TRACK REVIEW: Bob Dylan - Black Rider

TRACK REVIEW:

Bob Dylan

Black Rider

9.8/10

The track, Black Rider, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHBMPYvQO8w

GENRES:

Americana/Rhythm & Blues

ORIGIN:

U.S.A.

The album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, is available here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Rowdy-Ways-Bob-Dylan/dp/B0884BK38T

RELEASE DATE:

19th June, 2020

LABEL:

Columbia Records

TRACKLIST:

I Contain Multitudes

False Prophet

My Own Version of You

I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You

Black Rider

Goodbye Jimmy Reed

Mother of Muses

Crossing the Rubicon

Key West (Philosopher Pirate)

Disc 2:

Murder Most Foul

__________

I have been keen to review…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Bob Dylan for a long time now. He is a genius, of course, and he has just put out one of his best albums ever with Rough and Rowdy Ways. It is gaining huge reviews across the board, and it might be the best album of the year so far. 2020 has been a very busy year for music, and we have seen some remarkable albums come through. From Fiona Apple and Dua Lipa through to Phoebe Bridgers, there has been some real gold released. I think Bob Dylan’s latest album is one of his best since the 1970s. I am not sure how he has done it, but I guess you can never really predict him! One would think that his talent and genius would dim with age, but he seems to have that innate ability to stun and blow us away. Maybe it is the state of America today that has compelled him to write some of his most observational and stirring songs ever. His poetry is still second-to-none, and I wonder whether he will tour the album when gigs start back up. I also am curious to see how he follows Rough and Rowdy Ways, as it seems like he is in sensational form at the moment! I would recommend anyone to buy the album, as the tracks are so engrossing, that one cannot help but to let them pull you in. Dylan’s powerful wordplay and potent delivery is as masterful as ever, and I am going to review one of the tracks from the album a bit later – the wonderful Black Rider. The news of George Floyd’s murder made the news recently, and the world was shocked and angered. Since then, the Black Lives Matter movement/hashtag has been all over social media; so many people motivated to see change and justice. Bob Dylan has been involved with civil rights since the 1960s, and he was sickened and horrified by what happened.

IN THIS PHOTO: Bob Dylan in 1965/PHOTO CREDIT: Stanley Bielecki/AP/Getty Images

I wanted to quote from a couple of different articles, where we learn more about Dylan’s activism and commitment to civil rights. There is no doubt that he was stunned and affected by what happened to Floyd, and other African-Americans impacted by violence and racism. When Dylan was promoting his album, Shadows in the Night, in 2015, he talked about racial prejudice:

“Q: Do you mean it's musical race-mixing, and that's what made it dangerous?

A: Well, racial prejudice has been around a while, so yeah. And that was extremely threatening for the city fathers, I would think. When they finally recognised what it was, they had to dismantle it, which they did, starting with payola scandals and things like that. The black element was turned into soul music and the white element was turned into English pop. They separated it. I think of rock 'n' roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues and modern pop. Real rock 'n' roll hasn't existed since when? 1961, 1962? Well, it was a part of my DNA, so it never disappeared from me. [Laughs.] I can't remember what the question was”.

I mention civil rights and protest, because Dylan is as useful and important a voice in seeing change as he was in the 1960s. He is still having to speak out against racism and injustice in America. To think Dylan was protesting in the 1960s and calling for change; it has been almost sixty years since then, and one wonders how far we have come! It is staggering to think that, in many ways, the world has not changed that much. Dylan and his peers must have felt that, in the 1960s, there was going to be this huge movement that would lead to permanent change. In this article, we learn more about Bob Dylan and his connection to the freedom marches of the 1960s:

“Enter the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. Pretty much Pete Seeger's showcase, Dylan's debut appearance was more than just an initiation into the club, but another shove toward the throne as the movement's celebrity poster boy. Joined onstage by Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, and the SNCC's Freedom Singers, Dylan wrapped up his set with “Blowin' in the Wind.” And for an encore, the group held hands, invoking the audience in a singalong of "We Shall Overcome"

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

Caught in the whirlwind, on August 28, Dylan and Baez would soon perform at the Freedom March in Washington, D.C., when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech. Introduced by actor Ossie Davis, Dylan performed “When the Ship Comes In,” and “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” also joining Len Chandler for the song “Hold On”.

