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Mission Six: Reorientation II

The Pop Icon Period involves an artist in search of his creative bearings by way of his career’s second major reorientation. This sixth mission features a struggle unlike any we’ve witnessed to date. That the Nobel laureate almost gave up his fight for artistic survival indicates the extent to which his mettle was tested (Chronicles reports that Bob considered purchasing a company that made wooden legs as a new vocation). Dylan’s eventual victory was hard-earned. There are no basements in pastel-colored houses, no exboxers-turned-art-teachers, no Broadway stage directors, and no fundamentalist preachers in this tale. This is about an artist struggling with his creative nexus, often, by himself.

This process unfolded in a haphazard fashion. Much like the Americana transition, Dylan felt his way through this era as much as he orchestrated it. To the extent that the Americana mission suffered because of The Show’s absence from the mission-show-songwriting nexus, this period struggles with the songwriting dimension of that equation. That imbalance motivated the reorientation effort. The results represent the canon’s most uneven segment. Everything enters the mix here: Little Richard–style rock and roll, folk songs, message music, impressionism, 1980s rock, pop tunes, roots music, disco, show tunes, gospel songs, and the Bob Dylan Revue—everything appears here except Tarantula-style liner notes and statements of advocacy.

Without question Bob Dylan emerged from the Moral Period a celebrated international icon—much to his chagrin. The Iron Ranger was everywhere in the 1980s. He made records and videos, appeared at multiple charity events, toured with major acts, acted in a movie, and accepted prestigious awards for his historic work. His creative nexus may have been adrift, but his professional career chugged on like a determined steamer. Let’s run down some of the highlights from the Pop Icon Period.

The fun begins in February 1982 when Dylan recorded Allen Ginsberg at his Rundown Studios in California. The next month he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In the spring and summer of 1983, he recorded the Infidels album. He appeared at the Grammy Awards (February 1984), performed on David Letterman (March), toured Europe (May, June, and July), and released a live album from that tour in December (the Real Live album). Charity performances dominated 1985 such as the “We Are the World” event (January), the “Live Aid” concert (July), and after mentioning at Live Aid that the American farmers could use a little help as well, he appeared with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the inaugural “Farm Aid” concert that September. Between the Aids Live and Farm, he participated in Steve Van Zant’s Sun City show. Empire Burlesque appeared in June and his impressive career retrospective Biograph was released that November.

Dylan kicked off 1986 by performing in the “Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.” at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. That February and March, Bob and our beloved Bobettes (now the “Queens of Rhythm”) toured New Zealand, Australia, and Japan with Tom Petty (an HBO special, “Hard to Handle,” was filmed in Australia). After the Knocked Out Loaded June release, that troupe took their “True Confessions” show across the United States and into Canada that summer. A portion of that tour featured a twin billing with the Grateful Dead. That fall Dylan participated in the film Hearts of Fire, acting and recording songs for the movie’s soundtrack. (By the way, Bob played an aging rock star in the film.)

In July 1987, Dylan toured with the Grateful Dead and that September the “Temple in Flames” show with Petty and the Heartbreakers cruised across Europe. The laureate was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. That April and May, he recorded with Petty, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and George Harrison (“The Traveling Wilburys”) and released an album that October. The album was an unexpected multiplatinum success. That May, Down in the Groove was issued. It did not go platinum.

From June into October 1988, Dylan implemented his new career plan by touring the United States with a new band—the first of 22 ensembles to appear over the next three decades. The reorientation process began in earnest here. In March 1989, Bob paused to record Oh Mercy in New Orleans (issued that September). From May into September, The Show’s second edition toured Europe and the United States (they also performed across the U.S. that October and November).

The Pop Icon Era moved toward closure in 1990 with the January–March recording of Under the Red Sky (released in September); a January and February tour of the United States, Brazil, and Europe; an April 1990 recording session with the Wilburys (without the late Orbison); and another extensive tour from May through November.

Bob Dylan was a busy guy in the Pop Icon Period. Major tours, historic awards, and steady albeit uneven product characterized a thoroughly active time frame. Yet rare was that special flash of fire that symbolized his art—rare was any sign of that famed Dylan Edge. A “Foot of Pride” appeared here, a “Most of the Time” there, a “Dirty Love” somewhere, but the thin, wild mercury attitude was essentially gone. Bob was on stages around the world, but his songwriting drifted aimlessly from project to project. What started with the Infidels raging rant evaporated into vacuous platitudes. It appeared the artist had nothing to say. Nobody knew this more than the Man from Minnesota. Why?

Perhaps David Was offers some insight into Bob Dylan’s 1980s with these remarks to Howard Sounes: “There were times when he looked absolutely beleaguered . . . it occurred to me that it was a continuous burden having to be Bob Dylan.” Or as Bono told Clinton Heylin in 1988: “He’s very hung up on actually being Bob Dylan. He feels trapped in his past and, in a way, he is.” The explanation for this precarious situation is simple.

Dylan’s creative nexus did not respond to the Pop Icon role. The Look was in place. The Show was state of the art. But Bob could not muster the whereabouts to write for that legendary character. He didn’t like that role in Tour ’74 and nothing had changed. He really disparages that character in Chronicles, calling him a washed-up, lifeless poser (and worse). The nexus was, once more, broken. These were trying times. Things fell apart, came together, fell apart again, and came together again as Dylan gradually reoriented his nexus, realigned his talent, and revised his career. We’ll consider the specifics of this Phoenix Moment when I present The Show’s history at the end of our journey. Much like the Rolling Thunder Revue restored Dylan’s songwriting in the Crystallization Era, the introduction of the “Jack Fate” character will rescue a wayward laureate and resurrect his disabled creative nexus.

The Pop Icon Period may be separated into four parts: Street-Legal III (1983’s Infidels), the Bob Dylan Revue, Revisited (1985’s Empire Burlesque, 1986’s Knocked Out Loaded, and 1988’s Down in the Groove), “swampspeak” (1989’s Oh Mercy), and the concluding Retirement Party (1990’s Under the Red Sky). Here our story features different producers with different musicians working with different styles of music to different ends. The nexus just limps along. Whatever motivated Infidels floats away and is replaced by whatever inspired the Bob Dylan Revue. The process recycles with visits to the bayou and American Bandstand, respectively. Dylan fights his way through these challenging times. There are moments when this gets pretty ugly. It all begins with the end of the world.

Street-Legal III

I guess it’s hard to let a good thing go. After the Street-Legal declaration of decadence and its companion piece, Shot of Love, the man the British press deemed an “anarchist” in 1965 has another go at the evils of the world with Infidels. This project’s title perfectly fits its thematic orientation. With Infidels, Dylan sheds any sign of the personal agenda associated with Shot of Love’s counterattacks or statements of eternal faith and concentrates on his role as an op-ed page editorial writer. When Bob telescoped the situation for his Street-Legal material he generated a truckload of indignation that continued to feed his creative nexus. Infidels definitely has something to say.

A 1983 interview with Robert Hilburn offers solid insight as to Dylan’s motives: these are perilous times. Bob explained: “That’s the state of affairs right now. Maybe that’s always been the state of affairs, but it seems especially true now. . . . America is a divided nation right now.” He continued:

To me, the greatest sinners were the shoddy lawyers, corrupt promoters, professional gossip peddlers—the wolves in sheep’s clothing who present themselves as saints, but whose duty is to nobody but themselves. Reality is distorted when a sinner is presented as some dirty wino who sleeps in his clothes or some run-of-the-mill whore with two black eyes. It’s easy to pull the wool down over somebody’s eyes. Most people think Sylvester Stallone is a boxer.

Dylan doesn’t view this perspective as “pessimistic” rather “it’s just true.” And he’s angry about it. He concluded: “One thing that bothers me is that America is slowly but surely isolated from other countries—isolated with no friends, nothing. It’s very dangerous.” In response, Bob wrote Infidels and its thorough account of the source of all of these worldly problems. In so doing, as is his wont, he presents the emotional consequences of this dreadful situation. Yes, Infidels has something to say and this “idea” falls right in line with Street-Legal’s “purpose.” This is an orchestrated statement.

Infidels contains eight songs (running over 42 minutes) that report one overriding fact: the devil is among us. This editorial works systematically. First, we’re told that the devil is, in fact, a “Jokerman” who is capable of assuming a host of strategic identities—even that of a “Man of Peace.” The devil propagates acts of violence (“License to Kill”), fosters oppression (“Neighborhood Bully”), and generates greed (“Union Sundown”). Unfortunately, the devil may actually reside in us all. You never know exactly where Satan lives at any given time. Hence, you better stop and search yourself (“I and I”).

Dylan described the “Jokerman” to Neil Spencer in 1981: “You would think the enemy is someone you could strike at and that would solve the problem, but the real enemy is the devil. That’s the real enemy, but he tends to shade himself and hide himself and put it into people’s minds that he’s really not there and he’s really not so bad, and that’s he’s got a lot of good things to offer too.” Sounding an awful lot like Brother Bob, the laureate opined: “Satan’s working everywhere. You’re faced with him constantly. If you can’t see him he’s inside you making you feel a certain way. He’s feeding you envy and jealousy, he’s feeding you oppression, hatred.” In short, the devil is hard at work on his prey’s emotions.

Still, even with the devil on the prowl weaving his dark magic to the ruination of us all love is present. However, like the love songs “Precious Angel” and “Covenant Woman,” these romantic interests join in the battle against evil as these narrators praise their women and acknowledge their perilous tasks (“Sweetheart Like You” and “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight”). As we’re about to discover, Infidels is chockfull of Delta big-assed revelations as our emotional anthropologist explores the darkness via “jet black” portraits of a world gone wrong. I suspect this editorial writer believed the world to be hopelessly lost. At least that’s what’s reported in Infidels. Our prospects don’t look too good.

When Dylan exited the Moral Period, he apparently had a lot on his mind and the Infidels album advances those sentiments with compelling clarity. With Mark Knopfler in the producer’s chair, Bob recorded some of his best work. When Knopfler rejoined Dire Straits on tour and the record entered postproduction, Dylan revised the project. He deleted two of the record’s strongest songs, rearranged the track order, and seriously diluted the final product. With that, the writing appeared on that Pop Icon Period wall. The man known for recording a track and not looking back now recorded a song and stared it down. This is the harbinger for the serious creative trouble to come.

Consequently, sources offer mixed responses to Infidels. To the extent that they praise Dylan’s choice of musicians (Sly Dunbar [drums], Robbie Shakespeare [bass], Mick Taylor [guitar], Mark Knopfler [guitar], Alan Clark [keyboards], and Clydie King on backing vocals), they lament the decision to omit strong tracks such as “Blind Willie McTell,” “Foot of Pride,” and more. These were conflicted times. Heylin’s biography offers supporting evidence when he claims that “Angelina” (omitted from the final edition of Shot of Love) was composed via a rhyming dictionary and that “Foot of Pride” required an “unprecedented forty-three attempts” to complete. This lack of focus permeated the Pop Icon Period. The nexus was breaking.

Infidels begins with the man in charge of all of these dastardly scenarios and that infamous “Jokerman.” With a meandering musical backdrop paving the way for its six six-line stanzas and accompanying three-line choruses, Dylan synthesizes his impressionistic and portrait songwriting strategies on this song. “Jokerman” moves away from gangsters and dark comedians and toward the “prince of the air” and the devil himself. What a joker he is! The first verse offers meaningful insights into the Dark One when it describes his birth: he was born during a hurricane clutching snakes in each hand (pure Robert Johnson). For Satan, freedom is closer than truth. This gives him reason for optimism.

The chorus depicts the Jokerman dancing to the nightingale’s song while birds soar in the moonlight. Sounds harmless, right? Not really. The second stanza presents his evasive ways (he sheds his skin—does he live by a lake?) while the third verse associates the Jokerman with the halls of sin and the fires of hell. More dark colors follow in the fourth verse before the negativity crystallizes in the closing stanzas. Consider the ominous scenes from the fifth verse:

        Well, the rifleman’s stalking the sick and the lame,

        Preacherman seeks the same, who’ll get there first is uncertain.

        Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks,

        Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain,

        False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin,

        Only a matter of time ’til night comes steppin’ in.

With all of this, the end times must surely be near. The Jokerman is on an upswing. This dreadful scenario doesn’t improve in the final stanza:

        It’s a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray,

        A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet.

        He’ll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat,

        Take the motherless children off the street

        And place them at the feet of a harlot.

        Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants,

        Oh, Jokerman, you don’t show any response.

From the outset, we’re thrust right into yet another Street-Legal treatise. Just look at the scene presented above. Nothing is sacred, corruption is everywhere, and the Jokerman stands quietly by; absorbing the fruits of his ultimate victory. Once more, Dylan intimates that we need to stop and think, realize that the Jokerman is hard at work laboring toward the inevitable, and take heed. However, at no time are we told to change the guards. No hope is offered. No remedy is proposed. Just layers and layers of evil are exposed. You just know that the Jokerman has a plan to blow up those railroad tracks and disrupt the slow train’s progress. That’ll buy him more time to pay off priests, harvest orphans, and weave his evil web.

The Jokerman is a clever adversary. He’s so resourceful that he wears disguises to mask his true intentions or actions. As the rocking sounds and powerful backbeat of the eight five-line verses of “Man of Peace” reveal (and reinforce via the ghost chorus), he may even appear as a proponent of eternal love. The first two verses establish the context for this ultimate deception:

        Look out your window, baby, there’s a scene you’d like to catch,

        The band is playing “Dixie,” a man got his hand outstretched.

        Could be the Fuhrer

        Could be the local priest.

        You know sometimes

        Satan comes as a man of peace.

        He got a sweet gift of gab, he got a harmonious tongue,

        He knows every song of love that ever has been sung.

        Good intentions can be evil,

        Both hands can be full of grease.

        You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Here the Jokerman’s elusive (verse 3), he exploits our weaknesses (verse 4), he’s intriguing (verse 5), he’s deceptive (verse 6), and he’s preparing for the end times (verses 7 and 8). This is one dire portrait. No hope is offered. No remedy is proposed. The song establishes doubt and pounds on it (literally, Dunbar is fantastic!). Assuredly, this song communicates trust issues. I’m keeping a closer eye on my neighbors these days.

So you want to be pragmatic. You question if this Jokerman is as formidable a threat as these two songs suggest. Our anarchist answers through the Hell Trilogy that is “License to Kill,” “Neighborhood Bully,” and “Union Sundown.” The Hell Trilogy opens with that special gift that is “License to Kill.” A simple instrumental platform provides room for this sermon to breathe as it moves through its four stanzas, four choruses, and six-line bridge. The song follows a straightforward pattern in which a verse describes some form of self-inflicted injury followed by the chorus’s description of a woman sitting in dismay hoping someone, somehow will intervene and stop this madness. That is unlikely. The first verse captures this installment of the Street-Legal manifesto:

        Man thinks ’cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please

        And if things don’t change soon, he will.

        Oh, man has invented his doom,

        First step was touching the moon.

From there, we jump to the lady hoping for a reversal. But her chances don’t look good either. The second stanza reports a dark lifecycle in which humans are traded as pre-owned automobiles and treated as a commodity. The third verse explains why we’re in such a sorrowful predicament:

        Now, he’s hell-bent for destruction, he’s afraid and confused,

        And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill.

        All he believes are his eyes

        And his eyes, they just tell him lies.

The Jokerman is thorough. He’s manipulated our brains, convoluted our thinking, and distorted our perceptions in ways that ensure our ruination. The dread continues with more descriptions of humankind’s descent. The doom and gloom are as much a part of our existence as nitrogen and oxygen. There is no sign of Muscle Shoals here. No hope is offered. No remedy is proposed. I guess you have to learn to live with the Jokerman. He’s not going anywhere. The world is his playpen. Dylan surely isn’t turning anything around here.

