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Knocked Out Loaded (1986)
(16 votes)
Tracks (Click song title for lyrics)
Album Info
You Wanna Ramble
Bob Dylan -- Guitar
T. Bone Burnett -- Guitar
James Jamerson Jr. -- Bass
Al Kooper -- Keyboards
Raymond Lee Pounds -- Drums
Background Vocals -- Carol Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Muffy Hendrix, Annette May Thomas
They Killed Him
Bob Dylan -- Guitar
Jack Sherman -- Guitar
Vito San Filippo -- Bass
Raymond Lee Pounds -- drums
Al Kooper -- Keyboards
Steve Douglas -- Saxophone
Steve Madaio -- Trumpet
Background Vocals -- Carol Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Muffy Hendrix, Annette May Thomas
The Children's Choir -- Damien Turnbough, Majason Bracy, Keysha Gwin, Crystal Pounds, Lara Firestone, Tiffany Wright, Chyna Wright, Angel Newell, Herbert Newell, Larry Mayhand, April Hendrix-Haberlin, Dewey B. Jones II, Medena Smith, Daina Smith, Maia Smith
Driftin' Too Far From Shore
Bob Dylan -- Keyboards
Ron Wood -- Guitar
Anton Fig -- Drums
John Paris -- Bass
Background Vocals -- Peggi Blu, Annette May Thomas, Madelyn Quebec, Carol Dennis, Muffy Hendrix,
Precious Memories
Bob Dylan -- Guitar
Raymond Lee Pounds -- Drums
James Jamerson Jr. -- Bass
Larry Meyers -- Mandolin
Al Perkins -- Steel Guitar
Milton Gabriel, Mike Berment & Brian Parris -- Steel Drums
Background Vocals -- Queen Esther Marrow, Carol Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Muffy Hendrix, Annette May Thomas
Maybe Someday
Bob Dylan -- Guitar
Mike Campbell -- Guitar
Howie Epstein -- Bass
Don Heffington-Drums
Steve Douglas -- Saxophone
Steve Madaio -- Trumpet
Background Vocals -- Annette May Thomas, Carol Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Elisecia Wright, Queen Esther Marrow, Peggi Blu
Brownsville Girl
Bob Dylan -- Guitar
Don Heffington -- Drums
Carl Sealove -- Bass
Vince Melamed -- Keyboards
Ira Ingber -- Guitar
Steve Douglas -- Saxophone
Steve Madaio -- Trumpet
Background Vocals -- Elisecia Wright, Queen Esther Marrow, Muffy Hendrix, Carol Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Peggi Blu
Got My Mind Made Up
Bob Dylan -- Vocals
Tom petty -- Guitar
Mike Campbell -- Guitar
Benmont Tench -- Keyboards
Stan Lynch -- Drums
Howie Epstein -- Bass
Philip Lyn Jones -- Conga
Background Vocals -- Carol Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Elisecia Wright, Madelyn Quebec
Under Your Spell
Bob Dylan -- Guitar
Dave Stewart -- Guitar
Clem Burke -- Drums
Patrick Seymour -- Keyboards
John McKenzie -- Bass
Background Vocals -- Muffy Hendrix, Carol Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Elisecia Wright, Madelyn Quebec
Recorded at Skyline Studios, The Church, Delta Studios, Cherokee Studios, Sound City.
