Maggie's Farm

The name Bob Dylan would hardly have been a familiar one to anyone outside the Greenwich Village scene before 1963, even with the earlier release of a very first album containing blues and folk covers and a couple short, original compositions.  The appearance less than a year later of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” an album of astonishing originality and creativity, would firmly establish Dylan as one of the foremost songwriters of his time at a mere 22 years old.

Though his sound and style would continually change over the years, “Freewheelin’” contains many of the themes Dylan would later revisit: the social conscience and angry protest of “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “Masters of War;” absurdity and sly humor on “Talkin’ World War III Blues” and “Bob Dylan’s Dream;” the surrealist imagery and apocalyptic prophesying on “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall;” expressions of love and affection in “Girl From The North Country;” and the ever-present theme of the need to change and move on, rather than linger in past relationships and experiences, on “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”

The structure of the songs is largely constructed from a folk foundation, the musical form that dominated the coffee houses and cafes of Greenwich Village and which Dylan had listened to assiduously since his arrival in the city and before.  In particular, the influence of Woody Guthrie – Dylan’s undisputed icon – shines through, as Dylan virtually channels Guthrie’s spirit on “Talkin’ World War III Blues.”  Dylan, who may have traveled to New York in large part to seek out the dying Guthrie, was also inspired by

By the time 1997 rolled around, Bob Dylan had gone seven full years without releasing any original material, and it appeared as though he had permanently put aside the creation of new compositions in favor of year-round touring and performing.  Though 1989’s Oh Mercy was hailed as a comeback, its 1990 follow-up, Under The Red Sky, was widely panned, and Dylan sunk further still with a disastrous tour in 1991.  Less attentive observers might have written off Dylan completely by 1992, but those dedicated fans that continued to attend live performances may have noticed a startling turnaround in concert quality by 1993, as Dylan found a strong new voice that reflected both a wiser maturity and much-improved tonal command.  After the release of two albums of blues and folk covers in 92 and 93, Dylan continued to hone his live performances to an even greater degree, giving hard-rocking shows in 1995 that continued to redefine and renew songs from throughout his vast catalogue.  A breathtaking performance of Restless Farewell for Frank Sinatra’s 80^th birthday celebration in the waning days of 1995 led some perceptive commentators to suspect that Dylan was only beginning to rediscover his powers.

For most critics, however, the arrival of Time Out Of Mind in September 1997 came as a complete surprise.  That the album was excellent, rivaling his best work from the past 20 years, was even more of a shock to the public, its high quality further magnified by the reputation of the author and the seemingly permanent break he had taken from songwriting.  The album captured a Grammy award and landed Dylan on the cover of Time magazine, but the music itself was anything but typical pop-scene fare.  In fact, Time Out Of Mind was perhaps the gloomiest, most pessimistic take on life and the human experience that Dylan had ever put together, backed by exquisite and immensely atmospheric arrangements courtesy of producer Daniel Lanois.  The songs themselves are bleak and haunting, always returning to the tried and true blues themes of lost loves, feelings of loneliness and isolation from society, and the inevitability of death and loss.  As he had been doing for decades, Dylan often appropriated classic blues phrases in their entirety, perhaps tweaking them here or there, but leaving the most memorable imagery intact.  Lines like “Going to walk down that dirt road ‘til my eyes begin to bleed,” and “turn your lamp down low” are taken almost word for word from old blues standards, and their very familiarity, their innate, almost subconscious power, lends the songs a powerful foundation in a century-old musical tradition.

Following a mysterious motorcycle crash in late 1966, Dylan retreated almost entirely from the public eye, instead choosing to concentrate on raising a family in his Woodstock, New York home.  Tired of the accolades and weighty titles that had been heaped upon him by critics who saw him as the voice of the 60s counterculture, Dylan released albums that either directly repudiated the trendy psychedelic sound of late 60s rock (1967’s “John Wesley Harding”) or which aimed to drive away his fans altogether through sheer awfulness (1970’s “Self Portrait”).  In 1974, with his marriage beginning to crumble, Dylan teamed up with The Band to record a new album shortly after leaving behind the tranquil domestic life he had enjoyed for the previous seven years.  The resultant product, “Planet Waves,” is a pleasant, soft-sounding album that on the surface does not seem to foreshadow the drastic changes that were poised to occur in Dylan’s life.

