Dylan Shows Up Again

“My Wife’s Hometown” sounds more like a Chess recording.
Except that he’s got an accordion instead of a harmonica. This definitely sounds like it could be Muddy Waters. It’s nice to hear his humor in full bloom, too. For a while, it was conspicuously absent.

Do you think it’s unusual that Dylan involved a cowriter on this album?
He’s only done these album-length collaborations twice, both times at the very height of his lyrical powers. The first was with Jacques Levy on Desire (1976), which came just after Blood on the Tracks (1975), and now Together Through Life comes after the great achievement of his three most recent albums, Time Out of Mind (1997), Love and Theft (2001), and Modern Times (2006). I don’t think that he does this because he’s lazy or afraid to fail, since his character has rendered him pretty much impervious to both charges. I think the collaborations have freed him up to move in new directions without having to worry about topping his last masterpiece.

Can you tell who wrote which lyrics?
It’s tempting to play the “Bob or Robert?” game and guess which lines Hunter contributed, but I don’t think that’s the best way to approach the songs. I don’t listen to Desire trying to separate “Isis” into Bob and Jacques piles, though I confess I’m sometimes quick to pin weaker lines from “Hurricane” and “Joey” on Jacques. There are some loose lines on Together Through Life. “The sun is sinking low / I guess it’s time to go,” Dylan sings on “Life Is Hard,” but unlike the looser lines on Desire, these are mostly successful and more likely to be Dylan’s, since he has recently made a virtue of those sorts of casual, thrown-off lines that often turn out to be very funny.

Both of these songwriters are enamored with the mythic American past. On the new album, Dylan sings, “If you ever go to Houston, keep your hands in your pocket and your gunbelts tight,” which could have been penned by the Dylan who wrote the soundtrack to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), or just as easily by Hunter, who frequently writes about outlaws and sheriffs and whose nostalgia is palpable in songs like “Brown-Eyed Women.”

They can both be extremely funny. “Hell is my wife’s hometown” could have been penned by Dylan or by Hunter, who wrote in “Easy Wind,” “Gotta find a woman be good to me / Won’t hide my liquor try to serve me tea.” Both artists have songs populated with strange characters with American-sounding names, so who wrote the lines introducing Sister Lucy and Sister Betsy on the new album? Dylan, who’s given us Rose Marie and Missus Henry, or Hunter, who created Delilah Jones and Charley Phogg — “he blacked my eye and he kicked my dog?”

Dylan’s been criticized for borrowing and not attributing. What do your students think?
Some wonder why he can’t just put something in the liner notes. I think plagiarism is the greatest tool of any writer. Emerson said of Shakespeare, “The greatest genius is the most indebted man.” Shakespeare took 40 percent of his lines straight from other people. A Bob Dylan song is so much better than a Henry Timrod poem, whom he borrowed from for Modern Times.

What do you make of Dylan’s sustained focus on traditional, old-timey music?
It’s kind of his terrain, Americana. He’s proven that he’s a musicologist, a real researcher. And with his old-time radio hour, he’s not afraid to wear it on his sleeve. He knew Muddy Waters. From an early age, he was lucky enough to be mixed up in those crowds and traditions. He has his foot in that world.

He’s produced the last three albums himself. What difference has that made?
He’s a great producer. He’s got a lot going on in these songs, but nothing is calling inordinate attention to itself. They have nice levels. Some of his albums that others have done, the electric guitar might jump out too high, for example.

What differences do you see between the 2009 Bob Dylan and the younger songwriter you’ve been drawing on to teach this year?
Between his debut and Blood on the Tracks, he grew so much. Even the periods in his career that haven’t been people’s favorites, like Nashville Skyline (1969), have contributed to possibilities on later albums. On this record, he’s making use of every tool in his arsenal. With Blood on the Tracks, he was trying to have a more cohesive sound. Today, he can go from rockabilly to ballad quite effortlessly.

I don’t think anyone 10 or 15 years ago would have predicted Dylan would have this kind of renaissance. I’m legitimately enthused about these new albums. I’d put these up there with his best.

Caleb Daniloff can be reached at cdanilof@bu.edu.