Rough and Rowdy Ways touches on modern America, and one does not have to dig too far to hear the sense of dissatisfaction in Dylan’s voice regarding the modern times. He is no fan of Donald Trump, and one hopes Dylan will live to see some real progress. At the age of seventy-eight, it must be heartaching for Dylan to see what is happening in the world. It is a sad time…but let us hope there is light ahead. I have written about Dylan before, but I have not really thought about his early life. Just to give a little context and backstory, I wanted to bring in a passage from a New Yorker interview from 1964, where we learn more about Dylan’s early years and education:

“Dylan was born in Duluth, on May 24, 1941, and grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota, a mining town near the Canadian border. He does not discuss his parents, preferring to let his songs tell whatever he wants to say about his personal history. “You can stand at one end of Hibbing on the main drag an’ see clear past the city limits on the other end,” Dylan once noted in a poem, “My Life in a Stolen Moment,” printed in the program of a 1963 Town Hall concert he gave. Like Dylan’s parents, it appears, the town was neither rich nor poor, but it was, Dylan has said, “a dyin’ town.” He ran away from home seven times—at ten, at twelve, at thirteen, at fifteen, at fifteen and a half, at seventeen, and at eighteen. His travels included South Dakota, New Mexico, Kansas, and California. In between flights, he taught himself the guitar, which he had begun playing at the age of ten.

IN THIS PHOTO: Bob Dylan in 1963/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

At fifteen, he was also playing the harmonica and the autoharp, and, in addition, had written his first song, a ballad dedicated to Brigitte Bardot. In the spring of 1960, Dylan entered the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, which he attended for something under six months. In “My Life in a Stolen Moment,” Dylan has summarized his college career dourly: “I sat in science class an’ flunked out for refusin’ to watch a rabbit die. I got expelled from English class for using four-letter words in a paper describing the English teacher. I also failed out of communication class for callin’ up every day and sayin’ I couldn’t come. . . . I was kept around for kicks at a fraternity house. They let me live there, an’ I did until they wanted me to join”.

I am interested learning more about Dylan’s early life and influences, as I think it gives a more complete picture when talking about him now and an album like Rough and Rowdy Ways. Although Dylan’s musical palette has changed since the 1960s, I still think those artists and sounds he grew up listening to remain with him. I think, if we want to comprehend and appreciate Dylan’s music now, we need to get an impression of the artists who impacted him at a young age and compelled him to get into music. I want to nod back to that interview from The Independent that was published in 2015, because Dylan was asked about the music that he grew up listening to:

“Early on, before rock 'n' roll, I listened to big band music - anything that came over the radio - and music played by bands in hotels that our parents could dance to. We had a big radio that looked like a jukebox, with a record player on the top. All the furniture had been left in the house by the previous owners, including a piano. The radio/record player played 78rpm records. And when we moved to that house, there was a record on there, with a red label, and I think it was a Columbia record. It was Bill Monroe, or maybe it was the Stanley Brothers, and they were singing "Drifting Too Far From Shore". I'd never heard anything like that before. Ever. And it moved me away from all the conventional music that I was hearing.

IN THIS PHOTO: Bob Dylan in 1975/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken Regan

To understand that, you'd have to understand where I came from. I come from way north. We'd listen to radio shows all the time. I think I was the last generation, or pretty close to the last one, that grew up without TV. So we listened to the radio a lot. Most of these shows were dramas. For us, this was like our TV. Everything you heard, you could imagine what it looked like. Even singers that I would hear on the radio, I couldn't see what they looked like, so I imagined what they looked like. What they were wearing. What their movements were. Gene Vincent? When I first pictured him, he was a tall, lanky blond-haired guy”.

It might be a slight tangent, but there is one thing we overlook when thinking of Bob Dylan: the fact that he is a style icon! It may seem unconnected to his music, but I think Dylan has won so many fans and hearts because he is this phenomenal artist that has changed so much. Many might think that Dylan’s style is pretty simple and unchanging, but he has definitely inspired others with his pretty low-key looks. That might sound dismissive, but Dylan’s simple and eye-catching style has resonated with other artists, and it is as much a part of him as his music. In 2016, GQ reacted to Dylan being awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature, but they produced this incredible piece that documented his looks through the years. It is well worth further reading:

“Music legend, beat generation icon, and underwear spokesman Bob Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature today, a first for a musician. The committee awarded it to the singer-songwriter for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” which seems an accurate assessment to any one who’s read his lyrics or cracked open the first volume of his autobiography Chronicles. To many people Dylan transcends the traditional idea of music maker and, over the years, has ascended to the role of cultural icon. If that seems overblown, perhaps Dylan himself said it best: “All I can be is me — whoever that is.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Runway Manhattan/Globe Photos

