Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 & 35

My mother made the mistake of giving my sister and I her old Dansette-style record player and her collection of 7" singles as playthings when we were still quite young. Alas we didn't treat them with any respect at all. Among these doomed 45s was a copy of The Byrds' version of 'Mr. Tambourine Man', which provided me (along with my Dad's Hollies Sing Dylan LP), with my first introduction to Bob Dylan as a songwriter. I don't recall when I first heard the man himself singing, but in my early years I was unimpressed: belonging to that sizeable subset of the listening population who, while they may have admired Dylan's lyrics, didn't appreciate them when delivered in Dylan's voice.

A college friend was a big Dylan fan, and had practically all of his albums up to Knocked Out Loaded on cassette. It was through his influence that I eventually became a fan myself, with Bringing It All Back Home the album which set my conversion in motion. For all I enjoyed his classic '60s records, I never bought any of them myself until I began collecting vinyl in my mid-thirties, by which time it was a little too late - my Dylan enthusiasm having cooled again by then. In fact, so little had I been playing my copy of Blonde on Blonde that I recently set it free as part of a charity shop donation.

What I still have on my shelves is one remaining Dylan LP (Subterranean Homesick Blues, i.e. a re-titled German-issued copy of Briging It All Back Home) and this single, with 'Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 & 35' on the A side, backed with 'Pledging My Time'. It's a '66 repress with the same bright orange CBS label as that old copy of 'Mr Tambourine Man' had.

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