Thunder on the mountain, and there's fires on the moon
A ruckus in the alley and the sun will be here soon
Today's the day, gonna grab my trombone and blow
Well, there's hot stuff here and it's everywhere I go
Now, imagine you are Bob Dylan --- hey, it's not hard; the guy's made 44 albums over the last 40 years, there's no way you've escaped him --- and you are singing these lines.
One more thing to imagine: You've got a smoking Chicago blues band behind you.
Well, you're probably going to decide to talk your way through those first two lines --- lots of words, so little time. But in that third line, you're going to hit “trombone” hard. And as for “blow,” you're going to extend the word and do just that. “Hot stuff here” --- no problem, it's just pure happiness to blast out those words.
Which is to say: You'll find yourself singing along with this CD. You don't need to be a Dylanologist to grasp the lyrics --- this time out, Bob's diction is flawless. As is his band. As are the songs --- you have to smile when, in a totally rewritten version of 'Rollin' and Tumbin', Dylan tosses out a line like “Some young, lazy slut has charmed away my brains.”
Bob Dylan and 'fun' in the same sentence? You heard it right. Writing a fictionalized version of his memoirs and having Martin Scorsese follow him around and becoming a DJ on satellite radio and doing commercials for Victoria's Secret and touring, touring, touring --- if there were two nights for every day, he'd play in two cities --- clearly energize Dylan. At 65, he's forever young. And getting younger. He's the poster boy for never slowing down.
There's a lightness in this music that takes you back --- four decades back --- to the 'Highway 61' years. Dylan was just exploring rock then. Now he's got this rock thing down. And the blues thing. And the throwaway torch song. Just ten songs here, but you find yourself asking: Is there anything he can't do?
Yes, there are politics here, but moral politics. Like: “Some people never worked a day in their life/Don't know what work even means." But he never descends into slogans. Look how commentary gets mixed with the enduring joys of life:
There's an evenin' haze settlin' over town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down
Money's gettin' shallow and weak
This is a happy record. Here's the pattern: a fast song, loud and joyous, followed by a softer number. He rocks, he croons --- if he did the duck walk, you wouldn't be surprised. No wonder this CD shot to #1 on Amazon. It's the real thing, no tricks, no shortcuts.
A few years back, my wife --- who would leave me for Dylan in a heartbeat, if he'd only look her way --- declared an end to live experiences of our real poet laureate. The concerts were ragged, he couldn't sing, he hid behind the band. No more. This is exuberant, polished, Tiffany-grade stuff, one of the keepers.
As for the title, “Modern Times” is an irony, if ever there was one. There's nothing modern about this CD. It's classic American music, as old as the hills and fields and slums and bars --- and thus eternally fresh. You know Bob stroked his moustache and had a good laugh when he thought that title up.
--- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com
To buy “Modern Times” from Amazon.com, click here.