This devil’s sophisticated as well. He’s mastered the art of the divide and conquer rhetorical ploy in a fashion that allows us to channel our self-destructive urges against groups of people. The Jokerman doesn’t expect us to sit at home and kill ourselves over nothing; so, he provides reasons for murdering one another. Dylan offers a case-in-point with “Neighborhood Bully.” A drum-driven, guitar-slashing rock format sets the scene for the 11 five-line verses that use the ghost chorus to anchor the song’s stance. Here Bob presents a straightforward complaint on behalf of Israel. Israel is the “neighborhood bully” and it’s coping with one tough, mean-spirited geographical location. The song relates that this bully is outnumbered, hated, criticized, hunted, abandoned, isolated, unappreciated, abused, and misunderstood. Who are these people? The third verse responds:

        The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,

        He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.

        Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,

        He’s always on trial for just being born.

        He’s the neighborhood bully.

This local bully has certainly experienced a tough time. But that history is just the springboard for more mistreatment. All of which lead to the moral of the story and the song’s eighth stanza:

        Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone,

        Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.

        He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,

        In bed with nobody, under no one’s command.

        He’s the neighborhood bully.

This bully is a formidable adversary. So, as those around him continue to soil his sacred texts, lie to him in treaties, ignore his resourcefulness, and mock his achievements, they had better realize that that license to kill may, in fact, meet with some serious opposition. That sword cuts multiple ways and Dylan’s eighth verse is a not-so-veiled threat (shades of “The Times They Are A-Changin’”). Besides, as the final verse reports, this neighborhood bully is just biding his time; awaiting the True Justice that is his due.

Oh yes, that Jokerman is oh-so-clever. He’s granted everyone a license to kill, pretended to be a peace-monger by characterizing the innocent as the guilty, and mobilized his legions for the ultimate prank: to rid the holy from the Holy Land. But the Jokerman maintains a domestic agenda as well. It’s not enough to have nations wage war against one another. No, he undermines internally, too. Remember what Brother Bob said during the Bob Dylan Crusade? He said the Lord deals with the unholy in three ways: the economy, the ecology, and war. Well, if Christ deploys such tactics it stands to reason that the Jokerman also has these tools available.

Consequently, we turn to economic issues and “Union Sundown.” Here Woody Guthrie rolls over in his grave as his apprentice attacks one of his most treasured ideals: labor unions. The rocking big sounds of the previous tracks are complemented by Clydie King’s backing vocals and a disco-like back beat to hammer home a balanced statement of economic self-destruction. The five eight-line verses and accompanying four-line choruses unfold systematically. Using a fine blend of the “Gotta Serve Somebody” list format and Street-Legal’s end times’ rhetoric, this song articulates the Jokerman’s attack on the economy by manipulating human greed.

The opening verses present a laundry list of everyday goods—shoes, linens, clothes, jewelry, furniture—that are no longer made by Americans, but by underpaid Third World laborers. The third verse explains why: American labor has priced itself out of the market. The chorus reinforces that point as well. A “good idea” was destroyed by “greed.” Consider the fourth verse’s explanation in which the music pauses and the bass guitar heightens the vocal’s dramatic effect:

        Well, the job that you used to have,

        They gave it to somebody down in El Salvador.

        The unions are big business, friend,

        And they’re goin’ out like a dinosaur.

        They used to grow food in Kansas

        Now they want to grow it on the moon and eat it raw.

        I can see the day coming when even your home garden

        Is gonna be against the law.

(Sorry, Woody.) After the chorus revisits the greed theme, the controlling Street-Legal manifesto dictates the story’s moral in the rocking final stanza:

        Democracy don’t rule the world,

        You’d better get that in your head.

        This world is ruled by violence

        But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

        From Broadway to the Milky Way,

        That’s a lot of territory indeed

        And a man’s gonna do what he has to do

        When he’s got a hungry mouth to feed.

And if he can’t feed his family, well, you know what happens. “Hollis Brown” told that story. I’m sure the Jokerman will provide just enough cash for those shotgun shells. When push comes to shove, that license to kill is inclusive—everybody, everywhere is fair game. The Jokerman has his bets covered.

I’m looking back over my notes and Dylan’s lyrics, searching for something to hang onto here. Is there any remedy proposed? No. Is there any hope anywhere? No. Is there even an invitation to change those guards? No. Is a cleansing slow train moving over the horizon? No. The Jokerman has blown the tracks, built a moat around his playpen, and enjoys the fruits of his own little recreational alternative: watching the world feed upon itself. When people feel as though they have a right—perhaps even a duty—to kill one another; when nations oppress one another and offer little-to-no opportunities for reconciliation or negotiation; and when economic systems self-destruct because of their unabashed greed, you have all of the makings of the end times.

This is, most assuredly, Street-Legal III. But this version—like Street-Legal II (Shot of Love)—doesn’t set the table for an intervention. This is the way it is. You better wonder at that grain of sand and marvel at that beautiful sunset because someone’s liable to sneak up behind you wearing your best friend’s clothes, stick a penknife in your back, lift your wallet, and tell the police you bullied them into a self-defensive act. A hard, cleansing rain would be a welcome sight in this dreadful portrait of human relations. I can only presume some infidel shot Bob Dylan’s dog the morning he wrote these songs. This is angry stuff.

And it doesn’t stop with outside threats. You could just as easily be at war with yourself. Your left brain could be bullying your right brain. Have you checked lately? Dylan does on “I and I.” A creepy, swampy Dire Straits sound provides a subtle backdrop for the five four-line verses and accompanying four-line choruses of this introspective analysis. A simple scene featuring a woman quietly sleeping in the narrator’s bed provides a springboard for a cryptic individual complaint about the ways of the world and the narrator’s internal struggles. After a couple of verses describing our sleeping beauty, the third stanza ponders Old Testament reasoning, the fourth verse pauses to mention two men awaiting a train (is it that train?) and thoughts of the end times. The song’s final segment captures its sentiments:

        Noontime, and I’m still pushin’ myself along the road, the darkest part,

        Into the narrow lanes, I can’t stumble or stay put.

        Someone else is speakin’ with my mouth, but I’m listening only to my heart.

        I’ve made shoes for everyone, even you, while I still go barefoot.

        I and I

        In creation where one’s nature neither honors nor forgives.

        I and I

        One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives.

Our narrator is not a happy camper and he obviously feels used and torn. Yet, this song flirts with these sentiments as much as anything. It teases these internal tensions. I sense that, once again, the Jokerman is toying with the narrator and, from there, us. Beware!

With all of this turmoil engulfing everything, how nice of Infidels to pause and celebrate that soft, beautiful rose that’s growing in that pile of manure that is the world as we know it. With simple instrumental support, “Sweetheart Like You” deploys the ghost chorus to reinforce its five seven-line verses as they unfold (along with two four-line bridges). Using the “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this” story line to praise this unnamed lady this song builds directly on the dark imagery of “Jokerman” and the Hell Trilogy. Thanks to the Jokerman, the world is one big “dump.” However, “she” stands out and this inspires the narrator’s curiosity. The song floats along describing odd scenes, complimenting this fine lady, encouraging her to find a more suitable environment where her virtues will be appreciated. The plot thickens with the fourth verse:

        You know, the news of you has come down the line

        Even before ya came in the door.

        They say in your father’s house, there’s many mansions

        Each one of them got a fireproof floor.

        Snap out of it, baby, people are jealous of you,

        They smile to your face, but behind your back they hiss.

        What’s a sweetheart like you doin’ in a dump like this?

This song is getting interesting. The second bridge follows with what seems to be visions of hell: to be in the narrator’s shoes you must propagate evil and suffer for it. Suddenly, the scene shifts in the final verse and the Street-Legal manifesto assumes complete control:

        They say that patriotism is the last refuge

        To which a scoundrel clings.

        Steal a little and they throw you in jail,

        Steal a lot and they make you king.

        There’s only one step down from here, baby,

        It’s called the land of permanent bliss,

        What’s a sweetheart like you doin’ in a dump like this?

Rarely has a single verse featured so many poignant big-assed truths. Upon initial review, this is yet another salute to our “precious angel-covenant woman-in the summertime” spiritual benefactor in that this mysterious woman is a potential ray of light in a very dark world. The celebration is implied more than in the other songs, yet it’s there. Then again, there’s the fourth verse’s reference to her father’s home. Could this be more of “The Groom’s Still Waiting” metaphors? Does “she” represent “the church”? I don’t know. But I do recognize this story line. The Street-Legal manifesto dominates this record.

This theme continues in that treasured capstone statement slot as Dylan closes Infidels with “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight.” The song follows a bouncy, country-tinged harmonica open with soft sounds that move to a big backbeat. The track unfolds by way of four eight-line stanzas with accompanying six-line, standard, choruses and a good old-fashioned middle-eight between the third and fourth segments. Much like “Sweetheart” and its predecessors, this song issues a relational plea (that implies praise) that gains strength due to the sorry state of the world. The first segment pleads for her perseverance, since the world is falling apart. He begs her to stay. He desperately needs her. The ways of the world are too much to handle alone. The second and third segments follow the same reasoning except individual complaints replace worldly observations before the closing stanza argues that the relationship will improve if she stays. Throughout, the narrator pleads and pleads. Let’s examine the second segment for insight into this song’s approach:

        Come over here from over there, girl,

        Sit down here. You can have my chair.

        I can’t see us goin’ anywhere, girl.

        The only place open is a thousand miles away and I can’t take you there.

        I wish I’d have been a doctor,

        Maybe I’d have saved some life that had been lost,

        Maybe I’d have done some good in the world

        ’Stead of burning every bridge I crossed.

        Don’t fall apart on me tonight,

        I just don’t think that I could handle it.

        Don’t fall apart on me tonight,

        Yesterday’s just a memory,

        Tomorrow is never what it’s supposed to be

        And I need you, oh, yeah.

Yes, the Street-Legal declaration of decadence is the controlling factor in Infidels. No remedies are proposed. No answers are offered. But “she” helps him endure, and that is our capstone statement. In a hopeless world full of personal regrets and ceaseless unwanted obligations, the last avenue of survival is that precious angel who provides shelter from life’s varied storms. The Jokerman has control. He’s pounding on the door. And this narrator doesn’t want to run and hide. He wants to stay home with his woman and weather the experience. Besides, you can’t hide anyway. The Jokerman could actually appear from within—or even worse: you could look into your lover’s eyes and see him laughing at you.

When Mark Knopfler left Dylan in New York he had no idea what Bob would do with their work. They had recorded a number of songs that failed to make their final list. Covers such as “The Green, Green Grass of Home,” Willie Nelson’s “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground,” and Knopfler’s own “Sultans of Swing” were supposedly in the can as were outtakes like “Tell Me,” “Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart” (an early version of a track that appears on Empire Burlesque), “Lord Protect My Child,” “Death Is Not the End,” and others. While “Death Is Not” wound up on Down in the Groove and “Tell Me,” “Someone’s Got,” and “Lord Protect” were featured on the original Bootleg Series installment, the real mystery involves two stellar songs, “Blind Willie McTell” and “Foot of Pride” (both are also on the first Bootleg release). Why Dylan cut these songs from the original list, added “Union Sundown,” and reduced the song list from the original nine to eight tracks is anybody’s guess. Sources report that he tampered with the songs in order to reduce their predictability. Dylan is quoted as saying that he wanted to avoid the recurring patterns he heard on records like those by the Eagles, so he had his way with these songs in order to disrupt any unwanted rhythms.

“McTell” follows the storytelling strategy of recent love songs; that is, Bob uses his profile as a springboard to worldly complaint. He extols McTell and decries the ways of the world via a majestic piano-guitar soundstage. The five eight-line stanzas open with six lines that paint a picture of some scene before closing with two lines praising McTell. This is surely a tried-and-true songwriting formula within the lifework. The opening verse demonstrates this style:

        Seen the arrow on the doorpost

        Saying, “This land is condemned

        All the way from New Orleans

        To Jerusalem.”

        I traveled through East Texas

        Where many martyrs fell

        And I know no one can sing the blues

        Like Blind Willie McTell

The second, third, and fourth verses concentrate on McTell by recalling him playing under the star-lit night (verse 2), portraying scenes of the slavery that inspired the blues (verse 3), and describing a romantic encounter by a river with a chain gang bellowing in the distance (verse 4). Suddenly, we’re thrust into the present and the narrator’s thoughts of that moment:

        Well, God is in His heaven

        And we all want what’s his

        But power and greed and corruptible seed

        Seem to be all that there is

        I’m gazing out the window

        Of the St. James Hotel

        And I know no one can sing the blues

        Like Blind Willie McTell

McTell sings like the “Covenant Woman” loves—both occur in the face of a decaying world. To the extent that she can pull her lover through the hell of life on earth, McTell’s singing provides a soundtrack for the slow train’s arrival. His vast experiences offer a context for an all-knowing account of the world’s never-ending misery. Sit back, relax, and let Blind Willie chart the ways of abusive power mongers, cheesy greedy exploiters, and their corrupted, contaminated offspring. Willie knows because Willie’s been there, and that fuels his singing. Nobody can sing those blues like him because nobody would want that skill—the price is just too high.

I’ll leave the decision regarding the original Infidels’ superiority to the released version for you to decide. But I will say this: Although I think “Don’t Fall Apart” is a fine capstone statement that argues from a traditional position within the work, I get a chill when I consider the possibility of “Foot of Pride” filling that position. Had “Foot of Pride” occupied that special spot, it would have not only closed Infidels, it would’ve concluded one of the more protracted statements of the Dylan canon. Street-Legal’s declaration of decadence has carried on for quite a while. Although it paused for The Answer that was the Alabama Chronicles, it quickly returned via portions of Shot of Love before rising to dominance in Infidels. Actually, Street-Legal’s rhetoric has carried on longer than any other systematic statement in the lifework. The heaven and hell of love is always present in Bob’s work, that’s for certain. That aside, no other theme achieves the depth and determination of the declaration of decadence. And “Foot of Pride” is one compelling capstone statement for a five-album exploration of the ways of the devil, its manifestations on earth, and their consequences.

As Brother Bob will tell you, pride is a sin. In “Foot of Pride” it rises to a position of dominance. The six eight-line verses with their corresponding three-line choruses of this song offer a series of vignettes that are tied together by their darkness. A steady beat, driving guitar, and punctuating harmonica (appearing briefly after each chorus) provide a powerful backdrop for a song strong enough to challenge the Jokerman to a duel. The opening verse portrays a funeral scene full of unsavory sentiments (lions rip off flesh, women appear as men, preachers talk of betrayal, and aspirations crash) before the chorus declares that you pass the point of no return when you interject your pride.

