An album of early sixties protest songs is not always going to be your first choice of music to brighten up a cold autumnal morning. In fact, it's not going to be your first choice to brighten up anything. There are a lot of things to be said in favour of this 1964 LP but 'cheery' is not one of them. This album is hard work in places with Tom Wilson's bare-bones production emphasizing the bleakness of some of the material.
And, Lord, does he do bleak. In Ballad of Hollis Brown we hear of a South Dakota farmer hit so hard by poverty that he takes out his wife and children with a shotgun, North Country Blues laments the hardships faced by northern miners, Only a Pawn in their Game and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol deal with racism, murder and justice, and he returns to the dominant theme of Freewheelin' - war - on With God on Our Side. The title track, The Times They Are A-Changin' is positively chirpy by comparison.
Unlike his previous two LPs, Dylan doesn't give us any light relief. No talking blues or Pretty Peggy-Os here. Even on the non-protest songs, Boots of Spanish Leather, One Too Many Mornings and Restless Farewell, the tone is solemn, downbeat.
[I'm never too sure whether or not the excellent When The Ship Comes In should be classified as a protest song, given that he wrote it in a fit of pique after being deemed too scruffy to be allowed entrance to a London hotel. As causes go, it's hardly the March on Washington.]
Bleak or not, there is real quality here; there is an irony that, given the album is presented as a collection of protest songs, the best material, particularly Boots of Spanish Leather and One Too Many Mornings, deal with matters of the heart (most probably Dylan's relationship with Suze Rotolo). The exception to this is the now classic The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol, which manages to tell a true story with a directness rarely used by Dylan before or since (or at least until Hurricane off the 1976 LP Desire) while still achieving a beauty within its imagery.
Hollis Brown, the darkest of all songs, works because of its relentlessness. Guitar and vocal pounds away using repetition to underline the desperation of Brown and the desolation of the landscape.
Your grass it is turning black
There’s no water in your well
Your grass is turning black
There’s no water in your well
You spent your last lone dollar
On seven shotgun shells
There’s no water in your well
Your grass is turning black
There’s no water in your well
You spent your last lone dollar
On seven shotgun shells
A picnic, it's not.
The title track has become so familiar that it is hard to listen to anew. Much like Blowin' in the Wind it is a testament to Dylan's lyrical touch and delivery that, almost half a century on, it still doesn't come across as hackneyed. Inevitably anachronistic maybe, but not a cliche. North Country Blues fares even better across the years; not simply lyrically accomplished but, in dealing with issues of economic decline and dislocation, just as relevant today. Musically, the only low point of the whole LP is With God On Our Side which, however clever the conceit, drags to the point of becoming turgid.
My main issue with this release, though, is the extent to which it is not often an easy listen. Sometimes relentlessly so. That is not bad thing in itself - I want Dylan to challenge me - but it means that the LP frequently gets overlooked when my fingers are flicking through the 'D' section of the record collection. And that is a shame, as there are at least three or four real classics here. Ultimately, perhaps, an album to like rather than love.
Out of five?
Four.
Favourite track?
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol
Next up?
Another Side of Bob Dylan
