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Bob Dylan: Modern Times

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Sony BMG Music Entertainement
Released: 2006.08.29
Time:
 62:46
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Jack Frost (aka. Bob Dylan)
Rating: *******... (7/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.bobdylan.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2008.04.12
Price in €: 4,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Thunder on the Mountain (B.Dylan) - 5:55
[2] Spirit on the Water (B.Dylan) - 7:42
[3] Rollin' and Tumblin' (B.Dylan) - 6:01
[4] When the Deal Goes Down (B.Dylan) - 5:04
[5] Someday Baby (B.Dylan) - 4:55
[6] Workingman's Blues #2 (B.Dylan) - 6:07
[7] Beyond the Horizon (B.Dylan) - 5:36
[8] Nettie Moore (B.Dylan) - 6:52
[9] The Levee's Gonna Break (B.Dylan) - 5:43
[10] Ain't Talkin' (B.Dylan) - 8:48

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Bob Dylan - Guitar, Harmonica, Piano, Vocals, Producer

Denny Freeman - Guitar
Donnie Herron - Mandolin, Violin, Steel Guitar, Viola
Tony Garnier - Bass, Cello
Stuart Kimball - Guitar
George G. Receli - Drums, Percussion

Jack Frost - Producer
Christopher Shaw - Engineer
Greg Calbi - Mastering
Geoff Gans - Art Direction
Kevin Mazur - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s

2006 CD Columbia 87606
2006 LP Columbia 87606
2006 CD Sony BMG 1138   

Dylan's first studio recording since 2001's 'Love And Theft' features ten brand new songs from the iconic singer-songwriter and is the 44th album release of his prolific career. He features on vocals, guitar, keyboard and harmonica and is accompanied by his touring band. 'Modern Times' is also produced by Dylan under his psuedonym, Jack Frost.



It's arguable that at no point since his 1960s heyday has Bob Dylan been as celebrated as in the decade following his critically acclaimed 1997 album TIME OUT OF MIND. Numerous films, books, and albums - mostly Columbia's impressive archive series of reissues - have been part of a universal canonization of the singer and met with considerable enthusiasm by fans and critics alike. 2006's MODERN TIMES, the third album to have been released in nearly 10 years and part of a trilogy that also includes 2001's brilliant and upbeat LOVE AND THEFT, is easily deserving of such enthusiasm and is further reason for the formal veneration.

Musically, the album finds Dylan once again mining the stately traditionalist sound first heard on LOVE AND THEFT. Lazy blues numbers, piano-based songbook pop, and jumpin' country swing provide the backdrop for Dylan's continuing study of the vicissitudes of life, love, and death. Although he is certainly world-weary, a lot of life is lived in the verses of these songs and there is a dogged spirituality that provides, if not hope (a rather prosaic notion for Dylan by this point, to be sure), at least a means to finding contentment. Finally, a word about Dylan's voice here: while his singing has always been unconventional and never pretty in any traditional sense, in its raspy magnificence it is simply perfect for this timeless music.

CDUniverse.com



At a time when the majority of those his age are drifting into retirement, 65-year-old Bob Dylan has put the capper on a three-record run that ranks with the best in his storied, 44-album career. Like Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft before it, Modern Times is a rootsy, blues-soaked pool of the purest form of Americana - skipping the progressive bells or whistles for an understated backing by his touring band. Dylan's voice, which cracks, rasps and moans from the pop singer's pulpit, hasn't been this rich and emotive since 1976's Desire. And while his lyrics prolong his steadfast allusions to a higher power and his own immortality, they are not without the Dylan mirth, as when he sings of tracking pop queen Alicia Keys from Hell's Kitchen to Tennessee in "Thunder on the Mountain," the album's opener, which teams with "Someday Baby" and "Rollin' and Tumblin'" (for which Dylan misguidedly claims writing credit) as the record's most fiery numbers. Still, it's the Dylan that tells of a slave-loving owner ("Nettie Moore"), brings New Orleans to the front burner ("The Levee's Gonna Break") and plays the part of an eloquent lounge singer ("Spirit on the Water," "When the Deal Goes Down" and "Beyond the Horizon") that makes Modern Times sound just like old times.

