mixed differently from any previous vinyl release, plus two abridged versions of one of these with most of the tracks cut short.
• three different sets of sleeve photographs;
• a song whose title nobody seems to agree on;

And on top of that, different permutations of these mixes, titles and photographs have been released in different countries at different times; I don't suppose anyone will ever document them all. 

But which one is the real Blonde On Blonde? Maybe the blurred definition is part of the nature of the album, like the blurred cover photograph. It's as though it was all done in such a chaotic rush that it never got fixed, never got made permanent in the way that Dylan's other albums have. 

What I aim to do in this essay is to identify and describe the main versions of the album which I have been able to find, in sufficient detail that any further significant variants can be identified with some confidence. Part I of this essay outlines the album's release history, identifying these distinct versions as they have appeared. Part II details the differences between the versions, first noting any points which apply to the album as a whole and then proceeding through the album a track at a time examining the ways in which the songs sound different in the various versions.

Most of what follows is based on versions of the album which are musically distinct, whatever country they appeared in. I haven't attempted to catalogue international releases in general. I'm assuming, until proved wrong, that all other countries had releases essentially the same in terms of the musical content. Nor have I systematically covered releases in different formats such as tape or mini-disc, or alternate mixes and remasterings of Blonde On Blonde tracks which have appeared on acetates, promotional releases or anthologies. ^Note

Comments, and in particular corrections and further information, are most welcome - please e-mail rogerfordxblueyonder.co.uk , replacing the x with an at-sign.

The recording sessions for Blonde On Blonde have been very well documented by Michael Krogsgaard in the first two parts of his series of articles in The Telegraph magazine - see the links in Appendix F.

One track ("One Of Us Must Know") was recorded in New York on January 25, 1966; the remainder of the album was recorded in two series of sessions in Nashville from February 14-17 and from March 7-10, with an isolated overdub session on June 16. All sessions, according to Krogsgaard, were recorded on four-track tape; each track would generally have been used to record more than one instrument.

While the archived documentation for the recording sessions has been thoroughly researched, there is very little information available about the evidently complex and protracted mixing process. Much of the story has had to be put together from anecdotal evidence, and the dates in particular have to be treated with caution.

By way of background, it's worth mentioning that at the time Blonde On Blonde was recorded, mono was still the standard format for LPs - see the separate article about mono and stereo recording. Artists and producers viewed the mono version of an album as the primary product and focused their efforts on getting that right. The stereo mix was produced more or less as a sideline for a small minority market, and typically received much less attention. Now read on . . .

The first track recorded, "One Of Us Must Know", would have been mixed into mono in New York shortly after it was recorded, in preparation for its February single release.  The mix for the stereo version of the album was most likely done later, in Los Angeles.

For the remaining bulk of the album, some initial mono mixes were made in the Nashville studios immediately after the recording sessions, under Bob Johnston's supervision.  According to Al Kooper, Dylan did not play an active part at this stage.  Then, after Dylan had played a few concert dates in the Midwest, mixing work recommenced in Los Angeles.  Dylan was clearly not happy with most of the Nashville mixes, as a great deal of effort went into refining the mono album in the Los Angeles studios.  Some tracks went through three or more mix revisions before the album was finalised.  Bob Irwin researched the tape archives for his 2002 Sundazed reissue of the mono album, and listened to these successive mono mixes. ^Note  He concluded that  ". . . they were working toward a very deliberate end result. That end result changed a few times, but there was clear vision throughout the mono mixing.  . . . without a doubt, the mono mix was the one that was considered most important to everyone associated with the album at the time. The final mono mix is much, much more complicated and deliberate than the stereo."  ^Note

Given that many of the changes made to the mixes were of a fairly detailed musical nature, the question arises as to who was responsible for making them. Bob Irwin believes they are much more likely to have been directed by Dylan himself than by producer Bob Johnston.  (Indeed, Johnston himself has portrayed his role in Dylan's sessions as a facilitator, trying just to set up the right conditions for Dylan to create his art.)  1966 tour drummer Mickey Jones has confirmed that Dylan had the final say on all aspects of the album's production. However, although Dylan was in Los Angeles at the time, there seems to be no evidence that he played an active role behind the mixing desk.  Indeed, the fact that the whole album was taken as far as the cutting stage as many as four times suggests that others were doing the work, and then Dylan was passing his opinion on the assembled product.

