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Last
May, when it seemed like every newspaper and magazine
in the world was remarking on how the rebel rock poet
of the ’60s had turned 60, Bob Dylan was in a
recording studio in New York City with his road band,
creating his most musically realized album. A pioneer
and someone who prefers spontaneity and inspiration
to perfection, Dylan albums—always recorded quickly—are
for the most part rough and raw. If the feel is right,
he’ll leave in a mistake in the lyrics—a
slurred line or even an out-of-tune guitar. Not this
time. On Love And Theft, there is not one misplaced
note, not one sloppy arrangement.
Much
of the credit has to go to Dylan’s excellent
band: bassist Tony Garnier (who has worked with
Dylan longer than any musician), drummer David Kemper,
guitarist Charlie Sexton and multi-instrumentalist
(various guitars, violin, banjo) Larry Campbell.
For most of Dylan’s career, the common perception
has been, with good reason, that the greatest band
that worked with Dylan was The Band. This album
proves that—great as they were—the shadow
of The Band is no longer there. This band, with
the addition of Augie Meyers on organ, moves through
every genre—whether straight-ahead rock and
roll, blues, jump, swing or bluegrass—with
ease. It’s a magnificent achievement! The vision
is clearly Dylan’s, but the band more than
puts it across. Perhaps more than any previous Dylan
album, Love And Theft is as much about the
music—and the sound and style of the
music—as it is about the lyrics and the message.
At
the same time, it is lyrically dense and loaded
with references. It’s been a very long time
since the words have come pouring out of Dylan in
such a torrent. In fact, as musical as this album
is, there are few solos and, unlike his concerts,
no instrumental jams. It’s almost as if he
wanted to make sure everything he wanted to say
got in.
On
the printed page, the lyrics can be deceptive—you
have to hear them sung. And again, it is a new style
of writing for Dylan. Some of the songs at first
seem like jokes, but then he hits you with a line
that sizzles like a wire on fire. You suddenly realize
things are much darker and deeper than they seem,
and you never know when that sizzling line is going
to appear. There are more quotable lines on this
album than any Dylan album in decades.
This
is a distinctly American album, and it brings to
mind such past work as The Basement Tapes
and John Wesley Harding. Yet, there is a
host of characters to rival Highway 61 Revisited.
In contrast to the walking of Time Out Of Mind,
on this album Dylan is constantly driving. Car references
abound. And despite the limitations of his vocal
range, Dylan sings with more intensity, emotion,
heart and humor than he has on any album in a quarter
of a century. It’s as much in his phrasing
and how he sings something as it is in what he’s
saying.
The
album fades in on a rocker, "Tweedle Dee And
Tweedle Dum," that is reminiscent of two songs
from 1965/’66—"I Wanna Be Your Lover"
and "Tell Me Mama." There are references
in the song from the obvious "Alice In Wonderland"
to the Bible and Robert Johnson, to name a few,
and certain lines suspiciously recall the last presidential
election.
"Mississippi"
is a standout on an album of standouts. This is
a new version of a song recorded for Time Out
Of Mind and is one of the most beautiful and
perfect arrangements of any Dylan song on any album.
If there is any song on this album that sounds like
a classic Bob Dylan song, this is it. From there,
the album moves into the jump blues/swing of "Summer
Days." One doesn’t usually think of Bob
Dylan as swinging, but this song swings like mad
and is quite possibly the fastest song he’s
ever done. On the surface, it seems like a party
song. But the lyrics slyly go deeper and sometimes
comically, as in this line: "She says, ‘You
can’t repeat the past,’ I say ‘You
can’t? What do you mean, you can’t? Of
course, you can.’" And again, the last
election is quite possibly referenced with this
verse where the last line brings to mind the second
debate:
Politician’s
got on his joggin’ shoes,
He must be runnin’ for office, got no time
to lose,
Suckin’ the blood out of the genius of generosity.
You been a-rollin’ your eyes, you been teasin’
me.
Dylan
downshifts into a more mellow kind of swing on "Bye
and Bye," which one can almost imagine Sinatra
or perhaps Tony Bennett singing. Dylan slips in
such lines as, "I’m sitting on my watch
so I can be on time" and "The future for
me is already a thing of the past"—with
an apparent straight face—and then turns around
and quotes William Blake. By the time he gets to
the last verse, which includes the line "I’m
gonna establish my rule through civil war,"
you’re not so sure either of the above singers
would have done it.
From
there, Dylan goes into one of the heaviest and nastiest
blues he’s ever done, "Sad and Lonesome
Day," with a wicked guitar riff punctuating
each line. His vocal gets meaner and more ferocious
with each verse building up to:
I'm
going to spare the defeated, 'cause I'm going
to speak to the crowd,
I'm
going to teach peace to the conquered, I'm going
to tame the proud.