Scott Holter - Amazon.com



Fünf Jahre hat uns Bob Dylan auf neue Songs warten lassen und währenddessen mit allerlei Aufnahmen aus den Bootleg Series und der Neverending Tour bei Laune gehalten. Jetzt endlich legt Dylan ein souveränes, wundervolles Alterswerk vor, das sehr sehr nahe an die allerbesten Alben seiner langen Karriere heranreicht. Seine Band spielt meisterhaft, verglichen mit den rohen, blues-rockenden Live-Auftritten der letzten Jahre deutlich zurüchgenommen zugunsten eines entspannten, swingenden Roots-Sounds aus Folk, Blues, Country und Rock 'n' Roll wie man ihn von Love And Theft noch im Ohr hat. Dylans brüchige Stimme hat schon lange nicht mehr so gefühlvoll singen hören. Und dann die zehn Songs, von denen locker die Hälfte das Zeug zu ewigen Dylan-Klassikern hat: Sie sind noch besser geworden als beim Vorgänger - berührend, episch, herzzerreißend erzählt Dylan seine Geschichten. Ein fantastisches Dylan Album, das garantiert nicht nach Modernen Zeiten klingt.

Hanno Güntsch - Amazon.de



Ehret die Alten! Lauschet ihren Geschichten und zehret von ihrer Weisheit! Aber versucht nicht, sie zu ändern. Sie sind, wie sie sind - und wie sie sind, sind sie meistens gut. Bob Dylan ist so alt, dass man glaubt, er sei immer schon da gewesen, so wie das Meer, die Berge, die Wüsten und Günther Jauch. Sein neues Werk (Ist es Album Nummer 40? Oder sind wir längst bei 50?) heißt "Modern Times", was natürlich ein Witz ist: Modern war Dylan nie. Dylan war Dylan war Dylan. Ein Sänger, der nie wirklich singen konnte, dessen Stimme aber meist mehr als andere zu sagen hatte. "Modern Times" steht auf einer Stufe mit dem Besten, was der 65-Jährige in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten veröffentlicht hat, nämlich den beiden Vorgänger- Alben "Time Out Of Mind" und "Love And Theft". Dylans Stärke sind wieder einmal die dunklen Gemälde: Geschichten vom Scheitern, von der Ungerechtigkeit des Lebens und von stillen Glücksmomenten. Er ist, wie das britische Musikblatt "Mojo" bemerkte, "teils Philosoph, teils Troubadour, teils Provokateur, teils Sozialkritiker und teils Schutzpatron". Dass so viel altmodische Kraft, so viel felsenfeste Überzeugung es bis auf Platz zwei der Charts - und damit vor LaFee - schafft, tröstet ab und zu ungemein.

Tobias Schmitz - Stern



Alicia Keys wird sich freuen: Bob Dylan erwähnt sie im Song "Thunder on the Mountain". Wenn er an sie denkt, singt er, muss er weinen. Ob vor Sehnsucht, Mitleid oder unerfüllter Liebe, bleibt im Vagen. berhaupt lösen Frauen in ihm alle möglichen Gefühle aus, zumeist eher schädliche. Denn mit der Liebe hat es nie geklappt - und wie auch, wenn er Unmögliches verlangt: "I want some real good woman to do just what I say". Oder wenn er zugibt, wild auf sie zu sein, und sie das gefälligst erwidern soll. In messerscharfem Rhythm 'n' Blues, weichem Westernswing oder gar Celloballaden erörtert Dylan die wirklich wichtigen Dinge des Lebens: Liebe und Transzendenz. Er tut das ohne Pathos, sehr selbstkritisch und ohne große Hoffnung auf Besserung. Landschaften werden zu Jenseitsmetaphern, doch von Religiosität ist wenig zu spüren; und wenn vom Paradies die Rede ist, dann als vernachlässigtem Raum: Der Gärtner hat gekündigt. Dylans aktuelle Tourband mit Tony Garnier (b, cello), George G. Receli (dr), Stu Kimball (g), Denny Freeman (g) und Donnie Herron (steel g) pflegt einen punktgenauen ökonomischen Stil, der praktisch ohne jedes Solo auskommt - und das passt gut zu Dylans weitgehend refrainlosen Songs. "Modern Times" wirkt wie eine Symbiose aus der Düsternis von "Time out of Mind" (1997) und dem in der Americana-Tradition wühlenden "Love & Theft" (2001); es bildet gleichsam den Abschluss einer Trilogie. Noch nie gab sich Dylan so selbstkritisch, so unleidlich, gleichermaßen verletzlich wie bedrohlich. Im Song "The Levee's gonna break" fleht er um die Rückkehr der Geliebten, er verspricht allerhand, doch der Songtitel ("Der Damm wird brechen!") klingt wie eine Drohung, die sein Flehen untermauern soll - und es natürlich unterminiert. In seiner emotinalen Zerrissenheit ein ganz starkes Album, auch gesanglich. Denn zum Glück verzichtet Dylan auf die live praktizierte vokale Zerstörung seiner klassischen Melodien. Mal sehen, wie es den potenziellen Fanfavoriten "Ain't talkin", dem von Muddy Waters stibitzten "Rollin' and tumblin'" oder "Someday Baby" gehen wird, wenn sie in die Tretmühle der neverending tour geraten. Doch das entscheidet der Meister alleine. Denn auch wenn er die Frauen nicht im Griff hat - seine Songs schon.

