Sometimes, you just have to shut up and listen. And that’s most certainly the case with Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways.
As surprising as Dylan’s recent three-LP - Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels and Triplicate - exploration of the Great American Songbook, this first collection of new songs since 2012’s Tempest combines hard-driving, mid-century county-blues and rock with numbers that resemble audio-book chapters as much as - nay, more than - songs.
This is particularly true on the epic, 17-minute “Murder Most Foul,” appearing all by its lonesome on a disc of its own. With semi-melodic, orchestral background music provided by his touring band and guests like Fiona Apple and Benmont Tench, Dylan uses the assassination of President Kennedy as a springboard to namecheck everyone from Beethoven to Lindsey Buckingham.
It’s a remarkable track. But, like the audio book it resembles, it’ll only merit occasional listens - but many turnings on to others.
At 79, Dylan is as acerbic as ever. On “Black Rider,” another song as recitation, he’s at his fork-tongued best as he rasps:
“My soul is distressed, my mind is at war/don’t hug me, don’t flatter me, don’t turn on the charm/I’ll take a sword and hack off your arm/black rider, black rider, hold it right there/the size of your cock will get you nowhere.”
Elsewhere, Dylan decides to give Dylanologists - who’ve spent decades trying to figure out what makes the man tick - invaluable clues into his makeup on tracks like the eerily languid “I Contain Multitudes” and “False Prophet,” a balls-stomping-blues highlight that nevertheless loses points for being a stone musical ripoff - with no credit given - of Billy “The Kid” Emerson’s “If Lovin’ is Believing” from 1954.
“I ain’t no false prophet/I just said what I said,” he growls defensively.
And on “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” Dylan sums up his early career over a recasting of the ramshackle, rock ‘n’ roll feel of Highway 61 Revisited:
“‘You won’t amount to much,’ the people all said/‘cause I didn’t play guitar behind my head/never pandered, never acted proud/never took off my shoes, throw 'em in the crowd,” he sings between harmonica blasts.
Dylan - whose voice has coarsened into a rough, leathery growl - still doesn’t pander. And though Rough and Rowdy Ways is sometimes lacking in the melody department, the lyrics are all top-shelf.
It’s a listening album, best suited for quiet, reflective times when Dylan can penetrate the listener’s psyche with his own. He has plenty of other material better suited for rough-and-rowdy times
