Music / Planet Waves

This album will make you stay forever young.

Planet Waves is the fourteenth studio album by Bob Dylan and the sixth studio album by The Band, released in 1974, during Dylan's short-lived tenure on Asylum Records.

It's notable for being a Crossover collaboration between Dylan and The Band, with whom he'd toured in The '60s. At the time Planet Waves received a lot of media coverage because Dylan hadn't toured regularly since 1966 and The Band had become very popular in their own right. Commercially and critically it did very well, generating at least one undisputed classic song with "Forever Young", which is featured twice on the record but in two different versions, because Dylan and the rest of his musicians couldn't decide which take was the superior one. (Dylan even considered leaving the song off the album entirely, but everyone else involved covinced him to do otherwise.) While "Forever Young" wasn't released as a single, the album's opening track, "On a Night Like This", was and became a minor chart hit.

In a case of What Could Have Been, the album was originally going to be titled Ceremonies of the Horsemen—a reference to the song "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" from Bringing It All Back Home—but a last-minute title change eventually settled on Planet Waves.

Following its release, Dylan and The Band embarked on a joint North American tour, which produced the live album Before the Flood later that year.

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Tracklist:

Side One

1. "On a Night Like This" (2:57)
2. "Going, Going, Gone" (3:27)
3. "Tough Mama" (4:17)
4. "Hazel" (2:50)
5. "Something There Is About You" (4:45)
6. "Forever Young" (4:57)

Side Two

1. "Forever Young" (2:49)
2. "Dirge" (5:36)
3. "You Angel You" (2:54)
4. "Never Say Goodbye" (2:56)
5. "Wedding Song" (4:42)

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Principal Members:

• Rick Danko - bass
• Bob Dylan - vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano
• Levon Helm - drums
• Garth Hudson - organ
• Richard Manuel - piano, drums
• Robbie Robertson - guitar

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Tough Tropes:

• The Ageless: "Forever Young" has Dylan wish this on his own offspring:
  May your hands always be busy
  May your feet always be swift
  May you have a strong foundation
  When the winds of changes shift
  May your heart always be joyful
  And may your song always be sung
  May you stay forever young
• Alliterative Title: "Going, Going Gone", You Angel You".
• But Now I Must Go: "Going, Going, Gone".
  I am closing the book
  On the pages and the text
  And I don't really care of what happens next
  I am just going
  I am going, I am gone
• Cradle of Loneliness: "Dirge".
  There are those who worship loneliness, I'm not one of them
  In this age of fibreglass I'm searchin for a gem
  The crystal ball upon the wall hasn't shown me nothing yet
  I've paid the price of solitude but at least I'm out of debt
• Design Student's Orgasm: Just like his album Self Portrait the cover was drawn by Dylan himself.
• Humans Are Morons: "Dirge".
  Heard your songs of freedom and man forever stripped
  Acting out his folly while his back is being whipped
  Like a slave in orbit he's beaten 'til he's tame
  All for a moment's glory and it's a dirty, rotten shame
• Intercourse with You: "On a Night Like This''
  Put your body next to mine
  And keep me company
  There is plenty of room for all
  So please don't elbow me
• One-Woman Song: "Tough Mama", "Hazel".
• One-Word Title: "Dirge".
• The Power of Love:
  • "Something There Is About You".
  Something there is about you that moves with style and grace
  I was in a whirlwind, now I am in some better place
  My hand's on the sabre and you've picked up on the baton
  Something there is about you that I can't quite put my finger on
  • "You Angel You".
  Yes, I never did feel this way before
  I never did get up and walk the floor
  If this is love then give me more
  And more and more and more and more.
  • "Never Say Goodbye".
  You're beautiful beyond words
  You're beautiful to me
  You can make me cry
  Never say goodbye.
  • "Hazel".
  Hazel you called and I came
  Now, don't make me play this waiting game
  You've got something I want plenty of
  Ooh, a little touch of your love.
  • "On A Night Like This".
  Put your body next to mine
  And keep me company
  There is plenty a room for all
  So please don't elbow me.
  • "Wedding Song".
  I love you more than ever, more than time and more than love
  I love you more than money and more than the stars above
  I love you more than madness, more than waves upon the sea
  I love you more than life itself, you mean that much to me.
• Production Foreshadowing: "Dirge", with its confessional, poetic lyrics and spare style, is like a preview of Blood on the Tracks.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Muhammad Ali fought the heavyweight championship boxing in 1980 journalist Howard Cosell and a personal friend of Ali quoted from "Forever Young".
  Even Muhammed Ali can not be forever young. His hands are no longer busy, his feet no longer swift.
  • Parenthood uses "Forever Young" as its theme song.
  • "Forever Young" itself is phrased like a traditional Jewish parental blessing on a child (with all the "may yous" and wishes for how the child will grow up).
• Silly Love Songs: The majority of the songs on this album fall into this trope. See also The Power of Love above.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: "Wedding Song".
  It's never been my duty to remake the world at large
  Nor is it my intention to sound a battle charge
  'Cause I love you more than all of that with a love that doesn't bend
  And if there is eternity I'd love you there again
• Snow Means Love: "The snow is so deep" outside the cabin in "On a Night Like This". Snow also gets mentioned in "Never Say Goodbye".
• The Something Song: "Wedding Song".
• Suicide As Drama: "Dirge".
  You were just a painted face on a trip down to suicide road

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