The Engineers -- Don Smith, Britt Bacon, George Tutko, Judy Feltus
Album Art -- Charles Sappington
Special Thanks To:
Tony Goodstone
Norm's Guitars
Britt Bacon
Susies Pullen
Tony Dimitriades
Jeff Rosen
Jeff Jones
Sid Fernandez
Steve Howe
Rita & Britta
Harry Dean Stanton
Frank Zappa
Gay Austin
Sam Shepard
Ben Saltzman
Naomi Saltzman
David Geffen
Carole Childs
Jackson Browne
Margarita
Diane
Vicki
Irene
Mike Campbell
Howie Epstein
Tom Petty
Benmont Tench
Stan Lynch
John Trudell
Claudia Lanier
Mildred & Charlotte
Mattie
Ludella
Bommu Kingsley
Sharon
Carol
Randy Newman
Capitol Records
David
Keith
Willie
Bob
Ahmet
Eric
George
Martin Sheen
Paul Rappaport
Andre
Zusha
Annette
Baby Boo Boo
Vanessa
Clara
Jesse Ed Davis
The Baroness
The Duchess
Helena
Narette
Reggae Queen
Louie & Corrine
Rabbi Spector
Buggs Weidel
Charles Rook
Musicland
Joey & Louie
Rev. T. Alexander
Mark Knopfler
Stage Deli
Baghdad Restaurant
Something Fishy
Zucky's
Lil & Mel
Peter Takiff
Bob Meyes
Marshall Gelfland
Bill Graham
Pammie
peachy
Chrissie Hynde
Sarah Wells
Kim Wilson
Kim Wilson
Highway Blues Girls
Ronnie Wood
Lulu Belle
Walter Yetnikoff
Ruben Blades
Miami Steve
Carol
Yvonne
Michael Mann
Elliot Roberts
Alan Rudolph
Iron Mike
Bill Walton
Chaim Guttenberg
Lou Reed
Stevie Wonder
Gal Shaped Just Like A Frog
Martine
Harriette Blaze
Diamentina
Danny
Tommy
Kate
Lanie
Stan & Huey
Desiree
Nicole
Arma Andon
Josh Abbey
Don Smith
Ruthie
Sly & Robbie
Richie Havens
David Kearny
Chris Bowman
Marty Feldman
Nick Egan
Dave Stewart
Jack Nicholson
Clydie King
Comments
not his best
I look at the "Knocked Out Loaded" and "Down In The Groove" era kind of like that period of time around "Self Portrait". For whatever reason, Dylan just wasn't writing many songs so he was using covers and collaborators to fill in the gaps and the results are mixed. I think one of his best songs in this period was "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" which ended up on the Willburys album. "Tweeter" is similar to "Brownsville Girl" in that it was one those absurd tales Dylan is so good at. I like "Brownsville Girl" and not much else on this one.
Underrated Gem
I got this album as a joke, thinking it would be a laugh and a throwaway, but I fell in love with it very quick. "You Wanna Ramble" "Brownsville Girl" and "Under Your Spell" are all cllassics, and all the other songs, besides "They Killed Him" which is just awfully boring, are great.
knocked out
Every new one got me so does this one
not that good
Aside from Brownsville Girl, not that good. The best part other than that song is reading his special thanks list and seeing who played on each track. Aside from that not much going on.
Knocked Out Loaded (1986)
My favourite tracks on the album are:
1. Under Your Spell
2. Got My Mind Made Up
3. They Killed Him
The January 2007 issue of 'Mojo' rated this album Dylan's 30th best album - I also consider it to be his 30th best album.
Memories
This album is my parents' memories. This album has songs that well be heard. they often listen to this album. they definitely happy because I get a site about their favorite artists.
All About Babies
Knocked Out Loaded
To me, Knocked Out Loaded - with its arrangements and female backing vocals - is in many respects in the same category as "Street Legal," except that Street Legal was a good album and KOL is a disappointment.
Granted, the album is like every other Dylan album in the respects that it has its gems. To me, those gems are "You Wanna Ramble" and "Brownsville Girl." The rest, and I do mean the rest, can be left to be forgotten.
To almost any other artist, a record such as this one would be a career killer. For Dylan though, KOL is nothing more than a break in his step.
~ Josh
Shite!
No Rating
SLUMDOG
I won't rate this album. I detest every track. Even the overrated BG.
EMPIRE IS A LOT BETTER!
strengthen those things that remain
No Rating
We weren't on the wrong side, sweetness,
We were the wrong side.
James Elmo
Dylan Knocked out of His Gospel Voice
Knocked Out Loaded is an example of what happened to Dylan after he went back to more secular themes. He found that he didn't have as much to say as on such albums as Infidels and Shot Of Love. There are some obvious problems with this album:
1) You Wanna Ramble is a very weak opening track, and does not seem to catch the listener as well as songs such as say, Jokerman or Gotta Serve Somebody.
2) The synthesized sound does not fit well with Dylan's overall sound. It's like mixing a fine champaign with crackers and spam.
3) There's no real hit here - Brownsville Girl is too long to really be a hit single, and it suffers from overproduction. The outtake from Empire Burlesque "New Danville Girl" (the original version of this song) is much better.
4) There's not enough original Dylan material.
5) The album is too short. It might have been better if Dylan had waited, and combined Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove into a double album with better sound mixes and better song choices, because some of the tracks here really are gems: Under Your Spell and Maybe Someday, for example.
