Dylanology- Bringing It All Back Home

Dylanology is an ongoing series of blog posts in which I'm chronologically going through Bob Dylan's studio discography. There may be some diversions along the way.

In the sort-of-biopic I'm Not There, Bob Dylan going electric is portrayed as a literal attack on the folk audience. Dylan and band open fire with machine guns blazing like in some comical action movie, and the whole thing is played off with tongue firmly in cheek. While the whole “Dylan goes electric” story has by now grown into a myth through the re-telling and exaggeration, it's still clear that he was no longer going to be what the folk movement wanted. They saw him as useful for political ends; were it up to them, he'd have kept on, writing about Martin Luther King Jr. and Vietnam and the like. But it never occurred to them that Dylan would be more useful to the world as an artist instead of a spokesman. If they hated him and turned on him for it, he'd be much happier that way.

By now deeply ensconced in abstract wordplay, post-modern stories, and bluesy/folky rock music, it's actually a bit of a surprise how grounded most of Bringing It All Back Home sounds. 'She Belongs To Me' is a lovely ballad in the mold of 'Corrina, Corrina', while 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' is (rightfully) considered one of Dylan's masterpieces, a deeply poetic break-up song. Of course, then there's 'Bob Dylan's 115^th Dream', a surreal narrative that portrays a modern colonization attempt of America with both historical and fictional characters thrown in. (My two favorite moments: the laugh breakdown at the beginning of the song, and the parting line about more ships arriving in America as Dylan flees the country back to Europe—“he said his name was Columbus/and I just said good luck.”) Even at their most nonsensical, like the litany of advice on opener 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', the lyrics are supported by Dylan's continued gifts for basic but memorable arrangements. 'Outlaw Blues' points the way to the more raucous moments of Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde.

The most famous thing about Bringing It All Back Home is the way the album is split in two, between the 'electric' first side and the 'acoustic' second side. This makes it a true transitional record, since the second side would be the last time we heard him purely acoustic for a few years. With only four songs, it shows Dylan in his deepest attempts yet toward creating a new folk songwriting style without changing the musical approach. 'Mr. Tambourine Man' is better known for its cover version even though the original's lyrics are easier to focus on, reading like his version of 'Puff The Magic Dragon', right down the supposed pot references. It also gave us the word 'jangle', so that's something. While one could argue that 'Gates Of Eden' and 'It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)' do have some political commentary, they feel like incidental results of the imagery he's weaving together rather than the focus. In one way of thinking, this was Dylan codifying and perfecting the style he'd begun with songs like 'Bob Dylan's Dream' and 'Chimes Of Freedom', songs that feel both very personal and about larger issues, too.

The album cover and title may be an ironic joke, but at the same time, it seems like they help describe where Dylan was at when Bringing It All Back Home was made. Feeling under siege from the folk community and the increasing social turmoil of the 60s, he retreated into an increasingly insular world—the fallout shelter-looking den of the album cover—but still commented on the external world. In that sense, 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' can be interpreted as a break-up song that compares the end of love to the world ending. The mistake of the folk movement and the “Judas!” accusations was in assuming Dylan ended his political persona for greater money or fame. In actuality, he had done it for personal and artistic reasons. As 'Like A Rolling Stone' would soon demonstrate, if he had to be one or the other, he'd rather be a folk hero than a political one.

Dylanology- Another Side Of Bob Dylan

Dylanology is an ongoing series of blog posts in which I'm chronologically going through Bob Dylan's studio discography. There may be some diversions along the way.

Recorded in one long night session while reportedly finishing off a couple bottles of wine, Another Side Of Bob Dylan couldn't possibly have a more accurate title. The record is a casual and more personal affair by far than The Times They Are a-Changin', released at the beginning of the same year (1964). That Another Side followed it by only eight months is all the evidence you need that even with a tossed off and raw record like this, Dylan had begun one of the most legendary stretches in all of recorded history.

It's always been too tempting for me to skip ahead to the next three albums because they're some of my all time favorites. But missing out on Another Side Of Bob Dylan would mean passing over the initial bloom of Dylan as pop star (no longer a mere folkie) and unique artist. Actually most of Dylan's albums from this era kind of bleed into each other. With a punched up full band arrangement, it's easy to imagine the songs of Another Side alongside the best of Bringing It All Back Home through Blonde On Blonde.

