The search for emotion is the ambition of Daniel Lanois, the renowned Canadian music producer who shaped Bob Dylan’s twenty-sixth album Oh Mercy. Lanois describes himself as a “studio rat,” someone who is “not a career builder [but a] record maker,” serving musicians with his talents. For Dylan, he “wanted to make sure that his voice was captured powerfully, rendered with sincerity, and be viewed as great as it ever was… I knew that I was only there to enhance what he did. I acted as a bodyguard to his music.”142 The master producer of Dylan’s comeback album had more than one arrow in his bow. Lanois was not only a producer, but also a songwriter, singer, and musician, playing multiple instruments such as dobro and pedal steel guitar.
Lanois was born in Hull, Quebec, Canada, on September 19, 1951, and raised in a family of musicians, his mother a singer, his father and grandfather violinists. Consequently, he and his siblings had no choice but to be musicians. His sister Jocelyne was a bassist for the new wave band Martha and the Muffins, and his brother a sound engineer. In 1963, after the divorce of his parents, the Lanois children moved with their mother to Hamilton, Ontario. Daniel learned guitar, while his brother Bob recorded on a rudimentary tape recorder in the basement of the family home. Seven years later, the two brothers bought a four-track recorder, improvised a small recording studio, and worked with a number of local groups. Ten years later, the reputation of the young sound engineers spread, and in 1981 they co-produced the third album of Martha and the Muffins, This Is the Ice Age. In 1982, Daniel started a fruitful collaboration with the British ambient musician Brian Eno, crowned by the albums Ambient 4: On Land (1982) and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983). Eno invited Lanois to co-produce the fourth album of the Irish rock band U2, The Unforgettable Fire (1984).
Even though Daniel Lanois, along with Brian Eno, is one of the architects of ambient music, he has always showed a real interest in traditional folk songs and rock and soul tunes. With Peter Gabriel he co-produced the soundtrack for the 1985 film Birdy, directed by Alan Parker.
Lanois has produced a variety of albums, including Robbie Robertson (1987), the first solo effort by the ex-guitarist of the Band, Dylan’s Oh Mercy, and the Neville Brothers’ Yellow Moon (1989). Later, he produced albums for other significant artists, among them U2’s Achtung Baby (1991), Emmylou Harris’s Wrecking Ball (1995), and Neil Young’s Le Noise (2010). Lanois and Dylan worked together again for the sessions of Dylan’s thirtieth album, Time Out of Mind, released in 1997. That is one of Dylan’s best albums, winning three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, in 1998.
As a recording artist Lanois has released several solo albums, including Acadie (1989), For the Beauty of Wynona (1993), Shine (2003), Belladonna (2005), Rockets (2005), Here Is What Is and Purple Vista (2008), Black Dub (2010), and, most recently, Flesh and Machine in 2014.
Whether on his own albums or those of other artists, Lanois’s work always bears his sonic signature, a singular sound of complex beauty and visceral power, the result of great sensitivity. No matter what the manner or the technical means, no matter whether the methods are conventional or empirical, no matter whether analog or digital, Lanois has always sought, above all else, to bring real feeling to whatever he records or produces. This is the avowed goal of this great “record maker.”
Bob Dylan / 3:47
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Daniel Lanois: dobro; Mason Ruffner: guitar; Tony Hall: bass; Cyril Neville: percussion; Willie Green: drums / Recording Studio: The Studio, New Orleans: March 8, 1989 (Overdubs March–July 1989) / Producer: Daniel Lanois / Sound Engineers: Malcolm Burn and Mark Howard
In Chronicles, Bob Dylan describes what inspired “Political World”: “One night when everyone was asleep and I was sitting at the kitchen table, nothing on the hillside but a shiny bed of lights—all that changed. I wrote about twenty verses for a song called ‘Political World’ and this was about the first of twenty songs I would write in the next month or so.”1 Everything is political, said Marx. Without adhering to the German philosopher and economist’s thesis, Dylan gives a pitiless condemnation of the modern world he lives in, governed by politics, where “love don’t have any place,” where “life is in mirrors, death disappears / Up the steps into the nearest bank.” Dylan rails against this world of materialism, which has become the dominant ideology, where “wisdom is thrown into jail” and “where courage is a thing of the past,” and calls for a return to spirituality. In this regard, “Political World” appears as an almost logical continuation of “With God on Our Side,” recorded twenty-six years earlier.
From the first notes on guitar, Daniel Lanois plunges us into a dreamy, heavy, menacing but definitely original vibe. The fade-in subtly introduces the drum part, supported by an excellent bassline by Tony Hall. He puts an irresistible pulse to the piece on his four-string. Dylan has finally found his producer. No more concession to modern sounds that do not suit his style. This time only his voice counts, and his vocal is excellent, enriched with a light slap-back echo—“the Elvis echo,” as Lanois has called it. Of course, some may find the production too sophisticated, too “overproduced,” but the production is finally at the level of Dylan’s talent. Both guitars, Lanois’s and Dylan’s, were added by overdub between March and July. The basic rhythm track of “Political World” was recorded on March 8 in two takes. The first was chosen.