10 Bad Opening Songs On Great Rock Music Albums
1. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 - Blonde On Blonde (Bob Dylan)
Bob Dylan's 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde is widely regarded as one of the finest albums ever made.
Considered the record that cemented Dylan as a legend in his own time, the album consistently appears in lists of rock's greatest achievements and carries some of the bard's most revered songs. Even the man himself said that the band he played with on this record were the closest thing he's ever heard to the sound he hears in his head.
Yet, despite all this praise, Blonde on Blonde opens with a stinker.
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 doesn't just have a weird title; the whole thing is utterly cuckoo. Dylan and his mates seem to have gotten drunk and raided the local school's band supplies, as they shout over each other and make thinly-veiled references to marijuana.
It's deliberately out of key and offbeat, opening the album on a playful, detached note. However, couldn't Bobby D have done this with a song that sounds, you know, good?
Dylan will always have his acolytes who will defend every single thing the man has ever done, but it's hard to objectively say that the opening to Blonde on Blonde is anything but a garbled disaster.