The Times They Are A-Rowdy.
Quarantined in lockdown, coronavirus may have f##### us more than Trump this year, but whilst everything from cinema screens to sports arenas have been put on hold until we drive into Disney World, it seems some of the worlds most amazing artists have gone back to the safe, social isolation at six feet and more distance of the studio. In 2020 that has roared the wrong way we've had albums released by everyone but Gatsby (until now with this old sport). So far we've had albums from artists like Childish Gambino, The Weeknd, Drake, Tank, Jay Electronica (finally...and featuring Jay-Z), The Strokes, Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon, Jezabel Hayley Mary, Lo-Fang, Lady Gaga and the South Korean, K-Pop juggernaut that is BTS and all their maps of the soul. Last week we got a new album from legend Norah Jones ('Pick Me Up Off The Floor') and next week we may just have the album of the year with Haim ('Women In Music Pt. III'). Even on this day we have some 'Bigger Love' from modern soul sensation John Legend becoming more of his last namesake and the sensational sophomore set from indie stirring singer Phoebe Bridgers, 'Punisher' that fits to the bone like crime. So with all this and so much more to come. From more diamond 'Confessions' from Usher like Part II and a new album from Lana Del Rey who only just did, 'Norman F###### Rockwell' last Summer, we may aswell get a new album from the American songbook of the G.O.A.T. like M.J. a long way from his last dance (although you can watch his and 'Irishman' Scorsese's 'Rolling Thunder Revue' on Netflix now) in the 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' of the one and only Bob Dylan.
79. Still dancing and swinging, pushing 80 Bob is back. The times they have been a-changing in his America of late. But the more they change...the more they stay the same. "Racism is still alive. They just be concealing it," like Kanye West once profoundly said when he walked with Jesus (like he does now as 'King'), but now he sides with Trump in a MAGA hat like Delroy Lindo's Vietnam vet in Spike Lee's new Netflix movie, 'Da 5 Bloods'. But just like America and U.S., they all 'Contain Multitudes' like Dylan's definitive opening track that shows like his career redux classic 'Modern Times' (Alicia Keys also has a new album out this calendar...Alicia Keeeeeys) he can still teach new Shakespearian storytelling depths like the 'Tempest' album at sea. With that famous white picket sign, 'I Can't Sing' voice actually getting fine wine better with the age of every gravel drive return home. Night after night. Somehow as bitter and smooth as a whiskey Dylan is producing at his distillery by the bar like one for the road and you know who. Multitudes. "I'm just like Anne Frank, Indiana Jones/And them British bad boys, the Rolling Stones/I go right to the edge, I go right to the end/I go right where all things lost are made good again", he sings shouting out Beethoven and Chopin names of history like a rolling stone. "I drive fast cars and I eat fast foods. I contain multitudes." Triggered. And just when he gets back in his groove to the two stepping album artwork he keeps the jukebox turning like Happy Days with the 'False Prophet' single you just have to believe in like faith. "I search the world over/For the Holy Grail/I sing songs of love/I sing songs of a betrayal," he sings for the songbook which may as well be a history one the way he engraves poetic chapter and verse into music's subconscious.
On 'My Own Version Of You' Dylan says he'll "take the Scarface Pacino and The Godfather Brando/Mix 'em up in a tank, and get a robot commando." Whilst on the beautiful, 'I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You' like 'Together Through Life' entwined asleep in the back of a station wagon, or 'Sittin' On My Terrace, lost in the stars/Listening to the sounds of the sad guitars," he dedicates himself like, "I'm giving myself to you, yes I am/From Salt Lake City to Birmingham/From East L.A. to San Antone/I don't think I can bear to live my life alone." Emotion hasn't sounded this much like devotion since Springsteen (who has his own 'Western Stars' album...and movie this time last Summer) said for all the lyrics to go in Dylan's great American songbook like Sinatra standards, his greatest line was when he repeated 'I Want You' over and over again because of how he meant it..."so bad". The bold and beautiful brilliance of 'Black Rider' itself sounds like something straight out of a western from Clint Eastwood or Cohen neo. Whilst the tribute that says, 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed' could be found on a Seeger session at its upbeat best that moves like the portraits of people on this album artwork. An album that is rough ('Murder Most Foul') and rowdy ('Crossing The Rubicon'). But for all the beauty of 'Mother Of Muses' like the one who brought you into this beautiful world and the Floridian traditions of 'Key West (Philosophers Pirate)', its the 15 plus minute story of a 'Murder Most Foul' on JFK from behind the grassy knoll that really storms through this set like a 'Hurricane' or his ode to wrongfully accused and imprisoned boxer Rubin Carter, singing until the day he was set free. "Twas a dark day in Dallas, November '63/A day that will live on in infamy/President Kennedy was a-ridin' high/Good day to be livin'and a good day to die," Dylan reports this dark day in American history from the shadows of the bookshelf. Talking about the King and the Fab Four. Martin. John, Paul, George and Ring. Playing 'Merchant To Venice', or "merchants of death", whilst "I'm riding in a long, black Lincoln limousine/Riding in the backseat next to by wife/Heading straight on into the afterlife." All as he says, "I'm leaning to the left, got my head on our lap," in a moment none of us will forget...but wish we could. Oh what this man has done for his country. Ask somebody. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'I Contain Multitudes', 'False Prophet', 'Murder Most Foul'.
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