Bob Dylan / 5:21
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Daniel Lanois: guitar
Augie Meyers: organ
Jim Dickinson: keyboards
Tony Garnier: bass
Brian Blade and Jim Keltner: drums
Recording Studio
Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions)
Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
“Love Sick” was the first new composition by Bob Dylan in seven years. The songwriter’s comeback was worth the wait. He starts the album with a song sounding like a conclusion, similar to “The End” by the Doors. The first verse sets the stage with simple but powerfully evocative lyrics: “I’m walking through streets that are dead /… And the clouds are weeping.” The lyrics are filled with feeling and pain: “[Y]ou destroyed me with a smile / While I was sleeping.”
The narrator uses the first person to express his feelings—“I’m sick of love”—clearly a hopeless love. He laments, “I wish I’d never met you,” and time goes by without bringing him any hope: “I hear the clock tick… I’m trying to forget you.”
Because of his hospitalization for an infectious lung disease in May 1997, some interpret this song as a reference to death creeping up as the years go by.
The gloomy atmosphere of the production is in perfect harmony with the lyrics. According to Daniel Lanois, “We treated the voice almost like a harmonica when you overdrive it through a small guitar amplifier.”153 The vocals are actually very dark, sepulchral, almost evoking the classic horror films. This “spinning” effect is produced by an Eventide H3500 stereo flanger. It is also one of the first times Dylan permitted the distortion of his voice by studio effects. Since the 1960s, he had refused to follow the sonic experiments of many artists of the time. The result is mesmerizing. The orchestration releases a dark feeling, in particular Augie Meyers on organ and Jim Dickinson on the Wurlitzer. In the introduction, a rhythmic loop is buried in the sound mass. The presence of two drummers does not affect the clarity of the mix. None of them takes over the song. On the contrary, their parts remain airy. The production is again remarkable; Daniel Lanois created an absolutely unique world.
Since a concert in Bournemouth, England, on October 1, 1997, Dylan has regularly performed “Love Sick” onstage. The song peaked at number 64 in the United Kingdom in July 1998. It was also subject of a music video.