The one other person who may have had some artistic input at this stage is Robbie Robertson - he had accompanied Dylan to Los Angeles while the rest of The Hawks flew off for a holiday in New Mexico.  Robertson and Dylan were very close by this time, and given that the mix changes included some detailed editing of Robertson's lead guitar parts, it seems quite likely that he was at Dylan's side listening to the mixes, if not in the studio then via acetates or test pressings. 

The stereo mixing is even more of a mystery. Several stereo mixes were made of each track, but by Bob Irwin's account these seemed less purposeful than the progression of the mono mixes.  The stereo mixes were all made in Los Angeles rather than Nashville, and were apparently subject to less artistic quality control than the mono mixes - as we shall see from the released evidence. It may be that the stereo mixing was actually done later, while Dylan was away in Australia and Europe.

After ten days in Los Angeles, Dylan and Robertson were rejoined by the rest of The Hawks and flew north for some further concert dates. A supposedly finished mix of the record was delivered to Dylan in acetate form while he was in Vancouver to play a show on March 26, but he then postponed his world tour departure by a day to do some further work on the album around April 7.

Dylan took acetates of the album on tour with him and played them to various people along the way, including journalist Craig McGregor in Australia and Beatle Paul McCartney in London. ^Note

One track, "4th Time Around", was apparently still not to Dylan's satisfaction, and required an overdub. This was most likely recorded at an overdub session in Nashville on June 16 and the track must then have been hastily remixed for inclusion in the finished mono album. ^Note

The early history of Blonde On Blonde's release on vinyl is a story of total chaos. I shall try to present it as clearly as possible, but I suspect that not even those involved at the time knew what was going on, so any sense of order may be illusory.

The official Dylan web site, bobdylan.com, gives the release date for the album as May 16, 1966; this date has also been quoted by others in the past, so presumably it must be held as such in Sony's records.  However, I've been unable to find any firm evidence that copies of the album were on sale anywhere in that month. Fans who were awaiting its release at the time were told of repeated delays, and clearly recall that the record finally appeared in the shops at the end of June.  Presumably the delays were caused by the last-minute adjustment of "4th Time Around" noted above. ^Note

This alternative notion of a late June US release is supported by a Columbia press release proclaiming the innovative nature of the album's packaging ("Columbia Records has introduced a marketing innovation in the teen-age field with the release of the new, two-LP set "Blonde on Blonde" by Bob Dylan . . .") - this is dated June 29, 1966. 

Furthermore, the album didn't enter the US charts until the end of July: this would have been an extraordinary delay, given Dylan's popularity at the time, if the album really had been released in the middle of May. In England, the album was released in August, and entered the charts within a couple of weeks. This August release too would have represented an unusually long delay of three months between the US and UK releases; with Bringing It All Back Home it had been two months, with Highway 61 Revisited only one. 

The mono album as finally released in the US was a polished and carefully edited set of recordings, and represented the culmination of the painstaking mixing process referred to above. However, earlier, unfinished mixes appeared in other countries and remained on the market for quite some time as the standard product. ^Note

The earliest set of assembled mixes appeared - presumably by mistake - on the Canadian mono album, which reached the shops in the first week of July. This clearly shows the album in a much rougher state than the final US version. ^Note  There are vocal slips (in "I Want You" and "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands") and instrumental phrases (on "Visions Of Johanna" and "Temporary Like Achilles") which were subsequently either edited out or rectified by splicing, and on "4th Time Around" there was an organ that was completely removed before the final release. Some tracks also have longer or shorter endings.  All the Canadian mono copies that I've been able to trace have these characteristics, so it seems that the mistake went unnoticed there, and this edition stayed on the market for maybe a couple of years.

