April 29
In 1998, I was living with my girlfriend (who would eventually become my second ex-wife) in Marietta, GA. We had this apartment on the second floor. Boring place. Light brown carpet, white walls, closet doors with slats. We kept meaning to get some bar stools for the counter; never got around to it.
Wait, go back to 1982. I’m in my den watching a special on HBO called “When the Music’s Over.” It was a documentary about cool rock stars who died young and one of them, as the title suggests, was Morrison. That was my entry point for getting into The Doors.
The first record I got was “Greatest Hits.” It was new at the time and it had this cool red and white cover. It was the first of many Doors compilations I’d buy and it all the usual suspects, your “Break on Throughs” and your “L.A. Womans” and your “Roadhouse Blueses.” I listened to that record 2,561 times over the course of the next couple of years.
My aunt was thrilled that I was interested in “her” music. My aunt is a really nice lady. I love her dearly. I do, however, question her ownership of the music that I grew to love during my early teens. She never got into it to the degree that I did. She seems strangely oblivious to even the most basic musical facts. She’s one of these people who’ll say “I LOVE Bob Dylan” but can’t name five Bob Dylan songs. You could almost just say random word combinations and hit five Bob Dyan titles, but I don’t think she could do it. And she “LOVES Bob Dylan,” right?
She did have an original print of “Highway 61 Revisited” which she laid on me. This record I listened to quite a bit as well. I liked the more obnoxious tunes on it, of course. That’s a pretty great album for a kid in his early teens who’s just getting shitty. I loved it.
There was a radio show on the college station that played stuff you didn’t normally hear on the radio. It was called Unradio and it was on Saturday night from 11-2. I taped songs off that show regularly on my dual-cassette boom box. I got some great stuff. The best method was to press “REC” at the beginning of every song; then if it sucked you could just stop after the intro or rewind and tape over the whole deal.
One night I heard this great jangly blues intro with a simple and clear guitar ringing about the noise. Dylan starts singing. It was one of the Dylan songs I hadn’t heard (one that wasn’t on Hwy 61). I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. “Bob Dylan from ‘Blond on Blond.’” That was the only explanation. The song turned out to be something called “Leopardskin Pillbox Hat.”
The first Bob Dylan album I bought was “Infidels” which was released in October of 1983. I don’t remember the exact chronology of what I heard first and all that. But this is the first one I went to the store and bought. A great, big beautiful album. I had a choice between the Dylan record or Rod Stewart’s “Camouflage” album (Give me a break, I was 13 years old). The guy in the record store steered me towards the Dylan. “In 25 years you’ll be able to say you’ve got an original print Dylan album.”
Okay, so it’s about 25 years later. Julie Farmer has my damn record now. I actually doubt she has it now, but she had it last. I’ll never see it again.
And “Infidels” holds up. It’s got some really, really great songs. More than meets the eye on some of those, which is the Dylan thing, of course. “Jokerman” is stone classic. “Sweetheart Like You” is a personal favorite. Mick Taylor plays guitar on this record. I still feel good about the $7.99 I spent on it, even though I don’t have it anymore in that form.
So I was a Dylan fan from that time. Call it 1984. Let’s say it started then.
I tuned out in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Why? Well. There was “Dylan and the Dead.” And nothing grabbed me at that time. Plus I was kind of a shithead. But when I look at what he was putting out during that era, I’m only willing to take half the blame. But I will take a full half.
So in 1998, my girlfriend, out of loyalty (this was one of her many wonderful qualities) she goes out and buys the new Bob Dylan album. He’d been sick, some kind of heart infection. I’ve never heard of that. But it’s fucking poetic. A heart infection. Wow.
The first song on “Time Out of Mind” is called “Love Sick.” We open on some random-sounding notes, followed by a light, almost accidental sounding meep of an organ, and Dylan comes on singing or talking or whispering or growling, depending on who you ask. Telling us he’s sick of love, talking about seeing silhouettes in the window, silence that seems like thunder, a sky that’s weeping, quiet distrust, hearing a clock tick. His heart was infected, you see.
That album doesn’t have a superfluous word or note. I listened to it about 2,541 times. Dylan! He was back.
“Love and Theft” came out Sept. 11, 2001. And somehow, it sounded like it was written with the post-9/11 mindset. Somehow. It was like he was going there anyway. I don’t have time to get into how incredible this album is.
Likewise with “Modern Times.” It’s just great. Songs like “Working Man’s Blues” and “Nettie Moore” have this otherworldly quality. Not a bad song.
So about the new album “Together Through Life.” Maybe I’m spoiled.
But here are some facts.
There’s an awful lot of accordion on it.
“My Wife’s Home Town” is a note-for-note ripoff of “I Just Want to Make Love to You” (Muddy Waters’ version).
On “Jolene” Dylan sounds tired, like he’s having trouble keeping up with the moderate pace of the tune, which, incidentally sounds like nothing so much as a Casio keyboard demo, setting “blues rock.”
I’m reserving judgment. Normally on a Bob Dylan album the lyrics come zinging out at you like throwing stars in the first couple of listens and then continue to do so over repeated listens until you know pretty much every word. But it’s not like that so far on “Together Through Life.”
Hey, uh. Here’s the upside. A lot of it sounds really cool, like an old blues album. I read one interview where the author compared the sound to the old Chess albums from the 50’s and I won’t argue with that.
But here’s the thing. I love blues. I love Bob Dylan and I’ve loved most of what I heard from the Chess label of that time. And I don’t really love this album.
I still have hope. Who knows? Maybe I’m just missing it. It’s happened before.
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