Dylan's Modern Times

At its worst, especially in "When the Deal Goes Down" (track 4), Nashville Modern Time Out of Line, comes off like a Willie Nelson "b" side. Near its best Dylan's latest album 'conjurs up long dead songs from their crumbling tombs.' "Rollin' and Tumblin'" (track 3) channels the sound of Blonde on Blonde's "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine" and is almost certainly this set's catchiest tune with a vintage Dylan scheme built on repeating lines followed by one liners rather than on a chorus/stanza structure: "Well the warm weather's comin' and the buds are on the vine/ the warm weather's comin' the buds are on the vine" followed by "ain't nothing more depressing than trying to satisfy this woman of mine." So, yes, Dylan the heartbroken misogynist comes out in nearly full force here. From the same song: some young lazy slut has charmed away my brains. And, "this woman so crazy, I swear I ain't gonna touch another one for years." As is usually the case, however the act can't last: Well I rolled and I tumbled and I cried the whole night long ... Let's forgive each other darlin', let's go down to the greenwood glen/Let's put our heads together now, let's put old things to an end."

Also here is the Dylan of the Christian phase. From "the writing on the wall" near the outset of track one ("Thunder on the Mountain" - rockabilly at its finest possible) to the penultimate lines, "Excuse me, ma'am, I beg your pardon/There's no one here, the gardener is gone," of track 10 ("Ain't Walkin'), Modern Times oozes theological themes and Biblical references from every pore. The eery sound of Ain't Talkin' (just walkin') feels like an extended rumination from beyond the grave, or "the mystic garden," and that even more than any of the offerings with a similar ambiance on 1997's Time Out of Mind. Ain't Walkin', and thus the album, ends with Dylan's "Heart burnin', still yearnin'/In the last outback at the world's end." Of course, it wouldn't be Dylan if there weren't some downright loopy lines. A ryhming scheme in Thunder on the Mountain "... said my religious vows/Sucked the milk out of a thousand cows" recalls some of the other rare couplets from Dylan's past that don't quite work ("little red wagon, little red bike/I ain't no monkey, but I know what I like" from Blood on the Tracks' "Buckets of Rain").

The best this album has to give in the way of political protest is in its offering of a different kind of cowboy. Self-assurred, yes. But also deeply reflective, jilted, often dwelling in the lonesome valley of the shadow of night. The most explict attempt to live in a political world withers on the vine. Verse one of "Workingman's Blues #2" (track 6) fires up with extraordinary promise

There's an evenin' haze settlin' over town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down
Money's gettin' shallow and weak

but begins to sputter before the first go at a chorus that manages to carry the listener through the following verses as they cough, spin their wheels, and finally collapse in the platitudinous final lines of the final verse: Some people never worked a day in their life/Don't know what work even means.

"Spirit on the Water" (track 2) and "Beyond the Horizon" (track 7) could become the most ground breaking musically. They have a neo-1940's, one might say even a slow, big band rhythm. Spirit on the Water is a love song, but leagues and leagues below the standard set by "Make You Feel My Love" on Time Out of Mind. In fact, I only somewhat unfairly jotted down CCMesque lyrics in my notes the first time through the album. The ever ambigous "You" rears its ugly head as Dylan croons such lines as "I wanna be with you in paradise." To be more charitable it must be added that that line is followed up with "And it seems so unfair/I can't go to paradise no more/I killed a man back there." Beyond the Horizon, however, sneaks up on you. It wasn't until the third or fourth listen that I realized what a wondeful piece this is. It is indeed "touched with desire"; if you want a love song, here it is:

My wretched heart is pounding
I felt an angel's kiss
My memories are drowning
In mortal bliss

Beyond the horizon, the night winds blow
The theme of a melody from many moons ago
The bells of St. Mary, how sweetly they chime
Beyond the horizon I found you just in time

One reason this song took a bit of listening to in order to truly discover is that its sound contrasts so starkly with those that its sandwiched between - Workingman's Blues and the trio of tracks that complete the album with a pensive flourish. Besides Ain't Talkin', that trio includes "Nettie Moore" (track 8) and "The Levee's Gonna Break" (track 9). "If it keep on raining the levee gonna break" is twice repeated in every chorus before a line such as "Everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make," "some people don't know which road to take," or "some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones"; but also "without you there's no meaning in anything I do" and "I tried to get you to love me, but I won't repeat that mistake." In other words, this is only obliquely and in part a song about New Orleans. It is also a break-up song, a break up song with spiritual themes making their appearances here and there.

I must admit that a large part of me hoped beyond hope that the five years that have transpired since 2001's Love and Theft might have gone some way toward reviving the Dylan of the sixties. I knew that the album wouldn't disappoint, but that it wouldn't be nearly as political as those of us who love Dylan, but especially the Dylan of The Times They Are A-Changin', could possibly hope. This song is nothing if not emblematic of such ambivalence. So Dylan sings a song that can't help but be inspired by Katrina and its aftermath, and it's a right good song. A kind of muted buoyancy pervades. But isn't there anything, anything at all that could reinstigate that flamethrowing pillar of fire of the turbulent sixties?

But so it goes. And that leaves us with Nettie Moore (track 5 "Someday Baby" is relatively humdrum for a Dylan song). By far and away my initial favorite. The song is governed by a soft, but constant beat on a solitary drum. More Indian than Cowboy. And most definitely reminiscent of Oh Mercy's "Man in the Long Black Coat." Together with Ain't Talkin' the very picture of the kind of driving but piecemeal poetry that could only be written by the aged travelling bluesman who also happens to be the greatest English speaking poet of the twentieth century. So he has to fight with T.S. Elliot in the captain's tower for that honor. A whale of a fight, indeed, but one that Dylan's endless range of styles, tricks, and weapons wins in my mind. "Lost John sittin' on a railroad track/Something's out of whack," begins the song. "Blues this mornin' fallin' down like hail." And the chorus

Oh, I miss you, Nettie Moore
And my happiness is o'r
Winter's gone, the river's on the rise
I loved you then, and ever shall
But there's no one left here to tell
The world has gone black before my eyes

It has its levity too: They say whisky'll kill you but I don't think it will. If anyone would know, surely its Dylan. He keeps on riding. Keeps on producing. Keeps on carrying his heavy burden. And, of course, continues to tour--which is where you have to go to find him at his very best these days, he's been talking about how much he hates the way album's sound on CD's. To this musical ignoramous the album sounds haunting, glorious, track after track of music that will sustain a thinking man for a long, long time. But for the man now nearing seventy who gave birth to Modern Times if not modern music, "the sun is strong, I'm standing in the light/I wish to God that it were night."