CBS in France were sent a slightly later set of tapes for their September 1966 release.  All four sides had moved on at least one stage from the Canadian version, each containing later mixes of one or more songs.  In fact Sides 1 and 4 then remained unchanged for the final, US version of the mono album. The French sides 2 and 3, though, contained some intermediate mixes that have remained unique to this edition, which stayed in print for a number of years.

The gremlins in Columbia's New York tape library saw to it that England got something different again. The tapes sent for the last two sides of the album were as per the finished US album, but the first two were the very early versions released in Canada.  This mistake too seems to have gone unnoticed, and the UK mono version remained on sale until it was deleted in 1969.

Other countries in which mono editions were released (Italy, Australia and New Zealand) all had the final set of mixes as released in the USA. 

Appendix C summarises, for all the mono editions, which version of each side appeared in which country.

Still awake? That's just the mono album. The tale of the stereo album is just as confused, in its own way. 

The original US stereo version of the album was released alongside the finished mono edition at the end of June 1966, but it sounded very different.  In many respects it was more akin to the early mono versions mistakenly released in Canada and France, in that it missed a number of the detailed editing improvements made for the final US mono edition. It lacked the overdub to "4th Time Around", for example, and still contained unedited vocal and instrumental slips in other songs. Full details can be found in Part II of this essay. 

Then, when the album was released in Australia and New Zealand a couple of months later, those countries were blessed not only with the correct, finished version of the mono album but also with a much improved stereo version. Eight of the album's fourteen tracks appeared in revised mixes. ^Note  Most of the changes that had been made brought the stereo album more into line with the editing and sound of the final mono album, and I strongly suspect that these are actually the finished mixes that should have been released in the US a month or two before.  It seems that either through misunderstanding or misjudgement the original US release used an earlier, already superseded set of mixes. ^Note

On the domestic market, Columbia allowed the replacement of the original stereo version to be governed by production economies rather than artistic imperative, probably reflecting the minority status of stereo in the mid-sixties. The original matrixes used in the production processes lasted for about eighteen months, and then as they wore out, new ones were cut using the revised master tapes. This resulted in the new mixes appearing a side at a time rather than for the whole album at once. ^Note  And because there were three different US pressing plants, each provided at the outset with two sets of matrixes, copies manufactured around 1968-69 contain numerous different permutations of old and new sides. The replacement process finally appears to have been completed by the time Columbia changed its record label design in 1970.

The revised mixes were a well-kept secret for most of the world, though. The original, flawed stereo version was released in Canada (July 1966), England (August 1966), Holland (late 1966), Japan (late 1966 / early 1967) and quite possibly other countries besides.  It remained the standard version in the UK and Japan, at least, until the early 1980s. ^Note

Both of the stereo vinyl versions have been reissued in more recent years, though they are now deleted and hard to find once more. A 1997 edition from Sony in Holland had all of the revised sides, while a 1999 audiophile pressing from the English company Simply Vinyl briefly made the original stereo mix available once more. ^Note

Most recent (September 2002) - and most welcome - is the reissue of the original US mono version on 180g vinyl by US company Sundazed, who have the current licence for releasing Dylan's back catalogue on vinyl.

By the time Sony came to reissue Blonde On Blonde on CD in 1987, there were no longer any usable stereo master tapes.  It has been reported elsewhere that they were lost, but according to Sundazed's Bob Irwin they were just worn out through over-use - not just the original master but the safety copy too. ^Note  This meant that Columbia had to produce a new stereo mix before they could produce the CD.  Fortunately they were able to locate the four-track studio tapes, and Tim Geelan, a long-established staff engineer, was given the job of remixing the album. The digital mastering was done by Vic Anesini, another Columbia engineer.

