DYLAN LOOKS BACK
BY LEN SOUSA
Bob Dylan -
Modern Times
Album Review
Bob Dylan has made a career out of looking back. In the 1960s, he brought Woody Guthrie’s brand of folk to the mainstream with his working class anthems that sounded slightly anachronistic even in their prime. When he went electric, the sound was modernized but still retained the hallmarks of classic balladry. His latest album, Modern Times, continues this look behind and seems more to do with Charlie Chaplin’s like-titled film from 1936 than anything from the past 30 years in music.
Dylan routinely calls on older inspirations in these 10 tracks—each sounding vaguely familiar but tinged with the songwriter’s inimitable lyrical style. From the thumping Chuck Berry-inspired vamp in “Thunder On The Mountain” to the slower and pedagogal “Ain’t Talkin’” that closes the album (Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen fans will enjoy this tune the most), archaic musical influences abound.
Listeners to Dylan’s weekly satellite radio show might not find these older sounds such an odd choice for the singer, who routinely dispenses anecdotes on the air about golden oldies performers like Tommy Duncan and Jan Bradley. But while Dylan careens across several genre lines in this release, the genres are typically limited to the ‘30s and ‘40s. Blues standards like “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” and “The Levee’s Gonna Break” get the Dylan treatment here (he keeps the chorus but rewrites the verses) as well as original countryesque ballads like “Spirit On The Water” and the hauntingly familiar “When The Deal Goes Down.”
Although Dylan has admitted he’s no longer the same songwriter who could pen “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” in a single sitting, his unique touches remain throughout the album—albeit in a more measured serving. “Thunder On The Mountain” is one of the best songs he’s written in the last two decades, and lines that may have once been overtly political are now subtler but just as powerful: “All the ladies in Washington are scramblin’ to get out of town/Looks like somethin’ bad gonna happen, better roll your airplane down/Everybody goin’ and I wanna go too/Don’t wanna take a chance with somebody new.”
Sure, it’s not quite your father’s Bob Dylan. Hell, maybe it’s more like your grandfather’s Bob Dylan. But it’s still a treat to hear this Old World take on Modern Times. Like Chaplin’s antiquated Tramp snaking his way through the enormous steel gears of an industrial machine, Dylan infiltrates the inner cogs of modern society with his outmoded country crooner persona—revealing, like the elder musical tribesman he’s become, the way things are through the way things were.
Originally Published:
Mercury (9.20.06)
