Oh Mercy (1989)

Sounds the horns, roll out the red carpet, bring out the bunting, kill the fatted calf, Dylan's muse is back in town. This is top stuff. After one stinker of an LP and a few others that needed the wheat separating from the chaff, Dylan returns with a vengeance. Without the slightest hint of hyperbole I can proclaim that Oh Mercy is a great album. 

Hurrah! 

If truth be told, listening to the last few albums has been somewhat of a sobering affair. Even where there has been good, occasionally great, material to comment on, I was plagued by the knowledge that, considering what had come before, we were dealing with sub-standard Dylan. Maybe good by others' standards but not by his. Then - blam! - in 1989, out of nowhere, he comes out with what is now one of my very favourite Dylan LPs. 

The opening track - and I say this with great pleasure - is my least favourite track on the record. I like the song very much. On many of his recent albums this would be the standout track. It is a very good song. It is my least favourite on the LP. What a heartening thought. 

Within seconds, it becomes clear that this is a very different album from the previous.... well, probably all of them. The sound is clear, precise.. . stripped back? Maybe not quite but there is space evident that certainly wasn't there on either the last two LPs or any from the God period. Even on the opener - Political World - one of the rare up-tempo songs on the album, the clarity yet sharpness of the production is evident. Well done Daniel Lanois. By all accounts the Dylan-Lanois relationship wasn't always the smoothest but it has served the music well.

The music. Here lies the rub. The quality of songwriting here is quite extraordinary. I'm not quite sure what caused this change - yes, I have read Chronicles and I'm still not sure - but there is now a measured certainty to his songwriting that hasn't been there since Desire; a maturity and even, perhaps, confidence. The down-tempo, unhurried melodies fit his voice perfectly. 

The voice. As good as it has been for years. The overly nasal sound has gone and been replaced by a gentle rasp that serves the songs perfectly. When he gets deep down and dirty for Man In The Long Black Coat it is a performance seamlessly shaped around the mood of the song and its deep down and dirty lyrics.

Ah, the lyrics. Dylan is back on form here. Whether it is in Ring Them Bells, Most of The Time, What Good Am I? or Shooting Star, he writes with a sensitivity, a lightness of touch that we haven't heard since... well, Every Grain of Sand, probably. He also throws in some political comment in two tracks and, possibly, a reference to his religious beliefs in Shooting Star. Possibly. It is a lyrically accomplished work and one where the words are allowed to be heard. This brings us around to the production once more. Recently I read that Bill Wyman had criticised the job Daniel Lanois did here for over-producing the sound. Frankly, that is nonsense; what Lanois has done is given these beautiful songs room to breathe, to be heard. It's been a while since you could say that about a Dylan album.

Following Political World comes Where Teardrops Fall which is a pretty-enough track but, two songs in, you'd have to say that it is still just a satisfying LP rather than anything more spectacular. But then, at track three , the LP catches fire and never looks back. Every song from then on is top-notch. Everything is Broken, the other up-tempo song, just works. I'm not sure why - perhaps, lyrically, the litany style grabs you and drags you along; perhaps it is satisfying groove of the music - but, for whatever reason, it works. That is followed by the gorgeous Ring Them Bells:

Ring them bells, ye heathen
From the city that dreams
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
’Cross the valleys and streams
For they’re deep and they’re wide
And the world’s on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the bride.

Wonderful.

And so the LP goes on with the growling delight of Man In The Long Black Coat and then, my favourite, Most Of The Time.

It is a beautiful tune but it is really the the conceit that gets me with Most Of The Time. A post-break up song where the confession is revealed through the denial.

Most of the time
I’m clear focused all around
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground
I can follow the path, I can read the signs
Stay right with it when the road unwinds
I can handle whatever I stumble upon
I don’t even notice she’s gone
Most of the time.

Following that beauty of a song we get What Good Am I?, Disease of Conceit, What Was It You Wanted and, the sublime, Shooting Star. Each is a tremendous piece of work that would have been the outstanding track on any of his LPs over the previous decade.

Have I made it clear that I like this album very much?

If there is a criticism to be levelled it would be that after Everything Is Broken the album becomes somewhat one-paced but only a complete buckethead with a heart of stone would quibble like that. This is a great LP that arrived in the nick of time. Listening to this over the last few weeks has brought a skip to my step. A delight.

Out of five?
Five.

Favourite Track?
Most Of The Time.

