I have this problem and it’s called “Together through life”
In case you don’t know that is the title of the new Bob Dylan album which came out this week. For years and years the prospect of a new Dylan album would have filled me with anticipation and I would have dashed out and bought it on the day it was released. I remember standing outside a shop in Victoria on August Bank Holiday Monday 1979 staring at the sleeve of Slow Train Coming which was on display in the window wondering what it contained within.
Slow Train was the album when Dylan went Christian so there was good reason to wonder. In the end I came to love the album but that took many years but I often listen to it now. The songs on the album work on many levels not just as the fervent Christian message they were intended to portray. As time goes on some of them have actually got more relevant.
Being a Dylan fan has never been easy – even before I had even heard of him he had confounded his fans on numerous occasions. His switch from Protest singer to rocker and then to gentle country songs etc challenged his audience but broadly he went from being a genius in one genre to being a genius in another.
Then sometime ago things changed. The never ending tour he has been on for the past god knows how many years has kept him plodding along the same old path and to be honest I wish he would do something different or give up. It’s like watching an elderly relative slowly declining and there is nothing you can do to stop it. His last two albums were given huge critical acclaim but frankly I thought they were both awful – it was like the never ending tour committed to disc.
Don’t get me wrong I have seen him many times and I’ve always thought, at the time, that he was great. There is something about being in the room with him that’s just overwhelming. Thankfully I seem to have the knack of missing the real turkeys of a tour and by the sounds of things Ihave done that again this time round.
Two of my friends went to his gig at the Roundhouse the other night. One them them posted a review in two words “Absolute Shite” and his friend then followed up with “It got even worse after you left”. The fact that this friend walked out of the gig suggests to me that it must have been awful because he has a greater tolerance level than me for his Bobness.
So back to “Together through life” – It has had a mixed reception – some have said it’s another genius album others have panned it and say it’s rubbish. The lyrics on the album were written in conjunction with the Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter but that doesn’t seem to have been widely announced.
They even gave a free download of one of the tracks from bobdylan.com but although I downloaded it I couldn’t bring myself to listen. And that is where my problem lies – I just don’t want to listen to the album. I don’t think I could bear the disappointment.
Now hear this Robert Zimmerman
Though I don’t suppose we’ll meet
Ask your good friend Dylan
If he’d gaze a while down the old street
Tell him we’ve lost his poems