The second verse tells a cryptic story through vivid imagery. The narrator addresses an unnamed person with a sick-sounding, vengeful brother; rants about the ways of the world; and derides her for her thinking. The third verse is equally enigmatic. There we hear of a retired man’s evil business practices and how they’re complemented by his woman’s seemingly fateful ways. When we get to the fourth and fifth stanzas, this character has worked himself into a frenzy:

        Well they’ll choose a man for you to meet tonight

        You’ll play the fool and learn how to walk through doors

        How to enter into the gates of paradise

        No, how to carry a burden too heavy to be yours

        Yeah, from the stage they’ll be tryin’ to get water outta rocks

        A whore will pass the hat, collect a hundred grand and say thanks

        They like to take all this money from sin, build big universities to study in

        Sing “Amazing Grace” all the way to the Swiss banks

        Well, there ain’t no goin’ back

        When your foot of pride come down

        Ain’t no goin’ back

        They got some beautiful people out there, man

        They can be a terror to your mind and show you how to hold your tongue

        They got mystery written all over their forehead

        They kill babies in the crib and say only the good die young

        They don’t believe in mercy

        Judgment on them is something that you’ll never see

        They can exalt you up or bring you down main route

        Turn you into anything that they want you to be

This is the capstone statement for the canon’s declaration of decadence. False prophets secure real profits by offering a fake path to heaven. They’ll cajole you into subservience through false miracles, use the wicked to take your cash, and build tributes to themselves that further their prideful deceit. “They” are a bad bunch. “They” appear physically attractive and mysterious as they dominate your mind and, therefore, control your life. No, there’s no mercy here. When people kill babies under false pretenses and lead their followers down the broad path of sin, there’s no hope in sight. “They” are the Jokerman. When the song closes with yet another cryptic vignette, it just hammers that final nail into this unsavory coffin.

Infidels is a protest record (and a rocking one at that). It is not, however, some lightweight topical album that panders to some specific cause or organization. Coming out of his spiritual exploration, Dylan knows exactly who the enemy is and he attacks that devil with all he’s got. That the most damning song of all—“Foot of Pride”—was deleted demonstrates Bob’s willingness to pull the reigns back on himself (much like the Blood on the Tracks revisions). Pity. The song captures the Street-Legal manifesto so very, very well. Nevertheless, the young topical writer has evolved through his spiritual maturation into a piercing, fearless op-ed writer.

Just as Bob Dylan told the Mr. Message Man constituency to go to hell, he now attacks the agents of hell on earth. This is not a pretty sight. The Jokerman owns The Church. The devil is in His House. Join hands with your lover, abandon your prideful ways, cooperate with your neighbors, dismiss violence and greed, and buy yourself a sturdy wrap-around bullet-proof vest. Grab a helmet if you can find one. When that man of peace sends his whores out to collect their fees, you’d better follow the Lord’s advice to Abraham. I strongly recommend running.

Well, that’s that. Thank goodness, I don’t think I can stay in this place much longer. The Street-Legal declaration of decadence is a lot to swallow. It keeps you up at night. When Bob changed the guards and discovered it didn’t work, he took the time to find out why. This is some powerful songwriting. We’ve heard Dylan claim that he’s a medium in his songwriting. He picks up signals from somewhere, interprets them, and presents them in his own unique style. Now, he switches frequencies. The Street-Legal era is functionally over. Dylan will issue a rant from time to time, but the concentrated emphasis on the sad state of the world comes to a close with the Infidels project. This was heavy stuff. So much negativity brings a guy down. I think I’ll take a vacation and recoup. Yes, that’s a good idea. Where should I go? I know! I’m off to Las Vegas to see one of my favorite acts: the Bob Dylan Revue.

The Bob Dylan Revue, Revisited

Well, the Nobel laureate has ranted and raved for five albums. After the volcano erupted on “Back Diamond Bay,” the mayhem spread all over the world. The Street-Legal declarations warranted the Alabama Chronicles and the Bob Dylan Crusade, they ran their course, and the author closed that book with Shot of Love’s pantheism. Then he fired one last warning shot across the horizon through Infidels—this time, without any sign of hope. All we can do is grit our teeth and bear the injuries of this life: no answers, no definitions just more “jet black” portraits of pain painted via a devastating Dylan Edge.

Having achieved closure on that dire subject, the lifework now turns to a sustained treatment of loving relations articulated through the dramatic calls and responses of the Bob Dylan Revue. Here we have cover songs in the style of Dylan, love songs that follow formulas introduced on Street-Legal, a grand narrative that recalls those Desire days with Jacques Levy, a protest song that sounds like a party, and a variety of coauthored songs that praise ugly lovers, announce trips to foreign lands, and declare relational subservience. In Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded, and Down in the Groove, we take all of these themes, shake them up, and pour them out through a musical style that deploys a huge cast of famous musicians, Bob Dylan’s unique voice, and the wonderful support of the backing vocalists, the delightful Bobettes. And all of it points in a single direction: the nexus is broken.

While critics often ridicule this segment of the lifework, I find it a welcome reprieve from the fire and brimstone of the end times’ storytelling. Still, this phase of the Pop Icon Period indicates the extent to which Bob was adrift in his search for creative equilibrium. The principal difference in this era involves the absence of that famed Dylan Edge. That Edge may have been a bit too prickly on Infidels, so we may experience a backlash during the Revue-based albums. Nevertheless, these albums sound good, their performances are reasonably sharp, and their songs suit the purpose at hand—a reorientation is underway and these projects are the result of that extended process.

Empire Burlesque (released in June 1985) contains ten tracks (running 46:55), involves Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (and a host of other musicians including guitarists Mick Taylor, Ted Perlman, Ron Wood, Al Kooper, Stu Kimball, Syd McGuiness, and Ira Ingber; drummers Sly Dunbar, Don Heffington, Jim Keltner, Anton Fig, and Bashiri Johnson; bass players Robbie Shakespeare, Bob Glaub, and John Paris; keyboard and synthesizer work by Richard Scher, Alan Clark, and Vince Melamed; and horns by Chops, David Watson, and Urban Bright Horns), the Bobettes (Carol Dennis, Queen Esther Marrow, Peggi Blu, Madelyn Quebec, and Debra Byrd), and was produced by Arthur Baker, Dylan, Petty, and Dave Stewart (depending upon the track in question).

Heylin’s chronology reports that it required nine sessions to complete the thematically diverse project that features six relational complaints (“Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love),” “Seeing the Real You at Last,” “I’ll Remember You,” “Never Gonna Be the Same Again,” “When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky,” and “Something’s Burning, Baby”), a relational celebration (“Emotionally Yours”), two societal complaints (“Clean Cut Kid” and the cryptic “Dark Eyes”), and an Infidels-fueled warning (“Trust Yourself”). The record is an interesting blend of production innovation and superficial lyrics (Paul Williams, Heylin, and Sounes claim it is full of movie dialog and lifted clichés). Our Iron Range ragpicker is surely on the case assembling songs through his time-tested folk process. While “Clean Cut” and “Trust Yourself” have something to say, most of these tunes are vacuous, contemporary pop songs.

We start with this album’s dominant theme and the relational complaints. Empire Burlesque kicks off with the Revue in high gear and the revision of the Infidels outtake “Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart” and “Tight Connection.” With layers of sounds and the Bobettes’ precise vocals plowing the way, the track appears in three segments (each contains a 12-line verse, a four-line stanza, and a five-line repeated chorus). This pop standard complains about a disintegrating relationship that the narrator probably doesn’t want anyway. Here clever lines seem to emerge from thin air; as a result, there’s not much continuity in this story. The opening segment conveys this style as well as any:

        Well, I had to move fast

        And I couldn’t with you around my neck.

        I said I’d send for you and I did

        What did you expect?

        My hands are sweating

        And we haven’t even started yet.

        I’ll go along with the charade

        Until I can think my way out.

        I know it was all a big joke

        Whatever it was about.

        Someday maybe

        I’ll remember to forget.

        I’m gonna get my coat,

        I feel the breath of a storm.

        There’s something I’ve got to do tonight,

        You go inside and stay warm.

        Has anybody seen my love,

        Has anybody seen my love,

        Has anybody seen my love,

        I don’t know,

        Has anybody seen my love?

As you can see, the hint of complaint exists, but it sort of hovers over the song. The narrator thinks the relationship was a game or a joke that he looks forward to forgetting. It’s just a cloudy story full of big-assed platitudes. For instance, the four-line verse raises a scene that is never developed in any way. That’s how this song works—in fragments.

The track continues with the couple attempting to talk things over before everything drifts off into a dream-like recollection about a visit with “Madame Butterfly.” The song concludes with more fragmented images of blues singers singing about Memphis in the summertime, guys in blue wigs, and a faint final complaint. Both in its sound and content, this is one vacuous pop song. But, hey, that’s OK. At least there’s no sign of the slow train or the devil.

The vacuity dissipates with the second song and “Seeing the Real You.” Here the narrator has a real go at his soon-to-be-ex-lover. The song is relentless across its 10 four-line verses that are divided into five segments with a ghost chorus punctuating the respective parts. Moreover, the Revue rocks on this song with layers of horns, guitar, and backing vocals coloring the story. Yes, this is a big time pop platform for a tune that conveys that the relational tide has turned, the narrator’s finally seen the truth, and he’s angrily coping with the results.

The first segment features the narrator’s hope for a relational recovery, and his subsequent realization that that’s just not going to happen. It’s over. Now let’s complain about it. The second segment reviews the chances he took for the relationship, and once more, celebrates the truth’s arrival on that deteriorating scene. The song’s third segment indicates why he’s so relieved by this relational revelation:

        I’m hungry and I’m irritable

        And I’m tired of this bag of tricks.

        At one time there was nothing wrong with me

        That you could not fix.

        Well, I sailed through the storm

        Strapped to the mast,

        But the time has come

        And I’m seeing the real you at last.

I guess that’s love for you; struggling through wicked weather, trapped. Still, he had high hopes and he would have accepted some difficulty, but that didn’t happen. This was just too much. This character admits his problems, suggests she’s got some as well, and urges her to do what she needs to do—quickly. He’s ready to move on, plain and simple.

Not all relationships end in such acrimony, and “I’ll Remember You” and “Never Gonna Be the Same Again” communicate remorse rather than righteous indignation. In “I’ll Remember” the Revue performs a sincere love song with the light vocal accompaniment (featuring Quebec) complementing the soft, piano-driven music as the number moves through its three 10- to 11-line verses and ghost chorus (with a four-line bridge). This is a classic pop song. Clear, straightforward language chronicles the narrator’s nostalgia for a lost love. Of all the lovers he’s ever known, when he’s all alone pondering his life, he’ll think of her (verse 1). He reiterates that feeling in the second stanza and the bridge:

        I’ll remember you

        At the end of the trail,

        I had so much left to do,

        I had so little time to fail.

        There’s some people that

        You don’t forget,

        Even though you’ve only seen’m

        One time or two.

        When the roses fade

        And I’m in the shade,

        I’ll remember you.

        Didn’t I, didn’t I try to love you?

        Didn’t I, didn’t I try to care?

        Didn’t I sleep, didn’t I weep beside you

        With the rain blowing in your hair?

(Jacques Levy would love those internal rhymes.) Yes—as the final stanza repeats yet again—she’s the one that got away. In his sunset years, he’ll still be pining for this wonderful lady who knew him well. But he failed her, and now all he has are his memories of his now-departed friend. Lyrically, sonically, and emotionally, this song communicates that deep sense of loss that accompanies losing a lover who was also your friend. Our emotional anthropologist is on top of his game with “I’ll Remember You.”

These emotional portrayals continue in the second installment of this theme: “Never Gonna Be the Same Again.” With two synthesizers participating in the layers and layers of sound (complete with the Bobettes weaving their magic), this three-verse pop song (with a four-line bridge) also uses that telltale last line to drive home the song’s message. “Never Gonna” is a simple, sad song of remorse presented in a musically dense fashion. The narrator states his case and the Bobettes echo those sentiments as only they can. The opening verse celebrates her wonders and quickly crashes over her departure. The second stanza and bridge provide the sad details:

        Sorry if I hurt you, baby,

        Sorry if I did.

        Sorry if I touched the place

        Where your secrets are hid.

        But you meant more than everything,

        And I could not pretend,

        I ain’t never gonna be the same again.

        You give me something to think about, baby,

        Every time I see ya.

        Don’t worry, baby, I don’t mind leaving,

        I’d just like it to be my idea.

Amid all of the remorse and regret, the narrator coyly comments that he doesn’t mind the break-up; he just resents being the victim. Dylan surely turned that around. We may presume that if he were the one doing the deed, he’d be just fine. But he didn’t and he’s not. The song closes with this character’s continuing lament. She did it all for him and now she’s gone. You can’t undo what’s already done, so he has to accept the fact that she changed his life, she’s gone, and he’ll have to face the consequences.

In our final installments of the relational complaint thematic, the Revue tries on a couple of interesting musical hats for these portrayals of romantic angst. With “Something’s Burning,” it deploys a martial beat to lead a simple instrumental pattern that facilitates a march through this track’s nine four-line verses. At times cryptic, at time pedestrian, this song tells another account of love-on-the-wane. It opens by communicating the narrator’s uncertainty regarding the relationship. Does she still love him? Why does she seem to be pulling away? He’s confused. The third and fourth stanzas relate his uncertainty and corresponding suspicions:

        I know everything about this place, or so it seems

        Am I no longer a part of your plans or your dreams?

        Well, it is so obvious that something has changed

        What’s happening, baby, to make you act so strange?

        Something is burning, baby, here’s what I say

        Even the bloodhounds of London couldn’t find you today

        I see the shadow of a man, baby, makin’ you blue

        Who is he, baby, and what’s he to you?

The song churns on from there. The narrator just doesn’t know what she’s thinking, but he smells the smoke of love aflame, and he’s growing increasingly suspicious. He senses the relationship’s decline in the night and in the wind. When the song ends he seems willing to give the relationship another try, but whatever’s on fire needs to be handled. The martial beat adds an interesting dimension to this story. It’s almost as if a clock is ticking as the time winds down on the relationship.

From the distinctive sonority of “Something’s Burning,” we turn to another highly recognizable beat for our final song of relational complaint, “When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky.” I guess it just had to happen. The Bob Dylan Revue goes disco for the 10 verses of a song that unfolds in five two-verse segments punctuated by the title in the ghost chorus. Arthur Baker does his thing here. The song is a straightforward relational complaint that dances to the sounds of That Day. Synthesizers abound in this highly layered production. It’s really sort of amazing: Bob Dylan goes disco.

Here the narrator relishes his lover’s pain. This guy is through with this woman and it’ll be a cold day in the Jokerman’s lair before he even thinks about rekindling this relationship. In the opening scene she’s burning his letters in the fireplace, but it doesn’t matter to this character. She toys with her fate and it’ll catch up to her one day (segment two). He complains about those around him as well as her cheating ways in the third segment. And he goes for the jugular in the fourth segment:

        In your teardrops, I can see my own reflection,

        It was on the northern border of Texas where I crossed the line.

        I don’t want to be a fool starving for affection,

        I don’t want to drown in someone else’s wine.

        For all eternity I think I will remember

        That icy wind that’s howling in your eye.

        You will seek me and you’ll find me

        In the wasteland of your mind

        When the night comes falling from the sky.

They’re biting, but what great lines: seeing your image in another person’s tears, imagining drowning in another’s pleasures, existing in the barren expanses of someone’s mind. After yet another swipe at his new ex-lover, the song closes with the narrator’s declaration of independence. What a song. In many ways, it’s as if “Like a Rolling Stone” turned disco. I guess it’s nice to know that mean-spirited relational complaints know no musical boundaries: Bob Dylan’s disco song—amazing.

This is a thorough tour of the relational world gone wrong. These songs take us everywhere—everywhere except for a ride on the slow train or a visit with the Jokerman. Couples drift through surreal, fragmented dreams (“Tight Connection”), remove one another’s masks (“Seeing the Real”), take joy in the other’s sorry state and ultimate demise (“When the Night”), cope with relational quandaries and their corresponding suspicions (“Something’s Burning”), and wallow in nostalgic pain (“I’ll Remember” and “Never Gonna”). And they do all this from different musical points of view. Las Vegas show tunes, disco beats, torch standards, martial sounds, and rock songs carry these tales of relational decline. Throughout, the Revue performs with impeccable taste. The Bobettes add the right touches at the right times; demonstrating that they’ve come a long way since Street-Legal’s overuse of their considerable skills. Although this sonic sampler drifts in its own space, it packs its own punch as our emotional anthropologist plies his trade in a host of musical contexts.

