I love this album. It's not a groundbreaking LP, it isn't a lyrical masterpiece, it won't feature at the very top of anyone's all time list of Dylan's recordings but, damn it, listening to Nashville Skyline makes me feel good. When the sun is out, the road is clear and the car windows are all the way down, this is what's playing on the stereo. Hell, even my wife - who despairs of the length of the 'D' section of the record collection - thinks this is lovely.
His voice has taken another half step towards the back of his throat and sounds almost strangled at times. But despite that - because of that? - Dylan's tones are a rich and textured as at any point in his career. His voice caresses the melodies rather than stabbing at them accusingly as he has before. This is a sound that suits the songs perfectly.
Within the context of the career of his Bobness, the songs are in some ways unremarkable. Lyrically, they are, at their heart, simple love songs or regrets at lost love; there are no Mr Joneses, Frankie Lees or Judas Priests here and certainly no leopard-skin pill-box hats. This is straightforward unpretentious songwriting for straightforward unpretentious songs with the folk part of country-folk taking a back seat.
While Lay Lady Lay is probably the only song that you'd find on one of those greatest hits or best of packages, Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You and I Threw It All Away are just as worthy of note. Beautiful melodies with heartfelt lyrics, simple and lovely. Short too - other than the opening track, nothing here comes in over three and a half minutes. This is solid, no nonsense, enjoyable song writing.
Enjoyable is the thing that comes over. It sounds like they were having fun, keeping it simple and not trying to go anywhere too fast. Almost throwaway in places, tracks like Nashville Skyline Rag, Peggy Day or Country Pie are guaranteed to raise a smile.
And you get a bit of Johnny Cash. The choice of opening the LP with a song from The Freewhleein' album and a duet with the country legend Cash is an odd one but it works. It works even though towards the end of the track it sounds like their certainly singing different words and melody, possibly in different keys and even maybe separate songs. It works because its Johnny Cash. And Dylan. Singing Girl From the North Country, for goodness sake. (and that for most of the time they don't try to harmonise).
This was never going to change the world but it makes me very happy every time I listen to it. All the tracks work in their own way and there are some real beauties on here. Good stuff.
Out of five?
Five.
Favourite track?
Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
Next up?
Self Portrait
I'm not sure how to approach this LP. Up to now, listening to each studio album in turn has been a journey, each building on the next, watching his writing skills grow, moving from Woody Guthrie wannabe to the voice of protest, rejecting that role, going electric and reaching a peak of song-writing and recording with Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Then he moves to Woodstock, falls off his bike and we get this. Country-rock? Country-folk? Who knows. Whatever it is, it's like nothing he's done before. And to be frank, it's not quite as good as either of the preceding three LPs. Good but not great.
But that's probably the wrong way to look at this. It's not Highway 61 and it wasn't meant to be. What it is, looking at it purely on its own merits, is a very good album. Not a duff song on there. It never reaches the levels of bona fide genius of Visions of Johanna, Desolation Row, Like a Rolling Stone, Subterranean Homesick Blues or It's Alright Ma but you do get a bunch of solid tunes with a pretty good groove - if I'm allowed to say 'groove' - a few tracks of real originality and intrigue, and a couple - All Along the Watchtower and I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - that have gone on to become genuine Dylan classics.
The most remarkable thing about this LP is just how different it is. Different from any of his previous releases and from most of what was going on elsewhere. His voice has changed - even more nasal than before. Lyrically there's been a shift, subtle but definite; the poetic flights of fancy have been toned down but without losing the oddball character driven narrative, and a lot more biblical than before. Musically it is pared down to the bone; an odd, earthy feel, driven by a bass guitar that sounds like it's recorded halfway under water.
The greatest contrast lies elsewhere. This is 1967 for goodness sake. The Beatles are recording Sergeant Pepper, The Stones are making Satanic Majesty, The Byrds are singing So You Want to Be A Rock and Roll Star and Dylan goes and comes up with the distinctly unpsychedelic John Wesley Harding. He couldn't swim harder against the tide of popular culture if he tried.
What he has produced is an LP of consistently quality songs. The opening, title, track sets a gentle swinging mood with a feel that is replicated throughout the album. [Indeed, if there is a criticism, it is that, by the time you get to The Wicked Messenger, the uniformity of the sound can start to wear after a while. But only on the odd occasion.] While the pace slows on songs such as Dear Landlord and I Pity The Poor Immigrant the only track that stands out as having a noticeably different sound is the final track I'll Be Baby Tonight which is backed by a more traditional country swing.
Lyrically the emphasis is on storytelling with religious overtones, particularly on the All Along the Watch Tower, I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine and The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest. This makes it just as much an intelligent and interesting album as it is simply musically enjoyable. And, musically, it is very enjoyable.
Ultimately this is a curious but quality release. A long exhale after the frantic rush of 1965-6. It'd be a few years until he reaches the absolute heights of the Highway 61 period again but, if there is any regret about that time coming to an end, it is more than tempered by the fact that this new phase in Dylan's career started, at least, with a solid album that still stands up today.
Out of five?
Four and a bit
Favourite track?
The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
Next up?
Nashville Skyline
