On the 3th recording session for Blood On The Tracks on September 18th, Dylan only tried 2 takes on Buckets of Rain. The 4th recording session (on  September 19, 1974) was a way more important story….

Here are some quotes, facts & music….

If any of Dylan’s record albums deserve to be singled out as a “masterpiece” (and I’ve avoided this because how can one leave out ‘Blonde On Blonde’? ‘Highway 61 Revisited’? ‘Hard Rain’?), it is the one that most successfully combines conscious, deliberate creation (composition) with spontaneous expression (performance) – 1974’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’
~Paul Williams (Performing Artist 74-86)

..Dylan.. succeeded in producing an album that stoked up his genius quotient nearly ten years after he was thought to have left it by the roadside. And he had done it by reinventing his whole approach to language. Gone were the surrealistic turns of phrase on Blonde On Blonde, gone was the ‘wild mercury sound’ surrounding those mystical words. In their place was a uniformity of mood, a coherence of sound, and an unmistakable maturity to the voice…. He had never sung better.
~Clinton Heylin (Behind The Shades)

Albums involved:

Studio A, A & R Recording, New York City, New York
September 19, 1974, 7 pm-03am

Produced by Bob Dylan
Engineers: Phil Ramone & Glenn Berger (“Phil & Lenn”)

1. Up To Me
2. Up To Me
3. Buckets Of Rain
4. Buckets Of Rain
5. Buckets Of Rain
6. Buckets Of Rain – BOTT & BOTT-TP
   Life is sad
   Life is a bust
   All you can do is do what you must
   
7. If You See Her, Say Hello – BOTT-TP
   
8. Up To Me
9. Up To Me
10. Up To Me
11. Meet Me In The Morning
12. Meet Me In The Morning
13. Buckets Of Rain
14. Tangled Up In Blue
15. Tangled Up In Blue
16. Tangled Up In Blue – BOTT-TP (or 15)
    
17. Simple Twist Of Fate
18. Simple Twist Of Fate
19. Simple Twist Of Fate – BOTT & BOTT-TP
    ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ is another absolutely extraordinary performance. Where ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ is bright, bouncy, jangly, ‘Simple Twist Of Fate’ is soft and warm and mournful. Dylan’s voice is.. gentle and rounded.
    ~Paul Williams (Performing Artist 74-86)
    
20. Up To Me
21. Up To Me – BIO
    In its own way ‘Up To Me’ is as masterful an achievement as ‘Tangled Up In Blue’, using much the same technique to create a well-crafted juxtaposition of ‘what I know to be the truth’ and what ‘I’m projecting’.
    ~Clinton Heylin (Still On The Road)
    
22. Idiot Wind
23. Idiot Wind
24. Idiot Wind
25. Idiot Wind – TBS1-3
    
26. You’re A Big Girl Now
27. Meet Me In The Morning
28. Meet Me In The Morning
29. Meet Me In The Morning
30. Meet Me In The Morning
31. Meet Me In The Morning
32. Meet Me In The Morning
33. Tangled Up In Blue
34. Tangled Up In Blue
35. Tangled Up In Blue

“[The real] wonder is in the spaces, in what the artist’s left out of his painting. To me, that has always been the key to Dylan’s art. To state things plainly is the function of journalism; but Dylan sings a more fugitive song: allusive, symbolic, full of imagery and ellipses, and by leaving things out, he allows us the grand privilege of creating along with him. His song becomes our song because we live in those spaces. If we listen, if we work at it, we fill up the mystery, we expand and inhabit the work of art. It is the most democratic form of creation”
~Peter Hamill (liner notes to BOTT)

Musicians: 

• Bob Dylan (guitar, vocal)
• Tony Brown (bass)

Related articles @ JV:

• Bob Dylan recording sessions
• Bob Dylan 1974
• Bob Dylan – Best Songs – If You See Her Say Hello
• Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks Covered

References:

• Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions – Part Three – by Michael Krogsgaard
• Still On The Road – Olof Björner
• Clinton Heylin: Bob Dylan. The Recording Sessions [1960 – 1994] (1995)
• Clinton Heylin: Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1974-2006
• Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks: The Untold Story (Glenn Berger)

-Egil