Still, that Infidels rhetoric surely manifests in the two societal complaints (“Clean Cut Kid” and “Dark Eyes”) and Dylan’s forceful warning, “Trust Yourself.” We begin with Empire Burlesque’s capstone song, “Dark Eyes.” There is nothing on this record like “Dark Eyes” and that inspires some curiosity. It features Dylan, unaccompanied, with his harmonica and guitar. The song’s four four-line verses unfold with brief harmonica interludes between verses, but without choruses or bridges. A lone voice conveys cryptic images of life with one recurring trait: everywhere he sees “Dark Eyes.”

First, the narrator describes the world in which he lives with its extreme conditions, metaphoric jewelry, and cloudy recollections (a fuzzy scene involving men talking, drinking, and walking under the late-night moon by the river). The second stanza is even more cryptic: a chicken crows, a soldier prays, a mother searches for her lost son, and the narrator stares at those ever-present set of eyes while images of the end times float around him. Let’s examine the final verses of this intriguing capstone statement:

        They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes,

        They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I’m sure it is.

        But I feel nothing for their game where beauty goes unrecognized,

        All I feel is heat and flame and all I see are dark eyes.

        Oh, the French girl, she’s in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel,

        Hunger pays a heavy price to the falling gods of speed and steel.

        Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies,

        A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.

With lines reminiscent of “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” or “Chimes of Freedom,” Bob roams through those historic back pages. Each line could be the starting point for another song. The first two lines of the final stanza tie together, but the other lines seem to operate on their own plane. Through it all, the aroma of societal complaint fills the air. “They” tell the narrator things and he doesn’t seem to care for them. The reference to a life full of fire sounds pretty bleak. Whatever’s going on with the French girl and her intoxicated driver is unclear, yet it doesn’t seem too good to me.

With all of these straightforward pop songs populating this project, this capstone commentary is a bit abrupt. The stark presentation and the cryptic writing are genuine blasts from Bob’s past. The song demonstrates that that aspect of Dylan’s pen is alive and well. That Dylan Edge is in evidence here, although the expression seems out of place on the album that contains Bob’s first disco track. Alas, such is the nature of the Pop Icon Period. (Chronicles reports that Arthur Baker requested an acoustic song to close this album and Bob responded with this take on a young lady he passed in a hotel corridor.)

Further proof that the patented Dylan Edge is alive and well and heading for a vacation exists in the powerful story of “Clean Cut Kid.” Existing on the other end of the sonic spectrum from “Dark Eyes,” this song deploys the big sound in this chorus-driven message. Throughout the track, a three-line chorus surrounds a series of serious two-line statements that seem to be trivialized by the musical bombast. Layers of horns, slashing guitars, bouncy piano, and the Bobettes insistent doo-wop backing vocals work to bury the song’s biting sentiments. After listening to this track, you find yourself wondering what the Revue could do with “Hollis Brown.” I mean, this story is every bit as sad. It charts how “they” (clearly, the U.S. government/military) took an all-American boy, toyed with his mind, converted him into a killing machine, used him, and then just dumped him back into the world. So, he reenters society, does off-the-wall things, and eventually kills himself leaving everyone in dismay. Consider the opening verse and chorus:

        Everybody wants to know why he couldn’t adjust

        Adjust to what, a dream that bust?

        He was a clean-cut kid

        But they made a killer out of him,

        That’s what they did

After “they” transformed this church-going Boy Scout into a killer and abandoned him once they had their way with him, the song describes his new condition:

        He bought the American dream but it put him in debt

        The only game he could play was Russian roulette

When this clean-cut victim wasn’t playing with firearms he entertained himself by stealing a Rolls Royce and driving it into a Hollywood swimming pool. Eventually, this clean-cut guy makes his break:

        He was wearing boxing gloves, took a dive one day

        Off the Golden Gate Bridge into China Bay

The story ends with everyone wondering what happened. He could have had a great life. He prepared himself for a virtuous existence with unlimited potential. Yet, he was literally abducted by his government, transformed into something that could not be undone, and left to his own devices once his service was completed. Instead of working a steady job, he wound up wandering around. Instead of singing in the church choir, he wound up killing himself.

“Clean Cut Kid” is a heavy story. What contemporary war does to its soldiers is not just hideous, it’s fundamentally irresponsible for a government to place people in such a situation and then abandon them. This song is also strange. It’s almost as if the Revue is mocking this awful story. There’s a “ho-hum, here’s another tragedy” feel to this number and, I must say, it’s disturbing. The song parties while the story cries. Its cynicism betrays its dark observations.

Nevertheless, when you think about that clean-cut, all-American kid and how he was victimized by a ruthless government and its masters of war, you learn a quick lesson. In fact, Dylan articulates that stance in “Clean Cut Kid” when he reports: “Well, everybody’s asking why he couldn’t adjust / All he ever wanted was somebody to trust.” Yes, this is the crux of this matter. The kid entered an honorable profession, trusted his superiors, and they betrayed that trust. As a result, the boy had serious trust issues—feelings that could only be resolved by his own ultimate solution. The Bob Dylan Revue discusses this matter fully via Empire Burlesque’s song of warning, “Trust Yourself.”

Here the Revue travels to Memphis as it uses that famed Bluff City sound (i.e., heavy backbeat, soulful keyboards, and light gospel-fueled backing vocals) throughout this song’s three seven-line verses and four-line bridge. Indeed, this is a funky piece of Memphis soul with a direct message that is conveyed through the song’s title. Don’t trust the narrator—or anybody else for that matter—to demonstrate beauty, truth, and love (verses 1 through 3, respectively), rely on yourself. If you don’t, this song declares, you may as well prepare yourself to visit a bridge near you. This song’s closing portion fully represents this simple but wise message:

        Well, you’re on your own, you always were,

        In a land of wolves and thieves.

        Don’t put your hope in ungodly man

        Or be a slave to what somebody else believes.

        Trust yourself

        And you won’t be disappointed when vain people let you down.

        Trust yourself

        And look not for answers where no answers can be found.

        Don’t trust me to show you love

        When my love may be only lust.

        If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself.

After all of those Street-Legal declarations, we arrive at this straightforward statement. After the clean-cut victim jumped to his death and provided a concrete example of this song’s point, we consider this conclusion. After all of the relational turmoil and false shelters from threatening relational storms, we end up here. This is The Answer: Don’t trust the external world, trust the internal one (did Bob just stand Renaldo & Clara on its head?). Don’t trust that reflection in that mirror; trust what no one can see: your soul. Unlike “Clean Cut,” this song’s musical support reinforces its simple but systematic statement. How appropriate that this message would be buried among a wall of pop songs. This is that Dylan Edge. “Clean Cut” may dance around its point in an evasive or careless way, but this song drives home a compelling Confucian truth in a consistent, forceful manner. With this editorial that Dylan Edge now goes on extended vacation.

Our last Empire Burlesque song is the album’s lone account of relational bliss, “Emotionally Yours.” Through all of the romantic and societal complaint that ultimately leads to the “Trust Yourself” editorial, we have our song of celebration. The electronic toy box is reopened here as the Revue uses synthesizer-based horns and layers of sound to present this dreamy 1980s-style pop song. In this three-verse song (with a four-line bridge) the narrator concentrates on a single task: unadulterated praise for his wonderful woman. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, he belongs to her. His love is complete. His dedication is genuine. The bridge and closing verse convey the sentiment well:

        It’s like my whole life never happened,

        When I see you, it’s as if I never had a thought.

        I know this dream, it might be crazy,

        But it’s the only one I’ve got.

        Come baby, shake me, come baby, take me, I would be satisfied.

        Come baby, hold me, come baby, help me, my arms are open wide.

        I could be unraveling wherever I’m traveling, even to foreign shores.

        But I will always be emotionally yours.

(Somewhere Jacques Levy is smiling.) Pop songs aren’t supposed to say that much and this track is true to form. It simply, and sufficiently, communicates its message. The synth horns are a signature moment on this record. A drum machine must be waiting just around the musical corner. I miss the 1980s.

Empire Burlesque is a pop record. “Clean Cut” may identify what the government does to the young people that they transform into killers, but its pop veneer camouflages the attack. “Dark Eyes” may revisit songwriting strategies from days gone by, but that visit is a quick one. “Trust Yourself” may provide a resolution to situations posed throughout the lifework, but it, too, uses a slick sonic strategy to support that point. The rest of this project concentrates on a series of pop songs. As Burlesque massages its love theme from diverse angles—the attack of “Seeing the Real You,” the remorse of “I’ll Remember” and “Never Gonna Be,” the dedication of “Emotionally Yours,” the uncertainty of “Something’s Burning,” and the cavalier attitude of “Tight Connection”—it also deploys different sounds to support those accounts. The writing may be uneven. The sounds may be distracting from time to time. However, the record not only works in its own way, it clearly demonstrates the emotional breadth of Bob’s pen. To be sure, we’re transitioning from Infidels into musical domains that were previewed in Self Portrait and Dylan. The Bob Dylan Revue is just getting warmed up.

The Revue cranks out two albums with similar musical features during the second half of the 1980s. Both projects rely heavily on cover songs and the layered method of production we’ve just witnessed on Burlesque. Both projects offer no sign of that Dylan Edge as they explore various portions of the “great American song tradition.” Bob’s creative nexus is surely struggling, and as always, he’s looking to American Song for help.

Produced by Dylan (there are no producer credits on either Knocked Out Loaded or Down in the Groove), these records offer another sonic sampler (Loaded) and a fun-filled trip to 1950s-style rock and roll (Groove) as the original material focuses on relational matters once more. For many, these were perplexing projects. Articles questioning Dylan’s creative direction were in the mainstream. In fact, Heylin’s session chronology concludes that Groove joined the lackluster Loaded to confirm “in many an ex-fan’s mind that the man had nothing left to say.” Let’s examine the specifics and evaluate that claim.

Knocked Out Loaded (released in August 1986) contains a blend of covers, coauthored, and original material. As is the Pop Icon Period’s norm, the album features a host of musicians including: T-Bone Burnett, Jack Sherman, Ron Wood, Mike Campbell, Ira Ingber, Tom Petty, and Dave Stewart (guitars); James Jamerson, Vito San Filippo, John Paris, Howie Epstein, Carl Sealove, and John McKenzie (bass); Al Kooper, Benmont Tench, Vince Melamed, and Patrick Seymour (keyboards); Raymond Lee Pounds, Anton Fig, Don Heffington, Stan Lynch, and Clem Burke (drums); Steve Douglas and Steve Madaio (horns); backing vocalists Carolyn Dennis, Madelyn Quebec, Muffy Hendrix, Elisecia Wright, Peggi Blu, Queen Esther Marrow, and Annette May Thomas; and on one track (“They Killed Him”), The Children’s Choir (there are other assorted musicians appearing on different tracks as well). Obviously, there is no standard strategy controlling this album with such a diverse cast of musicians present.

The record contains eight tracks (running over 35 minutes) with five originals (three coauthored: “Brownsville Girl” with Sam Shepard, “Got My Mind Made Up” with Tom Petty, and “Under Your Spell” with Carole Bayer Sager as well as Dylan’s “Driftin’ Too Far from Shore” and “Maybe Someday”), one traditional (“Precious Memories”), and two covers (Parker’s “You Wanna Ramble” and Kristofferson’s “They Killed Him”). The blend of music directly contributes to the album’s pacing. Actually, Loaded’s sounds are quite restless. The album features (in order) a 1950s rocker, a hymn, a disco track, reggae, a pop tune, a theatrical ballad (with a gospel chorus), a Tom Petty–style 1980s rocker, and a touch of blue-eyed soul. The album rivals New Morning’s musical diversity.

The covers feature something old, something recent, and something traditional with a twist. The Link Wray–style guitars and the Bobettes wonderful backing vocals take us straight into the 1950s with “You Wanna Ramble.” The song previews the sounds of Groove, and later, Under the Red Sky, as it hops along to the Sun Records musical formula. We change planets with the following track and “They Killed Him.” Here we move from Sun Studios down to the Reverend Al Green’s Memphis church as the sanctified Bobettes are joined by the Children’s Choir to tell the tale of fallen spiritual leaders Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jesus Christ. To the extent that “Ramble” is true to its musical formula, so is “They Killed Him.” It does, however, seem out of place.

The revised “Precious Memories” does not suffer that trait. The Revue takes a trip to the Islands with this reggae version of a timeless hymn. The treatment is respectful and demonstrates how that joyful Jamaican rhythm enlivens virtually anything it embraces. What a diverse series of covers! You sense the presence of that famed Basement Strategy as Dylan uses a host of sounds to unpack these three songs. To some, he’s lost and feeling his way through his own musical maze. To others, he’s rollicking in his musical playpen with his friends. To me, Dylan’s having it both ways while he mines the “great American song tradition” as only an Iron Ranger could.

The relational complaints offer a fine thematic sampler as they explore a lover who is straying (“Driftin’ Too Far”), hold out doubtful hope for the future (“Maybe Someday”), wax nostalgic for a lost love (“Brownsville”), bid adios (“Got My Mind”), and pine for an absent lover (“Under Your Spell”). We open on the dance floor.

The Revue weaves its magic in a rock/pop/disco format as it tells the tale of a relationship on the wane through the eight four-line verses and repetitive choruses of “Driftin’ Too Far from Shore.” With Bob on the synthesizer (that’s right!) and the Bobettes aflame, this track repeats over and over that the narrator’s love interest is floating away—even though I gain the impression that she’s being pushed as much as anything. This narrator is mean-spirited, as the third and fourth stanzas relate:

        I ain’t gonna get lost in this current,

        I don’t like playing cat and mouse.

        No gentleman likes making love to a servant.

        Especially when he’s in his father’s house.

        I never could guess your weight, baby,

        Never needed to call you my whore.

        I always thought you were straight, baby,

        But you’re driftin’ too far from shore.

That’s the way this complaint works: aggressively. In the opening section, the narrator offers the usual suspicions of infidelity and the typical complaints regarding money. There he claims he reached out for her but she’s, of course, drifting away. The above verses demonstrate how the scene heats up and that tone carries throughout the rest of the tune. At times, he’s curious. At others, he’s damning. In all cases, it’s over. Once you rip the telephones out of the wall and characterize the situation as a war, well, it’s time to move on—and that is exactly what this character declares.

The Relational World continues to turn via the five eight-line verses of “Maybe Someday.” Here the Revue relies on the classic sounds of 1980s’ rock to convey another complaint; this time, with a touch of nostalgia added to the mix. The song opens with an attack as the narrator maintains that maybe after she’s lost everything and hit rock bottom, she’ll realize what she had. Oh yes, someday she’ll be sorry, as the second stanza relates:

        Maybe someday you’ll have nowhere to turn,

        You’ll look back and wonder ’bout the bridges you have burned.

        You’ll look back sometime when the lights grow dim

        And you’ll see you look much better with me than you do with him.

        Through hostile cities and unfriendly towns,

        Thirty pieces of silver, no money down.

        Maybe someday, you will understand

        That something for nothing is everybody’s plan.

Anybody sense a hint of betrayal in the air? For a famous amount of money, another relationship bites the dust. That Dylan Edge may be on vacation, but the occasional postcard reminds us of its power. The track continues with more of the same. Maybe his attitude was a problem. Maybe he should have fought harder for the relationship. Nevertheless, she’ll be sorry—of that, this character is certain. The final stanza demonstrates the strength of the narrator’s convictions on this matter:

        Maybe someday there’ll be nothing to tell.