The enforced use of the lowest possible generation tapes gave Blonde On Blonde a great advantage over many of the other Dylan CDs released around this time, which appear to have been thoughtlessly remastered from the first tape that came to hand, even if it was an n^th generation copy. ^Note  The Blonde On Blonde disc offered sound quality which was in most respects a significant improvement over the stereo vinyl releases, but Geelan's remixing had produced a different album again. While he had evidently made some reference to the revised stereo vinyl version, this was clearly not seen as a constraint, and he had remixed some tracks entirely to his own tastes. A few of these were quite noticeably different in mixing terms from anything that had appeared before, including "One Of Us Must Know", "Most Likely You Go Your Way" and "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands". Furthermore, Geelan had used some more subtle electronic effects to liven up the sound, particularly with Dylan's voice.

This 1987 CD, released on both sides of the Atlantic, presented what had been a double album on a single CD, but several tracks were significantly curtailed in order to keep within the then-prevailing limit of 72 minutes for a single CD. The two tracks worst hit were "Just Like A Woman", which was faded out for the first time, and "Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands", which lost over half a minute of the final harmonica solo.

Complaints about this editing, coinciding with technical advances which were extending the total playing time of CDs, resulted in Columbia issuing a revised version in the US; this gave us a full-length "Sad-Eyed Lady", but left all the other tracks short. Then in 1989 a third US pressing finally presented all the tracks in what could be considered full-length versions. 

The full-length CD appeared in Europe shortly afterward on the CBS label, later updated to Columbia. In the UK, though, the first, heavily edited version remained the standard issue until early 2004, and at the time of writing it is still being manufactured and sold by Sony in in Australia. ^Note  

In 1992 Sony in the US brought out a new CD edition of Blonde On Blonde as one of the first releases in their MasterSound audiophile series. It came in a fancy 12" x 6" box, had a 24-karat gold reflective surface and was digitally mastered using a new 20-bit process which Sony called Super Bit Mapping (SBM). Much more significant than all this technical hype, though, was the fact that it was another fresh remix from four-track studio masters. For the first time, the packaging itself identified the person responsible: "Remixed and Remastered by Mark Wilder, Sony Music Studios, New York". ^Note

As far as it's possible to tell by listening, Wilder seems to have tried to present a straight picture of the performances at the sessions, using the new mastering technology to get the most detailed sound possible.  There is no evidence of any attempt to creatively improve the sound along the way, and little attention to the form of the songs as they were presented in the original mixes: where songs are faded out, Wilder keeps them going at full volume until the last moment, and then shuts them down in a very abrupt fade.  Overall his approach makes for an interesting documentary, but to my ears not a very pleasing album.  Rather more significantly, it has been reported that Dylan himself was not happy with the results. ^Note

In 1994 this gold CD edition was reissued in the revised MasterSound series packaging - a jewel case inside a cardboard sleeve, with an open-out insert. This edition eventually gained a European release around 1998.

At the end of 1995 Sony in Japan issued a limited edition 20-bit CD of Blonde On Blonde in a gatefold card sleeve, and it was rumoured that this was a different remastering than the US MasterSound edition; however it was in fact the Mark Wilder production again.

In October 1999 Sony in the UK cashed in on the pandemic Millennium fever by releasing a number of classic albums in a limited Millennium Edition; this range included Blonde On Blonde, in a nice cardboard replica of the original sleeve. This issue again sounds identical to the MasterSound gold CD version. The packaging makes no particular mention of remastering or SBM technology, though, so the use of the Mark Wilder remix was possibly just a matter of chance.

A month or so after Sony UK gave the 1992 Mark Wilder mix its first proper release in this country, Sony in the US released a major new edition of Blonde On Blonde.  They wanted to include a Dylan title in the launch of their new high-resolution Super Audio CD format, and once again they chose Blonde On Blonde - probably because it was Dylan's best-recorded album from this "classic" period. However, the new edition was accessible to practically no-one: this first SACD edition was completely incompatible with normal CD players, and at the time the necessary SACD hardware was very expensive. See the separate article on SACD technology.

