Bob Dylan—Together Through Life

Bob Dylan—Together Through Life (Columbia Records)

Review by Hugh Lilly

Together Through Life is Dylan’s 33^rd studio album, and the first to reach #1 in the UK charts since New Morning in 1970. David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers join Dylan’s regular backers for ten tracks of languid accordion-heavy blues.

The commanding opener, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” is a brassy, audacious paean to the end of the world, moving through “boulevards of broken cars” beyond which there’s “nothin’ but the moon and the stars.” The dusky “I Feel A Change Comin’ On” is reminiscent of “Lay Lady Lay,” and the whole record is gorgeously laid back—on “Life is Hard” ukulele and Hawaiian guitar sit effortlessly alongside gently-picked mandolin. There’s an interpretation of Willie Dixon’s “My Wife’s Home Town,” and “If You Ever Go To Houston” borrows a line from “Midnight Special,” a folk song popularised by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Together Through Life sees Dylan age gracefully—unlike, say, Mick and Keef. The new record won’t impress Dylanologists looking for a fix, but that hasn’t stopped them decoding it. The cover photograph also graces Larry Brown’s short story collection “Big Bad Love”—“I’ve read every word the man’s ever written,” Dylan declares in a lengthy, interesting conversation with critic Bill Flanagan which begins at bobdylan.com. It seems Dylan’s been reading a lot else, too: the title may be from a Walt Whitman poem, and lyrics are drawn from sources as diverse as Ovid and Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”. It’s worth getting the deluxe edition which includes an episode of Theme Time Radio Hour, his fantastic satellite radio show.

This is an unabashedly simple, romantic record; although there are no moments of stellar lyricism like “the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face,” Together Through Life showcases an unguarded eccentric reminiscing.

~ by Hugh on May 6, 2009.