Planet Waves is the fourteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 17, 1974, by Asylum Records in the United States and Island Records in the United Kingdom.

Dylan is supported on the album by longtime collaborators the Band, with whom he embarked on a major reunion tour (documented on the live album Before the Flood) following its release. With a successful tour and a host of publicity, Planet Waves was a hit, enjoying a brief stay at on the US Billboard charts—a first for the artist—and in the UK. Reviews were generally positive; critics were not as negative as they had been with some then-recent Bob Dylan albums (namely Self Portrait and Dylan) but still not enthusiastic for the album's brand of laid-back roots rock, but it was nevertheless considered an improvement over those albums.

The album was originally set to be titled Ceremonies of the Horsemen, a reference to the song "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", from the 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home; the release was delayed two weeks when Dylan decided to change the title at the last minute. Another, earlier, working title was Wedding Song.

Artwork

The cover art is drawn by Dylan himself. Written on the right side of the cover image is the phrase "Cast-iron songs & torch ballads", apparently signaling Dylan's own conception of the album. On the left side is written "Moonglow", which is sometimes interpreted as a subtitle. The original back artwork for the album is handwritten, with a long, rambling essay on the left-hand side. In the center, the performers' names are listed, though Richard Manuel's surname is misspelled "Manual". The initial release also included an insert, which reportedly set out excerpts from Dylan's personal journals.

Recording

In the summer of 1973, Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist of the Band, relocated to Malibu, California, not far from Dylan's residence. According to Robertson, the idea of collaborating with Dylan evolved from a conversation that took place sometime after July 28, when the Band played to hundreds of thousands of people at Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in upstate New York. After much discussion about that experience, the idea of touring again "seemed to really make sense," says Robertson. "It was a good idea, a kind of step into the past...The other guys in the Band came out [to Malibu] and we went right to work."

Dylan had not toured since 1966, when the Band accompanied him as The Hawks. In the interim, he had played with the Band on a number of occasions, most recently a New Year's concert in 1971/1972 that was received warmly by the audience. When Dylan joined the Band for a test run at Robertson's home in September 1973, he was satisfied with the results, enough to proceed with touring plans.

"We sat down and played for four hours and ran over an incredible number of tunes", recalls Robertson. "Bob would ask us to play certain tunes of ours, and then we would do the same, then we'd think of some that we would particularly like to do."

Dylan left for New York in October to compose new material for album sessions scheduled in November. He already had three songs ("Forever Young", "Nobody 'Cept You" and "Never Say Goodbye") which he had demoed in June, and when he returned to Malibu after twenty days in New York, he had six more.

On Friday, November 2, Dylan and the Band held a session at Village Recorder Studio B in Los Angeles, California. Engineer Rob Fraboni recalls the proceedings as fairly relaxed and informal, an opportunity "to get set up and to get a feel for the studio." Drummer Levon Helm was not even present, as he was still in transit, on his way to Los Angeles from the East Coast. Nevertheless, the session was devoted to all three songs demoed in June, and Dylan and the Band succeeded in recording complete takes of "Forever Young" and "Nobody 'Cept You" as well as the master take for "Never Say Goodbye".

When Dylan and the Band reconvened at Village Recorder the following Monday, November 5, with Levon Helm now present, they made another attempt at "Nobody 'Cept You". Robertson abandoned the wah-wah pedal used during the November 2 session, and a satisfactory take was completed and marked for possible inclusion. Master takes for "You Angel You" and "Going, Going, Gone" were also completed.

"Forever Young" occupied a portion of the Monday session, but the results were not to Dylan's satisfaction. He returned to it for three more sessions, as it proved to be the most difficult song to record.

On the next day, November 6, Dylan and the Band recorded master takes for three more songs: "Hazel", "Something There Is About You" and "Tough Mama".

They reconvened two days later, on November 8, performing three takes of "Going, Going, Gone" before recording "On A Night Like This". Attempts at the former would not replace the master take from the 5th, but a master take of the latter was successfully recorded. The session would then end with "Forever Young".

After several false starts, Dylan and the Band executed what would ultimately be one of two master takes for "Forever Young". However, Dylan nearly rejected the performance after hearing some disparaging criticism from one particular visitor.