There was much more to this new edition, though, than the subtle hi-fi gain of the SACD format. Probably recognising the shortcomings of the 1987 and 1992 mixes, and also to get the best possible sound for this showcase medium, Sony decided to have the album remixed once again from the original four-track master tapes. This time they contracted the job out to independent engineer Michael H. Brauer, who had gained favour first for mixing the electric half of the Live 1966 release and then for producing the acclaimed remix of Street-Legal. ^Note

Brauer, under the guidance of Columbia Legacy producer Steve Berkowitz, set out to create a mix that would match as closely as possible the sound of the stereo vinyl version which people would be familiar with.  Berkowitz located as good and as original a vinyl copy as he could find,  and he and Brauer used that as a reference point.  The remixing was done from a copy of the original four-track studio master tapes, using Brauer's extensive range of vintage and modern equipment at Quad studios in New York.  According to Brauer, they carefully matched the stereo positioning and balance of the instruments, the fade-outs and all the other sonic characteristics, constantly listening to what Brauer was producing and comparing back with the vinyl.  Given this, it is clear that what they worked from was not (as they believed) an original 1966 stereo copy of the album, but a somewhat later copy containing most if not all of the revised mixes.  This may have been unwitting, but I think it was also fortuitous given the poor quality of the original stereo mix.

Once Brauer had done his analogue remix, well-known mastering engineer Greg Calbi then transferred it into two digital formats: DSD for production of the Super Audio CD, and PCM format for the possible production of a conventional CD version. ^Note   Again, his work was checked back against the reference vinyl copy of the album.

The sound of the SACD version is discussed in Part II of this essay, but in short it far outshines the previous CD releases; it also improves very considerably on any stereo vinyl copy of the album that I have heard.  The improvement, though, is much more to do with the quality of Brauer's remixing than with the SACD technology; see the article on the SACDs for further discussion.

Brauer's remix finally became available to the mass market in September 2003, when Blonde On Blonde was reissued in hybrid SACD format alongside fourteen other rejuvenated Dylan titles. This flagship edition of Blonde On Blonde, still available, presents Michael Brauer's 1999 remix in both conventional CD stereo and SACD stereo. Greg Calbi is this time properly credited with the mastering, though it's not clear whether he actually remastered Brauer's mix afresh for the new edition. Some listeners claim to hear a difference between the 1999 and 2003 SACD stereo versions, though there is disagreement on which is better. What's certain is that the mix is identical, and this is by far the biggest factor in the sound of the album.

In addition to having this stereo mix in a choice of formats, the 2003 hybrid disc also has a 5.1 surround mix. Again this was produced by Michael Brauer with some input from Sony's Steve Berkowitz, but it was done in 2003 especially for the new reissue series, and mastered for SACD by George Marino. This six-channel mix is playable only on multi-channel SACD hardware, and to hear it properly you need a full surround-sound system.

One final point about the SACD reissue: it finally restored Blonde On Blonde's double album format. However, this was apparently not done for nostalgic purposes: because of the album's length Sony's engineers weren't able to get both the stereo and 5.1 mixes onto the SACD layer without using an unacceptable degree of digital compression.

While it looks as though the double-disc SACD edition will remain on catalogue, the most recent (2004) edition of Blonde On Blonde reduced the album to a single disc once more. This was a normal CD reissue with but with a "remastered" tag, and it was identical to the CD Audio layer of the hybrid SACD edition. ^Note  The original and MasterSound CD editions seem now to have been withdrawn, so this plain CD version of Michael Brauer's stereo mix has effectively become the new standard edition.