        I’m just as happy as you, baby, I just can’t say it so well.

        Never slumbered or slept or waited for lightning to strike.

        There’s no excuse for you to say that we don’t think alike.

        You said you were going to ’Frisco, stay a couple of months.

        I always liked San Francisco, I was there for a party once.

        Maybe someday you’ll see that it’s true

        There was no greater love than what I had for you.

The narrator is convinced that she’ll never do better than she did with him, and that inspires his flippant attitude toward her departure. His belief that she’ll regret her decision is so thorough that you get the impression that he’s trying to convince himself that this is the case. Having said that, notice the difference in the two verses I’ve selected. One bites while the other moans. Such is the nature of the Pop Icon Period’s songwriting.

Well, let’s see, the Revue has hit the dance floor and visited the rock sounds of the times, so what’s next? How else might Dylan express the anxieties of love? I know. How about a Broadway production! And that is exactly what we get with the first of our coauthored pieces, the eleven minutes of “Brownsville Girl.” This epic account of relational nostalgia takes us back to the Jacques Levy era with its detailed, systematic narratives. I suppose we may conclude that when Bob Dylan works with stage writers like Levy and Sam Shepard, we get this type of story. Through 17 four-line verses and irregularly placed standard four-line choruses, the Bobettes, the horns, and more big sounds send this track to a unique place in the lifework. We open with the narrator’s recollections of an inspirational Gregory Peck movie (verses 1 and 2). Suddenly, the story shifts to the heart of the song and the narrator’s nostalgia over a relationship. In the third verse, he expresses his feelings for his lost love:

        Well, I keep seeing this stuff and it just comes a-rolling in

        And you know it blows right through me like a ball and chain.

        You know I can’t believe we’ve lived so long and are still so far apart.

        The memory of you keeps callin’ after me like a rollin’ train.

(Have you ever had a ball and chain blow through you?) He thinks back to their last meeting (verse 4) and their trip to San Antonio where she left him (verse 5). Again, suddenly, we leap to another time and another trip with another woman (verse 6), pause for a chorus break, and the traveling couple arrives at an old friend’s home in Amarillo where times are hard (verses 7, 8, and 9). “Ruby” informs the road couple that their friend—one “Henry Porter”—is away, and she welcomes them to the “land of the living dead.” They visit. Our attention-deficit-controlled narrator once more returns to the Peck film (verse 10) before the chaotic chorus just pops up once more (it merely repeats the song’s title and describes her curly hair and beautiful teeth).

The plot thickens at this point. In the eleventh verse, we learn that our narrator is a wanted man and that his ex-lover testified (and lied) on his behalf (verse 12). He ponders his lot and longs for his Brownsville baby (verse 13). Predictably, this takes him back to Gregory Peck—this time, he’s waiting to see a new movie starring his hero (verse 14). This man has been deeply affected by Peck’s work. Personally, I don’t think it’s very healthy, but then, what do I know? After another chorus and a fine saxophone break, our narrator thinks about his old girlfriend some more; remembering that Henry Porter wasn’t Henry Porter at all and thinking about New Orleans (verse 15). In the 16th stanza, he nostalgically remembers the wisdom of her ways:

        Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than people who are most content.

        I don’t have any regrets, they can talk about me plenty when I’m gone.

        You always said people don’t do what they believe in, they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent.

        And I always said, “Hang on to me, baby, and let’s hope that the roof stays on.”

(The Bobettes do some crazy stuff in this song—moaning and groaning and carrying on.) Would you like to guess what happens next? Good job. Yes, the song concludes with another reference to our gun-carrying hero, Gregory Peck, and one last blast from the chorus. The story ends exactly where it began.

What a weird song. It floats here and there, cuts away to the Gregory Peck references, and anchors itself in relational nostalgia. What happened on the road trip with the new girlfriend? It’s a mystery. Who are Henry Porter and Ruth? It’s a mystery. Whatever happened to the Brownsville Madonna? It’s a mystery. Something tells me that Porter was really the Jack of Hearts and that Ruth was a character from “Highway 61 Revisited.” But maybe that’s just a silly guess. Sometimes a storyteller just tells a story for the sake of telling a story, and perhaps this is a case in point. Or not.

Knocked Out Loaded concludes with two more coauthored pieces that also address relational matters. In “Got My Mind Made Up” Bob is joined by Tom Petty (the coauthor) and the Heartbreakers for a song that sounds exactly like a Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s song with a guest appearance by the Bobettes. In life, some people insist on standing by their convictions, and that’s the story in this Petty-fueled 1980s pop/rock song. Throughout this track, the Bobettes display their impeccable timing and the narrator demonstrates the strength of his convictions as the song rolls onward. The opening verses essentially tell this tale:

        Don’t ever try to change me,

        I been in this thing too long.

        There’s nothin’ you can say or do

        To make me think I’m wrong.

        Well, I’m goin’ off to Libya,

        There’s a guy I gotta see.

        He’s been living there three years now,

        In an oil refinery.

        I’ve got my mind made up.

        Oh, I’ve got my mind made up.

For the life of me, I swear that this is the first song I’ve ever experienced in which a character is abandoning a lover for a trip to Libya. But then again, maybe I should get out more. He may be off to Libya, but he departs in a responsible manner. The narrator urges his woman to call her mother to reassure her that everything will work out well, he repeats his commitment to her, reassures her as well, mentions some mysterious person who will seemingly protect her, and repeats his convictions over and over. He’s gone. Sorry! If she can’t handle it, well, that’s her problem. From movies starring Gregory Peck to trips to Libya, what could possibly be next?

To the extent that the narrator in “Brownsville” was dedicated to Peck and the narrator in “Got My Mind” was committed to his travel plans, the central character in “Under Your Spell” is hooked on her. Coauthored with Carole Bayer Sager, this soft, slightly soulful (thanks ladies!) pop song unfolds via seven three-line verses and a four-line bridge. It is a straightforward account of a man who is under a woman’s thumb and his efforts to cope with her absence. He’s hurting (verse 1). He recalls that fateful night when he was “knocked out and loaded” and she rescued him (verse 2’s shades of “Shelter from the Storm”). She sounds perfect. She knows him well, comforts him, and he longs for her wonderful ways. He’s away for some reason—seemingly in trouble—but he promises to return. Really, he has to go back, and the fourth verse and bridge explain why:

        Well it’s four in the morning by the sound of the birds,

        I’m starin’ at your picture, I’m hearin’ your words.

        Baby, they ring in my head like a bell.

        Everywhere you go it’s enough to break hearts

        Someone always gets hurt, a fire always starts.

        You were too hot to handle, you were breaking every vow.

        I trusted you, baby, you can trust me now.

Her difficulty was apparently inspirational. Whatever she did remains a mystery, nevertheless, there’s no doubt about his conviction. The fifth verse seems to suggest he made his way back to her, but he has to leave again. He asks her to pray for him on his journey, and we’re left to contemplate the sadness. Throughout this story, the Bobettes set the emotional tone in their own marvelous way—they define this song. Love can be so sad; so close and yet so far.

So what’s wrong with a 36-minute pop record that deploys a specific approach to different musical genres? Dylan and the Bobettes (the approach) tackle a host of sounds (reggae, show tunes, Tom Petty sounds, etc.) through a variety of new and old songs. The project sounds great. The songs have integrity. The method is consistent. So what’s the problem?

This is the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. This is Bob Dylan.

For anybody other than the laureate, this might be just fine. However, things get more than a little weird on this record. For instance, “Brownsville” is way over the top. This isn’t “Hurricane,” “Durango,” or “Black Diamond Bay.” “Brownsville” has no soul. Despite the Bobettes earnest efforts, this track offers 11 lifeless minutes of verbiage. We have the occasional strong line, but that’s not enough to salvage this wayward Broadway production.

Then we drift into the world of anti-Dylan. The Petty sound–Libya story is one odd combination. The Sager installment has its cute, funky rhyme schemes, but they chug along in a hapless manner (Bobettes aside). As such, the songs transcend vacuity, and in turn, support Dylan’s Chronicles commentary. His creative nexus is broken. Nevertheless, this patient is still breathing. Lines from “Driftin’ Too Far” and “Maybe Someday” demonstrate that Dylan hasn’t totally succumbed to his predicament. This is, indeed, a strange time. There is a sense of malaise present, and it’s going to get worse before it passes.

This musical trend advances with 1988’s Down in the Groove (also produced by Dylan)—a 10-track (running 32 minutes) piece with six covers, two coauthored numbers (with Robert Hunter, the portrait “Silvio” and the relational celebration, “Ugliest Girl in the World”), and two originals: the celebratory “Death Is Not the End” and “Had a Dream about You, Baby.” Although the inclusion of classics such as “Shenandoah” and “Rank Strangers to Me” (along with other covers such as: Wilbert Harrison’s “Let’s Stick Together,” Bullock and Whiting’s “When Did You Leave Heaven,” Alexander, Montgomery, and Stafford’s “Sally Sue Brown,” and Blair and Robertson’s “Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street)”) suggests the invocation of the Basement Strategy, the original compositions appear uninspired. One exception, “Death Is Not” sounds as though it were a Saved outtake (it is, in fact, an Infidels outtake) and demonstrates the Moral Period’s lasting impact on Bob’s pen—an attribute that controls this album as much as any other. That is, the slow, respectful, gospel sound of “Death” joins the covers (e.g., “When Did You,” “Shenandoah,” and “Rank Strangers”) to provide a striking contrast to the rocking frolics of the other tracks.

Thematically, the relational celebrations and portrait are, in a phrase, too sketchy to be meaningful. Still, their presence stands in contrast to the previous albums’ concentrated use of the relational complaint theme. Hunter’s influence is evident in the humor that makes “Ugliest Girl” and “Silvio” fun songs with their “you may bark at the moon, but you’re mine” and “I’m the Man” story lines (although “Silvio” has its thoughtful moments). Once more, Dylan recast the record after test pressings appeared. Songs that appeared on the Hearts of Fire soundtrack and other cover songs were added, deleted, and the song list continually changed until, somehow or another, Dylan reached closure. There is, however, a decided emphasis on 1950s-era sounds—an act that, once more, foreshadowed future events.

Here again each song has its own musical cast. The project features: Danny Kortchmar, Steve Jones, Mark Knopfler, and Eric Clapton (guitars); Randy Jackson, Paul Simonon, Robbie Shakespeare, Ron Wood, Kip Winger, Nathan East, and Larry Klein (bass); Steve Jordan, Stephen Shelton, Myron Grambacher, Sly Dunbar, Henry Spinetti, and Mike Baird (drums); Kevin Savigar, Alan Clarke, Beau Hill, Mitchell Froom, Stephen Shelton, and Bobette Madelyn Quebec (keyboards); a group called Full Force, Bobby King, Willie Green, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Brent Mydland on backing vocals; and the Bobettes: Quebec, Clydie King, Carolyn Dennis, Peggi Blu, and Alexandra Brown. We have quite a mix here, and that sonic strategy contributes to the record’s uneven qualities in a direct manner.

The six cover songs provide the bookends for Groove. The album opens with a rocking “Let’s Stick,” moves into the dramatic, somber “When Did You Leave” (making this the second consecutive album to open with a rocker and follow with a hymn), and continues with another rocker “Sally Sue.” The 1950s rock and roll attitude is evident in the first and third tracks, that’s for sure. The album closes with another triple-cover sequence by way of “Ninety Miles,” “Shenandoah,” and “Rank Strangers.” These songs are much slower than the opening tunes and, therefore, wind the album down in a more theatrical manner. The gospel-tinged sounds of adulterers on the run of “Ninety Miles” sets up the harmonica-drenched, respectful treatment of the traditional “Shenandoah” (the big backing vocals make this track quite the production), which leads to the capstone cover, “Rank Strangers to Me” (once more, treated very respectfully). Whether we have evidence of the Basement Strategy or the Self Portrait approach in action here is open for debate. By and large, the biographers conclude that the latter is the guiding philosophy of this day. Dylan’s Chronicles commentary suggests to me that we are actually somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. The nexus is really broken.

The four original compositions on Groove share an interesting twist: they’re all celebrations of one sort or another. “Death Is Not the End” uses its four six-line verses (with a four-line bridge) and slow, solemn instrumental style (with fantastic harmonica) to return to the Alabama Chronicles by issuing a message of hope. No matter what you encounter in this life, the afterlife holds promise for the sanctified—and that is a cause for respectful celebration. The opening verse relates that when you’re lonely and your ideals seem forgotten, the afterlife will relieve your misery. Next, we’re reminded that when you’re at life’s turning points and it all seems hopeless, something better is awaiting you. The third verse and bridge are telltale:

        When the storm clouds gather ’round you, and heavy rains descend

        Just remember that death is not the end

        And there’s no one there to comfort you, with a helpin’ hand to lend

        Just remember that death is not the end

        Not the end, not the end

        Just remember that death is not the end

        Oh, the tree of life is growing

        Where the spirit never dies

        And the bright light of salvation shines

        In dark and empty skies

No matter how rough things may become, that shining light of redemption casts a heavenly glow onto the darkness. The message is clear: be patient, your reward is awaiting you. The hymn closes with scenes of the end times—the world is ablaze and evil abounds—but no worries for the washed, death is not the end. I find it utterly fascinating that this is an Infidels outtake. This song would have surely stood out among the darkness that enveloped that record. From this, we may conclude that Dylan did have an answer to all of that declaration of decadence rhetoric and decided not to invoke it.

The slashing guitars and big backbeat of “Had a Dream about You, Baby” take us rocking into our first relational celebration. The song unfolds through a series of five two-line verses that are punctuated with a series of standard three-line choruses and a repeated seven-line bridge. As a result, the track is driven by a chorus that basically repeats the song title over and over. The song is nothing but a tribute to that woman who inspires the narrator’s dreams—in this case, good dreams. She’s so wonderful that she makes this character jumpy, nervous, and downright overheated. The bridge and the fourth verse sum up this situation nicely:

        The joint is jumpin’

        It’s really somethin’

        The beat is pumpin’

        My heart is thumpin’

        Spent my money on you honey

        My limbs are shakin’

        My heart is breakin’

        You kiss me, baby, in the coffee shop

        You make me nervous, you gotta stop.

I think that all I can say at this point is that someone should douse this guy with a bucket of cold water—quick! Seriously, the bridge says it all: Little Richard is in the house.

To close our discussion of Groove we turn to the two songs coauthored with Grateful Dead songwriter Robert Hunter, “Ugliest Girl in the World” and “Silvio.” With “Ugliest,” the 1950s parade continues via this five verses with four choruses pop song in which the Bobettes carry the day. Perfectly timed backing vocals take this song on a hilarious joyride to days gone by. Here we celebrate a woman who is adored by her lover even though she fails to meet the minimal standards of physical attractiveness (i.e., she’s ugly). Oh, but our narrator’s in love. He cherishes her crooked nose and worn out clothes (verse 1), and he’s madly in love: “When she says babababababy I l-l-love you / There ain’t nothing in the world that I wouldn’t do.” The third and fourth verses join the chorus to capture this 1950s-style storytelling:

        The woman that I love she got two flat feet

        Her knees knock together walking down the street

        She cracks her knuckles and she snores in bed

        She ain’t much to look at but like I said

        You know I love her

        Yeah I love her

        I’m in love with the Ugliest Girl in the World

        I don’t mean to say that she got nothin’ goin’

        She got a weird sense of humor that’s all her own

        When I get low she sets me on my feet

        Got a five inch smile but her breath is sweet

Yes, friends, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—regardless of his state of mind.