And while Dylan’s musical legacy is rich and varied — and has itself created a cottage industry of critical theory — we’re here to talk about a more straightforward contribution he’s made to the American canon, and that’s in his style. His look: low-key, unassuming, with a thrift store quality, helped define the visual tone of the music scene in downtown New York during the 1960s, a look that soon spread across the country. It is an aesthetic that’s been mined time and again by fashion designers (see: Hedi Slimane, John Varvatos, Tom Ford) who have reimagined and recut many of the artist’s now-iconic looks as wardrobe staples for a new generation of swagger-seeking men.

Looking back, Dylan wasn’t a revolutionary dresser, but what he wore always conveyed a sense of effortless confidence. And that’s the most undeniable takeaway when you study iconic images of the music hero through his career: In his mussed-up hair, a pair of classic Ray-Bans, in the leather jackets and turtlenecks, there was a sense of undeniable, and unstudied, cool”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Gannett News Service

Black Rider is one of the shortest tracks on Rough and Rowdy Ways, but I think it is one of the most impactful! The introduction is pretty moving. We get this gorgeous guitar flourish that has this romantic, Hispanic tone to it. Dylan’s voice is surprisingly smooth and sweet throughout. Those who associate Dylan with a croakier and rougher sound need to appreciate that he has amazing vocal dexterity and variation. I am not sure who the eponymous character is, but Dylan delivers one of his most tender performances on Black Rider. “Black rider, black rider, you've been living too hard/Been up all night, have to stay on your guard”, Dylan sings, and I wonder whether he is talking about a lover, or this is a more general character that is trying to navigate the world. Dylan muses about stumbling blocks and the fact that, wherever this person treads, there is another obstacle in the way. “The road that you're on, same road that you know/Just not the same as it was a minute ago” evokes images of political and personal turmoil, I think. With Dylan’s songs, there often is not a single truth, so listeners can get from the song what they think. I do not think Dylan has disclosed the origins of Black Rider, and it is a song that fascinates me; whether it pertains to the current political state and struggle, or whether it is more personal and not quite as charged. Dylan’s voice is sublime throughout, and I love hearing him sing in this way. The guitar backing is perfect, and we get this nice balance of the heart-melting and rousing. Our hero has “seen the great world and seen the small”, and they have falling into the fire and are “eating the flame”. Whereas other songs on Rough and Rowdy Ways are more political in tone, I think there is this oblique nature to Black Rider that contrasts wonderfully.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Pizzello/AP

“Better seal up your lips if you wanna stay in the game/Be reasonable, mister, be honest, be fair” makes me think of politics a little, and those people being silenced and overlooked. I would not draw comparisons to the song’s lyrics and what is happening in American regarding black rights, but there is a general feeling of suppression and fight through the song. Bob Dylan has this way of staying in the same key and pace but still being able to build a song’s atmosphere and importance without altering his voice at all. It is wonderful to hear Dylan almost croon soulfully, as I think many people have this very limited impression of his voice. Our hero is definitely carrying that weight, and there are troubles in his heart. He confesses how his heart is at rest – “I'd like to keep it that way” -, and how he does not want to fight – or “at least not today”. I was assuming there was something political at work through the song, but the track becomes more personal as we move along. “Go home to your wife, stop visiting mine” does suggest some disharmony in love, and a challenge from a rival perhaps. From those lines, my thoughts altered, and I was thinking that Dylan had this strife at home. “Don't hug me, don't flatter me, don't turn on the charm” suggests that our man has been played around, or that his woman is not being honest. It is an interesting thought, and I have listened to the song a few times and got new things when going back. In the fifth (and final) verse, Dylan shifts from the risqué/direct – “The size of your cock will get you nowhere” - to the dignified and resigned – “I'll suffer in silence, I'll not make a sound”. There are so many wonderful images and possibilities that present themselves through the song. I have spun Black Rider a lot, as I really dig Dylan’s singing, and the guitar is sublime through. Elsewhere on Rough and Rowdy Ways, we do hear heavier songs that are epic in length, but this is a shorter track that allows us to see more of Dylan. In lyrical terms, it is one of his less obvious and direct songs, and I was compelled to cover it. I might not have drilled to the very heart of the song but, as I say, I think it is open to individual interpretation. On a stunning and near-career-best album, Black Rider is a pearl in a very bejewelled and glistening crown.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ted Russell/Polaris

I will round up pretty soon, but I am keen to bring in a couple of other bits of information before doing so. I want to grab from an interview with The New York Times from this month, because Dylan was asked about this year and how he views the current pandemic – and whether he has a lot of hope for the future:

“Do you think of this pandemic in almost biblical terms? A plague that has swept the land?