(mw) - kulturnews.de



Mit "Modern Times" veröffentlicht der legendäre Sänger und Songwriter Bob Dylan nach fünfjähriger Pause endlich wieder ein neues Studioalbum. Es ist das 44. Album seiner Karriere und enthält zehn neue Songs, die im vergangenen Winter in einem alten, zu einem Studio umgebauten, Theatergebäude in Poughkeepsie/New York aufgenommen wurden. Neben Dylan selbst, der Keyboards, Gitarre, Mundharmonika und Gesang beisteuerte, spielte Dylans Tourband die restlichen Instrumente auf "Modern Times" ein. Das Album enthält u.a. die Songs "Thunder On The Mountain", "Workingman's Blues # 2", "When The Deal Goes Down" sowie die achtminütige Ballade "Ain't Talkin'", die schon jetzt als eines der besten Dylan-Stücke der letzten 20 Jahren gelten kann. Dylans letzte beiden Studioalben "Time Out Of Mind" und "Love & Theft" zählten zu den erfolgreichsten in Dylans Laufbahn ("Time Out Of Mind" bekam 1998 sogar die begehrteste Grammy-Auszeichnung als "Album des Jahres"). Dylan's Status als eine der letzten lebenden Legenden der Rock-Ära der 60er Jahre ist von Jahr zu Jahr gewachsen und wurde gerade in den letzten fünf Jahren durch die Scorsese-Filmdokumentation "No Direction Home", die Veröffentlichung von Band 1 seiner Memoiren ("Chronicles Vol. 1"), diverse vielbeachtete Katalogveröffentlichungen ("Bob Dylan Bootleg Series"), etliche Tribute-Alben sowie sein konstantes Touren um den Erdball noch einmal aufgewertet. Seine aktuelle Freizeitbeschäftigung als kenntnisreicher und humorvoller Gast-DJ bei der US-Satelliten-Radiostation "XM Radio" ("Theme Time Radio Hour - with your host Bob Dylan") wird von seiner weltweiten Fangemeinde mit liebevoller Anerkennung verfolgt. "Modern Times" erscheint parallel als CD sowie in limitierter Auflage in Deluxe-Austattung incl. Bonus-DVD und erweitertem Booklet.