I can imagine a great album here with:
Silvio
90 Miles An Hour Down A Dead End Street
Maybe Someday
Got My Mind Made Up
When Did You Leave Heaven?
Had A Dream About You Baby
New Danville Girl
Under Your Spell
Rank Stranger To Me
Dylan's Cover of the late Warren Zevon's "Mutineer,"
And perhaps some other as yet unknown outtakes and covers.
Knocked Out In The Head, But Still Loaded With Somethin' To Say
No Rating
Well this album is certainly caught in that famous web of debate if it's Dylan's worse album ever. Yeah, others say it's Down In The Groove, Empire Burlesque, Self-Portrait, or the 1973 revenge album Dylan. To me, none of these albums listed should be considered Dylan's worst. Let's see you intentionally put together a bad album. You know what'll happen? It'll never compare to a bad Dylan album because no matter what, every Dylan album has something to say. Even the one I consider to be his most hastily thrown together album, Street-Legal, has something to say.
As for Knocked Out Loaded, I've always considered this one to take place in a desert. Just picture it. You're travelin' in the desert, you got worries on your head about those gettin' killed, lost love affairs, and ramblers amongst ya. I can easily picture drivin' through the desert listenin' to this album. You Wanna Ramble has a nice bouncy sound to it. They Killed Him has a pretty cool sound and yes I even enjoy the children choir that kicks in. Driftin' Too Far From Shore is alright lyrically. Nothin' else really. Precious Memories kinda has a Caribbean like sound. Maybe Someday is Dylan's angry song on here with a good set of lyrics here. Brownsville Girl I won't bother mentioning how great it is. My favorite part of it though is the lady singing "ow" after Dylan sings "And we'll pray that the roof stays on" or somethin' like that. Got My Mind Made Up has a nice guitar sound to it. and Under Your Spell sounds very lovely. That one's pretty easy to picture in the desert since the last verse mentions the well in the desert. If you're talking about how bad a Dylan album has been thrown together, I would rank this number 2. Street-Legal will always be number 1 on that chart for me. But if you're talking about a bad, offensive Dylan album, well that doesn't exist in my mind.
One-Of-A-Kind
Brownsville girl
Right now I'm listening to KOL. I have owned it for years but havn't listened to it that much. Brownsville girl is yhe only song that I really know.
Now when I listening to it I understand why. Except from, perhaps, Under your spell, the other songs sucks!
Brownsville Girl is and will always be the best song from this album. It's compereable with other great songs from the 80's like Jokerman, Dark eyes, Most of the time and Series of Dreams (recorded in 89).
Of course these songs from the 80's can't be compered with songs from Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks but I think we already knew that;)
Re: I don't understand..
No Rating
Maybe I've rushed too much; maybe knocked is not better, but just as good as Empire.
I don't understand..
No Rating
.. why almost everyone is talking about this album in such a harsh words. It's not bad at all, imo better than Empire because there is more clarity within it [edit: ok, i've rushed too much, maybe not better, but just as good]. I like almost every song on knocked out; Brownsville Girl is a very good song but why everybody is saying that's the only bright point of the album is beyond my understanding. I fell in love with 'Under your spell' and was knocked out by 'Got my mind made up'. The other songs are also good. Maybe none of them can be compared with stuff from albums like Blood On The Tracks, but what's the point?
Knocked out isn't Dylan's greatest achievement, but still it's beyond almost every musician out there.
One thing I don't understand: why Dylan decided to have a part of 'They killed Him' sung by kids. I totally don't like that moment, but maybe there is something 'behind' and one day i'll be enlightened and i will understand;)
3+/5
And all I see are dark eyes
Better
I personally like this better than the previous Empire Burlesque because I like the sound better. But despite working with so many quality musicians, something just doesn't seem to work here.
Dave
his worst
No Rating
to me Knocked Out is his weakest album. I dont even like Brownsville Girl. To my ears the best things on it are the opening track and Precious Memories.
after Knocked Out, I think his worst album is Modern Times.
Okay
I think my problem with Dylan in the 80s is that he seems to be almost trying to quit. The intro to his concerts these days pokes fun by the phrase "has-been". With records like this, it's easy to see why. Proceed with caution.
