In anticipation of the impending release of Bob Dylan’s
new album Rough and Rowdy Ways [June
19th – today!], Rolling Stone polled their staff to compile their
list of what they think are Dylan’s twenty-five best songs from the 21st
century. Of course, Rolling Stone being
Rolling Stone, they got the list only half right. Several of their picks come from the last
three Dylan albums, all the songs of which are covers that are somehow related
to Frank Sinatra, and one is a Christmas song.
Sorry, if you’re going to compile a list of songs by Bob Dylan, at least
make the effort to make sure they’re written
by Bob Dylan. Here is my “one pinhead’s
point of view” list. I have only two
criteria – the songs must have been written
by Bob Dylan, and the songs have to be released
after Jan 1, 2000 [I know – there is debate whether 2000 is part of the 21st
century, but that’s another argument…].
Bob Dylan experienced somewhat of a creative rebirth in
1997 with Time Out of Mind. Since then, he hasn’t been trying to keep up
with the musical Jones’s. Before then,
he released two albums of old songs that inspired him – Good as I Been to You [1992] and World Gone Wrong [1993]. He
confessed in his memoir Chronicles that he could no longer relate to his own
songs. He went back in time for
inspiration, the folk and blues songs that inspired him as a youth. Everything after Time Out of Mind has a weird, old-timey feeling that screams “roots”. He fell back onto the styles of electric blues,
folk, jazz, Western swing, rockabilly, rag time music, and 19th
century balladry. All those musical
styles that fall under the ‘Americana’ tag you’ll find on Dylan’s albums from ‘Love & Theft’ onward. I don’t have
an order of preference, so I copped out and made my list chronological.
Things Have Changed [The Essential Bob Dylan, 2000] – One of
the smartest things Dylan ever did when recording new songs was to dispense
with studio musicians and record with his touring band. He also decided to produce himself under the
pseudonym “Jack Frost.” Instead of
laboring for days over a single song, Dylan became more of a Zen artist – he and
the band would record two, maybe three takes of a song, with the arrangement of
each take being different from the last.
Dylan’s production gives his musicians room to breathe. The arrangements are uncluttered. That style of recording began with this song,
which was created for the movie Wonder
Boys. The song won the Academy Award
for Best Original Song. Dylan has used
his Oscar as a stage prop ever since [I’ve seen it].
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, Mississippi, Lonesome
Day Blues, High Water [for Charley Patton], Honest With Me, Cry A While
[‘Love & Theft’, 2001] – Many of
Dylan’s good or near-great albums since 1975 have been hailed as “his best
since Blood on the Tracks.” I’ve written elsewhere in these spaces that ‘Love & Theft’ is that album. Gone are the ambience and atmospherics of the
Lanois productions. With ‘Love And Theft’
we get Dylan without any frills. He took his road band into the studio this
time. These guys [including Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton on guitar, Tony
Garnier on bass, David Kemper on drums] had been touring with Dylan on his
“Never Ending Tour” for years, so they instinctively knew what he wanted. What
he got was a combination of jazz, swing, hard roadhouse blues [Lonesome Day Blues], country [High Water (for Charley Patton)],
rockabilly [Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum],
ballads and some of the hardest rock one has heard from Dylan in a long time [Honest With Me]. Mississippi
has three different released versions – one on ‘Love & Theft’, the other two on Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Rare and Unreleased
1989-2006. I think Dylan got it
right when he put out the ‘Love &
Theft’ version first.
Down in the Flood & Cold
Irons Bound [Masked and Anonymous
soundtrack, 2003] – In 2003, Dylan made a film about a “post-apocalyptic, mythological
third-world America” that was in the midst of a civil war. Dylan played the
character Jack Fate, a rock legend who was released from prison to perform some
kind of benefit concert. It’s a very
strange film, but Dylan and his road band were featured. They played four songs in the movie, but
these two songs absolutely smoked. Cold Irons Bound was from 1997’s Time Out of Mind, while Down in the Flood goes all the way back
to The Basement Tapes with The
Band. Yes, they are live versions of
older songs, but they are a “must have” for serious Dylan listeners. They also meet my criteria for inclusion on
this list.
Thunder on the Mountain, Rollin’
and Tumblin’, Someday Baby, Ain’t Talkin’ [Modern Times, 2006] - Thunder
on the Mountain sees Dylan as full of piss and vinegar as any song from
‘Love & Theft’. I’m not sure why Alicia Keys was on his mind,
but other things are going on here, and it doesn’t sound fun:
Gonna raise me an
army, some tough sons of bitches
I'll recruit my
army from the orphanages
I been to St.