Amazon.de



When Bob Dylan dropped Time Out of Mind in 1997, it was a rollicking rockabilly and blues record, full of sad songs about mortality, disappointment, and dissolution. 2001 brought Love and Theft, which was also steeped in stomping blues and other folk forms. It was funny, celebratory in places and biting in others. Dylan has been busy since then: he did a Victoria's Secret commercial, toured almost nonstop, was in a couple films - Larry Charles' Masked and Anonymous and Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home - and published the first of a purported three volumes of his cagey, rambling autobiography, Chronicles. Lately, he's been thinking about Alicia Keys. This last comment comes from the man himself in "Thunder on the Mountain," the opening track on Modern Times, a barn-burning, raucous, and unruly blues tune that finds the old man sounding mighty feisty and gleefully agitated: "I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys/Couldn't keep from cryin'/She was born in Hell's Kitchen and I was livin' down the line/I've been lookin' for her even clear through Tennessee." The drums shuffle with brushes, the piano is pumping like Jerry Lee Lewis, the bass is popping, and a slide guitar that feels like it's calling the late Michael Bloomfield back from 1966 - à la Highway 61 Revisited - slips in and out of the ether like a ghost wanting to emerge in the flesh. Dylan's own choppy leads snarl in the break and he's letting his blues fall down like rain: "Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches/I'll recruit my army from the orphanages/ I've been to St. Herman's church and said my religious vows/I sucked the milk out of a thousand cows/I got the pork chop, she got the pie/She ain't no angel and neither am I...I did all I could/I did it right there and then/I've already confessed I don't need to confess again."

Thus begins the third part of Dylan's renaissance trilogy (thus far, y'all). Modern Times is raw; it feels live, immediate, and in places even shambolic. Rhythms slip, time stretches and turns back on itself, and lyrics are rushed to fit into verses that just won't stop coming. Dylan produced the set himself under his Jack Frost moniker. Its songs are humorous and cryptic, tender and snarling. What's he saying? We don't need to concern ourselves with that any more than we had to Willie Dixon talking about backdoor men or Elmore James dusting his broom. Dylan's blues are primitive and impure. Though performed by a crackerjack band, they're played with fury; the singer wrestles down musical history as he spits in the eye of the modern world. But blues isn't the only music here. There are parlor songs such as "Spirit on the Water," where love is as heavenly and earthly a thing as exists in this life. The band swings gently and carefree, with Denny Freeman and Stu Kimball playing slippery - and sometimes sloppy - jazz chords as Tony Garnier's bass and George Receli's sputtering snare walk the beat. Another, "When the Deal Goes Down," tempts the listener into thinking that Dylan is aping Bing Crosby in his gravelly, snake-rattle voice. True, he's an unabashed fan of the old arch mean-hearted crooner. But it just ain't Bing, because it's got that true old-time swing.

Dylan's singing style in these songs comes from the great blues and jazzman Lonnie Johnson (whose version of the Grosz and Coslow standard "Tomorrow Night" he's been playing for years in his live set). If you need further proof, look to Johnson's last recordings done in the late '50s and early '60s ("I Found a Dream" and "I'll Get Along Somehow"), or go all the way back to the early years for "Secret Emotions," and "In Love Again," cut in 1940. It is in these songs where you will find the heart of Dylan's sweet song ambition and also that unique phrasing that makes him one of the greatest blues singers and interpreters ever. Dylan evokes Muddy Waters in "Rollin' and Tumblin." He swipes the riff, the title, the tune itself, and uses some of the words and adds a whole bunch of his own. Same with his use of Sleepy John Estes in "Someday Baby".. Those who think Dylan merely plagiarizes miss the point. Dylan is a folk musician; he uses American folk forms such as blues, rock, gospel, and R&B as well as lyrics, licks, and/or whatever else he can to get a song across. This tradition of borrowing and retelling goes back to the beginning of song and story. Even the title of Modern Times is a wink-eye reference to a film by Charlie Chaplin. It doesn't make Dylan less; it makes him more, because he contains all of these songs within himself. By his use of them, he adds to their secret histories and labyrinthine legends. Besides, he's been around long enough to do anything he damn well pleases and has been doing so since the beginning.

Modern Times expresses emotions and comments upon everything from love ("When the Deal Goes Down," "Beyond the Horizon") to mortality ("The Levee's Gonna Break," "Ain't Talkin") to the state of the world - check "Workingman's Blues #2," where Dylan sings gently about the "buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down/Money's getting shallow and weak...they say low wages are reality if we want to compete abroad." But in the next breath he's put his "cruel weapons on the shelf" and invites his beloved to sit on his knee. It's a poignant midtempo ballad that walks the line between the topical songs of Cisco Houston and Woody Guthrie to the love songs of Stephen Foster and Leadbelly. One can feel both darkness and light struggling inside the singer for dominance. But in his carnal and spiritual imagery and rakish honesty, he doesn't give in to either side and walks the hardest path - the "long road down" to his own destiny. This is a storyteller, a pilgrim who's seen it all; he's found it all wanting; he's found some infinitesimal take on the truth that he's holding on to with a vengeance. In the midst of changes that are foreboding, Modern Times is the sound of an ambivalent Psalter coming in from the storm, dirty, bloodied, but laughing at himself - because he knows nobody will believe him anyway.

