Religious themes dominate more so than on any album since his Christian phase (and his Christmas album of course), in particular on the song Goodbye Jimmy Reed, which opens with a setting on a street named after a saint “where the Jews and the Catholics and the Muslims all pray”. Although the protagonist seems to have a bone to pick with Protestants for some reason. Many of the characters in his songs come across as god fearing men, such as the lead in My Own Version of You who talks about “the immortal spirit” that “creeps in your body the day you are born”. If these characters are meant to be anti-heroes, which often seems the case as they threaten to make your wife a widow, stick a knife between your ribs or hack off your arm with a sword, this could be seen as an attack on shallow proclamations of religiosity, or an attack on religion itself, which fails to alter the true nature of man. In the song, our protagonist makes an attack on Karl Marx and Sigmond Freud, who are “some of the best known enemies of mankind” and are being subjected to the “rawhide lash to rip the skin from their backs”. It is unclear whether the one strike of lighting and the blast of electricity that he requires to bring his Frankenstein to life can be seen through a Judeo-Christian lens, but something tells me this character has a dark side to him that he has chimerized with some pseudo-spiritual symbolism out of his desperate and doomed efforts to achieve immortality. The fact that his characters are multi-faceted and subject to boundless interpretation causes them to pulse with life like a painting by a great cubist master. They draw you in, but they also secrete enough venom to keep you at a distance.
I have discussed my feelings about Dylan’s religiosity in previous posts. Although he has always included biblical themes and mythology in his songs, this alone does not attest to the nature of his religious faith, and while many seem to conclude based on various shreds of lyrics that he is still religious at root, I believe it is an open question whether he has recovered from his Christian period or if he, on some level, is still a ‘believer’. I like the fact that this is an open question, because it creates tension that can potentially come to resolution, although unlikely as the man prefers to keep an air of mystery, which can only further bolster his legendary status and his legacy. Of course his songs are generally sung from the perspective of varied protagonists, and although some autobiographical elements are present, it is impossible to separate them out from the fictional characters, who are liable to have varied takes on the natural and the supernatural world. It is also plausible that all the various shards represent some aspect of the character of the artist. Regardless, the opacity is intentional, as it spurs continued speculation, conversation, analysis and interest.
The songs on this album are long and develop slowly, giving them breadth and depth. They are simultaneously open ended, offering kaleidoscopic angles of interpretation, while also being blunt and definitive. Whatever a given song maintains, it also maintains its opposite. Wisdom and wickedness; Grandiosity and the mundane; Beauty and death; Love and resentment; The mysterious and the obvious; The sacred and the real. Multitudes indeed. Just like My Own Version of You, which is literally a song about Frankenstein, the songs are themselves Frankenstein’s, where contradictory or diametric opposites are stitched together and the resulting fusions are left to their own fate, for better or worse. In Key West he practically acknowledges this: “I play both sides against the middle”. As mentioned above, this contributes to the power, tension and mystery of these songs, and their ability to spur endless analysis. By tying conflicting threads together in the same song he effectively confounds interpretation from all angles and simulates some of the mental conflicts and cognitive dissonance that many of us are, or should be dealing with in this modern and troubling time.
Similarly to how he assembles the body parts of a lost love, Dylan has concocted a Frankenstein of his previous styles, voices, production techniques and lyrical turns. Most clearly, he is putting into action some of the things he learned during the recording of the Sinatra trilogy. A holistic technique of microphone placement was used on these albums to capture a very intimate live feel, and this feel is evident on many of the songs on this album. Also, his voice sounds really delicate and near, just like it did on those cover albums. This comes through best on the track I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You. At times his vocal comes through like a whispered yell, his vocal chords right on the edge and close to snapping, with just a little bit of gravel for effect. This approach helps to propel the yearning and tenderness invoked by the lyrics and the musical accompaniment. On Rubicon and Jimmy Reed his vocal sounds like vintage Bob from the Time out of Mind period, which is my favourite period for his voice. It sounds like they used a similar swampy reverb effect that was used to great effect on songs like Love Sick and Dirt Road Blues. In My Own Version of You and Rubicon he uses a vocal delivery technique that he often employs live, which at first seemed hokey, but now I must admit is endearing to me, especially when employed tastefully (and not overdone). It’s a weird effect where he spits out the lyrics in a pulsing and heaving manner, an approach that perhaps borrows from the harmonica.
Lyrically Rough and Rowdy Ways is complex, which means these songs will open up like a nice bottle of red wine or whisky. The experience of decoding and dissecting Dylan’s masterful lyrics is a process that requires multiple listens, with each one you are drawn deeper into the songs and the characters. This was the process that I enjoyed so much on what I consider to be his best album, “Love and Theft”. Some of the lyrical turns in the song Crossing the Rubicon grab you and viscerally pull you across the rubicon; “I turned the key and broke it off.. and crossed the rubicon”. The first time I listened to the song I thought I heard the key breaking off. The album contains some truly provocative and unexpected lyrics, not the least of which is this line from the final verse of the song Black Rider: “Black rider, black rider, hold it right there, the size of your cock will get you nowhere”. To me it sounds like he says “cockle”, as in cockles and muscles (?). Or maybe he is meaning to refer to the protagonist having been cuckolded, which also happens in the song. But this is clarified by the official lyrics. So far, exactly what those lines imply in the context of the song eludes me. Following after the darkness/starkness of Rubicon, Key West feels like you’ve reached an oasis after traversing a barren wasteland. After a while Key West feels like a desert itself, as Dylan reminds us that retiring to a beautiful paradise is itself a kind of curse. Although I appreciated the importance of the album closer, Murder Most Foul, right away, it took a while for the song to really get under my skin, and now it brings me nearly to tears.
At this stage in his career, to produce an album that sounds this beautiful, and is fresh and unique and just as challenging as any of his previous output, is a great accomplishment. Having reached such an advanced level in his song writing and recording craft, having perfected his recipe such, it will be painful for the myriad of fans to eventually lose the thread, as is inevitable. However, Bob has always been full of surprises and I trust that he has left us more gems that will be unearthed and exposed even posthumously. Maybe one day we’ll be watching a hologram of Bob on stage in Vegas, or at the Dylan archives in Tulsa.