Herman's church and I've said my religious vows
I've sucked the
milk out of a thousand cows
I got the pork
chops, she got the pie
She ain't no angel
and neither am I
Shame on your
greed, shame on your wicked schemes
I'll say this, I
don't give a damn about your dreams
Thunder on the
mountain heavy as can be
Mean old twister bearing
down on me
All the ladies of
Washington scrambling to get out of town
Looks like
something bad gonna happen, better roll your airplane down
Everybody's going
and I want to go too
Don't wanna take a
chance with somebody new
I did all I could
and I did it right there and then
I've already
confessed, no need to confess again
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ finds Dylan
using a musical arrangement that has been used plenty other old blues songs
[Howlin’ Wolf’s Meet Me in the Bottom,
Muddy Waters’ own version of Rollin’ and
Tumblin’, Robert Johnson’s If I Had
Possession Over Judgment Day, and so on…], but I’m quite sure Muddy Waters
wouldn’t use the phrase “some lazy slut has charmed away my brains…” At first I thought Someday Baby was a
knock-off of Trouble No More. It uses the same first verse and the chorus,
but other than that it’s a different song.
There are two versions – that which was released on Modern Times, and a radically-different version [which I prefer]
that came out two years later on Tell
Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006. Ain’t Talkin’ has the same release
history as Someday Baby, and like that song I prefer the later version.
Dreamin' of You, Red River Shore, Marchin’ to the City - [Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8:
Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006, 2008] – Recorded in 1997, these are outtakes
from Time Out of Mind, but you wouldn’t
know it from listening to them. Daniel
Lanois produced that album, and his production gave that album a hazy, spooky
feeling. That atmosphere isn’t present
on these three songs [well, maybe a little].
These songs have the “no frills” feeling of the songs from ‘Love & Theft’.
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’, It’s
All Good [Together Through Life,
2009] - Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ is a minor chord blues with mariachi
horns and guitar from Mike Campbell. David Hidalgo’s accordion [and the occasional
violin] gives the entire album a bit of a Tex-Mex feel. Dylan always did like Doug Sahm and the Sir
Douglas Quintet. It’s All Good is all chaos and could’ve been written yesterday.
Lying politicians [nothing new here], widows and orphans, cold-blooded killers,
cop cars in bad neighborhoods [kinda like today!], people “so sick they can
hardly stand” [and this ten years before COVID]. It’s a world that gets darker and more scary
with each successive verse. But don’t
worry about all this bad stuff, because “it’s all good.” Sarcasm at its very
best.
Duquesne Whistle, Narrow
Way, Pay in Blood, Scarlet Town, Early Roman Kings [Tempest – 2012]. The video for Duquesne
Whistle is pretty violent. It
starts out innocently enough with a guy who sees a girl to whom he’s attracted,
steals a rose from a sidewalk flower stand, and gives her the flower. Soon after, some kidnappers grab him off the
street, beat the shit out of him, and then turn him loose. But at least the video does follow the
narrative about this guy wanting to follow this girl anywhere she wanted to go. Narrow Way is the story of every
couple who splits up…Dylan is not happy about it. This song has another blues-standard riff
that I just can’t place, but I know I’ve heard it before somewhere. Pay in Blood drips with contempt for
some woman who had done him wrong. Some unnamed women were similarly skewered
in Like a Rolling Stone or Idiot Wind.
“I could stone you
to death for the wrongs that you done/Sooner or later you make a mistake,
I'll put you in a
chain that you never will break/Legs and arms and body and bone
I pay in blood, but
not my own.”
“Another politician
pumping out the piss/Another angry beggar blowing you a kiss/You’ve got the
same eyes that your mother does/If only you can prove who your father was…”
Scarlet Town – I don’t know where
Scarlet Town is, but I know that I don’t want to live there. This song has a rarity for any Dylan song – a
guitar solo. Early Roman Kings is
something I’ve heard before, back when it was called Mannish Boy [or Bo Diddley’s I’m
a Man – take your pick]. David
Hidalgo’s accordion plays the Mannish Boy
start-stop riff where you’d expect to hear a harmonica. Who are these “early Roman kings” in their
sharkskin suits? Are they the Wall
Street bankers who are “too big to fail”?
Whoever they are, Dylan calls them out –
They’re peddlers
and they’re meddlers/They buy and they sell/They destroyed your city/They’ll
destroy you as well/They’re lecherous and treacherous/Hell-bent for
leather/Each of ‘em bigger/Than all of them put together
Goodbye Jimmy Reed, False
Prophet [Rough and Rowdy Ways, 2020]
- Rough and Rowdy Ways is out today, and all week I’ve
been reading rave reviews of the album’s greatness. Once
again critics have reverted to hyperbole when it comes to Bob Dylan. Over and over I’ve been reading “it’s the
greatest thing since…” I’m not hearing
the same album they are. A good chunk of
the album crawls by. There are two
exceptions - Goodbye Jimmy Reed is a blues stomper that’s absolute
class. If you close your eyes, this one
will take you back to Leopard Skin
Pill-Box Hat [1966]. False Prophet is another Dylan blues
which borrows [a lot – others would say ‘stolen,’ but that’s the “folk process”
for you] from If Lovin' Is Believing
by Billy ‘the Kid' Emerson. Lyrically,
this sounds like a continuation of Early Roman Kings, and he sounds
equally annoyed. Here he says he’s "the
enemy of the unlived meaningless life" – a comment on reality television,
perhaps?
I was tempted to include Murder Most Foul, but
given the praise that’s been heaped upon it, that was too easy of a kill. I like it, but I don’t want to sit through
seventeen minutes of American cultural history very often. It sounds more like an epic poem than it does
a proper song.