I think it’s a forerunner of something else to come. It’s an invasion for sure, and it’s widespread, but biblical? You mean like some kind of warning sign for people to repent of their wrongdoings? That would imply that the world is in line for some sort of divine punishment. Extreme arrogance can have some disastrous penalties. Maybe we are on the eve of destruction. There are numerous ways you can think about this virus. I think you just have to let it run its course”.

“There is a lot of apocalyptic sentiment in “Murder Most Foul.” Are you worried that in 2020 we’re past the point of no return? That technology and hyper-industrialization are going to work against human life on Earth?

Sure, there’s a lot of reasons to be apprehensive about that. There’s definitely a lot more anxiety and nervousness around now than there used to be. But that only applies to people of a certain age like me and you, Doug. We have a tendency to live in the past, but that’s only us. Youngsters don’t have that tendency. They have no past, so all they know is what they see and hear, and they’ll believe anything. In 20 or 30 years from now, they’ll be at the forefront. When you see somebody that is 10 years old, he’s going to be in control in 20 or 30 years, and he won’t have a clue about the world we knew. Young people who are in their teens now have no memory lane to remember. So it’s probably best to get into that mind-set as soon as we can, because that’s going to be the reality.

As far as technology goes, it makes everybody vulnerable. But young people don’t think like that. They could care less. Telecommunications and advanced technology is the world they were born into. Our world is already obsolete”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Christopher Polk/Getty Images

I think many people will want to see Bob Dylan perform live when things get better, as Rough and Rowdy Ways is one of his best albums, and the songs will sound incredible delivered from the stage! Although his sound and live act has changed considerably though the years, he still has this incredible connection with the fans. It is that reciprocal love that makes his shows so amazing and, with a mighty album out in the world, he will bring in new fans who are eager to see the master perform! When he spoke with The Independent in 2015, he was asked about his gigs and that bond with fans:

“Q: You obviously get great joy and connection from the people who come to see you.

A: It's not unlike a sportsman who's on the road a lot. Roger Federer, the tennis player, I mean, you know, he's working most of the year. Like maybe 250 days a year, every year, year in and year out. So it's relative. I mean, yeah, you must go where the people are. You can't bring them to where you are unless you have a contract to play in Vegas. But happiness - a lot of people say there is no happiness in this life, and certainly there's no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness. Happiness is a state of bliss. Actually, it never crosses my mind. Just because you're satisfied one moment - saying yes, it's a good meal, makes me happy - well, that's not going to necessarily be true the next hour.

IN THIS PHOTO: Bob Dylan in 1965/PHOTO CREDIT: Don Hunstein

Life has its ups and downs, and time has to be your partner, you know? Really, time is your soul mate. Children are happy. But they haven't really experienced ups and downs yet. I'm not exactly sure what happiness even means. I don't know if I personally could define it”.

I wonder what Bob Dylan is doing now, and how he is coping with lockdown. It is intense for everyone, but I guess there is a fear that we have that we have with older stars that they are more vulnerable. Dylan has lived through some tough times, but this might be one of the biggest challenges. Before I sign this off, I want to source from that incredible New York Times interview, where Dylan discussed how he is faring at this present time:

“How is your health holding up? You seem to be fit as a fiddle. How do you keep mind and body working together in unison?

Oh, that’s the big question, isn’t it? How does anybody do it? Your mind and body go hand in hand. There has to be some kind of agreement. I like to think of the mind as spirit and the body as substance. How you integrate those two things, I have no idea. I just try to go on a straight line and stay on it, stay on the level”.

Go and get Rough and Rowdy Ways if you can, as it is a work of brilliance, and I think it is one of Dylan’s most important albums. It will surely go down as one of the best albums of this year, and it shows that there is plenty of life and wonder in the icon. He is beyond comparison, and long may he continue to amaze the world with his songwriting. Although I have reviewed just the one track, Black Rider, I learned a lot from it, and the entire album is filled with so many incredible lines and staggering songs. Dylan was changing the music world back in the early-1960s and, in 2020, we can still…