Musically and lyrically, “Planet Waves” is no groundbreaking album, staying true to Dylan’s early 1970s pattern of simple, sparsely arranged songs that Dylan himself admitted (in his recent “Chronicles Vol. 1) “could blow away in cigar smoke.”  Apart from “Forever Young,” none of the songs have made much of an appearance in concert, either, making it one of Dylan’s least favorite albums to perform live.  The album, which is bolstered by the first-rate musicianship of The Band, is highly listenable nonetheless, and a close reading of the lyrics reveals a man split between his love for his wife and family and his restless, foot-twitching desire to keep moving on and exploring new ground in life.

The second track on the album, “Going, Going, Gone,” the title itself a play on a distinctive home run call of Yankees announcer Mel Allen, reads on the page as though it were written not in 1974, but in 1997 for that year’s album “Time Out Of Mind.”  The words here, like most of those on the later release, are simple and straightforward, clearly laying out the dilemma that Dylan faces.  In “Hazel” the singer seems to be leaning towards staying the course with his marriage, and this sentiment continues in “Something There Is About You” until the third stanza where Dylan abruptly declares that faithfulness may be too much to expect from him.  By “Dirge,” the album has descended to “Blood On The Tracks” depths of angst and self-pity, and everything looks as though it’s fallen apart.  “Wedding Song” ends the album on a final, fittingly equivocal note, as declarations of love and affection are joined to a slow and mournful melody, resulting in an experience that tugs the listener in two separate directions.  Even the lavish praise that Dylan heaps upon his wife in the song seems born of desperation and comes across as an attempt to win back the attentions of another as much as it is a simple confirmation of existing love.  Both “Tough Mama” and “Forever Young” work better as standalone songs, and are also two of the stronger vocal and instrumental performances on the album. 

After the short break required to record “Planet Waves” (some say the sessions were completed in three days!) Dylan was back out on the road continuing to tour for the first time since 1966, and would never again take such a protracted break from live performances.  “Planet Waves” would quickly come to be eclipsed by the two outstanding albums that followed, yet it succeeds on its own relatively limited terms and remains a pleasant if unchallenging listening experience 30 years later.

By late 1964, Dylan had already confounded his folk audience with his perceived abandonment of politically-charged protest songwriting on “Another Side of Bob Dylan.”  The folk music crowd had been puzzled by the increasingly whimsical and romantic songwriting on that album, but they were totally unprepared for the surprises Dylan had in store for them in 1965.

“Bringing It All Back Home” represents the first time Dylan broke with his acoustic past to embrace an electric sound – the entire first half of the album features electrified tracks, giving the folk audience a preview of the shock he would deliver live later that year at the Newport Folk Festival.  Even the “folkier-sounding” acoustic tracks on side two abandon traditional folk sensibilities in their lyrics, instead exploring a colorful, often bizarre world of fantastic imagery that nonetheless represented a personal vision far removed from the collective social commentary common to folk music of the time.

Some writers have noted a continuing tendency to social criticism on songs such as “Maggie’s Farm,” a track that can be interpreted as a bitter and sarcastic take on (metaphorically-represented) American institutions, yet the song works just as well, if not better, as a more generalized depiction of the travails of most any job that involves working under a superior.  “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which some critics have anointed as the “first rap song,” features an infectious Chuck Berry rhythm (try listening to his “Too Much Monkey Business” for a glimpse at the song’s direct predecessor) overlaid with rapid-fire lyrics that expand far beyond the ones on Berry’s original.

 On the acoustic side, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” features some of Dylan’s most mind-bending imagery and razor-sharp observations, while “Gates Of Eden” (a “Desolation Row” precursor) strikes a death-blow to the very notion of unquestioning certainty and self-righteousness on any issue, social, political or otherwise.  “Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream” gives the listener a dose of comic relief amidst all the weighty poetry as well as an early look at the whimsical side to Dylan that would be fully explored a few years later in “The Basement Tapes.”  Mr. Tambourine Man, perhaps the best-known song on the album due to its chart-topping cover by The Byrds, stands as a landmark songwriting achievement whether or not you believe it was the product of drug-fueled escapades.

 With “Bringing It All Back Home,” Dylan had truly let the cat out of the bag, throwing to the wind whatever folk-related inhibitions he had retained and letting his unique poetic impulses run wild.  “Highway 61 Revisited,” released only a few months later, would extend this period of astonishing creativity by developing and refining the blues-based rock sound and exploring new lyrical ground, but “Bringing It All Back Home,” far from being merely a transitional album, stands on its own as a momentous achievement in the history of 20^th century "popular" music.