That joy permeates the sounds of “Silvio” as well. Here Dylan and Hunter offer a pop portrait that operates from an autobiographical stance. No, it’s not about Bob Dylan. The narrator talks about himself and his situation across the six four-line verses of this chorus-driven song. That chorus simply states the song title, notes that money can’t bring the dead to life, and cites this character’s urge to discover what only the dead understand. The Bobettes are in their element. The opening verse sets the scene well:

        Stake my future on a hell of a past

        Looks like tomorrow is coming on fast

        Ain’t complaining ’bout what I got

        Seen better times, but who has not?

Is our narrator sick and about to meet his Maker in the afterlife? After this opening proclamation, he describes himself. He’s a determined guy—in control of the weather and people’s health, he’s persuasive, but he’s also wise, as the fifth verse relates:

        I can tell you fancy, I can tell you plain

        You give something up for everything you gain

        Since every pleasure’s got an edge of pain

        Pay for your ticket and don’t complain

With such wisdom in mind, he fantasizes of a day when he may travel into the “valley,” sing his song loudly, and cast his fate in its echo. Again, I think our narrator is on his way Out. We should wish him luck with his journey, since he approaches his future with such a joyful attitude.

That joyful attitude is this album’s centerpiece. The cover songs aren’t as celebratory as the original compositions, but this record bops along in its 1950s milieu in a happy-go-lucky manner. Although “Silvio” has several thoughtful lines, most of these songs just cruise along. They’re danceable, laughable, and often forgettable. Now, you can be mean and say that Bob has nothing to say or you can be kind and say that he’s exploring the song structures of his youth (i.e., the Basement Strategy). With the benefit of history, we know that this writer isn’t finished, but without that knowledge, you’d surely wonder. Still, this is a great sounding record: clear, balanced, and with little nuances that suggest authorship. Nevertheless—at 32 minutes—the work suggests more contractual obligation than creative inspiration. The nexus is down for the count.

However, lest we forget, this is the Bob Dylan Revue. This is not Mr. Message Man or the Newport Mod or even the Rolling Thunder Revue; rather, it’s Bob and the Bobettes. Please keep in mind that until we get to the post-1988 tours, this represents the lifework’s longest running act. Beginning with Self Portrait and Dylan, pausing for minor roles in New Morning, and then exploding via Street-Legal, this act has done its rounds. When the Revue entered the Moral Period, it donned its choir robes and respectfully performed the Alabama Chronicles via the Bob Dylan Crusade. They did their service and did it well. After the Infidels interlude, the Revue returned for a three-album set that mixed and matched the sounds of yesteryear with assorted twists.

Indeed, the Revue is a pivotal aspect of the lifework. He’s used it to fool around, to complement songs, to warn of the end times, and to perform in variety shows that demonstrated Dylan’s latest musical whim. The Revue now rides off into that famed sunset; glowing from a job well-done. At times, Bob and the Bobettes overreached; at other times, they fell just short of the mark; and at still other moments, they were downright perfect. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to miss them. Although I’ve never cared for Las Vegas, I adore the Bob Dylan Revue. I think I’ll go listen to “Mr. Bojangles” again.

Swampspeak

I’m so happy that Dylan discusses the “making of Oh Mercy” in his autobiography. It’s such a revelatory story. It’s 1987 and Bob is staring into the darkness; contemplating the end of his historic career. While sitting at his kitchen table and soaking in the sights, inspiration strikes and the songs suddenly flow. Dylan just writes away; placing his work in a drawer where it may rest until the right moment arrives. The drawer quickly fills, Bono visits, the drawer is opened, the Irishman admires what he sees, and recommends Daniel Lanois. Eventually, Bob travels to New Orleans, meets Lanois, and Oh Mercy is born. This is, in every way, a major turning point in our unfolding story.

The musical world heralded the results as a triumphant return and a hopeful sign for the future. Oh Mercy is most certainly a strong record, yet it was merely a flash in the musical pan. Dylan took his drawer full of songs to the swamps of Louisiana, negotiated with Lanois over their arrangement, and together they captured that magic for posterity. It was, however, a one-of-a-kind project, not the start of some sort of trend. Having satisfied that particular impulse, Bob will follow Oh Mercy with a major adjustment to his “Bob Dylan” character. His first—and only—edition of swampspeak didn’t feature his new vocal technique, instrumental style, or involve his three-year plan to revise his act and attract a new audience. Those activities are unfolding around the Lanois project, and they continue to develop until the end of the Pop Icon Period. Consequently, Oh Mercy could be construed as Dylan’s swansong. A remarkable era is about to yield to a new day.

Oh Mercy contains 10 songs (running 39 minutes) that address three topics with varying degrees of clarity. There are six relational complaints (“Where Teardrops Fall,” “Man in the Long Black Coat,” “Most of the Time,” “What Was It You Wanted,” “Shooting Star,” and “What Good Am I?”), two societal complaints (“Political World” and “Everything Is Broken”), and two warnings (“Ring Them Bells” and “Disease of Conceit”). Recorded in New Orleans in just three sessions (according to Heylin), the album demonstrates Lanois’s control over his subject matter as well as the utility of leadership in the producer’s chair for our occasionally wayward laureate. Nevertheless, the omission of several strong songs (e.g., “Born in Time,” “God Knows,” “Dignity,” and “Series of Dreams”) indicates the artist’s faith in his producer’s decision-making was not complete.

Another change involved Dylan’s reliance on a steady cast of musicians instead of the 10-musicians-per-track method of the previous Pop Icon recordings. The Oh Mercy musical lineup featured: Lanois on lap steel, dobro, guitar, and omnichord; Paul Synegal, Mason Ruffner, and Brian Stoltz (guitar); Larry Jolivet and Tony Hall (bass); Willie Green and Alton Rubin (drums) as well as Cyril Neville and Daryl Johnson on percussion; and, Malcolm Burn (keyboards), John Hart (saxophone), David Rubin (scrub board), and Rockin’ Dopsie (accordion). These guys emptied Dylan’s drawer, soaked them in swamp water, and created musical platforms that are more than distinct, they’re haunting. That thin, wild mercury sound was replaced by the thick, ominous sounds of the Louisiana bayou. The record provides the perfect aural setting for a boatload of dark Confucian truths. The results are startling. Let’s begin with Bob’s finger-pointing statements of anarchy and the societal complaints.

A steady, rolling beat that offers little variance supports the 11 four-line verses of the opening track, “Political World.” This was the first song in the drawer, and it indicates the extent to which our anarchist has awakened from his brief rest. The song is a steady roll of negativity. The opening line of each verse repeats the song title and a three-line statement follows—no choruses or bridges here. The opening stanza sets the pace and demonstrates the strategy:

        We live in a political world,

        Love don’t have any place.

        We’re living in times where men commit crimes

        And crime don’t have a face

Sounds bleak. From there, the tune reports of a chilly existence in which angels perform under cloudy—perhaps threatening—skies. The third verse captures the essence of this situation:

        We live in a political world,

        Wisdom is thrown into jail,

        It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell

        Leaving no one to pick up a trail.

OK, so far we’ve established that love has disappeared, crime is disguised (and therefore unrecognizable), and wisdom has been forcefully abandoned. It gets worse from here. This wail of negativity screams out that mercy is threatened (verse 4), courage has been abdicated (verse 5), life is corrupt (verse 6), people are isolated (verse 7), self-incrimination abounds (verse 8), life is simplistic (verse 9), the world is violent (verse 10), and doubt is all-controlling (verse 11). This is most assuredly another dose of that Street-Legal worldview. The Delta poet is once more painting in dark, dark colors.

Are any solutions offered? No. Any possibilities suggested? No. Any hope anywhere? No. This sermon from the swamp isn’t very optimistic, is it? It raises all of these negative scenarios and just throws them at us. Everywhere, things are either corrupt, evil, or in some state of decay. What are we to do? Perhaps more important, what happened to bring all of this mayhem into the world? How could this be? The anarchist responds with “Everything Is Broken.”

Wonderful bass lines and balanced sounds pave the way for our second swamp sermon and the four seven-line verses, two two-line bridges, and ghost chorus of “Everything Is Broken.” Why is our “Political World” so corrupt? Because everything is in tatters, that’s why. The opening verse both sets the tone and demonstrates this song’s rhythm of expression:

        Broken lines, broken strings,

        Broken threads, broken springs,

        Broken idols, broken heads,

        People sleeping in broken beds.

        Ain’t no use jiving

        Ain’t no use joking

        Everything is broken.

Yes, we’d better break out that golden dust pan because this is a mess and somebody’s going to have to clean it up—or else. The world is full of broken houseware, broken language, disappointed lovers, broken legal systems, and broken people; in fact, as the bridge reminds us, just when you think the coast is clear—bam! There went something else. The last verse brings it all back home:

        Broken hands on broken ploughs,

        Broken treaties, broken vows,

        Broken pipes, broken tools,

        People bending broken rules.

        Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,

        Everything is broken.

Well, this is a mess. People make treaties and take vows just to break them. The rules are made to be broken, as per that age-old saying. Hey, we can’t fix this because our tools are shattered as well. Solutions? No. Possibilities? No. Hope? No. Litter? You bet. The swamp is full of trash, I mean, you have to take all of this broken stuff somewhere, right? Bob Dylan is channeling Robert Johnson in these accounts of worldly demise.

After hearing how the political world is corrupt and the planet is broken, it’s time to ring those church bells, seek salvation, and prepare for what will most assuredly be a better day. With all of this, the end times will be a welcomed reprieve. Oh Mercy discusses this option in the first of its two songs of warning and “Ring Them Bells.” This swampy hymn with its solemn piano-organ interplay unfolds via four eight-line verses and a seven-line bridge. The first bell tolls in the opening verse:

        Ring them bells, ye heathen

        From the city that dreams,

        Ring them bells from the sanctuaries

        Cross the valleys and streams,

        For they’re deep and they’re wide

        And the world’s on its side

        And time is running backwards

        And so is the bride.

Is this yet another reference to Christ’s bride, the church, and her unsteady state? The song requests that the bell be rung by none other than St. Peter so that everyone will know just what time it is (verse 2); moreover, it issues a plea to ring those bells loudly in God’s name so that His power is affirmed and all of the lost sheep may hear the call home (verse 3). The song crystallizes in this “Chimes of Freedom” bridge:

        Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf,

        Ring them bells for all of us who are left,

        Ring them bells for the chosen few

        Who will judge the many when the game is through.

        Ring them bells, for the time that flies,

        For the child that cries

        When innocence dies.

Yes, in a world of corruption and self-inflicted damage, the time has arrived to ring those bells that usher in the Big Solution and the slow train’s arrival. The slow train is working its way through the swamps on its way to a bell tower near you. When the bells ring and the judgments begin, you’ll be glad your heart is in the right place. These swampy sermons carry an old message through a new channel.

Our second song of warning deals more with a personality trait than the end of the world. “Disease of Conceit” features a simple, piano-based musical platform from which Dylan’s haunting voice proclaims the evils of narcissistic self-love. Throughout its four 10-line verses (with a ghost chorus and a four-line bridge), the warning is clear and concise, as the opening verses indicate:

        There’s a whole lot of people suffering tonight

        From the disease of conceit.

        Whole lot of people struggling tonight

        From the disease of conceit.

        Comes right down the highway,

        Straight down the line,

        Rips into your senses

        Through your body and your mind.

        Nothing about it that’s sweet,

        The disease of conceit.

        There’s a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight

        From the disease of conceit,

        Whole lot of hearts shaking tonight

        From the disease of conceit.

        Steps into your room,

        Eats your soul,

        Over your senses

        You have no control.

        Ain’t nothing too discreet

        About of disease of conceit.

Conceit kills. Conceit constrains. Conceit causes trouble. And conceit blinds. The doctors are clueless. The prognosis is bleak. Better lose your delusions or prepare for the worst, this sermon proclaims. There’s no mystery to this warning. As you can see, it uses brief, almost choppy, lines to pound home its insistent warning: abandon your ego trip and seek His mercy. Is there any clue as to how to go about this? No. Any remedies proposed? No. Any hope? Well, maybe. These sermons from the swamp don’t offer many direct solutions; however, their warnings are overwhelmingly clear and suggestive of an Answer from days gone by. The laureate’s not turning much around here, but he’s encouraging you to switch gears in a big way.

These four songs of societal complaint and warning unfold systematically. Whether they emerged from the drawer with that plan in place or Dylan’s thinking just happened to flow in one current, the idea that the political system has been broken by conceited people for whom those sacred bells will soon toll is made abundantly clear. This is, indeed, one coherent swampfueled sermon. The writer lays out a laundry list of political ills and broken institutions in the same fashion that he announced that service is required of everybody in “Gotta Serve Somebody.” In so doing, we set the worldly table in a fashion similar to “Changing of the Guards.” When the bells ring out, and the slow train approaches, this sermon declares that you’d better shed your vanity, humbly repent, and prepare for His arrival.

Not only do these songs work in harmony, but Team Lanois provides aural backdrops that heighten the message’s emotional impact. The result is a compelling series of songs that are shaped by that famed Dylan Edge. This may have been a temporary stopover, but Bob Dylan is in his element in Oh Mercy. At times, it’s as if Brother Bob has come out of retirement for one last shot at saving our souls. Our emotional anthropologist is perusing his archives. This is powerful stuff.

Oh Mercy’s six songs of relational complaint share the musical features of our sermon from the swamp except they display a greater range of symbolism. That is, some of these songs are crystal clear while others are more suggestive, cryptic, or flat-out evasive. There, too, we find evidence of that Dylan Edge as the songwriter conveys his thoughts on love in insightful, and at times, cutting or damning ways.

“Most of the Time” is the opening song from the bayou of love and its relational quicksand. This track displays a dreamy ambiance that arrests you, attacks your senses, and gives you pause. Assuredly, this four-verse statement emerges from the “If You See Her, Say Hello” school of gamesmanship as it, too, portrays a lover in denial. This haunting song offers a narrator attempting to cope with a lost love. He stays so focused on his chosen path that he fails to notice her absence—most of the time (verse 1). He feels he made the right decision, he’s prepared to stick to his position, and she never crosses his mind—most of the time (verse 2). But doubt lingers and the third verse and the middle-eight communicate those swampy sentiments:

        Most of the time

        My head is on straight,

        Most of the time

        I’m strong enough not to hate.

        I don’t build up illusion ’till it makes me sick,

        I ain’t afraid of confusion no matter how thick

        I can smile in the face of mankind.

        Don’t even remember what her lips felt like on mine

        Most of the time.

        Most of the time

        She ain’t even in my mind,

        I wouldn’t know her if I saw her

        She’s that far behind.

        Most of the time

        I can’t even be sure

        If she was ever with me

        Or if I was with her.

This character is conducting a personal pep rally in an effort to fight off his internal anxieties. He faces his confusion, he says, but his comments about kissing his lover suggest that those old feelings are fresher than he’d like to admit. He claims he wouldn’t recognize her if he saw her, but we know better. His suggestion that she’s just a distant memory fails to connect and drifts aimlessly into the swampy night. Those sentiments advance in the closing stanza. There he takes comfort in his feelings, he gains strength from his convictions, and he refuses to pretend otherwise—most of the time.

As the narrator of “Most of the Time” demonstrates, after a relationship concludes it’s the memories that plague us most. The pain heals, time passes, but those memories occasionally drift nostalgically back to those blissful days of relational content. Dylan touches this emotional vein once more in Oh Mercy’s capstone statement, “Shooting Star.” More simple, but serene, swamp sounds support the three seven- to nine-line verses and seven-line bridge of this statement of relational nostalgia that features an interesting twist as it closes. The opening verses tell this tale in no uncertain terms:

        Seen a shooting star tonight

        And I thought of you.