Dylan digs deep into the pocket of American song past in "Nettie Moore," a 19th century tune from which he borrowed the title, the partial melody, and first line of its chorus. He also uses words by W.C. Handy and Robert Johnson as he extends the meaning of the tome by adding his own metaphorical images and wry observations. However, even as the song is from antiquity, it's full of the rest of Modern Times bemusement. "The Levee's Gonna Break" shakes and shimmies as it warns about the coming catastrophe. Coming as it does on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it's a particularly poignant number that reveals apocalypse and redemption and rails on the greedy and powerful as it parties in the gutter. There are no sacred cows - when Dylan evokes Carl Perkins' exhortation to put "your cat clothes on," it's hard not to stomp around maniacally even as you feel his righteousness come through. The great irony is in the final track, "Ain't Talkin'," where a lonesome fiddle, piano, and hand percussion spill out a gypsy ballad that states a yearning, that amounts to an unsatisfied spiritual hunger. The pilgrim wanders, walks, and aspires to do good unto others, though he falters often - he sometimes even wants to commit homicide. It's all part of the "trawl" of living in the world today. Dylan's simmering growl adds a sense of apprehension, of whistling through the graveyard, with determination to get to he knows not where - supposedly it's the other side of the world. The guitar interplay with the fiddle comes through loud and clear in the bittersweet tune. It's like how "Beyond the Horizon" uses gypsy melodies and swing to tenderly underscore the seriousness in the words. It sends the album off with a wry sense of foreboding. This pilgrim is sticking to the only thing he knows is solid - the motion of his feet.

Modern Times portrays a new weird America, even stranger than the old one, because it's merely part of a world consumed by insanity. In these ten songs, bawdy joy, restless heartache, a wild sense of humor, and bottomless sadness all coexist and inform one another as a warning and celebration of this precious human life while wondering openly about what comes after. This world view is expressed through musical and lyrical forms that are threatened with extinction: old rickety blues that still pack an electrically charged wallop, porch and parlor tunes, and pop ballads that could easily have come straight from the 1930s via the 1890s, but it also wails and roars the blues. Modern Times is the work of a professional mythmaker, a back-alley magician, and a prophetic creator of mischief. He knows his characters because he's been them all and can turn them all inside out in song: the road-worn holy man who's also a thief; the tender-hearted lover who loves to brawl; the poetic sage who's also a pickpocket; and the Everyman who embodies them all and just wants to get on with it. On Modern Times, all bets are off as to who finishes the race dead last, because that's the most interesting place to be: "Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind/Bring me my boots and shoes/You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline/Sing a little bit of these workingman blues." There is nothing so intriguing as contradiction and Dylan offers it with knowing laughter and tears, because in his songs he displays that they are both sides of the same coin and he never waffles, because he's on the other side of the looking glass. Modern Times is the work of an untamed artist who, as he grows older, sees mortality as something to accept but not bow down to, the sound that refuses to surrender to corruption of the soul and spirit. It's more than a compelling listen; it's a convincing one.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



