TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE by Bob Dylan

Folks I know, they insist on seeing Bob Dylan as either of two avatars. Pre-1965/Pre-‘Bringing It All Back Home’/Pre-Newport Folk Festival/Folk Bard and Post-The-Same/Electric Musician. Other folks I know, they say it all changed with 1967, after that fateful motorized mishap, following which ‘John Wesley Harding’ and such materialized, with stoic contemplation of mundane comforts replacing all traces of social consciousness and spokesman-ship (willing or otherwise) hitherto on display.

Where I stopped listening to Dylan was with ‘Shot of Love’. It was still excellent song-writing, and arrangements are arrangements, electric or not. I just lost it with the voice that Dylan had. See, Dylan had forsaken smoking, and he sounded normal. Without a healthy layer of silt on his lungs, he sounded better, of course, but just not good enough. So, on ‘Together Through Life’, there is the intellectual critique of modern times in ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothing’. There is the soulful, broken-hearted-ballad, ‘Life is Hard’ and of course, the romantic, wrathful, ‘Jolene’, with the topical, thematic approach. This isn't the voice I expected though, inasmuch it is not him, though unquestionably his. Truth be told, this is not as much passionate as it is plain phlegmatic. Absent are the chords, the progressions of which may best be described as geometric. No trace of the uber-psychedelic Hammond-Fender-Rhodes-Vox arrangements.

The only two pieces off this that impressed me are ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothing’, with its wonderfully intricate underlying melody and the endless, endless ornamentation, sourced to David Hidalgo’s (of Los Lobos) accordion and the inimitable Mike Campbell (of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) on electric guitar, and the shamelessly danceable ‘Shake, Shake Mama’. ‘My Wife’s Home-town’ has its moments, but it does not transport me to the actual geography of it, nor does ‘Forgetful Heart’ impress or overwhelm me as did, say, ‘Don’t Think Twice (It’s Alright)’. The closing piece, ‘It’s All Good’ has a skiffle-bar rhythm section with lyrics both abstract and temporal, as only Dylan can provide, which is a relief. Irrespective of any and all other ‘transitions’, what Dylan has not lost is his ability to simply say things. “If you ever go to Austin, Fort Worth or San Antone, find the bar-rooms I got lost in and send my memories home” croons he, on ‘If You Ever Go To Houston’, trumping introspection and poetic ability in one smooth typewriter stroke. He promptly destroys it with the silly sappiness of ‘This Dream of You’ with its opening blunder, “How long can I stay in this no-where café before night turns to day.”

The upside of everything on ‘Together Through Life’ is the answer to The Band. Campbell and Hidalgo are resplendent, and Donnie Herron is a straight-up, back-up entity of solidity. It must be fulfilling for Dylan, to finally have three multi-instrumentalists supporting him, leaving him be to speculate and introspect unworried, especially considering Dylan’s touchstone, his voice is no longer the dominant force behind his music (though the literature still remains) and is better drowned down by electric washes and accordion licks than it would with a stripped-bare acoustic guitar and harp. The record is not contrived, no. Nor is it unintelligent. What it is not is Bob Dylan, circa 1970 (substitute with era of preference).