No recent Dylan song has become as ubiquitous as Make You Feel My Love, its status as a modern standard largely down to Adele’s cover version. Those upset when Dylan went electric couldn’t say he didn’t warn them something big was coming: My Back Pages spends the best part of five minutes not repudiating his protest singer past, but bidding the kind of certainties that fuelled it (“lies that life is black and white”) a sardonic farewell.
Should you wonder if Dylan’s capacity for rage had been dulled by his advancing years, listen to Pay in Blood, a gentle musical backdrop for an expression of literally murderous fury: at first he’s so angry that the lyrics are incomprehensible, his voice just a phlegmy snarling noise when they come into focus, he’s demanding vengeance on bankers and politicians “pumping out piss”. soil in twenty years, and with a Grammy for Album of the Year to boot, “it was cover versions of To Make You Feel My Love by Garth Brooks and Billy Joel that generated the bulk of the cash Dylan made from Time Out of Mind” (Tyrangiel/ Light).Subsequently covered by everyone from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Kylie Minogue, in every style from psychedelic to electro-glam stomp, the original Basement Tapes recording of This Wheel’s on Fire – both a great song and another of Dylan’s umpteen apocalyptic visions – has a uniquely intense, eerie quality that no one else has subsequently matched. Interestingly, for Dylan’s first top ten album on U.S. As a result, the songs retain their power, leaving Time Out of Mind as one of the rare latter-day Dylan albums that meets his high standards” (Erlewine).
This is “a better, more affecting record than Oh Mercy, not only because the songs have a stronger emotional pull, but because Lanois hasn’t sanded away all the grit. (‘She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs/ She says ‘what’ll it be/ I say ‘I don’t know, you got any soft-boiled eggs’)” (Tyrangiel/ Light). “Forget truth – Dylan always has – and focus on the sly, world weary atmospherics of Dirt Road Blues and Highlands, Dylan’s funniest song since the 60s. “Lead track, Not Dark Yet appealed to sentimentalists because it felt like Dylan was revealing a truth (‘Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear/ It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there’) and bearing down for arts’ sake, too” (Tyrangiel/ Light). “Consequently, the album loses a little of its emotional impact, yet the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan’s best overall collection in years” (Erlewine). Lanois bathes them in hazy, ominous sounds, which may suit the spirit of the lyrics, but are often in opposition to Dylan’s performances” (Erlewine). “Sonically, the album is reminiscent of Oh Mercy, the last album Dylan recorded with producer Daniel Lanois, but Time Out of Mind has a grittier foundation – by and large, the songs are bitter and resigned, and Dylan gives them appropriately anguished performances. Where Under the Red Sky, his last collection of original compositions, had a casual, tossed-off feel, Time Out of Mind is carefully considered, from the densely detailed songs to the dark, atmospheric production” (Erlewine). “After spending much of the '90s touring and simply not writing songs, Bob Dylan returned in 1997 with Time Out of Mind, his first collection of new material in seven years.
Quotable: “Dylan’s best overall collection in years” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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