Dylan had apparently experienced psychedelic drugs and Rimbaud by the recording of Another Side, and the increasing abstract and visionary lyrical content on display is almost haunting. You can practically hear the late night drunk and inspired mindset in his voice and occasional loopy musicianship. He was certainly getting rather post-modern and self-aware; it's hard to imagine the serious folkie of his last album writing lines like those on the winking 'I Shall Be Free No. 10.' Just as Stephen Spielberg sometimes has to do serious arty movies to get it out of his system before going back to the popcorn fun stuff, it's almost as if Dylan had to make a dark, political album to get it all out of his system to plunge ahead.

I might go so far as to argue that Another Side Of Bob Dylan is one of his hidden gems, because it isn't as well known as most of his stuff from this period. Until I finally sat down to give this album my full attention, I missed out on what a stunning set of songs it is. 'Chimes Of Freedom' sounds like a man possessed, a kind of surreal/imagistic celebration and bittersweet view of the ongoing civil movements of the time—and also a prototype for future epics like 'Desolation Row.' Mostly though, Dylan is puttering around with smirking abstractions and silly imagery. 'I Shall Be Free No. 10' is Dylan's version of those rare nights where you reach that point while drunk and/or stoned enough that you ramble out loud to yourself and make up weird little songs. It even predates Will Smith's 'I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson' for jokingly calling out a boxer the singer clearly has no chance against.

The sound and atmosphere of Another Side Of Bob Dylan makes me think of the novel Steppenwolf. It's the sound of someone who grew old and far too serious before his time trying to reconnect with his former youth, idealism, and sense of fun. Of course, the guy in Steppenwolf screws it up. But as the left-in laughs on some of the songs, the long and purposefully overblown harmonica solos on 'Ballad In Plain D', and the “I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now” lyric of 'My Back Pages' all demonstrate, Bob Dylan had done it; he had reconnected. It wouldn't be long before the slidewhistles of 'Highway 61 Revisited' and the drunken crowd on 'Rainy Day Women #12 & 35' cheering to the calls of “everybody must get stoned!”

Dylanology- The Times They Are a-Changin'

Dylanology is an ongoing series of blog posts in which I'm chronologically going through Bob Dylan's studio discography. There may be some diversions along the way.

Although recorded before the assassination of JFK, The Times They Are a-Changin' can't help but feel like a solemn and serious response to that event and the continuing struggle of the Civl Rights movement. Indeed, I don't think you could fully understand what the early to mid 60s were like without hearing this album, since it is interwoven with the fabric of its time. Keep in mind, this is the post-Beatnik pre-Hippie era, a very short timespan that's easy to pass over because the cultural artifacts from either side of it are better known.

The Times They Are a-Changin' as a whole feels like Dylan realizing the fight will be long and hard. Even before JFK's death and the public outcry following an infamous, inebriated speech delivered while receiving the Tom Paine award (during which he said he 'saw something of himself in Lee Harvey Oswald), Dylan was displaying cynicism and weariness far beyond his years. Those unfamiliar with the early phase of Dylan's career might be shocked at how dark Times often is. Look up the story behind 'Ballad Of Hollis Brown' and 'Only A Pawn In Their Game' or take a listen to 'One Too Many Mornings', the latter of which would've made a great cover for Nick Drake. These songs are a bummer. There's no answers or hope to be had in these tales. On his first two records, Dylan leavened the serious/political stuff with some witty wordplay or contrasted them with a few lighter songs; not so much here. Consider the two songs with “blues” in the title from the preceding record, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. They're among the most fun and whimsical on that album, while 'North Country Blues' from Times is a depressing folk song about the ruin of a woman, a town, or both.

Since I've never really cared for politics being mixed into music, I find The Times They Are a-Changin' to be among Dylan's least enjoyable records. I'm not saying I disagree with its point of view, since I'd have to be a racist monster not to. Aside from 'Boots Of Spanish Leather' and the bitter but fun 'When The Ship Comes In', though, the entire record is far too dire and preachy for its own good. There is something to be said for expressing these feelings and telling the stories that need to be told to show the injustice of the world, but this also leaves Times feeling like a historical artifact, or even like rhetoric instead of music.

