It has been more than a while since I last plucked this LP from the rack and gave it a spin. The reason for a my reticence toward this 1986 offering is that I have always remembered it as one good song surrounded by...well... rubbish. Now I've had a chance to revisit the album, I think that was far too harsh.
It must be said, though, that this is still either Dylan on cruise control or showing signs of losing his mojo. While the former would lend itself to the obvious pun that this was a record knocked out while loaded, the truth seems nearer the latter; Dylan appears to be struggling for inspiration. As a result we get two covers - Little Junior Parker's You Wanna Ramble and Kris Kristofferson's They Killed Him - one reworking of a traditional song (Precious Memories) and three co-written numbers in Brownsville Girl, Got My Mind Made Up and Under Your Spell. As Dylan cries out in Brownsville Girl:
If there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now.
That leaves only two solely Dylan-penned songs on the record. Maybe Someday is one of those I've come to appreciate much more than I remembered. It's a jaunty number that is simultaneously musically entertaining and up-beat while still lyrically wistful. On the other hand, Driftin' Too Far From Shore is not very good at all. In fact, it's awful. Given my rant about Dylan's production on the last LP I'm loath to start up again like a stuck record but this song is truly bludgeoned to death by the thwack, thwack, thwack of a (probably electric) snare drum, while Dylan yells the title of the song at you repeatedly, until the point that you can't make out whether or not there would be any merit to the thing if it had been treated more kindly, mainly due to the raging migraine that bloody drumbeat is giving you.
Just as annoying is the treatment Bob gives to They Killed Him. I must admit I disliked the song in the first place, finding few redeeming features in Kristofferson's original version - the sentiment is fine, the execution is rubbish. So, for me, this was probably a non-starter but Dylan's handling of it helps little; screeching backing vocals and one point, for heaven's sake, a children's choir so high-pitched I swear it changed the channels on my television.
At this point in his career, I think Dylan needs a producer.
Having said that, the rest of the LP starts to look up. Precious Memories is an unremarkable but decent version of a traditional tune as You Wanna Ramble (though the original was I Wanna Ramble) is of a good old 1950s blues - verging on early rock and roll - number.
The interesting thing about Dylan's version of the Little Junior Parker song and, to a certain extent, of the Tom Petty co-written track, the enjoyable, Got My Mind Up is the echoes they have of the work he produces ten to twenty years later. These aren't a million miles away in style to The Levee's Gonna Break or the Never Ending Tour regular Summer Days. Even when Dylan is not at the top of his game there are still signs of his song-writing evolution.
The gems on this album are saved to towards the end. As, seemingly, is his wont, Dylan ends the album with a lovely melody, in this case, co-written with Carole Bayer Sager, Under Your Spell. Top of the tree, however, is the majestic, triumphant Brownsville Girl. Originally recorded as New Danville Girl for his previous LP and co-written with playwright Sam Shepard it really shouldn't work. It is an eleven minute, one melody, mostly spoken song with Bob either talking about the mysterious, eponymous girl or, bizarrely, some Gregory Peck film he'd seen. It is nuts but it is fantastic. Lyrically picturesque, the whole song stretches out like a huge cinematic canvas that builds and builds to a roaring crescendo. Really top stuff.
The highs and the lows of mid-80s Dylan. Two really good tracks, four decent ones, two stinkers. A lot better than I remembered but, in the context of his career as a whole, we're not in that great a place.
And, if my memory serves me right, it's about to get worse before it gets better.
Out of five?
Three
Favourite track?
Brownsville Girl
Next up?
Down In The Groove.
