Bob Dylan – Rough And Rowdy Ways
Columbia Records – Our Now
As the Never-Ending Tour was being put on an indefinite hiatus, word started leaking out about new Bob Dylan music beginning with Murder Most Foul, a 17-minute fever dream and Dylan’s first number one. Now, with the release of Rough And Rowdy Ways, he reflects on what he has seen over the course of the past sixty years. There are pirates and prophets, murderers and madmen, dates with women and dates with destiny, yet through it all, Dylan examines the world that will eventually be turned over to another generation.
Opening not with a scream but a whisper, I Contain Multitudes reveals a Dylan as a product of everything he has experienced. Over three albums of standards one of lessons he’s learned how to croon like a master, comfortable in his own skin and able to instil meaning into a voice that often screamed rather than sang. “Tell me, what’s next? What shall we do?/Half my soul, baby belongs to you/I rollick and I frolic with all the young dudes.” In addition to Mott The Hoople, Dylan name-checks everyone from Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Frank, Indiana Jones to the Rolling Stones effectively pointing out that what we experience is based on our own reference points.
The quick shuffle of False Prophet, complete with some nice dancing on the frets by Charlie Sexton – now an old hand, establishes Dylan as someone with his own agenda. “Hello stranger – Hello and goodbye/You rule the land but so do I/You lusty old mule – you got a poisoned brain/I’m gonna’ marry you to a ball and chain.” The man is telling the truth and we are only too ready to hear the sermon.
Connecting the dots, we are led down pathways that leave listeners gasping for breath. Building My Own Version Of You, Dylan creates his own Frankenstein monster from an incredible collection of body parts. “Step right into the burning hell/where some of the best-known enemies of mankind dwell/Mr. Freud with his dreams, Mr. Marx, with his ax/see the rawhide rip the skin from their backs.” The question at the end of the day is still who are we serving?
Even with all the heartbreak we experience, or perhaps because of it, there is still a soft spot in his heart. If there is any hope left it seems that it is, as it has always been, love. The slow waltz of I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You suggests that at the end of the day we all need to give our selves up to someone else. “Well, my heart’s like a river, a river that sings/Just takes me a while to realize things/I’ve seen the sunrise, I’ve seen the dawn/I’ll lay down beside you when everyone’s gone.”
Key West (Philosopher Pirate) seems like a place of endings. Not necessarily a place where dreams go to die, but there does seem to be death in the air. A sad, slow tale that bends to forces against one’s will. Yet Dylan is able to find ways to avoid ultimate disaster. “Twelve years old, they put me in a suit/Forced me to marry a prostitute/There were gold fringes on her wedding dress/That’s my story, but not where it ends/She’s still cute, and we’re still friends.” While it may not be the ultimate happy ending, at least it doesn’t end in tears.
The reference points on Murder Most Foul underscore the music and history of Dylan’s entire generation. While telling the tale of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, an event that shaded everything that came after it, becoming a touchstone for generations, he finds ways to incorporate the history of music and the history of how so many American dreams died in a single day, with a fiddle in the background that brings the heart break into the open.
Nearing 80, Bob Dylan remains a wonder, able to paint aural pictures that excite the senses, continuing to breathe life into a medium that doesn’t tend to value longevity. Yet he soldiers on, remaining relevant and true to his vision. Rough And Rowdy Ways cannot be categorized simply as a late period success, it is so much more than that. It defies age, suggesting that we look beyond easy answers and keep trying to understand how we relate to an ever-changing world.
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