BOB DYLAN CONFRONTS HIS OWN LEGACY ON “ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS”

BOB DYLAN CONFRONTS HIS OWN LEGACY ON “ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS”

“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about” - Oscar Wilde

In “I Contain Multitudes,” the opening number on his new album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, Bob Dylan tells us something we already know. He is a man of contradictions, which he has previously attributed to his astrological sign, Gemini. In interviews, when asked about anything, his answers, like his songs, are almost always a surprise, coming out of nowhere, and heading somewhere unexpected. Offbeat observations and suspicious disclosures. Has he ever uttered the phrase, “Yes, I agree with you?” If he has, would he have been putting us on? When he is praised, he deflects. When imitators steal him blind, he is not flattered.

On this song, and album, Dylan finally owns up to his own legacy.

Rough and Rowdy Ways, like much of Dylan’s output, is a protest album. What’s he protestin’? Whadaya got? Twenty years ago, if not 50, Bob Dylan had already run out of f*cks to give. Dylan has been singing, “I used to care, but things have changed,” fairly regularly since 2000. But with his new album, out today, Juneteenth, he’s amped those feelings to DEFCON 2, at least. He’s had enough. But enough of what? Well, just about everything, it seems. Enough of failed relationships, junk food culture, the depravity of mankind, racism and the white washing of history. Basically, he’s sick of it all. Yet underneath, he’s an old softy, still nostalgic, still a romantic, perhaps even a lapsed optimist. 

Additionally, Dylan has had it with those who have criticized and condemned him. He can’t sing, they say, can’t play the guitar. He plagiarized his songs. Since his last album of original material, 2012’s Tempest, not only has he become a Nobel Laureate, but a shrine to his work will open next year in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Bob Dylan Center will house the singer-songwriter’s archives, where fans and scholars can examine decades of private notes, recordings, films, photographs, art, and more. He has earned the right to brag thousands of times over. To deny his own impact on the world, at this point, would be false modesty. 

However, Dylan apparently prefers to reside in his own world, the one of old films, history books, religious texts, and scratchy 78s. He’s not a recluse, just someone who prefers to exist out of the public eye. That is what intense fame and scrutiny will do to you. Indeed, things have changed. If Twitter had been around in 1965, can you imagine the Tarantula-esque lines he’d have posted obsessively every day? Ampersands galore! Now he avoids the spotlight, unless it’s on his terms. He is carefully insulated, trying his best to live a normal life, attempting to maintain his sanity in this crazy tabloid world, watching with jaded vision, to create majestic art as only he can.    

In some ways, Rough and Rowdy Ways can be seen as Dylan’s true Nobel Prize acceptance lecture. Like a reluctant high schooler, Dylan handed in his required speech at the last minute, apparently with a little help from SparkNotes. As anyone who witnessed the mishandling of Dylan’s videos and wardrobe in the mid-1980s can attest, he’s at his best when inspired and focused, unencumbered by the expectations of others. His legacy is now something he can no longer ignore.

Rough and Rowdy Ways accomplishes many things and settles plenty of scores, not the least of which is confronting his critics. It was strange to hear Dylan confirm he is a multi-dude in the opening track, “I Contain Multitudes,” then follow it up by saying he ain’t no “False Prophet,” a triple negative that requires a compass to navigate. Well, is he a prophet, or not? The music says no, but the lyrics say yes. Sort of. 

But it’s the brilliant allegory of the third song, “My Own Version of You,” where Dylan explains the creative process to those mouth breathers who accuse him of plagiarism. The sound is that of an eerie black and white horror film, with the hint of a theremin for dramatic affect. He depicts himself as a mad scientist like a grave robbing Victor Frankenstein, or the titan Prometheus, someone worthy of a Vincent Price mustache, who steals from the dead, mixes the disparate parts together, and gives it a new life, assembles a new creation, or in Dylan’s case, a new work of art. On “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” Dylan directly states he never had to pander to his crowd by any showboating on stage, indirectly saying he lets the music do the talking. “Across the Rubicon,” the river Julius Caesar crossed in 49 B.C., echoes Dylan’s dedication to moving forward, and to not look back. Interestingly, the song connects back to “My Own Version of You,” which includes the line, “What would Julius Caesar do?”  

