Bob Dylan / 6:29
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Daniel Lanois: guitar
Robert Britt: guitar
Cindy Cashdollar: slide guitar
“Bucky” Baxter: pedal steel guitar
Augie Meyers: organ
Jim Dickinson: keyboards
Tony Garnier: bass
Brian Blade and Jim Keltner: drums
Tony Mangurian: percussion (?)
Recording Studio
Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions)
Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
“Not Dark Yet” marks the aesthetic and poetic pinnacle of Time Out of Mind; it is among Bob Dylan’s most poignant songs. From the first line, it’s obvious where the songwriter wants to lead us: “Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day.” The chorus focuses on the end of life: “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.”
“Not Dark Yet” deals with our inevitable aging and death. The atmosphere is oppressive. Is there life after death? Or nothing at all? The singer does not know, but he does know you should never rely on others. “I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal,” he sings; they are the reminders of disillusionment. He goes on, “Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain /… I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies.” Then he adds a moral as realistic as it is implacable: “I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes.”
Professor Christopher Ricks, in his study titled Dylan’s Visions of Sin, analyzes Dylan’s lyrics. He draws a parallel between “Not Dark Yet” and John Keats’s poem “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819). Ricks finds “similar turns of phrase, figures of speech, [and] felicities of rhyming”155 between the two works. He even argues that Dylan had in mind, “unconsciously or deliberately,” the poem about death by Keats when he wrote “Not Dark Yet.” Andy Gill, guitarist of Gang of Four, has noted, “[T]he lyrics to ‘Not Dark Yet’ are really simple. It’s exactly what he is: an old man and he’s tired. It’s Dylan speaking authentically from where he is now, in this time of life, looking at what he’s been and seeing where he is at, and expressing it in terms which resonate with many people.”156
The Gospel according to John (9:4) reads, “While daylight lasts I must carry on the work of him who sent me; night comes, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Dylan picks up this idea in his book Chronicles: “Things grow at night. My imagination is available to me at night. All my preoccupations of things go away. Sometimes you could be looking for heaven in the wrong places. Sometimes it could be under your feet. Or in your bed.”1 “Not Dark Yet” is Dylan’s magisterial, nocturnal confession.
“Not Dark Yet” was demoed (unreleased to this day) at El Teatro Studios in Oxnard, California, during the fall of 1996. In an interview with the Irish Times in October 1997, Daniel Lanois revealed that “‘Not Dark Yet’ had a radically different feel in the demo we did, which I loved and still miss. It was quicker and more stripped down and then, in the studio, he changed it into a Civil War ballad.”157
The major feature of “Not Dark Yet” lies in its hypnotic atmosphere. As always, Lanois uses multiple instruments to fuel a sonic vision that he alone has the talent and skill to create. All the musicians contribute to this sound: Augie Meyers’s organ is scored; the two drummers provide a heavy, haunting tempo; and Tony Garnier on bass moves in the depths of the sound spectrum. The guitars confer a rock-music atmosphere on the piece, but also contribute to its dreamlike ambience. Dylan delivers one of his best vocal performances on the album, touched with sincerity and resignation. This time few effects were added to his voice, and the sound is relatively pure. Note the presence of percussion, even if it is not credited on the album.