Album Sleeves

Blonde On Blonde has had a varied history in terms of its packaging, too. Rod MacBeath gave a very good account of it in his series on Dylan's record sleeves in UK fanzine The Telegraph some years ago, but here again are the main points, with one or two updates:

The first issues in the US, Canada and the UK had nine photographs inside the gatefold sleeve, four on the left and five on the right. Those on the right hand side included a large portrait of the actress Claudia Cardinale, and another smaller photo of a still-unidentified female (a fan? a journalist? not Edie Sedgwick, anyway) bending over and speaking into Dylan's ear.  Around the beginning of 1968 the right hand layout was changed on the US mono and stereo editions; Claudia Cardinale had objected to the use of her photo, so this was removed, replaced by an enlarged and slightly fuller version of the photo of Dylan with the white scarf.  The picture with the other woman was also dropped, quite possibly just because it was difficult to fit into the revised layout.

This change took a long time to cross the Atlantic, though, and the original photos stayed on the UK sleeve until the late 70s, when the revised seven-photo layout took over. The final UK vinyl edition from Sony had a cheap single sleeve with no inside photos at all. The 1997 Sony pressing from Holland, surprisingly, came in a gatefold sleeve with the original nine-photo inside spread, despite having the revised version of the music. Perhaps the revised photo layout never reached the Netherlands at all. Simply Vinyl's 1999 UK reissue also used this first version of the sleeve. Sundazed however, were unable to get legal clearance to use the original inside photos for their 2002 mono reissue; perhaps Claudia Cardinale's injunction on the use of her photograph applied specifically to the USA.  

The booklet of the original US CD had a reproduction of the revised seven-photo layout from the LP's inside sleeve, very much reduced in size. The UK and European editions of the original CD, on the other hand, had a more substantial booklet containing seven larger monochrome photographs, mostly on separate pages; these were clearly been taken from the original nine-photo LP spread, and included the one of the girl speaking into Dylan's ear. The pictures of Claudia Cardinale and photographer Jerrold Schatzberg were omitted. Several of the photos were  cropped to make more economical use of the page space.  In 2001 a new packaging of the standard CD appeared in the UK: this had the same booklet and rear cover design, but the CD tray was clear plastic, showing underneath it a detail of Dylan's face from the main cover photo.

The MasterSound CD editions both showed - in much reduced size - the full-length colour photo from the outside of the LP's gatefold sleeve, and reproduced the two halves of the later seven-photo inside layout in something approaching full size.

The 1996 Japanese limited edition reissue came in a gatefold card sleeve in a clear plastic slip-case. The sleeve reproduced in miniature the later version of the LP sleeve with the seven-photo inside spread. An enclosed folded sheet contained the lyrics in Japanese and English.

The 1999 UK Millennium Edition also had a cardboard gatefold sleeve, but this time laminated and contained in a polythene wallet with a numbered paper insert to support the concept of the limited edition. The sleeve reproduced (rather darkly) the original nine-photo inside layout. Maybe Sony in Europe just aren't aware of the legal problem with the Claudia Cardinale photo.

The original SACD came in a standard jewel case inside a card sleeve. The latter was of a design generic to Sony's SACD range, but incorporating the front and back layouts from the standard CD packaging. It included two new credits: Remixed for SACD by Vic Anesini (incorrect) and Authored for SACD by Stephen Saper (correct).  These credits were repeated on the back insert of the jewel case, which was otherwise very similar to the backs of previous US CD issues. The booklet in the front of the case was identical to the one used in the standard CD issue, with no additional credits and with even the bar-code unaltered. No expense spared!

The packaging was much improved for the 2003 SACD reissue: a treat, in fact. The first good thing about it is that the colour cover photo is back in its original sideways orientation, and opens out to full length.  (The wider-than-tall digipak format means that the photo isn't quite full-width, but that's forgivable because it's reproduced properly on the cover of the inserted square-format booklet.) When you open the first flap of the tri-fold sleeve you see both sides of the seven-photo inside sleeve.  Yes, they tried once again to get approval for the Cardinale photo, and once again failed. The unsquare layout means that the individual photos have all had to be slightly cropped in the vertical direction. Open it out again, take out the discs and you get two more great black-and -white Jerrold Schatzberg photos behind the clear disc trays. ^Note   Six more new Schatzberg photos take up most of the eight-page booklet.