This era saw the beginning of American youth becoming deeply involved in politics, and Dylan was no different, it's tough to blame him for making a record like this. After all, if he had been focused on 15^th century French poetry or horse racing, he'd have made songs about that instead. Times is a commentary on its environment in the same way other politically charged records from other countries and eras become touchstones for their era. The problem for me is that, while you can still enjoy There's A Riot Going On or some of Bob Marley's political stuff, The Times They Are a-Changin' has such a sparse musical style that once you've gotten the message, so to speak, it's not a great record on sheer musical/songwriting terms. Since Dylan immediately moved away from this 'voice of a generation' persona, never again focusing so sharply on political material, one has to wonder if he felt the same.

You often hear people describe great art or artists as timeless, and Dylan has produced more than his share of timeless art. However, the opposite is sometimes true. Great art or artists can be timely, and Times was timely (pardon the pun). As with his first album, the songs have not stood the test of time and feel very much 'of their time.' This doesn't mean it's a bad record by any means, just that modern listeners will have to do some research and contextualizing to fully grasp the impact this must've had when released in January of 1964. This strange period of time—post-Bob Dylan becoming famous/post-JFK assassination and pre-Beatles arriving in America/pre-Civil Rights Act of 1964—is captured eerily well on The Times They Are a-Changin' even if it doesn't make for a comforting, fun, or hopeful listen.

Dylanology: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Dylanology is an ongoing series of blog posts in which I'm chronologically going through Bob Dylan's studio discography. There may be some diversions along the way.

In perhaps the most clear example ever of avoiding a sophomore slump, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is leaps and bounds better than the debut it followed. With this release, Dylan went from being a gifted but immature folk artist and unproven songwriter to a nascent genius and 'generational spokesman.' It's clear from just the tracklisting and writing credits that he had come a long way in little under a year. Whereas Bob Dylan, despite its title, had few Dylan originals, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was almost entirely originals.

Some would argue that Dylan never topped Freewheelin' in terms of songwriting originality and maturity. While it is a hell of a sophomore effort, I'm not sure Freewheelin' would crack my top 5 Dylan albums. This says more about my taste and the wealth of excellent other choices from his catalogue than it does the album itself. Indeed, the mix of political and personal songs on Dylan's second album is perhaps unsurpassed in his 'back pages', so to speak, as far as balancing the serious with the whimsical. 'Masters Of War' is as polemic as he ever got, while 'Talkin' World War III Blues' is as close to a Shel Silverstein-esque parody of a “talkin' blues” archetypal folk/blues song as he could allow himself.

There are other lighthearted delights and impressive social commentary to be had. 'Corrina, Corrina', one of the few covers, has a lovely full band arrangement that wouldn't be out of place on future records like Blonde On Blonde or Love & Theft. Seeming to reference the album cover photo and drop a couple self-deprecating winks, 'Bob Dylan's Blues' may just be the most post-modern 60s folk song ever written. Meanwhile, the rich imagery and lamenting refrains of 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall' are the kind of direction he would increasingly go in.

From this point, Bob Dylan would only expand further outward with the social consciousness showcased on the following record, the dire and serious The Times They Are a-Changin'. He moves the opposite direction on the next record, returning to more personal lyrics and lighter fare with the appropriately titled Another Side Of Bob Dylan. But we'll get to those some other time. The point is, a good alternate title for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan might be Both Sides Of Bob Dylan, because, here, that's pretty much what you're getting, at least thematically. Not to yet again foreshadow, but the eventual Bringing It All Back Home will give us both sides of Bob Dylan, at least musically. But I digress.

Dylanology: Bob Dylan

Dylanology is an ongoing series of blog posts in which I'm chronologically going through Bob Dylan's studio discography. There may be some diversions along the way.

I've always been curious to listen through Bob Dylan's albums in chronological order. Part of the reason is that without forcing myself to, I don't think I'd ever listen to most of his stuff. The Christian era is perennially at the bottom of my list of albums I need to get to, and the early folk stuff never appealed to me until recently. All of that said, Bob Dylan is a solid if mostly debut folk album. History, and what Dylan went on to do, has increased its significance in the 50+ years since its release. This kind of thing often results in albums that modern listeners will be bored or underwhelmed by because they sound so sparse and basic.

