POST LATE DYLAN 2

So then, what distinguishes a 3rd "late" period from a 4th "later" period for Dylan?

Mostly, the lack of any great artistic agenda...any edifice advancing a "Great Statement"...Even in consolidating his work, Dylan has had opportunity to do great things and has availed himself.

The controversies surrounding this "later Dylan" begin, essentially, with Modern Times; the Dylan supporters hailed it as a masterpiece, while the naysayers dismissed it as a lazy, unimaginative work-by-the-numbers. Both contentions are a little too extravagant for my taste; without trying to sound equivocal, but undoubtedly I'll be called down for it, I straddle. Yes, Modern Times is a masterpiece, but yes, it is the runt of the litter. By Dylan's own admission, he had ideas left over from "Love and Theft" that he wanted to squeeze the last bit of juice out of. That sounds to me like playing out the thread, and when you're doing that, you're already getting into diminishing returns. Thus, between MT and Tell Tale Signs, you have the summation of all that's come before, while (and especially with Tell Tale...) a way forward is being pointed out. The "new" songs on "Signs", that is, the finished soundtrack songs form the bulk of this discrete work, with one dip into the vaults for a discarded masterpiece ("Red River Shore") , while the rest are alternate takes of "Mississippi" and "Someday Baby" so radically different from their released versions as to constitute new music. Add two complete-in-themselves songs--"Marching To The City" and "Dreaming Of You"--dismantled to be reworked into other songs, and you have a creative gloss on a body of work that sustains and confirms the greatness of that period.

So, if all endings are beginnings, where has MT and Tell Tale Signs taken us in this posited 4th period? Into works in which Dylan, more than ever, is free to do as he pleases, as it suits the project at hand, rather that some overarching thesis. Together Through Life was occasioned by soundtrack work for My Own Love Song; the creative process took hold strongly and Dylan developed his own work from it. It's a minor album, granted, and so what? Does Dylan always have to satisfy someone else's idea of his work by grinding out one transcendent, game-changing masterpiece after another? Horseshit! Dylan sounds like he was having fun on this album, enjoying nothing but the actual making of music. And it certainly gives us a strong taste of what Dylan's band does on stage. This is his "cowboy band"; this is his Saturday Night roadhouse band doing basic blues, as much 50s Chess R&B as Tex-Mex, Sir Douglas Quintet (and if it comes to that, Los Lobos--Hello David!) His themes are still there, but again, no great need to "Make A Statement!" That may be the distinguishing characteristic of all these "Post-Late Dylan" records; they are free, more so than at almost any other time in his artistic life.

Having said this, it occurs to me as I type this out that, free as these latter day albums may be, there may be one last great theme Dylan may be attempting to fulfill--maybe not as an edifice in itself, but as a guiding principle through this fresh creative freedom--and that is the return to religion. What could be more natural for someone literally on borrowed time, as is Dylan now, having scored his three score and ten plus one? The world overview of love and earthly struggle examined in Together Through Life gave way very quickly to Christmas in The Heart.

As I said in yesterday's post, this album was, I feel, unjustly maligned. True, hearing Dylan's old man growl grind through "Winter Wonderland" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" may be surreal enough in itself (and in the latter, he at least reinstated to original lyric about "stumbling our way through", opposed to Sinatra's more cheery, thus falsified, official revision.) But the sheer fun of "Must Be Santa", the gravity of "O Little Star of Bethelem", the late-night beer joint feel of Dean Martin's "The Christmas Blues" (which could have fit perfectly into any of Dylan's own albums) give this work its substance and worthiness. For me, at least, the capper is "Little Drummer Boy"; this song is so overplayed that even when it's played every season on radio stations programmed for non-stop Christmas music and department store muzak, you don't even hear it at all, it's that much a part of the white noise of daily activity. With this performance, Dylan sheds the gravel in his voice and gives so moving a rendition that, for once in my life, I got the full brunt of this song. I saw the drummer approach the baby king; I understood his trembling awe before this nascent deity; I felt his relief and gratitude when the only gift he could offer--his drumming--was acceptable. As great a vocal performance as Dylan has ever managed.

Let the snarky smart-asses mock; I will treat of them in the next and last post on this matter, when I'll look at this closing of the circle by looking at Tempest and its unissued companion piece--the alleged album's worth of religious songs that Dylan wrote along with the Tempest material, and which he deemed "too similar-sounding" to be issued together; religious songs not like the "tablet-smashing", fire-and-brimstone screeds of the so-called "Born-Again" trilogy, but more inspirational like, as Dylan put it, "Just a Closer Walk With Thee", although the "Born Again" period did have its share of those kind of songs--"I Believe In You", "In The Garden", "Saving Grace" and most celebrated of all, "Every Grain of Sand." Tempest may not be his swan song (it almost sounds as if critical and popular opinion were trying to wish it on him--he being so not into being raised up as an idol, only to be cast down as same.) I doubt his endurance will give out at this point, always frustrating the proprietors of social agendas. They've failed before to shunt him out, and probably will until the end; Dylan will go out as he went on, on his own terms only.




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