While the pictures are great, the information contained in the booklet is a let-down. The track listing unhelpfully numbers the songs from 1 through to 14 rather than as two separately-numbered discs - probably it was originally going to be a single disc, and they didn't make the appropriate adjustment to the booklet.

The musician credits are exactly as on the original album, and so miss out several of the musicians (Rick Danko, Paul Griffin, Bobby Gregg, Wayne Butler and Mac Gayden ^Note ).  The recording location is given as Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville, Tennessee, with still no mention of the fact that "One Of Us Must Know" was recorded in New York. You could call this preserving the authenticity of the original notes, or you could call it laziness. Given the effort (and presumably expense) applied to the additional photographs, you would think Sony could have done a little research and improved the documentation.  Maybe it just never occurred to anyone that the original information might be incorrect. 

The 2004 single-CD "remastered" jewel case editions introduced some international differences once again. In the UK the package looks externally pretty much like the hybrid SACD - Dylan's picture is sideways on the front, and the spine and back continue the lower part of the same photo.  There is no track listing except inside the booklet. One of the new Schatzberg photos from the hybrid SACD is used under the transparent CD tray, and the booklet is pretty much identical to that used in the hybrid SACD edition.  Ironically, this means that this new "standard" UK edition includes none of the album's original inside sleeve photos.  The US edition, which came out a month or so later, put Dylan's head and shoulders vertically on the front as per previous CD editions, but introduced a completely new colour photo and layout for the back, including a track listing. The tray photo is the same one as used in the UK CD. and The booklet (only four pages) has on the inside the revised 7-photo layout from the inside of the LP gatefold, and on the back just one of the new photos from the hybrid SACD booklet together with the track listing again.

The original US, Canadian and UK albums, mono and stereo, listed Side 2, Track 2 as "Memphis Blues Again". The Dwarf Music songbook for Blonde On Blonde, however, gave the song the complementary title of "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The", which I always took to be the song's intended title, a particularly fine example of Dylan's perversity in naming his songs in those days. Slightly later UK pressings attempted to amend the title accordingly, but hilariously corrupted it to "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With Thee" - either it was read out over the phone, or someone just couldn't believe it ended with "The". Nonetheless, this became the standard title on UK copies until the inside sleeve layout was changed to the seven-photo version in the early eighties; at this point the song once more became "Memphis Blues Again". Back in the USA, Columbia hedged their bets: around 1968, stereo copies started to appear with "Memphis Blues Again" on the sleeve but "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The" on the record label. Even more curiously, some US sleeves around this time had a black strip replacing the entire list of song titles on the inner gatefold; but when the titles were reinstated the song in question was still shown as "Memphis Blues  Again".

Now whether all this confusion arose because of indecision on Dylan's part as to what to call the song, or whether the two halves of the title got separated by some clerical accident such as a page break, I doubt we'll ever know. Whatever, when Greatest Hits Vol. II came out in 1971, reportedly compiled and mixed by Dylan himself, it contained the full title "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", and this has largely been maintained ever since - in Writings And Drawings, on Hard Rain, and on most CD releases of Blonde On Blonde. Refreshingly, though, some relatively recent European reissues both on vinyl (Dutch and English) and CD (English) have reproduced the original European gatefold sleeve, so that as well as having Claudia Cardinale's photograph, they also have "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With Thee" among the song titles.

The hybrid SACD reissue keeps the flame of indecision burning: in the booklet and on the disc the full title is used, but on the inside sleeve - as on the original LP - it's just "Memphis Blues Again".

These, then, are the principal facts in the history of Blonde On Blonde - so far, at least. What we are left with, in terms of musical content, is nine different versions, including one with minor variants:

Part II of this essay looks in detail at the differences between these versions in terms of mixing, editing and overall sound, and finally revisits the question of whether there is one of them which we might consider to be the real, the definitive, Blonde On Blonde.

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