In which case, it's best to do some research and contextualize Bob Dylan in terms of the other music and folk stuff being released at the time. In this regard, what sets Dylan apart is his amicable performances and song selection. Since he hadn't yet blossomed as a songwriter, his debut is notable mostly for the influences it reveals. The pre-rock n' roll music he would later adopt as an aesthetic from 2001's Love & Theft onward is glimpsed here, and it's worth noting that a track from this record, 'Baby, Let Me Follow You Down', shows up in a commanding, remade barrelhouse rock form on the legendary 1966 “Judas!” concert as captured on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4. Reworking songs into new arrangements would go on to become the standard template for Dylan's live shows, something anyone who's caught him on his modern 'Never Ending Tour' will know. But I digress.

If you're the sort of person who loves Nick Drake's Pink Moon, Elliott Smith's first few albums, and The Tallest Man On Earth, I think you'd be wise to seek out early Dylan immediately. You may find it same-y, if not formulaic, but as with any narrow music style, a great performer can wring a lot out of a little. Bob Dylan does this. And Bob Dylan certainly does this.

Though largely made of covers or harmonica/acoustic guitar based rearrangements of traditional songs, it's a record that foreshadows the breadth of Dylan's eventual talent. On his debut he mostly gets by leaning on rough charm: the harmonica and vocal affectations were in already place, and I don't think he gets enough credit as a guitarist. Listen to 'Highway 51' for some impressive strumming.

It's curious to hear the young Dylan singing all these old, dark songs about issues that probably haven't effected him personally. As Dylan aged and life threw some curveballs his way, it's almost as if he grew into the pre-rock-era songs he always treasured. It's similar to how in the mid to late 70s, Jerry Garcia became the troubled old man in so many of the songs he used to somewhat-convincingly sing during the first few years of the Grateful Dead. As Dylan toured with the Dead as his back-up band, this similarity is even more striking...

Anyway, the songs! 'Talkin' New York' is the first instance of a specific style of song in which he speak-sings a story between breaks for harmonica and guitar, with a meta-narrative that this time out fictionalizes his arrival in New York City. 'Song To Woody' tips a hat to Woody Guthrie and has taken on a symbolic quality ever since, as if he's simultaneously eulogizing Woody and his generation while also acknowledging he won't live to see the troubles and the triumphs to come during the rest of the 60s. 'See That My Grave Is Kept Clean' is a spooky nocturne, its heavy imagery brought to life by Dylan's vocals and wild, woozy sliding accents on guitar.

The two songs summarize what is great and slightly underwhelming about Bob Dylan. There aren't enough original songs by Dylan to truly judge him as a songwriter, but any simplistic lyrics or formulaic arrangements are salvaged by his committed performances and impressive musicianship.

Tom Waits- Bad As Me

Like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits has, over the past 20 years, grown into his aesthetic. Both artists spent years playing at being eccentric old men with bruised, whiskey soaked voices, mining pre-rock 'n roll music to craft their own unique blends of roadhouse R&B, country, folk, blues, and various ethnic idioms. Now they're both well into their 60s (actually, Dylan is 70!) and have, in a manner of speaking, become their personas, right down to long periods without new releases, meaning every record feels like an unexpected gift from a mercurial Grandfather or uncle you see once every few years. This is especially true of Waits, who spent the first half of the last decade releasing three well received studio albums and an exhaustive (but essential) three CD set of odds n' sods, then mostly puttering around touring and doing this or that.

Thus Bad As Me is his first proper studio album in seven years and still somehow sounds rushed and half-hearted. It's hard to imagine any fan of Waits being outright disappointed by this record—he has long since become too consistent a songwriter and too unique a performer to turn in a truly bad or dull album—but at the same time, it's hard to imagine anyone truly loving it the way people love Rain Dogs or even Alice . This is music which, at its best, is only good because it reminds you of the past. Moreover, this is the sort of record which, at its worst, is only tolerable because you remember the past. If 'Pay Me' and 'Back In The Crowd' weren't by Tom Waits, they would be amusing on-the-nose Waits parodies...except that they were recorded by him, and they're hollow shadows of what he's done before.

Bad As Me makes consistency into a weakness instead of a virtue just as it makes succinct song lengths into an issue. Much of this album either mimics or mines Waits's past yet as a whole these songs sound less distinct and unique because the production and overall aesthetic is perhaps the most consistent since his jazzy crooner/barfly pre-Swordfishtrombones era. Where 'Big In Japan' was a unique stomping opener to Mule Variations, its descendent here, 'Bad As Me', feels like an obligatory rocking song sandwiched in between two slower, more mellow tracks. Were Waits not singing these songs, they'd be as boring as any cover band playing standards and hits on a Wednesday night in a Minneapolis biker/dive bar. It's his performances that save this album and even then he seems barely invested, as if he's going through the motions.

