Bob Dylan - "New Morning" (1970)

Rating: 8

Although it is my opinion that Dylan would never again reach the astounding heights of Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde (and that includes Blood on the Tracks, which although it would probably make my purely hypothetical Hall of Fame Album Pyramid, wouldn't make the Pantheon), my recent listening to his immediate post-Blonde oeuvre certainly hasn't been unrewarding. Although I agree with the critical masses that his infamous Self-Portrait was a misfire, I also don't think it deserves infamy. Yet he released several good to great albums during this stretch, including John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and New Morning, released just four months after Self-Portrait. My main criticism of him during this stretch is not that he lost his genius, but that his genius was unfocused, manifesting itself on a handful of songs per album only. This is somewhat the case on New Morning, but there is enough strong material to recommend it.

On this album, Bob largely ditches the guitar and focuses primarily on rambling piano ballads. Being Dylan, his piano-playing is unpolished, his vocals are abrasive at times, and especially due to the short length (35 minutes), it isn't hard to imagine it being knocked off in four months. Yet he is also more direct and heartfelt on this album than he had really ever been until this point, and he conveys a genuine warmth and sweetness. Although this is nowhere near as momentous a record as his earlier stuff and has too much filler for me to call it a masterpiece (witness the awful beatnik spoken-word "When Dogs Run Free"), the best songs here are also spiritually akin in that Dylan's humanity shines through like almost no other rock songwriter can manage.

For example, I was already familiar with the opening track "If Not For You," as covered by George Harrison on All Things Must Pass. After hearing Harrison's glorious Phil Spector-ized version with its wall of acoustic guitars, the much more low-key Dylan version with its significantly dinkier organ part and ramshackle feel passed me by on the first listen. And yet now, I am overwhelmed by the homely charm of the Dylan rendition and although the Harrison version is hard to beat, it's much closer than I ever would have thought.

The other major highlight for me is "Sign On the Window" which has the closing verse:

Built me a cabin in Utah

Marry me a wife, catch a rainbow trout

Have a bunch of kids who call me Pa

That must be what it's all about

Out of context, these lyrics seem almost embarrassingly naive. But in the context of the rest of the lyrics. ("Sign on a porch says, 'Three's a crowd'"), the tone is much more wistful. And in the context of the music, when you hear his rueful vocals in conjunction with his piano, it's deeply moving. Although Dylan is about the lyrics first and foremost (contrary to what the contrarians will have you believe), the way he sings the lyrics is just as important as how they are written down on paper, which is what nearly all the singer-songwriters who followed in his footsteps forgot. Keeper!