        You were trying to break into another world

        A world I never knew.

        I always kind of wondered

        If you ever made it through.

        Seen a shooting star tonight

        And I thought of you.

        Seen a shooting star tonight

        And I thought of me.

        If I was still the same

        If I ever became what you wanted me to be

        Did I miss the mark or

        Over-step the line

        That only you could see?

        Seen a shooting star tonight

        And I thought of me.

You can’t be more direct than that. He thinks of her and wonders if she’s well. He thinks of himself and his potential failures. Clearly, doubt remains and he copes with its aftereffects. The twist occurs in the third stanza when the song invokes images of the end times. The last prayers, sermons, and songs are occurring. The world is coming to a close and it’s too late to say what should have been said years ago. Our narrator, it seems, is left with that realization. A shooting star rips over the swamp and the gators moan, “never more.”

Our remaining songs of relational complaint aren’t as straightforward as the first installments. Cloudy scenes, cryptic characters, and ambiguous story lines control the remaining Oh Mercy tracks. In “Where Teardrops Fall” smoky and seductive swamp sounds create a mysterious ambiance for a murky relational commentary (nailed down by the ghost chorus). This narrator longs for a lost love that’s off in some faraway place where the tears are pouring down. The first of the song’s four four-line verses establishes that she’s gone, but we know not where. The second stanza reports that wherever she is, it’s a long ways away. The first of our two six-line bridges sheds some light on this muddy story:

        We banged the drum slowly

        And played the fife lowly

        You know the song in my heart

        In the turning of twilight

        In the shadows of moonlight

        You can show me a new place to start.

Whatever is going on in this story, we know that the narrator cares passionately for his departed lover. The next stanza supports that observation as he admits his dire condition (with his torn clothing and empty cup) and reveals that he spends his nights thinking of her. Something separated this couple, and the narrator’s reconciliatory tone is evident in the second bridge:

        By the rivers of blindness

        In love and with kindness

        We could hold up a toast if we meet

        To the cuttin’ of fences

        To sharpen the senses

        That linger in the fireball heat.

He’s certainly willing to mend whatever has been broken in the relationship. Further proof exists in the final stanza’s “roses are red, violets are blue” based indication that he just might muster the resources to go see her in the land of the falling tears—wherever that is. Like so many Dylan songs, this track features the lonesome man wallowing in his relational remorse. Lanois’s production exacerbates this song’s emotional stance through its simple but suggestive soundstage. The concluding saxophone solo adds just the right touch as it leaves us in the bayou with thoughts of missing love.

The ambiguity continues with “What Was It You Wanted?” With a simple guitar, bass, harmonica interplay providing the aural backdrop, this five-verse, two-bridge track is chockfull of good old-fashioned swampspeak. Everything’s a mystery here. The first verse just raises the question: What do “you” want? The second verse builds on that opening by reporting that “you” have the narrator’s attention, now, what do “you” want? The third verse finds the narrator (and me) wondering if he’s missed something or somebody. Still, it does reveal that a relationship of some sort exists between this character and whoever he’s addressing (she kissed him and he’s suspicious). The first bridge offers an example of this song’s mysterious story:

        Whatever you wanted

        Slipped out of my mind,

        Would you remind me again

        If you’d be so kind.

        Has the record been breaking,

        Did the needle skip,

        Is there somebody waitin’,

        Was there a slip of the lip?

More swampspeak flows from there. Now, he questions her identity. This guy is just full of unresolved questions. He wonders if this is important. The tide turns in the second bridge as the questions continue to mount:

        Whatever you wanted

        What could it be

        Did somebody tell you

        That you could get it from me,

        Is it something that comes natural

        Is it easy to say,

        Why do you want it,

        Who are you anyway?

The swampy game of 20 questions advances in the concluding verse. Just what’s happening? Who does she want? Finally, he poses the pivotal question: “Are you talking to me?”

What a curious song! It establishes two characters having some sort of conversation, but it just floats from there. The music elevates the mystery. It drifts along with the endless series of inquiries that just go nowhere. That the narrator ends up asking if, in fact, she’s talking to him is revealing. The song just goes round and round. You gain a sense that there’s a rich story in the background and that it supports of all these mysterious comments and questions; yet, we have no sign of it. You feel as though the song left you standing on the street on a foggy New Orleans night; peering into the shadows, wondering who’s there—and why.

The inquiries continue—albeit in a more concrete manner—in our next question, “What Good Am I?” Throughout the four four-line verses (with a ghost chorus and a four-line bridge) of this simple, almost quiet, song the narrator copes with feelings of self-worth. I guess some people suffer from conceit while others cope with their insecurity. Oh Mercy, then, covers both extremes. In this somber, introspective song the narrator questions his worth in the face of various life events. First, he wonders about his value if he acts like everybody else and turns away from her sorrow (verse 1). Next, he questions his failure to respond to their situation and his avoidance of what seems to be the painful truth (verse 2). Let’s examine the third verse and bridge for more detail:

        What good am I while you softly weep

        And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep,

        And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don’t try,

        What good am I?

        What good am I then to others and me

        If I’ve had every chance and yet still fail to see

        If my hands are tied must I not wonder within

        Who tied them and why and where must I have been?

This character is also full of questions; however, he anchors most of them in his concern over his self-worth in light of his relational failures. The song concludes with more of the same. He says silly things, he laughs at sadness, and he passively ignores his lover’s pain. Perhaps our narrator has compelling reasons to question his value. He stands idly by and allows the relational darkness to grow darker still. He obviously feels worthless, and maybe he should.

The swamp comes alive via cricket sound effects and dreamy harmonica riffs in our final Oh Mercy composition, “Man in the Long Black Coat.” Here, too, mystery abounds in this cryptic account of a woman leaving her life behind to join a gentleman with symbolic outerwear. Like most of these songs, we learn very little about the characters, but the sermonic images flow in rich segments across the track’s four seven-line verses (with a five-line bridge and the ever-present ghost chorus). The song opens with scenic descriptions (e.g., references to the crickets, high water, open windows, and bent-over trees—sounds genuinely swampy to me) as we learn that “she” departed with this stranger and didn’t tell anyone. Who “she” is, who he is, is yet another bayou mystery. The second stanza reports that this guy in the black coat was seen at the local dance hall and that “she” asked this Bible-quoting stranger to dance. What happened afterward is more than uncertain. Suddenly we hear from a minister who appears out of the blue in the third verse and bridge. His wisdom is rich; his insight into the story is minimal:

        Preacher was a talkin’ there’s a sermon he gave,

        He said every man’s conscience is vile and depraved,

        You cannot depend on it to be your guide

        When it’s you who must keep it satisfied.

        It ain’t easy to swallow, it sticks in the throat,

        She gave her heart to the man

        In the long black coat.

        There are no mistakes in life some people say

        It is true sometimes you can see it that way.

        But people don’t live or die, people just float.

        She went with the man

        In the long black coat.

OK. What does this have to do with anything? Is depravity in the air? Did somebody make a mistake? Where did she go, and who is this guy? I guess we’ll never know. The song concludes with more scenic descriptions (e.g., smoky water, uprooted trees, a crescent moon—again, we are definitely in the swamp so watch your step), a reference to somebody, somewhere pounding on a “dead horse,” and a final comment about her silent departure with this shadowy guy. The song hints at complaint because of its consistent comments about her sudden, quiet departure. Was she kidnapped? Did he kill her? Was he a communist? It’s all a mystery. There it hangs—or more accurately, floats.

Indeed, Daniel Lanois uniquely captured a series of songs that emerged from both ends of that drawer. The rich, thick sonic textures used to present these songs are from the other end of the musical universe from that thin, wild mercury sound of yesteryear. Lanois’s recording of Dylan’s voice adds a chilling, ominous quality to his vocals. The hushed, pensive instrumental platforms that support the songs of relational complaint contribute directly to their mysterious qualities. On the other hand, when Dylan describes the broken political world in which we live, those sounds disappear, the echo dissipates, and the attack leaps forward. So, we witness two distinct production strategies on Oh Mercy.

This principal holds true for the songwriting as well. Yes, there are two ends to the drawer that housed these songs. On one end is the clear, specific writing of “Political World,” “Everything Is Broken,” “Disease of Conceit,” “Shooting Star,” and “Most of the Time.” Dylan states his case in a straightforward manner that pounds home his societal and relational complaints. On the other end of that drawer is the cryptic, evasive writing of the relational complaints: “Teardrops” fall someplace for somebody; somebody someplace wants something from somebody; and a shadowy character in a long coat takes off with a nameless woman from an unidentified location. Of course, in the middle of that drawer we find songs such as “What Good” and “Ring Them Bells.” To be sure, Lanois and Dylan cover the clarity spectrum as they roam from the totally enigmatic to the severely concrete. In all cases, the sound complements the song. Oh Mercy is quite an achievement. The nexus is not dead.

The outtakes follow a similar pattern. The swampy sounds and cryptic commentary of “Series of Dreams” are quite different from the clear instrumental pattern and straightforward sermon in “Dignity.” In the former, a narrator recalls his perplexing dreams; in the latter, the narrator conducts an endless search for honor. Both are strong songs. Consider the bridge and third verse from “Dreams” in which this character considers the tenuous qualities of life before he recalls a series of sleeping visions:

        Dreams where the umbrella is folded

        Into the path you are hurled

        And the cards are no good that you’re holding

        Unless they’re from another world

        In one, numbers were burning

        In another, I witnessed a crime

        In one, I was running, and in another

        All I seemed to be doing was climb

        Wasn’t looking for any special assistance

        Not going to any great extremes

        I’d already gone the distance

        Just thinking of a series of dreams

Dreams work that way. Your anxieties creep into odd scenes that portray weird or demanding situations. Images of constant running or climbing, feelings of futility, surreal or abstract visuals and more populate our dreams. What does it all mean? It’s another bayou mystery. Where is it all heading? It’s another swampy curiosity. Like “What Was It” and “Man in the Long Black Coat,” Lanois places “Dreams” in just the right aural context. The song sounds like a dream—a creepy, swampy, slithering dream.

Then we travel to the other end of the drawer for “Dignity.” The music marches along in its uninterrupted rhythmic pattern as Dylan recounts a series of vignettes about his continuing search for honor in what appears to be a dishonorable world. The scenes roll by as the music rolls onward. The opening verses capture this “Gotta Serve Somebody,” “Everything Is Broken” list-oriented method of songwriting:

        Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel

        Thin man lookin’ at his last meal

        Hollow man lookin’ in a cottonfield

        For dignity

        Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass

        Young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass

        Poor man lookin’ through painted glass

        For dignity

Everybody everywhere is looking for dignity. I don’t get the sense that they find it, however. The narrator searches everywhere, asks the police for help, takes perilous trips (e.g., where vultures hang out and fires rage), examines the great works of art, but he never stops even though he finds no sign of dignity. In the final stanza, he questions what this is going to require, yet his resolve seems unshakeable. He’s not going to give up until he finds dignity.

When we consult Chronicles, we discover that these list-based songs were among the first to enter the drawer. Perhaps Bob experienced some triggering inspiration and rode that moment through these fragmented expressions that bounce along to that particular theme. The more cryptic songs came along as well; consequently, we have evidence of a seasoned songwriter tapping into his repertoire of writing strategies and reintroducing himself to them. That is evidence of reorientation. You have to wonder what would have happened to these songs had not Bono intervened and recommended Lanois. Since Dylan admits that many of these songs had no melodic framework at all, we must conclude that Lanois influenced their sound in compelling ways. They surely have a distinctive tone. That makes the swampspeak segment of the Pop Icon Period a unique, and intriguing, entry in the Dylan canon.

The Retirement Party

The man the world knows as “Bob Dylan” has enjoyed one hell of a run. As I’ve mentioned before, Bob claims that as a child he dreamt of many of the professional experiences he eventually encountered in his career. While he may have known what that destiny involved, I doubt he envisioned the various missions that arose as he followed his chosen path. I don’t believe that he anticipated the Rolling Thunder Revue, or the Bob Dylan Crusade, or the Bob Dylan Revue, or the transition he’s about to undertake. Sure, he dreamt of the fame, the fortune, his confrontations with various establishments, and that sort of thing. He may even have fantasized about making an old-fashioned, 1950s-style, rock and roll record that featured an all-star musical cast. But I suspect that the radical ebb and flow of his career surprised him as much as anybody. How could you anticipate the kinds of changes we’ve witnessed here? It would require one supernaturally charged Cajun Mystic to have foreseen all of this.

Bob is about to make a major—and final—characterological change to his Bob Dylan persona. He paused to visit New Orleans and empty his drawer full of songs, but now that that has passed, he returned to his plan. The character we’ve known for all of these years is about to retire. The new Dylan is a roving bluesman with a new vocal technique, a new instrumental style, and a new approach to those old Bob Dylan songs. As time passes, Bob will write for this new character as he did for Mr. Message Man, the Newport Mod, country Bob, Brother Bob, and the legendary Bob. A new musical dawn is breaking and it took a long, long night to get there. After such a strenuous journey, a retirement party is in order. And that is exactly what transpires with Under the Red Sky.

With David [Was] Weiss, Don Was, and Jack Frost (Dylan) as producers and an all-star cast of musicians present (e.g., Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughn, Elton John, Al Kooper, Slash, George Harrison, David Crosby, Bruce Hornsby as well as Kenny Aronoff [drums], Randy Jackson [bass], David Lindley [guitar], Paulinho Da Costa [percussion], Waddy Wachtel [guitar], and others), one might anticipate a rousing response to the creative momentum established by Mercy. This was not the case. It was rousing, but it was not a response. Released in September 1990, Under the Red Sky’s 10 songs (running over 35 minutes) contain a compelling innovation within its four thematic orientations. We have a romantic complaint (“Born in Time”), a celebration (“God Knows”), two societal complaints (“T.V. Talkin’ Song” and “Unbelievable”), and six installments of the innovative nonsense song: “Wiggle Wiggle,” “Under the Red Sky,” “10,000 Men,” “2 X 2,” “Handy Dandy,” and “Cat’s in the Well.” The nonsense songs are presented in a fun, energetic manner. They are classic 1950s-era rock and roll parties. Their pop song lyrics do not feature word games with playful/creative imagery, surreal scenes or poetic impressions on a specific topic; here, Dylan’s word machine has a party.

The retirement party begins on the more coherent end of the Red Sky spectrum and the societal complaints. After Red Sky’s opening tracks get you dancing (“Wiggle”) and thinking about little boys and girls on the Iron Range (“Under the Red Sky”), the album’s third song brings that rocking sound to a more meaningful context. Here we place a bit more symbolic meat on the 1950s-style rock and roll bones. The narrator in “Unbelievable” is incredulous, and it manifests in a variety of ways across the song’s four verses. The first verse describes the directionless qualities of the modern world and expresses dismay that we’ve carried on for as long as we have—it’s unbelievable. The second stanza relates the narrator’s disbelief over how easily wealth may be accumulated in this materialistic land—it’s unbelievable. The bridge reinforces those observations (describing the world’s dignified posers and their money-grabbing empty ways) before the third verse and second bridge go off the deep end:

        It’s unbelievable like a lead balloon,

        It’s so impossible to even learn the tune.

        Kill that beast and feed that swine,

        Scale that wall and smoke that vine,

        Feed that horse and saddle up the drum.

        It’s unbelievable, the day would finally come.

        Once there was a man who had no eyes,

        Every lady in the land told him lies,

        He stood beneath the silver skies

        And his heart began to bleed.

