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