Dylan going electric vs. Dylan going back to acoustic

A lot is said about Dylan's "electric controversy." In my opinion, we should be focusing on why Dylan stopped going electric. His only truly great albums were Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. But, for some strange reason after his motorcycle accident in 1966, everything changed. His next album John Wesley Harding was a laid-back, country tinged back porch kind of record – one that contained none of the stream-of-consciousness ramblings that permeated his last three albums. I happen to love those ramblings; they’re what set him apart from his other rock and roll peers. John Wesley Harding changed that. He became just another folk singer again; from this time on instead of socio-political statements (which he never acknowledged were socio-political statements) his records were filled with biblical references, short manageable verses, and quiet strums on an acoustic guitar. Dylan took way too much stock in what Robbie Robertson said – “They're not saying anything much and this is killing me, and you're rambling on for an hour and you're losing me; I mean, I think you're losing the spirit.” After he heard Robertson say this, he never made the same earth-shattering, mind blowing records again. His trilogy of albums before John Wesley Harding was the sort of thing that comes along once in a lifetime. These three albums are the most important American artifact we have. These albums infused the magic of Beat poetry, surrealism, Dada-influenced, punk, blues, folk, psychedelic, and amazingly gifted songwriting into a force that Dylan would never claim again. Albums like John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and Desire are good in their one ways, but to listen as an artist turns his back on his genius is a hard pill to swallow. After he stopped “going electric” he did what

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