Waits has been quoted as saying that this would be a collection of short, relatively straightforward material, and perhaps that helps explain why all these songs feel like first or second takes with unfinished, vague arrangements. Waits has never been at his best when he's limiting himself, and it turns out that self-enforced short songs, at least on this record, were not going to help the subpar songwriting. If 'Chicago' were slowed down a bit and allowed to breathe, it could've been a classic track. Likewise, 'Face To The Highway' plays like a sequel to the languid lament of 'Sins Of My Father' yet tries to do so in half the time.

It all comes down to two things: 1) an artist can't release a safe record like this after a seven year break, and 2) you can't spin consistency into a virtue if the songwriting isn't top-of-your-game. As stated above, it's hard to imagine anyone being disappointed by Bad As Me, but it's also hard to imagine anyone truly loving it.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Great Album Covers- Blonde On Blonde

Do yourself a favor sometime and go the Albums section of Bob Dylan's official site. A wall of images greets you, small thumbnails arranged in reverse chronological order. For a man who has more than half a dozen iconic covers under his belt--even the first Greatest Hits is iconic--the one that still sticks out to me is Blonde On Blonde.

During this time it was common for bands to appear on their covers. Sometime in the mid-60s, though, the true art of album covers took off. Sure, jazz artists sometimes used works of art as covers and the like, but pop musicians never before tried new things. The most interesting Beatles cover to me is not the busy-yet-lush-and-detailed Sgt. Pepper's one, but the ultra-minimalist White Album. In fact, if memory serves, it's the only cover they don't appear on.

So why then did I choose one in which the artist does appear? Well, for two reasons. One, Dylan may be on the cover but his name and the album's title aren't. This had to have been one of the first examples of a pop musician not having their name or album title on the cover; it's as if Dylan is trying to get beyond his name and its attached fame, trying to make you dig deeper into the music instead.

And the second reason? I just adore this picture. It's hazy and out of focus, belying the druggy/boozy music contained therein. I don't know when this picture was taken or why, and I want to keep that mystery. This has always been the irony of Dylan to me; I don't really want to know the "real" Dylan like so many do. I prefer the image and the mystery; I prefer the music and lyrics without direct explanations of who/what they're about. This is the sort of record cover that appeals to my imagination, by which I mean, I fill in the blanks myself.

To my mind, he has just emerged from a house with a bad hangover and wishes nothing more than to smoke a cigarette without it making him want to puke before he gets on his motorcycle to head to the recording studio. A press photographer from across a street spies him while getting a coffee at a diner, rushes outside, and snaps a few quick shots with shaky, anxious hands. It's like spotting Bigfoot and knowing you have mere moments to get a clear photo. Dylan squints, annoyed, and heads back inside, deciding to stay home instead. The photographer hurries back to his dark room and develops the photos, impatient all the while, but the only one even halfway usable is still a little out-of-focus and Dylan has a sour look on his face. Still, Dylan's two-fisted-son-of-a-bitch manager Albert Grossman tracks down the photographer's publication and sues to get the photos back. Dylan, in his usual contrarian way, loves the real-ness captured in the photo and decides to use it for his next album cover.

The Tallest Man On Earth- The Wild Hunt

Superficially speaking, there has perhaps never been someone who so openly evokes Bob Dylan's early 60s folk output as The Tallest Man On Earth. Though from Sweden, Kristian Matsson's pinched, slightly abrasive, and nasally vocals feel like the work of the former Minnesotan who moved to New York to meet Woody Guthrie and work on his icy cool persona. Yet I said “superficially” for a reason, because past the immediate surface similarity of their voices and the solo acoustic instrumentation, the two artists are quite distinct. Dylan covered and/or stole from the folk music standards while sticking to an acoustic and harmonica; Matsson writes his own material and sometimes employs a banjo, or on The Wild Hunt's stunning closing track, 'Kids On The Run', a piano. All of that said, if the quality of songwriting and impassioned performances on this record are anything to go by, I wouldn't be disappointed if he, too, went electric at some point and then had a long, engaging career like the old master did (and continues to!).

