Bob Dylan: Together Through Life

When Bob Dylan released his first album way back in 1962, his singing voice put off many listeners.  It was raspy, sometimes off-key and weird.  People were used to Jack Jones singing “Lollipops and Roses,” in buttery smooth tones.  Dylan based his singing style on the folkies and bluesmen that inspired him.  He was a young man trying to sound old.

Over 40 years later, Dylan has become the old man he aspired to be when he was 20.  His voice has matured into a beaten, weary, broken register.  He manipulates his voice depending on the song, sometimes articulating every word, sometimes singing in an unintelligible garble.  His voice is the most prominent part of his sound.  With Together Through Life, Bob Dylan has proved once again that aging isn’t such a bad thing.

Together Through Life sounds like it was thrown together in a few weeks.  Bob had written some songs, put a band together, they recorded them and put them out.  That’s how records used to be made, and the approach works well.  The music is a mixture of Chicago blues, shuffling country and folk music.  It represents the old America that Dylan has such a fondness for, and is a departure from the much darker Modern Times.

While the music is more upbeat, Dylan’s tongue is sharp.  As the cover suggests, Together Through Life deals with matters of the heart, and all the problems that come with it.  The opening track, “Beyond Here Lies Nothing,” sounds like an upbeat tune, but Dylan is quite bitter.  “I don’t know what I’d do without this love that we call ours.”  Cute line, but the more you listen to it, the more you pick up on the sarcasm and spite in the delivery.  After setting up wit that line, he knocks everything down with the chorus: “Beyond here lies nothing, but the mountains of the past.”

The jabs on the opening track are mild compared to “My Wife’s Hometown,” which is probably one of the most direct songs Dylan has ever written.  Apparently his wife’s parents raised her in an apartment with a scenic view of the Lake of Fire.  She can make you steal, she can make you rob, and she’s got the ability to make things go from bad to worse.  It’s a tremendously funny song, and unlike “Idiot Wind,” there is little anger.  Dylan’s tongue is firmly in cheek.

When Dylan isn’t taking potshots, he’s feeling a little lusty.  On “Shake Shake Mama” Dylan asks his girl to “shake like a ship going out to sea.”  It’s a little disconcerting to hear a 68-year old man make a pass at someone, but the grizzled voice is a nice touch.

When Bob Dylan releases a new album, the kneejerk reaction of the rock establishment is to automatically proclaim it a classic.  He’s Bob Fucking Dylan and he wrote Blonde on Blonde and you didn’t, so he automatically gets a pass.  That’s bullshit.  Together Through Life is not an instant classic or a masterpiece.  It’s just ten tracks that Bob felt like releasing.  There are good songs here and the musicianship is excellent, but it’s not going to change the world.  Dylan probably doesn’t expect it to, he just felt like releasing a record.