Review of 6/14 Dylan Show, in Bowie, MD, plus Jenna Bush

Well, the air was so stuffy, I could hardly breathe, and while it was clearly too hot to sleep, it wasn't quite hot enough to keep The Dylanologist from driving out to Bowie, Maryland, to see Bob again.  Temperatures in the mid-90s during the day hadn't subsided very much even by Dylan's appearance a little past 9 p.m., but as the first few chords of "Drifter's Escape" blared out the heat and the sweat were forgotten and all eyes turned to the frail, black-garbed man on stage.  The show overall was quite good: the band was on, and Bob's voice was generally solid throughout, particularly on "Senor," "Shooting Star," and "Chimes of Freedom," my three favorites from the evening's setlist.  Bob's harp solos were particularly good, far better than when I heard him last.  "Summer Days" seems to have lost some of its punch, but it still got people up and dancing and is a perfect tune for the time of year and the type of venue (a minor league ballpark, like most other stops on the current tour). 

Today, the Dylanologist is pleased a new addition to Maggie’s Farm: the Bob Dylan album review series.  Beginning today, with new installments appearing (almost) every Friday, The Dylanologist will cast a critical eye on each of the song and dance man’s albums, from the introductory “Bob Dylan” up to 2001’s widely acclaimed effort “Love and Theft,” or at least as many as he can cover before exhaustion sets in.  Reviews will NOT be posted in any sort of chronological order, but according to the Dylanologist’s mood and current listening preferences.

This week’s review tackles one of Dylan’s most maligned albums, “Empire Burlesque,” released in 1985.  The 1980s are generally considered to have been Dylan’s weakest decade, a time when his well of creativity at last dried up after a long fertile phase.  While it’s difficult to point to any albums from that time that are as consistently good and well-structured as Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, or even Street Legal, many of the individual songs on these albums are excellent in and of themselves, even if the albums on which they are found can’t rank with Dylan’s greatest works. 

 Familiar themes are illuminated on several of the tracks. The classic-film-quoting “Seeing the Real You At Last,” for example, a jaunty rocker that Dylan has often featured in superior form in concert, references failed relationships. On “Clean-Cut Kid” Dylan makes his only explicit statement about Vietnam, though the anti-war sentiment here is not so much different from that on “John Brown.”  “Trust Yourself” is a fairly direct plea to his audience, in much the same vein as “It Ain’t Me Babe,” while the haunting acoustic closer “Dark Eyes,” a throwback to Dylan’s pre-electric days in the early 60s that nonetheless does not feel out of place as the last song on the album, features provocative lyrics tethered to a simplistic melody.

 One of the biggest criticisms of Empire Burlesque, however, has not been the songwriting but rather the production.  In a bid to capture a “contemporary” sound, which he achieved with somewhat greater success on 1979’s Slow Train Coming, Dylan brought in a crack production team that layered synthesizers and thumping electronic beats over Dylan’s competent lyrics and melodies.  The result is a sound that has not aged well over the years, showing all too plainly its mid-80’s origins.

A cat's meow and a cow's moo, I can recite em all
Just tell me where it hurts yuh, honey,
And I'll tell you who to call.
Nobody can get no sleep
There's someone on everyone's toes
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here
Everybodys gonna wanta doze.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.

Dylan, from Quinn the Eskimo
Lyrics here.

It's May 24 once again, and all of us here at Maggie's Farm would like take a moment to acknowledge the birthday of the man seen at right.  Happy 64th Bob!  May you stay forever young.

Crash on the levee, mama,
Water's gonna overflow.
Swamp's gonna rise,
No boat's gonna row.
Now you can train on down
To Williams Point,
You can bust your feet,
You can rock this joint.
But oh, mama, ain't you gonna miss your best friend now?
You're gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend somehow.

Dylan, from Down in the Flood

Dylan Live

Good sample - the music itself - of recent and not-so-recent live performances.  Best ones: Hank Williams' Cant Get you Off of my Mind and Po Lazarus from 1961. Plus they have Hazel.

Word to the wise: if you don't know what Dylan is, you'll never know until you hear the live stuff. Even then, you won't know what he is.