The tunes she chose — from “Queen Jane Approximately” to “You’re A Big Girl Now” — she inhabits in a unique way. Inspired arrangement touches abound, such as the drop of electric 12-string jingle-jangle in the thick of “Queen Jane,” the album’s opener and second single. Nice nod to Dylan’s greatest interpreters, The Byrds.
“That’s absolutely right! That’s a deliberate reference. I completely love The Byrds. I’m a huge fan of Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark. I love what The Byrds did with ‘Mr. Tambourine Man.’ Patrick Sansone (of Wilco, Blonde‘s producer, who played much of the record’s backing) decided to get out a Rickenbacker, and away we went!” she laughs.
The second song and first single, “I Contain Multitudes,” with its allusions to everything from Walt Whitman to The Rolling Stones, was only released by Dylan this past Spring, making Swift’s cover version the song’s first. It’s the audacity and daring of Blonde, born in a 2017 attempt to buck depression and completed during COVID-19 lockdown, that makes it so effective. It also effectively treated a writer’s block — she was readying a new all-originals LP when the lockdown went in effect. Now unable to enter a studio, Blonde was dusted off, two new tracks added. With its release coming August 14 on Tiny Ghost Records, it will tide us over nicely until it’s safe for Emma Swift to take her new tunes into a studio to bloom properly.