"We only did one [complete] take of the slow version of 'Forever Young'," recalls Fraboni. "This take was so riveting, it was so powerful, so immediate, I couldn't get over it. When everyone came in nobody really said anything. I rewound the tape and played it back and everybody listened to it from beginning to end and then when it was over everybody sort of just wandered out of the room. There was no outward discussion. Everybody just left. There was just [a friend] and I sitting there. I was so overwhelmed I said, 'Let's go for a walk.' We went for a walk and came back and I said, 'Let's go listen to that again.' We were like one minute or two into it, I was so mesmerized by it again I didn't even notice that Bob had come into the room...So when we were assembling the master reel I was getting ready to put that [take] on the master reel. I didn't even ask. And Bob said, 'What're you doing with that? We're not gonna use that.' And I jumped up and said, 'What do you mean you're not gonna use that? You're crazy! Why?' Well,...during the recording...[Dylan's childhood friend] Lou Kemp and this girl came by and she had made a crack to him: 'C'mon, Bob. What! Are you getting mushy in your old age?' It was based on her comment that he wanted to leave [that version] off the record."

Fraboni would defend the recording, and when he refused to relent, Dylan reconsidered and allowed him to include it on the album. Fraboni also convinced Dylan to do his first vocal overdubs for the album. (Although the Band had three regular vocalists—Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Helm—none of them sing on the album.)

On November 9, Dylan held what he intended to be the final session for the album. From Fraboni's perspective, Dylan already had a perfect take of "Forever Young" from the previous day, but Dylan still attempted a different, acoustic arrangement, which was ultimately rejected. Dylan would tell Fraboni that afternoon, "I been carrying this song around in my head for five years and I never wrote it down and now I come to record it I just can't decide how to do it." Unlike the "settled-in homilies" of Nashville Skyline and New Morning, Planet Waves is "rounded out with more than one shade of romance: subterfuge, suspicion, self-hate ('Dirge', 'Tough Mama'), and memory ('Something There Is About You') counter lighthearted celebration ('On A Night Like This')." Record World called it "a somewhat cute (for Dylan) observation on such diverse topics as Duluth, Ruth and truth."

Arguably the most celebrated song on Planet Waves, "Forever Young", was originally written for his children, and a demo recording from June 1973 (released on Biograph in 1985) explicitly shows this. As described by Heylin, the song is "an attempt to write something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in him."

|rev2 = Christgau's Record Guide

|rev2Score = A−

| rev3 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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|rev4 = Entertainment Weekly

|rev4Score = C+

| rev5 = MusicHound Rock

| rev5Score = 3.5/5

|rev6 = The Rolling Stone Album Guide

|rev6score =

| rev7 = Tom Hull

| rev7Score = B+

Planet Waves was Dylan's first album consisting entirely of new, original songs in three and a half years. With a planned tour to follow, his first since 1966 and backed by the same band that supported him on that tour, the media coverage was significant. Asylum Records had planned to release Planet Waves on the same day the tour began, but an album title change (from Ceremonies of the Horsemen) and a last-minute substitution in liner notes (also written by Dylan) pushed the release date back two weeks.

Planet Waves would ship gold, topping Billboards album charts on the basis of advance orders, but by the end of 1974, it had sold a modest 600,000 copies, selling only 100,000 units after those initial orders were made. The figures were a surprise, considering the enormous success of the tour; it is estimated that $92 million worth of checks and money orders were sent in from roughly ten million ticket applicants.

The critical reception was generally positive, if a bit muted. The consensus was ultimately strong enough to secure Planet Waves at #18 on The Village Voices Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1974. "In a time when all the most prestigious music, even what passes for funk, is coated with silicone grease, Dylan is telling us to take that grease and jam it", wrote critic Robert Christgau. "Sure he's domestic, but his version of conjugal love is anything but smug, and this comes through in both the lyrics and the sound of the record itself. Blissful, sometimes, but sometimes it sounds like stray cat music—scrawny, cocky, and yowling up the stairs."

Ellen Willis of The New Yorker wrote, "Planet Waves is unlike all other Dylan albums: it is openly personal...I think the subject of Planet Waves is what it appears to be—Dylan's aesthetic and practical dilemma, and his immense emotional debt to Sara."

Only "Tough Mama", "Something There is About You", "Forever Young" and "Wedding Song" were played on the tour (as well as a solo, acoustic rendition of the outtake, "Nobody 'Cept You"), and as the tour progressed, songs from the album were removed from the setlist. By the end of the tour, only "Forever Young" was left. In the meantime, Dylan and the Band professionally recorded many of the shows as they planned their next release. None of the Planet Waves songs were included on the subsequent Before the Flood live album, but many of the recordings can be heard on 2024's The 1974 Live Recordings.

Track listing

Personnel

  • Bob Dylan – guitar, piano,

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Certifications

This album is referenced in Part 6 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean, with a character possessing a power called "Planet Waves".

References

  • Bob Dylan's Shortest Interview – Planet Waves