        Every brain is civilized,

        Every nerve is analyzed,

        Everything is criticized when you are in need.

We’re a long ways from “Jailhouse Rock” here (but wallowing in Delta poetry). The song may sound like a rocking Gene Vincent tune, but it reads like Bob Dylan. Everything he sees renders disbelief. He bops along in dismay. The song subscribes to that long-standing Pete Townshend prescription that encourages us all to face our problems and dance all over them.

While not as danceable as “Unbelievable,” our second societal complaint bounces to a smooth, swinging, pop/rock beat in which quick pacing supports a fast-moving story. “T.V. Talkin’ Song” takes us back to the Folk Posturing Period’s “Talkin’” series with a splash of “Black Diamond Bay” tossed in for good measure. That the story unfolds via eight four-line verses without a bridge and chorus reveals its narrative strategy. This is a fun story in which the narrator recounts his experiences in London’s Hyde Park and its famous Speaker’s Corner. There this character witnessed a man proclaiming the evils of television. The opening verse takes us to Speaker’s Corner, the next stanza introduces the unnamed speaker’s topic, the following verse describes the narrator moving closer to the speaker to gain a better view (two guys were in a fist fight and he couldn’t see), and the fourth and fifth stanzas present the speaker’s argument. Let’s check it out:

        “The news of the day is on all the time,

        All the latest gossip, all the latest rhyme,

        Your mind is your temple, keep it beautiful and free,

        Don’t let an egg get laid in it by something you can’t see.”

        “Pray for peace!” he said, you could feel it in the crowd.

        My thoughts began to wander. His voice was ringing loud,

        “It will destroy your family, your happy home is gone

        No one can protect you from it once you turn it on.”

The speaker’s rant continues in the sixth verse as he recommends the Elvis Solution to his Speaker’s Corner audience (i.e., pick up a gun and shoot the thing) and pounds his message still further in the seventh stanza. The song closes with a riot breaking out, a television crew arriving to capture the action, and the narrator returning to his hotel (or wherever he’s staying) to watch all of the action on television.

Shades of “Bear Mountain” and “John Birch” blend with that “Black Diamond” closing twist to generate a fun story about a popular concern: the impact of television. Any doubts about the topical songwriter’s ability must be dismissed by this simple little story. “TV Talkin’” has little plot twists that enliven the story, uses humorous dialog to keep the tale moving, and in its own way, issues a moral of the story. Obviously, Bob can write these songs on demand.

As a quick aside, two songs Dylan wrote for the first Traveling Wilburys record reinforces this point. When he sat with his kin folk to write songs for their new project, Bob—according to George Harrison in the BBC’s The Bob Dylan Story—instantly wanted to write a “Prince” song and ripped out “Dirty World” as a parody. Similarly, when he penned “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” for his brothers, he directly aped Bruce Springsteen’s songwriting style with all sorts of references to New Jersey, characters with street names, and shady urban criminal activity. Indeed, Bob could still churn out these songs when he was inspired, whether he was writing as a Dylan, a Wilbury or very soon, a Jack Fate.

Also demonstrating that those old skills are alive and well is Dylan’s 1950s-style presentation of the Alabama Chronicles by way of the celebratory “God Knows.” This track features an instrumental pattern that builds and builds as the celebration unfolds via another of those “Political World”-type list songs. The song is also very repetitious (the song title is sung over and over and over). Thus, the 1950s sound and songwriting style are coopted in service of an old theme: praising Him. God knows a lot, and this song shares some of His insights.

The song opens with the realization that God knows the narrator’s love interest isn’t pretty, but his dedication to her is complete (more “Ugliest Girl”). Weightier matters follow. God realizes life is tough and He’s prepared to cleanse His world (verse 2). God understands life is frail, tenuous, frightful, and as the fourth and fifth verses indicate, He understands our hearts and warns us of our materialism:

        God knows that when you see it,

        God knows you’ve got to weep,

        God knows the secrets of your heart,

        He’ll tell them to you when you’re asleep.

        God knows there’s a river,

        God knows how to make it flow,

        God knows you ain’t gonna be taking

        Nothing with you when you go.

This is pretty straightforward stuff. The list continues from there. God knows there’s hope and He understands we can make it to salvation. Yes, God knows it all, and Brother Bob returns and reminds us of that fact through a musical style that blends nicely within the Red Sky format.

Our Red Sky thematic sampler continues to touch all of the traditional Bob Dylan storytelling bases with, you guessed it, a relational complaint that is presented in a smooth, pop song style that features a graceful piano and complementary backing vocals (by David Crosby). “Born in Time” is a pretty song. The four-verse track (with two eight-line bridges) is a simple romantic complaint that’s driven by the two bridges. The verses toy with images of the nighttime and relational nostalgia (verse 1), her thinking of him on a hot day in town (verse 2), a drive down a curvy road and thoughts of relational justice (verse 3), and a closing verse of resignation. The bridges lodge the relational complaint, as the initial installment reveals:

        Not one more night, not one more kiss,

        Not this time baby, no more of this,

        Takes too much skill, takes too much will,

        It’s revealing.

        You came, you saw, just like the law

        You married young, just like your ma,

        You tried and tried, you made me slide

        You left me reelin’ with this feelin.’

(That last one is for you, Jacques.) This is a straightforward relational complaint that’s spiced with nostalgia. He loves her, but the time to part is at hand. The second bridge demonstrates the narrator’s conflicting feelings:

        You pressed me once, you pressed me twice,

        You hang the flame, you’ll pay the price,

        Oh babe, that fire

        Is till smokin’.

        You were the snow, you were the rain

        You were striped, you were plain,

        Oh babe, truer words

        Have not been spoken or broken.

So, our narrator is struggling with the end. He believes that she’ll pay for her relational transgressions, acknowledges his feelings remain intense, and displays confidence in his conclusions. Classic Dylan presented in a pop format that fits Red Sky just fine.

Herein resides the most concrete support for my contention that this is a retirement party. When an individual retires, people rise, acknowledge that person, and tell tales from The Day. A story from this era, a joke from that time, and maybe a personal anecdote from somewhere provide the material for this final tip of the hat to the Departing One. In this case, the artist returns to songwriting staples from days gone by, recasts them in the musical style of the moment, and in my view, says so long.

We have a “talkin’”-era satire—let’s have some fun and point that finger. We’ve witnessed an excerpt from the Alabama Chronicles—His knowledge is complete and, by the way, did you hear a train whistle? We’ve had a moment with that tried-and-true songwriting staple that is the romantic complaint with a nostalgic twist—I just love the way you hurt me. And we experienced the wrath of righteous indignation over the state of the world—it’s unbelievable. They’re all here at our retirement party; dancing in the milieu of the moment featuring the sounds of Bob’s youth. Not that they’re presented through Little Richard’s screaming rhythms, but they invoke the beats, singing styles, and writing techniques of that era. Was this conscious? I don’t know, but I’m sticking to my story: this is a retirement party.

Often, retirement parties get a little carried away. The drinks flow, the hugs abound, and the dance floor action intensifies as the night continues. What a great moment. Everybody cuts loose in their own special way. In this case, the music explodes as that fabled word machine shuts down and gives us the post-speech portion of the retirement party and the nonsense songs. Everybody jumps and shakes to “Wiggle Wiggle.” The alcohol-inspired tears flow from the vacuity of “Under the Red Sky” (it’s like being emotionally caught up in an episode of Lassie). People sing along to “10,000 Men” although they don’t know why. “Cat’s in the Well” and “2 × 2” keep the dance floor occupied. Finally, someone falls while swinging from the chandelier during “Handy Dandy.” When the cops arrive, the party grinds to a halt. Unfortunately, nobody remembers just what happened—or they’re not telling.

Let’s take just a moment to look over these nonsense songs; after all, they’re unique within the lifework. In the opening song, we quickly make the transition from swampspeak to wigglespeak. The conversion is easy. You just turn off your mind and turn on your feet. The fourth verse offers a glimpse of this track’s symbolic depth:

        Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like satin and silk,

        Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a pail of milk,

        Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, rattle and shake,

        Wiggle like a big fat snake.

Would you believe me if I told you that Bob Dylan wrote this? I didn’t think so.

When we move to the second track and the title cut, the pace slows a bit, and the mood grows nostalgic. While you’d like to say that this is a sweet little ditty about growing up in Minnesota, in actuality, this is a sweet little ditty about absolutely nothing. The magical combination of the song’s first bridge and third verse exposes the wonders of this songwriting strategy:

        Someday little girl, everything for you is gonna be new

        Someday little girl you’ll have a diamond as big as your shoe

        Let the wind blow low, let the wind blow high.

        One day the little boy and the little girl were both baked in a pie.

        Let the wind blow low, let the wind blow high.

        One day the little boy and the little girl were both baked in a pie.

Moving isn’t it. If I told you that Bob Dylan wrote this song, would you believe me? Don’t get angry, now!

We turn to the blues for the nine three-line verses of “10,000 Men.” Everybody knows how important pacing is to a party, so we pause for a little Delta break here. This is a straight-up, old-fashioned blues tune about large numbers of people. We have 10,000 men, women, and a nice person who serves tea. Ten thousand men stand on a hill for no apparent reason (verse 1). We have 10,000 men moving in ways that your mother would sanction (verse 3). We also have 10,000 well-groomed men searching for precious minerals (verse 4). Oh yeah, we shouldn’t forget the 10,000 women saying goodnight to the narrator (verse 6). Then, of course, there’s the 10,000 women cleaning his room (verse 8). Well, get it? When you pull back and think about this, verse 5 deviates from this pattern in a richly symbolic fashion:

        Hey! Who could your lover be?

        Hey! Who could your lover be?

        Let me eat off his head so you can really see!

I don’t think it required 10,000 people to write this song. If I told you Bob Dylan—oh, never mind.

Our numerological theme carries on with the controversial “2 × 2.” A simple, steady rock beat supports the varying three verses of this reiteration of “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” as the song offers its nursery rhyme account of rhyming numbers. There’s a hint of complaint that’s elevated in the bridges, otherwise the rhymes bounce along. Submitted for your dining and dancing pleasure, here’s the opening verse and bridge:

        One by one, they followed the sun,

        One by one, until there were none.

        Two by two, to their lovers they flew,

        Two by two, into the foggy dew.

        Three by three, they danced on the sea,

        Four by four, they danced on the shore,

        Five by five, they tried to survive,

        Six by six, they were playing with tricks.

        How many paths did they try and fail?

        How many of their brothers and sisters lingered in jail?

        How much poison did they inhale?

        How many black cats crossed their trail?

What can you say? (I guess you could say that you haven’t seen this kind of numerological folly since “I Shall Be Free No. 10.”) As I mentioned earlier, there is the hint of complaint in these lines that throw out negative images and move along to the next rhyme. The song closes with references to Noah’s Ark, people turning keys, and following the sun. The rhymes just flow for no discernable reason. But hey, this is a party, right?

And the Bob Dylan Retirement Party concludes in a grand style. The penultimate “Handy Dandy” does a marvelous job of setting up that capstone commentary that is “Cat’s in the Well.” The full sound of the bouncy “Handy” keeps the party moving toward its sad ending. This tune is about somebody named Handy Dandy. He’s controversial, well-traveled, tough, and plays with an all-female orchestra (verses 1 and 2). Yes, he’s rich and has plenty of time on his hands (verse 3). The final stanzas round off this insightful profile:

        Handy Dandy, sitting with a girl named Nancy in a garden feelin’ kind of lazy

        He says, “Ya want a gun? I’ll give you one.” She says, “Boy, you talking crazy.”

        Handy Dandy, just like sugar and candy

        Handy Dandy, pour him another brandy

        Handy Dandy, he got a basket of flowers and a bag full of sorrow

        He finishes his drink, he gets up from the table he says,

        “Okay, boys, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

        Handy Dandy, Handy Dandy, just like sugar and candy

        Handy Dandy, just like sugar and candy.

OK, close your eyes, let your imagination flow, and you can see everybody swinging and swaying to this happy-go-lucky tune about a guy drinking brandy and offering guns to ladies. I tell you, that Bob sure knows how to throw a party.

To cap off Under the Red Sky we return to the swamp and the swinging sounds of zydeco music and “Cat’s in the Well.” With a wonderful bayou beat supporting this five-verse/two-bridge wacky song, we get the whole party up and dancing to a tale of a cat on the move. The cat’s in the well and a wolf is peering down at its potential dinner. While the wolf gapes, a woman sleeps, houses bounce, barns are occupied, and leaves fall. Serious stuff, right? The bridges take our Cajun ditty to another plane:

        The cat’s in the well and grief is showing its face

        The world’s being slaughtered and it’s such a bloody disgrace.

Ahhh yes, the old threatened cat metaphor at work here. The wolf stares down—no doubt, drooling—while the cat grows pensive and worried about the state of the world. How unusual: a selfless cat. The second bridge lightens the load a bit:

        The cat’s in the well, and Pappa is reading the news.

        His hair is falling out and all of his daughters need shoes.

The choice between a hairpiece and shoes for the kids must be a challenging one. The track just skips along noting that the barn is full, the drinks are made, and the dogs are prepared for combat. The song—and the Bob Dylan Retirement Party—conclude in an appropriate fashion: “Goodnight, my love, may the Lord have mercy on us all.” With that, the evening comes to a close. Assuredly, a good time was had by all. I don’t know about you, but I had a blast. Under the Red Sky does its job well. It’s an ending—that’s for sure—but it’s also a transition to a new beginning. Jack Fate is preparing to come on stage for a long, long stay.

There is no other segment of Bob Dylan’s career like the Pop Icon Period. Throughout this mission, we witnessed an artist in search of himself. His anger raged in Infidels. After the Moral Period and its Shot of Love resolution, the writer paused to offer one more edition of his Street-Legal declaration of decadence and take a final shot at the Jokerman responsible for this hell on earth. Yet, he can’t leave his work alone. Dylan toyed with the project until he deleted the work’s pivotal statement (“Foot of Pride”) and subsequently diluted the final product. The writing was on the wall at that point in that this kind of production folly would plague the rest of this period. As Red Sky producer Don Was told biographer Clinton Heylin: “I started to develop this unified field theory, that if something was too beautiful, if it looked like it was trying to please, then it was against his purposes . . . It’s not necessarily out of a lack of generosity of spirit . . . It says more about . . . his inability to yield to audience-pleasing.” This Iron Ranger’s rebellion is ever-present.

The search continued as the Nobel laureate called upon the Bob Dylan Revue for a three-album set. There relational matters by-and-large replaced the Street-Legal rhetoric as Dylan sang songs of love mixed in with covers and coauthored pieces that performed a host of functions. As Chronicles reports, Dylan lost his bearings during this period and his reorientation required time. He deployed his tried and true Basement Strategy in his search. Just when he was about to enter the wooden leg business, the nexus flickered, the songs trickled out, and the swampspeak moment ensued.

At this point, his reorientation dropped its wandering ways and grew more systematic. I think this is remarkable. Few artists have a career that extends this long and still have the resources necessary to muster yet another comeback—not an Elvis 1968-type comeback, but an artistic renewal. Friends, name one artist who has successfully achieved this goal. Finally, with the plan in place, the method of operation under control, and the willpower to see his ambitions through, Bob made his final adjustments to his “Bob Dylan” character. Just as he rose to the occasion during the Newport Mod Era, his new incarnation assumes control of the final leg of Bob’s career. With all of that in place, Dylan paused to celebrate his Iron Range roots. The sounds of The Day supported an unprecedented songwriting sampler. The curtain dropped with the artist wishing God’s mercy on us all. A new day dawned, and a New Bob is on the case.