Actually, the more I listen to The Tallest Man On Earth, I also get a Van Morrison hint in the vocals. Matsson pushes his voice further on The Wild Hunt than the debut Shallow Grave, with a power and grace that recalls Astral Weeks, minus some of the jazzy inflections and repeated words/sounds. Perhaps it would be better to say Matsson bellows while Morrison belts. The way he twists around the “but now you're going back, you're going back, you're-or-going back” line on 'You're Going Back' has a Depression era country/folk feel and makes me think of a random YouTube comment about how someone listened to music that was “too hillbilly for the hillbillies.” Meanwhile, there's a worldliness and sophistication to 'King Of Spain' which belies Matsson's Swedish origin. It'd be hard to imagine, say, a David Berman or Justin Vernon writing a line like “but while we're floating in siestas/you search for bottles and for knives” or holding onto the final “the” of the song in a heart-stopping final flourish.

Matsson makes an asset of his limited palette of sounds, crafting one of the finest sophomore albums in recent memory, lacking any true surprises or changes from his debut but improving on it every way. There is an attention to detail and imagination to the arrangements such that, despite their sparseness, they never have the samey-sounding tedium of most stripped down singer/songwriter albums. Matsson's vocals must get the majority of the credit, but his supple, graceful fingerpicking, as well as the buoyant chording on tracks like 'Burden Of Tomorrow', deserve some praise, too. All of this is also to say that The Wild Hunt is the kind of record which makes you just as excited to see where the artist goes next. True, he's already making music that realizes his potential and promise, but I can't help anticipating his next move, too, because this is the sort of album that makes one believe the best is yet to come. His reputation isn't assured just yet, though the cement is being mixed.

Not since For Emma, Forever Ago has a singer/songwriter album seemed so distinctive and consistently great, simultaneously bringing to mind forefathers and deflecting comparisons, too. Whether he goes electric or stays bellowing from behind a banjo for a bit longer, The Wild Hunt will remain the proof that Matsson is a talent of seemingly limitless potential, some of it already realized.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Bob Dylan- Time Out Of Mind

Seven Or So Thoughts On Bob Dylan & Time Out Of Mind

1) Bob Dylan is up there with Miles Davis in the pantheon of greatest musicians who ever lived. Both men were constant searchers and innovators who went through many different phases and personas during their careers, variously making masterpieces, let downs, and comebacks. Dylan in particular has been said to have made comebacks at least once a decade since the end of the 60s, so it seems only fitting my comeback review (after a month or so absence) would be of one of his comeback albums, 1997's Time Out Of Mind.

2) For all the fun you can have with Dylan's mid-60s electric/surreal music, there's a distinct lack of emotional resonance to much of it. As his discography is close to definitive in its moods and forms of expression, you can spend a lifetime discovering him and latching unto certain releases. In my younger days I used to bristle when others would posit Blood On The Tracks as their favorite Dylan album, since Highway 61 Revisited rang much truer to me even though I had no idea what most of it it meant. That was part of my enjoyment, however: the puzzle of it all, the need for interpretation, and Dylan's pervasive wit and urban cool. Now, I embrace his more human and openly emotional albums. Having been through the ringer of (to borrow a phrase) love and theft myself, Time Out Of Mind strikes me as up there with Blood On The Tracks in terms of its humanity and resonance. And excellence.

3) When a friend introduced me to Blood On The Tracks in college, it never occurred to me to wonder about its authenticity. I had no reason to suspect it wasn't taken straight from Dylan's heart until reading his Chronicles book, in which he reflects that an unspecified album (almost certainly Blood On The Tracks) wasn't autobiographical at all, but based on plays by Chekov. This upset me for awhile until I had been through a couple relationships and re-discovered the album, which finally resonated. You see, with Dylan, the point is never authenticity. The point is resonance. 'Simple Twist Of Fate' and 'Shelter From The Storm' give me goosebumps when I even glance at their titles because they resonate so perfectly with things I've thought or felt. Oddly, there has never been much debate as to the theme of Time Out Of Mind, even though it's every bit a relationship album as it is the death/mortality album everyone has always claimed it was. Listen again to 'Love Sick' or 'Cold Irons Bound.' These are not death or disease songs; they recall the uncertainty ofBlonde On Blonde, a record which, like Time Out Of Mind, encompasses a combination of new-love-devotionals and lost-love-laments.

