Album: Time Out Of Mind
Artist: Bob Dylan
Born: Duluth, Minnesota
Released: September 1997
Genre: Americana
The late 90s were a great time for Bob Dylan fans. Not only did he make a powerful comeback with this double LP, but an official recording of his legendary 1966 Manchester Free Trade Hall performance was released a year later, in 1998. For Time Out Of Mind, Dylan reignited his working relationship with producer Daniel Lanois (who had recorded Oh Mercy in 1989). Since 1988, Dylan had started playing live again, a time now viewed as the beginning of his Never Ending Tour, a period of constantly being on the road that's lasted over 25 years now. Touring again was an invigorating experience that helped Dylan rediscover his sense of purpose and his creative mojo. Dylan played Lanois some Slim Harpo records to give a sense of how he wanted the album to sound, which Lanois describes as a "natural depth of field which was not the result of a mixing technique", involving "somebody in the front singing, a couple of people further behind and somebody else way in the back of the room". There's also an impromptu feel to the record, the result of Dylan improvising many of the songs with his backing musicians like guitarist Duke Robillard, organist Augie Meyers and bass guitarist Tony Garnier. Dylan has voiced some reservations about the album in later interviews, saying there was a sameness to the songs and that "swampy, voodoo thing that Lanois is good at". The stripped down, bare feel means that Dylan maybe didn't make the songs sound as fully dimensional as he might have liked, a factor that contributed to his decision to produce his own work after Time Out Of Mind. That said, there's no doubt that this is a huge return to form, a record about the desolation of lost love and mortality, from a 56-year old man who sounds heartsick and weary, but who is constantly evolving and using this pain as inspiration for his songwriting.
Not Dark Yet was one of two singles and, like many of the songs on the album, was written after dark, inspired by the Biblical quote, "Work while the day lasts, because the night of death cometh when no man can work." By this time, Dylan had turned his back on organised religion, after dalliances with Christianity and Judaism, but this album finds him meditating on humanity's weaknesses like never before. Not Dark Yet sees Dylan facing up to his mortality ("I was born here and I’ll die here against my will / I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still"), with Christopher Ricks comparing the song to John Keats' Ode To A Nightingale. Dylan, as ever, refuses to interpret his songs in interviews, saying the album was "more an aural experience than a literary one". Heartbreak is at the core of songs like Standing In The Doorway, Love Sick and 'Til I Fell In Love With You, the raw guitar jabs on the latter sounding like blows to the heart. Other songs like Cold Irons Bound, with its clattering rockabilly drums, and Tryin' To Get To Heaven ('"When you think that you've lost everything / you find out that you could always lose a little more") have a haunted tone that's deeply indebted to the blues. Dylan has always contended that the album isn't as dark and despondent as some critics have tried to make out. Make You Feel My Love is a burst of positivity and light, while Highlands is poignant and funny, especially the conversation between the narrator and waitress in the café. Dylan says he stole a country blues riff from Charley Patton for Highlands, but it's the panoramic lyrics that steal the show, as he references Neil Young and envies the young ("I'd trade places with any of them in a minute if I could") and holds up a mirror to a chaotic world.
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