9/08/2006
Modern Times Part I
A new Dylan album baby! As Abe Simpson’s friend said when he thawed out and saw a Moon Pie at the Quickie Mart, “What a time to be alive.” Modern Times is Dylan’s first new album in five years, which came five years after the last one.
The album is the latest step in a late career resurgence that, as many critics have pointed out, is unparalleled among his peers and possibly among all American music icons. People have come on strong at the end (Johnny Cash recently) but three brilliant, commercially successful (e.g. hit) and universally acclaimed albums in a row is something special for a 65 year old artist. Also during this run...
-Multiple Grammy’s, an Oscar and a Golden Globe
-The award winning Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home
-The best selling first installment of his autobiography, Chronicles Vol 1, which made most Top Ten Books of the Year lists and was nominated for a Book Critics Circle award.
-A movie, I'm Not There, by director Todd Haynes coming out next year.
-Modern Times debuting at #1 worldwide (English speaking and/or European nations) and in the U.S. He's the oldest person to have an album debut at #1 in the U.S. who wasn't dead at the album's release time(!).
Modern Times is awesome. Much like the last album, it is a sampling tour of pre-Elvis American song styles. Country waltz, golden age pop ballads, blues of varying sorts, 19th century folk, 50's rock etc. are all on here. As the title would imply, observations on today are present throughout the songs but there is no soap box under his feet. The fleeting, subtle references to current events (Katrina, 9-11, elections, the economy, etc.) are sprinkled lightly throughout the album and are subservient to the main themes...
-Love, lust (a lot of that one, the old horn dog), hate, bitterness and everything else under the sun regarding women
-His own mortality
-Morality (God, religion, the bible and especially the end of days)
-Violence
The very complicated mixture of all those ingredients is classic Dylan. He's always been obsessed with both the sacred and the profane and will often consider both in one line or couplet, much less one song.
The essence of the album is that these are all on the mind of the protagonist, who jauntily sets out in track 1 to see the world just as it is ending. He's taking notes on the greater happenings (current events), falling into and out of love and thinking about all the above ingredients until he gets to the true end. At the last track he's walking through a post apocalyptic world ("The cities of the plague") on a dark mission of revenge, thinking about those women from earlier and wondering if this actually is God’s plan or a meaningless end ("The Gardener's gone"). Once again it is classic Dylan for the epic closing track to assemble all the themes from the earlier songs and put them into context. How the hero's journey ends we never find out ("In the last outback, at the world's end"). It's an odd journey indeed. The Chaplin-esque figure at the start was carefree and footloose. He was sure that true love would be his salvation in these troubled times. Now he's dark and uncertain, love is gone and he and the world are left with nothing.
I was very impressed to find at least two reviews that actually picked up on this. By the way, don't take the metaphor too literally. Dylan does not do concept albums or rock operas. This is more of a loose structure that ties the songs together.
As mentioned, musically the album is beyond old school. Lyrically there is only one (startling) exception to the rule that all the people, places & things in the entire album couldn't be from a hundred year old song. There is no mention of the internet or anything like that. The idiom and the music are from the old, lost America that he’s pinning for, ironically using the obsolete tools to comment on today. So you realize all these complaints about modern times were just as relevant then as they are now (floods, war and the rest). And such completes the circular joke of the album title, its retro 1930’s cover and the overall theme.
‘Modern Times’ is also the title of a Charlie Chaplin movie that was a satire of modernity with its machines and complications.
And that’s Bob Dylan. There’s always another joke, level or connection to discover and that’s what keeps me coming back.
|
A new Dylan album baby! As Abe Simpson’s friend said when he thawed out and saw a Moon Pie at the Quickie Mart, “What a time to be alive.” Modern Times is Dylan’s first new album in five years, which came five years after the last one.
The album is the latest step in a late career resurgence that, as many critics have pointed out, is unparalleled among his peers and possibly among all American music icons. People have come on strong at the end (Johnny Cash recently) but three brilliant, commercially successful (e.g. hit) and universally acclaimed albums in a row is something special for a 65 year old artist. Also during this run...
-Multiple Grammy’s, an Oscar and a Golden Globe
-The award winning Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home
-The best selling first installment of his autobiography, Chronicles Vol 1, which made most Top Ten Books of the Year lists and was nominated for a Book Critics Circle award.
-A movie, I'm Not There, by director Todd Haynes coming out next year.
-Modern Times debuting at #1 worldwide (English speaking and/or European nations) and in the U.S. He's the oldest person to have an album debut at #1 in the U.S. who wasn't dead at the album's release time(!).
Modern Times is awesome. Much like the last album, it is a sampling tour of pre-Elvis American song styles. Country waltz, golden age pop ballads, blues of varying sorts, 19th century folk, 50's rock etc. are all on here. As the title would imply, observations on today are present throughout the songs but there is no soap box under his feet. The fleeting, subtle references to current events (Katrina, 9-11, elections, the economy, etc.) are sprinkled lightly throughout the album and are subservient to the main themes...
-Love, lust (a lot of that one, the old horn dog), hate, bitterness and everything else under the sun regarding women
-His own mortality
-Morality (God, religion, the bible and especially the end of days)
-Violence
The very complicated mixture of all those ingredients is classic Dylan. He's always been obsessed with both the sacred and the profane and will often consider both in one line or couplet, much less one song.
The essence of the album is that these are all on the mind of the protagonist, who jauntily sets out in track 1 to see the world just as it is ending. He's taking notes on the greater happenings (current events), falling into and out of love and thinking about all the above ingredients until he gets to the true end. At the last track he's walking through a post apocalyptic world ("The cities of the plague") on a dark mission of revenge, thinking about those women from earlier and wondering if this actually is God’s plan or a meaningless end ("The Gardener's gone"). Once again it is classic Dylan for the epic closing track to assemble all the themes from the earlier songs and put them into context. How the hero's journey ends we never find out ("In the last outback, at the world's end"). It's an odd journey indeed. The Chaplin-esque figure at the start was carefree and footloose. He was sure that true love would be his salvation in these troubled times. Now he's dark and uncertain, love is gone and he and the world are left with nothing.
I was very impressed to find at least two reviews that actually picked up on this. By the way, don't take the metaphor too literally. Dylan does not do concept albums or rock operas. This is more of a loose structure that ties the songs together.
As mentioned, musically the album is beyond old school. Lyrically there is only one (startling) exception to the rule that all the people, places & things in the entire album couldn't be from a hundred year old song. There is no mention of the internet or anything like that. The idiom and the music are from the old, lost America that he’s pinning for, ironically using the obsolete tools to comment on today. So you realize all these complaints about modern times were just as relevant then as they are now (floods, war and the rest). And such completes the circular joke of the album title, its retro 1930’s cover and the overall theme.
‘Modern Times’ is also the title of a Charlie Chaplin movie that was a satire of modernity with its machines and complications.
And that’s Bob Dylan. There’s always another joke, level or connection to discover and that’s what keeps me coming back.
|