4) Daniel Lanois's production on Time Out Of Mind doesn't sound quite like anything else I've heard. Dylan's voice is wisely kept front and center, with Lanois's subtle reverb/echo treatment lending it a spectral feel, as if Dylan has come back like a ghost a la Obi Wan Kenobi to dispense wisdom. However, there's an odd remove and cool-ness to the instruments that means this record isn't quite as intense as Blood On The Tracks or as alive as Love & Theft. Even the tracks that point to the modern roadhouse R&B/rock sound Dylan has adopted since 2001, most obviously 'Dirt Road Blues', sound a bit muffled and distant, as if someone is retroactively sanding off the distorted edges of the guitars and organs. It doesn't help that there were as many as ten people playing on some of the songs. As a result, 'Cold Irons Bound' paradoxically sounds muffled/distant and suffocating, as if it were recorded in someone's large-but-not-large-enough walk-in closet.

4a) A listen to 'Highlands' on headphones is revelatory. With an organ and electric guitar paired in each stereo channel, on top of the other instruments, this approach, and the track's length, recalls Miles Davis's Bitches Brew. But whereas Teo Marcero and Davis were able to wrangle all of these elements, Lanois and Dylan sound in over their heads. Since Brew was instrumental, it worked; since Time Out Of Mind is ostensibly a vocal focused album, the production and number of musicians can be distracting. Perhaps this explains why the instruments are so muffled and distant sounding, since the mixing of this record and the balancing of all these sounds must've been a nightmare. Also, did 'Highlands' really need to be 16 minutes long? No, but it's an indulgence that works. The flaws of Time Out Of Mind are the sort of flaws that serve to give a record character instead of rendering it less enjoyable. Mind you, 'Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands' and 'Desolation Row' didn't need to be as long as they were, either, but of course, they wouldn't have had nearly the impact they did if they were trimmed.

5) If New Morning is his almost-blindly-optimistic-about-a-new-love and charismatically off-the-cuff album (see 'If Dogs Run Free' and 'One More Weekend' for some of the funnest deep cuts in Dylan history)....if Blood On The Tracks is his newly-pessimistic-about-love and still-witty-but-bitter album ('You're A Big Girl Now' and especially 'Idiot Wind' are, respectively, as defeated and as pissed off as Dylan has ever sounded)....then Time Out Of Mind is like some unexpected sequel to both, written years later about the same characters (now older and changed) by the same person (also older and changed). There's a resignation and passivity to 'Can't Wait' that I find devastating because it hits close to home for me right now. It helps that the lyrics play like a sequel to both 'Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands' (in terms of 'waiting at someone's gate') and 'Tangled Up In Blue' (in the sense of a couple meeting and falling in love over and over).

2a) I suspect that most of the critics and people who read death and mortality in the lyrics of this album do so because it's what is most on their minds. As Dylan's discography encompasses almost the entirety of human experience, from love to loss to absurdity to apathy to nonsense to hope to lust to hatred to belief to fear to etc., it seems to me that his greatest and most lasting works encompass as many of these qualities as possible, and we, as listeners, determine what it all means. To put it another way, Dylan resonates with us because he gives us so much to work with. He openly resists interpretation and wishes the Dylanologists wouldn't waste their lives studying him, but he says these things because he wants people to discover what these songs mean to them, and not to solve the puzzle of what they meant to him when he wrote them. Is 'Not Dark Yet' about his death? I don't know, because to me, it's about my infrequent bouts with depression, pessimism, and apathy.

6) Time Out Of Mind sounds like how I always feel on Sunday nights, especially if I'm drunk and/or have recently broken up with someone.

7) Musically, Love & Theft and Modern Times are better albums. They sound muscular and confident even when they're displaying some vulnerability or sadness. Yet none of Dylan's recent albums ('recent' being a relative term) are as complete as Time Out Of Mind. The former albums are fun and enjoyable listens, but they won't grow on you and grow with you the way an album like this does.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Whiskey Pie returns!....soon

I really will start posting some stuff soon, hopefully as soon as this weekend. I have even been kicking around bringing back the videos I used to do, even though they take a stupid amount of time to do and I'm still unsatisfied with them. But I digress.

Consider this video a preview of the next (or next next) review I'm going to write.