However, throughout the 70+ minutes of Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan the contrarian deflects from his own boasts. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and for tonight’s feast, Chef Robert is sprinkling references like seasoning over his songs, expecting listeners will uncover the recipe. If you aren’t already familiar with them, or even if you are, take some time to reexamine them. It certainly made Sun Records recording artist Billy “The Kid” Emerson an instant celebrity since Dylan used his arrangement of an ancient single, “If Lovin’ is Believing,” as the bedding for his new creation, “False Prophet.” It took almost no time for someone to discover this and share it online. The same is true of the artwork and photography for the album and its “singles,” and the usage of a Jimmie Rodgers song for the album’s title. 

There are plenty of other references to musicians, actors, soldiers, and historical figures and events. Here Dylan is a teacher, a Rabbi, giving us all a new homework assignment. Pretty ironic, huh? It’s as if Dylan is confirming that, in a Kafka-esque twist of fate, and he has become a tarantula, spinning his web as he’s spinning a yarn, hoping you’ll get tangled up in it. (Block that metaphor!) 

There are many references to art, both high and low, throughout the album. While Dylan’s delivery is as dry as the Sahara, that doesn't mean there isn’t humor hidden in the lines, dark as it might be. In “Multitudes,” he brings to mind Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, and William Blake, then informs us he drives fast cars and eats fast foods, and Anne Frank, of all people, is juxtaposed with the fictional Indiana Jones, who, as Seth Rogovoy pointed out, hunted Nazis. Is Monty Python referenced in two songs? First there’s the Holy Grail in “False Prophet,” then cutting off the arm of the protagonist in “Black Rider.” Is it only a flesh wound? It's also reminiscent of the phrase "I ain't dead yet" found in 2012's "Early Roman Kings."

While the detective work is fun, it would all mean nothing if the album wasn’t any good. As I stated earlier, Dylan is at this best when he’s in the zone and left alone, and that's certainly the case here. In some ways, like on 1997s Time Out of Mind, it feels like a restless farewell, yet also a beginning. 

In many aspects, Rough and Rowdy Ways is a break from Dylan’s own traditions, except, of course, the tradition of breaking traditions. Aside from the three songs steeped in the blues, the album is confessional/conspiratorial in its delivery, with Dylan gently sing-talking over a quiet soundscape, even if the lyrics are about matter-of-fact violence, physical or otherwise. Clearly, Dylan’s last few albums of standards helped with his vocalization. It’s most prominent on the prayer-like “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” which sounds like a Sinatra song by way of Tom Waits. It’s the sound of a man whose heart has been broken one too many times, not just in love, but by a world gone wrong.

But there’s more to the album than the investigations, more than revenge and mayhem and carnal pursuits. There’s the gentle gospel of “Mother of Muses,” a prayer to the mystical and mysterious powers that Dylan credits as his inspiration. There’s an ostensibly romantic paean to the Floridian city in “Key West (Philosopher Pirate),” a long meditative stream of consciousness-like piece apparently inspired by pirate radio, back when radio stations were part of a community, not some corporate brainwashing echo chamber. 

In the same way “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” ended Dylan’s 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde, the 17-minute ballad “Murder Most Foul” is the exclamation point - or is it a question mark? - to this album, separate from the rest, its solitude signifying its importance. It’s Dylan as a demonic narrator, or maybe he’s like Randy Newman’s depiction of the amused deity in “God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind).” It’s a history lesson no one wants to hear, yet we all need to. This ain’t no fake news. The United States of America has had many shameful events hidden in its closet, and they’re back in today’s headlines yet again, bringing the Divided States to a boiling point. It’s nothing Dylan has shied away from before, in fact that’s how he made his name. But the horrors documented in “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” and “The Death of Emmett Till,” all compositions from the early 1960s, show that, in some ways, things haven’t changed. And Bob Dylan never really stopped caring, despite himself.  

Now get studyin’ … 

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Bob Dylan
Rough And Rowdy Ways

2CD:
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Black vinyl (July 24):
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Olive green vinyl (July 17):
Independents, among these:
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Yellow Golden vinyl (July 17):
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Image courtesy SONY

 

  

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