Up next?
Under The Red Sky.

Down In The Groove (1988)

Following the unexpected pleasure of discovering that Knocked Out Loaded wasn't as bad as I had remembered, the prospect of getting seriously familiar with Down In The Groove was starting to look much more appealing.

I say 'much more' because my memory of this LP is of it being the absolute pits of the entire Dylan back catalogue. Would the old goat surprise me once again?

Would he 'eck. This is rubbish. 

It would be unfair to say that ever single track here is total tosh - there are two or three that make it into the 'so-so' category and one perhaps a little higher - but it would be revisionism of the highest order to lavish any more praise than that. So, with a heavy heart, let us start at the top.

Track one. Let's Stick Together. Yes, that Let's Stick Together. The well worn Wilbert Harrison song that Bryan Ferry had a big hit with (on this side of the Atlantic, at least).

Why? Really, why? Why did anyone think this was a good idea? Which numpty thought that a cover version of a well known track would be what this album needed? It's not like the version here is different or new or even better. And, to be honest, you'd hear more entertaining versions down your nearest pub when the local classic rock covers band are doing their turn. What it suggests - other than Bob is desperately in need of a producer or some other form of quality control - is that his muse seems to have packed up and left town. Like Knocked Out Loaded previously, there is a noticeable lack of much original material here. Out of the ten tracks on Down In The Groove, half are covers, one is a trad (arr.), two are co- written with Robert Hunter, leaving just two Dylan-only compositions. And those aren't any great shakes in any case. 

Move on.

Track two: When Did You Leave Heaven?, the 1936 Whiting & Bullock tune. Did this slip into the track listing by mistake? Was someone at Columbia left red-faced when they realised that they had pressed a early rehearsal version in error? And I am only being half-sarcastic. It is all over the place, a discordant mess that thankfully fizzles out around the two minute mark in a cacophony of tuneless, out of time, guitar. The best thing you can say about this track is that it is short.

Three. Another cover, Sally Sue Brown. This sounds more together, even properly rehearsed. It is a decent song, just... here's the problem: I've listened to this album many times over the last month in preparation for writing this. A dozen full-on listens would be a conservative estimate. I haven't shirked my duty to this blog and my beautiful readers. Yet, just a few minutes ago, when I embarked on this paragraph, I had to get up and put the damn album on again to remind myself of what Sally Sue Brown sounded like. It would be fair to say, then, that this is forgettable. OK, but utterly forgettable.

I wish the next track was as forgettable as the last. Death Is Not The End starts so promisingly; understated harmonica, guitar and drums, Bob starting to intone solemnly on what seems a nice gentle little melody - if a touch dreary - but surely this will build into something majestic? No it won't. It goes nowhere. The solemn intonation continues on and on and on until it becomes nothing short of a drone and - clocking in at over five minutes - one starts to hope that, if death is really not the end, they haven't got a copy of this track in the afterlife. Ugh.

Let's skip over Had A Dream About You Baby. It's fine but something you feel Bob could knock out in his sleep. File, with Sally Sue Brown, under forgettable.

Ugliest Girl In The World. Bob injecting a bit of levity, a bit of fun into proceedings. Yet, is it fun? Not really. But by this point I think the dearth of quality on this LP was depressed me to the point that I wouldn't know fun if it came up and punched me in the mouth. And it is not a particularly good track anyway.

Then, finally, with Silvio we get something worthwhile. An enjoyable, jaunty track that wouldn't be out of place on a decent Dylan LP. Only on Down In The Groove, though, would it be the absolute stand-out track.

We finish up with somewhat of a dirge (Ninety Miles An Hour), a perfectly pleasant version of the old folk tune Shenandoah and a gloomy stroll through the Albert Brumley gospel number Rank Strangers To Me. I could do without Ninety Miles and Hour but, on a better day, Shenandoah and, possibly, Rank Strangers To Me would fill me with a little more joy. However, this happens to be a day that I've just sat listening to the rest of Down In The Groove and by the time we get to tracks nine and ten I just do not care any more.

If this was an LP by anyone else other than Dylan it would simply be a bad album to be passed by. Because, though, where it sits in an otherwise glorious back-catalogue, I find the very existence of Down In the Groove to be utterly depressing.

Sorry for the gloom. Let us move on and never speak of this again.

Out of five?

One.

Favourite track?

Silvio.

Up next?

Oh Mercy