I didn't want to buy Knocked
I didn't want to buy Knocked Out Loaded at first because I read nothing but negative reviews about it. In fact, they were so terrible that I was ashamed when I finally broke down to buy it to complete my Dylan collection. At first, I hated the album and was convinced that the reviews were right-on. But now that I've been able to get a grasp of the lyrics I have to admit that it not only isn't a terrible album, it's actually a pretty good one.
And, to be honest, I don't like "Brownsville Girl" that much. "Driftin' Too Far from Shore", "Maybe Someday", "Got My Mind Made Up", and "Under Your Spell" are the songs that make this album. "Brownsville Girl" and "Precious Memories" feel like filler. And "They Killed Him", while not a good song, is used by Bob to once again declare Jesus Christ 'The Son of God Almighty'.
I'm not saying KOL is another Blood on the Tracks. But if you haven't heard it yet, don't make the mistake of overlooking it.
I recently came across a website by a guy that shares my enthusiasm for Knocked Out Loaded. You might want to check it out: http://knockedoutloaded.weebly.com/index.html
Knocked Out Loaded isn't Bob's worst by any stretch. That title should be assigned to 'Down in the Groove'... But in my book, even the worst Dylan albums are a cut above just about anything else pop music has pumped out in the past 20 years. (Gosh... I sound like an old fogey and, man, I ain't even 25).
Brownsville girl
I think there's much to do about this album than feeling it's the long Brownsville girl single. The song makes the album worth and there's much more to hear in it. Only Under your spell is something similar to listenable. The rest, only for huge fans.It' okay thanks to Brownsville girl.
Knocked Out Loaded
While Empire Burlesque wasn’t a failure in my mind, it was not a success commercially – which is what it seemed like what it was aiming for. So for the next two albums Bob gives up on trying to record an album as a single entity. Both Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove are more like of compilations of various recording sessions from a broad time period, rather than one group musicians recording one album in one week. Not even Shot Of Love (which at least kept a consistent core of musicians even as it rotated through the studios of L.A.) sounds this patchwork. But like the deliberately bootleg sounding Self-Portrait, it was definitely intentional, and it works (although not nearly as well). Of the two albums, Knocked Out Loaded receives the most scorn – with the biggest exception. Everybody likes to think of Knocked Out Loaded as nothing more than a really long single for “Brownsville Girl” with a lot of really bad B-sides to ignore. Which is too bad, because personally, “Brownsville Girl” is the worst moment on the album (other than the children’s choir that pops up on “They Killed Him”). Much as the solo acoustic guitar of “Dark Eyes” undermined the rest of Empire Burlesque, so does the epic length of “Brownsville Girl” remind fans of Dylan’s earlier style and works against the rest of the album. Only, where “Dark Eyes” merely tainted as an added on tag, “Brownsville Girl” dominates, consisting of nearly a third of Knocked Out Loaded’s thirty-five minute running time. Frankly I find “Brownsville Girl” not only lacks the musical sophistication to justify its eleven minute length, but the lyrics themselves seem to be over a dozen verses about a guy trying to remember the name of some movie. But people focus on that song and erroneously compare the rest of the album to it. When in fact the rest of the album holds up quite well on it’s own. Not that the album’s great, but it’s nowhere near as bad as everyone makes it out to be. “You Wanna Ramble” and “Got My Mind Made Up” are my two favorite songs on here. Shuffling up-tempo rockers of the kind that Bob really should record more of. Sure, “They Killed Him” deserves it horrible reputation. If Kris Kristofferson only wrote three verses there is no need to have Bob and the back-up singer and that eardrum-splitting children’s choir each take a turn to sing all of them in various combinations. This album features the highest number of co-authors of any album since his collaboration with Jacques Levi on Desire. Not only did he write songs on here with Tom Petty, Carole Bayer Sager, and playwright Sam Shepard, but Bob also wrote “Steel Bars” with Michael Bolton, “Heartland” with Willie Nelson, and “Waiting For The Morning Light” with Kiss’s Gene Simmons around this time, none of which he ever recorded. Clearly Bob was hoping to find someone new to write with, but the two solo originals (“Maybe Someday” and “Driftin’ Too Far From Shore”) though are truly forgotten gems that would not have embarrassed Empire Burlesque or Infidels. “Under Your Spell” is still a little unformed, but the mandolin and steel drum arrangement of “Precious Memories” gives it a very nice feel without specifying any genre (Appalachian-Caribbean?). Give Knocked Out Loaded another listen, this time skipping “Brownsville Girl” and see if there isn’t something there.