Last week, on Sep. 11, Bob Dylan released his 35th studio recording since popping on the national folk music scene fifty years ago. It was a notable release date for an album so full of violent imagery and ideas. But, while many of the songs on Tempest flirt with violent ideas and fantasy, there's never the sense that these songs are invoking violence for the sake of violence. These are stories - perhaps even parables - told in the verbose folk ballad tradition, employing the tools of modern indie pop and the blues. Aesthetically the disc is an aural innovation, all the while tipping a hat to ancient English balladry.
And yet, Dylan is ever the labyrinthine poet. These songs are poised to reveal themselves slowly and carefully. The more you listen, the better you'll understand, until you understand there is no way to truly understand a single thing. Confused yet? Check out my full review of Bob Dylan's Tempest, or share your thoughts in the comments.
image © Sony/Columbia
Comments
Narrow Way: “It’s a long and narrow way, if I can’t work up to you, you’ll surely have to work down to me someday”… “Look down angel, from the skies, help my weary soul to rise”… “I heard a voice at the dusk of day, saying ‘Be gentle, brother, be gentle and pray …”
Pay in Blood: “I’ve sworn to uphold the laws of God, you can put me out in front of a firing squad … Man can’t live by bread alone, I pay in blood, but not my own …”
“Dylan is communicating the fact that it is Christ’s blood that pays for the sins of the world, not the blood of any mortal man,” Seems ‘Dylan, Depression and Faith’ was right + Christmas in the Heart is still being celebrated…