Then
suddenly, it’s way back in time for one of
the weirdest songs Dylan’s ever done—"Floater
(Too Much To Ask)"—that borrows a riff
from a ’30s jazz tune, "Snuggled On Your
Shoulder," sung by Bing Crosby, among others.
The setting appears to be somewhere in the South,
with a lazy swinging feel, but all kinds of surprises
lay in store from a sudden appearance of Romeo and
Juliet to lines such as: "If you ever try to
interfere with me/Or cross my path again, You do
so at the peril of your own life."
From
there, the sound suddenly shifts to bluegrass for
"Highwater (For Charlie Patton)," another
standout. Dylan’s singing here is beyond incredible,
and the lyrics again refer to other songs from Patton’s
"Shake It And Break It," "Kansas
City," Robert Johnson’s "Dust My
Broom" and the ancient ballad "The Cuckoo."
The song initially appears to be about a flood,
but Dylan again jumps all over the map. When it
gets to this verse, things change entirely:
Well, George Lewes
told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew,
"You can't open up your mind, boys, to every
conceivable point of view,
They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway
5"
Judge says to the High Sheriff, "I want them
dead or alive,
Either one, I don't care"
High water everywhere
Then
Dylan pulls an astounding change of pace into a
jazz-flavored "Moonlight" with the kind
of sweet vocal one wouldn’t necessarily expect.
The melody is unlike anything he’s ever written,
and the sly humor once more appears, especially
the way he sings this verse:
The clouds are turning
crimson,
The leaves fall from the limbs and
The branches cast their shadows over stone;
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone?
Perhaps
the lightest track on the album, there’s an
undercurrent in both his voice and the music that
suggests something darker.
Just
when you think Dylan’s become a pop crooner,
he slams into the album’s hardest rocker, "Honest
With Me." The song has a positively evil slide
guitar and a vocal that grows meaner with each line.
Comic lines are interspersed with lines that slay
you, and the song is loaded with bizarre images
where you least expect them.
Mississippi
John Hurt meets Fats Waller on the next song, a
country blues mixed with Dixieland that one could
imagine Louis Armstrong singing. Dylan’s vocal
is incredibly impassioned and funny at the same
time, and jokes are alternated with other lines
such as "The Game is the same, it’s just
up on another level." And when Othello and
Desdemona suddenly appear, it’s not all that
surprising, nor is the knock-knock joke that ends
it.
"Cry
Awhile" slides back into the Delta with a kind
of crazy Howlin’ Wolf time shift. Again the
intensity in Dylan’s voice, complimented by
the perfect guitar work of Campbell and Sexton,
make this one of the funkiest tracks he’s ever
done, highlighted by lines like, "Some people
they ain't human, they ain't got no heart or soul."
Saving
the best for last, Dylan shifts back into modern
times (sort of) with "Sugar Baby," another
song that’s different than anything he’s
done. Opening with Garnier’s bowed bass against
a single organ chord, this is the album’s saddest
and most moving song. His voice is spooky, recalling
the best songs of The Basement Tapes such
as "Tears of Rage" and (the unreleased)
"I’m Not There (1956)." Lines like
"Every moment of existence seems like some
dirty trick" contrast against the jokey lines,
such as "I’m living with Aunt Sally, but
you know she’s not really my aunt."
The
beginning of the second verse, "Some of these
bootleggers, they make pretty good stuff,"
has already caused some eyes to open wide on the
Internet news group, rec.music.dylan. Is he talking
about bootleggers or bootleggers?
Love
And Theft crosses more emotional and musical
territory than any album in recent memory by Dylan—or
anyone else. As on his best work of the past, you’re
never really sure whether it’s him or a character
talking. For years, Dylan has been quite conscious
of time and space in his songs. Here he crosses
time and subject matter with blinding speed, sometimes
in a single verse or line. Virtually every topic
Dylan’s sung about is in this album in one
way or another, from love or lost love to America
to God, redemption, the terrible sadness of life
and the state of the world. At times, he is at his
most personally revealing, and there are several
references to his parents (though, of course, sometimes
it could be a character in a song). When he sings
"Some of these memories you learn to live with,
some of them you can’t," there is no doubt
that it’s coming from some place deep inside.
That
Bob Dylan could pull this album out of his bag of
tricks at this time is no small achievement. Yes,
the Bob Dylan of another time and place could not
possibly have made this album. He had to get to
where he is now to do it. As a good friend of mine
said after hearing it, "It’s like he woke
up and remembered who he is."—Peter Stone
Brown
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