POST LATER DYLAN 1

I'm positing a not unprecedented but extremely rare 4th period of creativity for Bob Dylan.

We all know by now the take on 3rd period Dylan...beginning with Oh, Mercy, Dylan
choose, as he put it, not too look for the next mountain to climb, but rather, to consolidate his life's achievement into an edifice which would lead to the latter day trilogy of Time Out Of Mind, "Love and Theft" and Modern Times, mirroring the culturally unimpeachable mid-sixties trio of Bringing.... Highway 61...Blonde.

The latter-day trilogy, and the distinct, discrete album-in-its-own-right embedded in Bootleg Series #8 (i.e. Tell-Tales Signs) marked off this 3rd, "late" period as a completed part of Dylan's life achievement.
The lonesome wanderer of Dylan's earliest songs returns, a wizened hardened veteran of the roads to convey the great gathering of his creativity. He's ever walking "through streets that are dead" with his eyes on the "Highlands", in his mind for sure, and content with that for now; by the end of "Love and Theft" he joins the rest of humanity under judgment, looking up "before Gabriel blows his horn"; under this dispensation, the old wanderer surveys the world with an old master's detachment, seeing the horrors and sufferings, as well as the fleeting joys, of life on the unchangeable earth, and passes on, walking on "to the world's end." What happens ultimately to this wandering poet is shown at the end of "Cross the Green Mountain"--as a mortally wounded Civil War soldier, he is "lifted away/in an ancient light/that is not of day." His earthly sojourn is ended, and his songs remain for who can receive them.

Granted, this culmination began when Dylan regained his creative impetus with Oh Mercy--a magnificant, though minor summation of his "middle', 2nd period. The to-do about Under the Red Sky is overblown--he wrote an album of nursery rhymes for his child (I'll touch on this--Dylan, in the early 90s, mentioned some projects he'd like to do--a children's album, a Christmas album--even an album in which he re-did songs he wasn't satisfied with in the first place; if ...Red Sky isn't entirely that children's album, he/we may have to be content with his "This Old Man" contribution to that long-ago Olympics album...we know we can check off that Christmas album [unjustly maligned as far as I'm concerned...oh lazy Mass thinking!]...a re-do album remains to be seen.) In any case, despite the creative recharge, he had yet to determine how to proceed; I believe it's not for nothing that he set all his re-set buttons and went back to the traditional songs that formed him and which, in Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong, he put back out as his own. This has already been noted by others, and very naturally leads straight into TOOM.

If the later trilogy and Tell-Take Signs truly affirms the successful completion of Dylan's artistic intentions of final consolidation, then it seems to me that a tirelessly creative Dylan will of inclination need to continue moving on, which brings us to the idea of a 4th creative period...call it Post-Late Dylan, or Later Late Dylan or whatever signifier you wish to attach to it. This may seem like an arbitrary attempt to impose some critical edifice, but so was anointing the mid-sixties trilogy as such as the peak of his achievement; Sid Griffin, identified archivist of the Basement Tapes, believes the true mid-sixties trilogy to be Blonde On Blonde, The Basement Tapes and John Wesley Harding (interestingly, the whole arc of Dylan's career in miniature.) If he's acknowledged as being right, it makes a trilogy of Another Side, Bringing It all...and Highway 61 as a trilogy of its own, the first openings-up of his language in "My Back Pages" leading on to "Gates of Eden" and "It's Alright, Ma" scant weeks after Another Side...was released.

Any attempt to impose an order would be tentative as best; no matter how sharp and solid a line is drawn trying to divide a Before and an After, there will always be overlap, since the creative process is continuous.

Thus, while Tell-Tale Signs gathers the amazingly strong, consistent work that went into this 3rd period, while pointing a way forward, Modern Times sets the standard for this latter-day, proposed 4th period...a high standard, to be sure, but one that still shows a sense of completion and culminating but yet, is a bit more spirited, maybe a little too loose for its own good on occasion, probably because he is has really had his say now, over and over, even now in the act of closing his mouth re: the Great Dylan's Great Statements; it doesn't mean he won't make any more, just that he must feel totally free of any expectations, including his own.

More on this late 4th period anon, but before closing, let's say this by way of set-up: if Modern Times does set this "later" template, then we must accept this: no matter how many musical differences he manages in these later albums, we will, I think, never again get a radically different sounding album from Dylan again, and I believe the reason is very simple--he has a long time touring band of a more or less fixed, constant number of now long-time accompanists. Unless he gets a hugely grand notion and boots them all out, the days of a new Dylan album sounding utterly fresh and different from its predecessors, due to new and different musicians in the mix, is probably now over...(let's be real...at age 71,  he only has only so many haircuts left...on all levels.) If he manages to keep strong as he has though, then there is still more than enough of great value here.

more anon....



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