The length of time that transpires between Bob Dylan releases these days - it's been five years since Love and Theft, which itself broke a four-year drought - makes it seem as if the rock legend has come down from the mountaintop with each armful of new songs. This time around, the epic, foreboding material he's crafted backs up that image, with every incisive phrase and every heavy-hanging note underscoring the spiritual, questing vibe. Modern Times isn't exactly a religious album - not in the standard sense - but it does carry a stark, apocalyptic tone that can be terrifying (as on the stealthily picked "Ain't Talkin," with its imagery of life as a skein of unending suffering) or vivifying (as on "Beyond the Horizon," where he sets his sights on the afterlife that follows said anguish). More than he has in ages, Dylan builds his tales around classic blues structures, tweaking the 12-bar form ever so subtly on the steely-eyed revenge paean "Someday Baby" and reworking the Muddy Waters classic "Rollin' and Tumblin' " (which he's retrofitted with new lyrics) into a cautionary tale of impending doom. As befits its title, Modern Times is also shot through with Dylan's take on the world around him. Although he's not nearly as direct here as he was in his protest song days, there's no mistaking the passion - or position - of songs like "Workingman's Blues #2" (a class-conscious rallying cry that carries traces of Before the Flood in its DNA) and the New Orleans-directed "The Levee's Gonna Break." Unlike its immediate predecessor, Modern Times isn't a particularly aggressive album. At times, in fact, it verges on the parched. But not depleted: Instead, with this steely-eyed disc, Dylan sounds like a man who intends to fight on - intent on winning every battle.

David Sprague - Barnes & Noble



Intriguing, immediate, and quietly epic, Modern Times must rank among Dylan's finest albums.

Pat Gilbert - Entertainment Weekly


The new Dylan album starts with the voice of God in the mountains and the sound of pistols in the streets. Bad things are happening, and the ladies in Washington, D.C., are scrambling to get out of town. Dylan has ladies on his mind, too- Alicia Keys, who's forty years younger than he is yet worth chasing through the Tennessee Hills just the same, but also good women who do just what you say, and the wicked women who drain your heart and mind. War and love are in the air. It's time to get right with the Lord, maybe go back up north and try his hand at farming. But the pitchfork is on the shelf. The hammer is on the table. And from the sound of things, the hammer is coming down.

That's "Thunder on the Mountain," the first song on Modern Times, Dylan's thirty-first studio record and his third straight masterwork. Modern Times was cut in New York over the course of a little more than a month with Dylan's road band, which had a mere 113 shows of the Never Ending Tour under its belt. The songs are almost evenly divided between blues ready-mades, old-timey two-steps and stately marches full of prophecy. The band-seasoned by night after night of responding to the spontaneous reinvention that makes Dylan's shows the longest-running miracle in rock & roll-jumps at the master's call, bringing rockabilly twang, Chicago street muscle, cowboy swing or le jazz hot languor. In sound and feel, Modern Times recalls the kind of music working bands-Muddy Waters' bluesmen or Hank Williams' Drifting Cowboys-would cut on the fly between gigs, a mixture of unique inventions and variations on hand-me-downs touched by the leader's genius. Almost every song retraces the American journey from the country to the city, when folkways were giving way to modern times. The mood is America on the brink-of mechanization, of war, of domestic tranquillity, of fulfilling its promise and of selling its dreams one by one for cash on the barrelhead.

Since even before he asked for permission to forget about today until tomorrow, Dylan has said that time means nothing to him. During the past ten years, he has been making music that shows just this. There is no precedent in rock & roll for the territory Dylan is now opening with albums that stand alongside the accomplishments of his wild youth. Love and Theft, recorded when he'd turned sixty, was his toughest guitar rock since Blonde on Blonde in 1966, a combination of the mojo Muddy Waters had working at age sixty-two on Hard Again and the sweeping dystopic perspective Philip Roth brought to American Pastoral at sixty-three (with more than a touch of Groucho Marx on You Bet Your Life).

Modern Times is something different. It's less terrifying, less funny on first listen. But it has more command, more clarity. There is none of the digital murk of Time Out of Mind, and the snakebite live sound of Love and Theft has softened. This music is relaxed; it has nothing to prove. It is music of accumulated knowledge, it knows every move, anticipates every step before you take it. Producing himself for the second time running, Dylan has captured the sound of tradition as an ever-present, a sound he's been working on since his first album, in 1962. (One reason Modern Times is so good is that Dylan has been making it so long.) These songs stand alongside their sources and are meant to, which is why their sources are so obvious, so direct: "Rollin' and Tumblin' " gives a cowboy gallop and new lyrics to Muddy Waters' 1950 hit of the same name (with its own history dating back to at least 1929); "Someday Baby" mellow-downs Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips"; "The Levee's Gonna Break" jumps off from Memphis Minnie's "When the Levee Breaks"; "Nettie Moore" lifts a line from a nineteenth-century ballad recorded by the Sons of the Pioneers; and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" motivates "Thunder on the Mountain."

"Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air," Dylan tells his lady on "When the Deal Goes Down." "Tomorrow keeps turning around/We live and we die, we know not why/But I'll be with you when the deal goes down." The forces of divine reckoning and mortal love are everywhere on Modern Times. It all piles up in "Thunder on the Mountain": devotion, lust, the second coming, earthly troubles. The language is plain-spoken, pared down: "Feel like my soul is beginning to expand/Look into my heart and you will sort of understand/You brought me here, now you're trying to run me away/The writing's on the wall, come read it, come see what it say." In the dance-hall ballad "Spirit on the Water," Dylan invokes God's creation of the heavens and Earth to describe his sweetheart's face. There's divine reckoning here, too, though: "I wanna be with you in paradise, and it seems so unfair/I can't go back to paradise no more/I killed a man back there."

And that's one of the idyllic songs - Modern Times has plenty of love laments that turn into apocalyptic meditations. "Some young lazy slut has charmed away my brains," Dylan sings in "Rollin' and Tumblin'." Then darkness falls: "The night's filled with shadows, the years are filled with early doom/I've been conjuring up all these long-dead souls from their crumblin' tombs." Dylan speaks as a preacher, a lover and a general at the same time, as though every song he'd ever recorded were coming together into one. Modern Times is the second straight album on which Dylan has invoked the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It is inevitable to read "The Levee's Gonna Break" - with its "people on the road . . . carrying everything that they own" - in light of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, just as it was impossible to hear Love and Theft's "High Water" on September 12th, 2001, the day after its release, without thinking of the World Trade Center. But neither song is that simple. Both describe the end times Dylan has seen coming since his second album. Both suggest sex or love as an alternative. "The Levee's Gonna Break," though, has an odd promise of redemption Ð the river brings not just death and destruction but baptism and rebirth. The Great Mississippi Flood, along with the Charlie Chaplin movie from which the album takes its name and the Book of Revelations, form a triangle of tragedy, comedy and prophecy in which Modern Times unfolds.

And then at the end, we are somewhere near the gates of Eden. "Ain't Talkin'," the album closer, has the hard-boiled moralism of a Raymond Chandler novel. The setting is the Mystic Garden. One night a man goes out walking. Someone hits him from behind. There are no rules here. The gardener is gone. And in this godless place, where the cities of the plague run with hog-eyed grease, this lone man looks to avenge his father's death and looks to his mother for guidance: "In the human heart, an evil spirit can dwell/I'm trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others/But, oh, mother, things ain't going well." His eyes are filled with tears. His lips are dry. His mind is clogged with thoughts of a girl he left behind. He carries a dead man's shield and waits for his enemies to sleep so he can slaughter them. "Ain't talkin', just walkin'/I'll burn that bridge before you can cross/Heart burnin', still yearnin'/There'll be no mercy for you once you've lost." He walks up the road, around the bend, bound for "the last outback, at the world's end." His music trails behind him. And then he's out of sight.

JOE LEVY (RS 1008 - September 7, 2006)
Rolling Stone
 

 L y r i c s

 

Thunder On The Mountain

Thunder on the mountain, and there's fires on the moon
A ruckus in the alley and the SON will be here soon
Today's the day, where I'm gonna grab my trombone and blow
Well, there's hot stuff here and it's everywhere I go

I was thinking about Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying
When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line
I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee

Feel like my soul is beginning to expand
Look into my heart and you will sort of understand
You brought me here, now you're trying to turn me away
The writing on the wall, come read it, come see what it does say

Thunder on the mountain, rolling like a drum
Going to sleep over there, that's where the music is coming from
I don't need any guide, I already know the way
Remember this, I'm your servant both night and day

The pistols are popping and the PILOT is down
I'd like to try something but I'm so far from town
The sun keeps shining and the North Wind keeps picking up speed
Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need

I've been sitting down studying the art of love
I think it will fit me like a glove
I want some real good woman to do just what I say
Everybody got to wonder what's the matter with this cruel world today

Thunder on the mountain rolling to the ground
Gonna get up in the morning walk the hard road down
Some sweet day I'll stand beside my King
I wouldn't betray your love or any other thing

Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches
I'll recruit my army from the orphanages
I been to St. Herman's church, said my religious vows
As I've sucked the milk out of a thousand cows

I've got the pork chops, she's got the pie
She ain't no angel and neither am I
Shame on your greed, shame on your wicked schemes
I'll say this, I don't give a damn about your dreams

Thunder on the mountain heavy as can be
Mean old twister bearing down on me
All the ladies in Washington scrambling to get out of town
Looks like something bad is going to happen, better ROLL your airplane down

Everybody going and I want to go too
Don't wanna take a chance with somebody new
I did all I could, I did it right there and then
I've already confessed, no need to confess again

Gonna make a lot of money, gonna go up North
I'll plant and I'll harvest what the earth brings forth
The hammer's on the table, the pitchfork's on the shelf
For the love of God, you ought to take pity on yourself.


Spirit On The Water

Spirit on the water
Darkness on the face of the deep
I keep thinking about you baby
I can hardly sleep

I'm traveling by land
Traveling through the dawn of day
You're always on my mind
I can't stay away

I had forgotten about you
Then you turned up again
I always knew
We were meant to be more than friends

When you're near
It's just as plain as it can be
I'm wild about you, girl
You ought to be a fool about me

Can't explain
The sources of this hidden pain
You burned your way into my heart
You got the key to my brain

I've been trampling through mud
Praying to the powers above
I'm sweating blood
You got a face that begs for love

Life without you
Doesn't mean a thing to me
If I can't have you
I'll throw my love into the deep blue sea

Sometimes I wonder
Why you can't treat me right
You do good all day
And then you do wrong all night

When you're with me
I'm a thousand times happier than I could ever say
What does it matter
What price I pay?

They brag about your sugar
Brag about it all over town
Put some sugar in my bowl
I feel like laying down

I'm as pale as a ghost
Holding a blossom on a stem
You ever seen a ghost?
No, but you have heard of them

I see you there
I'm blinded by the colors I see
I'll take good care
Of what belongs to me

I hear your name
Ringing up and down the line
I'm saying it plain
These ties are strong enough to bind

Now your sweet voice
Calls out from some old familiar shrine
I've got no choice
Can't believe these things would ever fade from your mind

I could live forever
With you perfectly
You don't ever
Have to make a fuss over me

>From East to West
Ever since the world began
I only mean it for the best
I want to be with you in any way that I can

I've been in a brawl
Now I'm feeling the wall
I'm going away baby
I won't be back until fall

High on the hill
You can carry all my thoughts with you
You've numbed my will
This love could tear me in two

I won't be with you in paradise
And it seems so unfair
I can't go to paradise no more
I killed a man back there

You think I'm over the hill
You think I'm past my prime
Let me see what you got
We can have a whopping good time


Rollin' And Tumblin'

I rolled and I tumbled, I cried the whole night long
I rolled and I tumbled, I cried the whole night long
Woke up this morning, I must have bet my money wrong

I got troubles so hard, I can't stand the strain
I got troubles so hard, I can't stand the strain
Some young lazy slut has charmed away my brains

The landscape is glowing, gleaming in the golden light of day
The landscape is glowing, gleaming in the golden light of day
I ain't holding nothing back now, I ain't standing in any body's way

Well, I did all I know just to keep you off my mind
Well, I did all I know just to keep you off my mind
Well, I paid and I paid and my suffering heart is always on the line

Well, I get up in the dawn and I go down and lay in the shade
I get up in the dawn and I go down and lay in the shade
I ain't no body's house boy, I ain't no body's well trained maid

I'm flat out spent, this woman been driving me to tears
I'm flat out spent, this woman she been driving me to tears
This woman so crazy, I swear I ain't going to touch another one for years

Well, the warm weather's coming and the buds are on the vine
The warm weather's coming, the buds are on the vine
Ain't nothing so depressing as trying to satisfy this woman of mine

I got up this morning, saw the rising sun return
Well, I got up this morning, see the rising sun return
Sooner or later, you too shall burn

The night's filled with shadows The years are filled with early doom
The night is filled with shadows The years are filled with early doom
I've been conjuring up all these long dead souls from their crumbling tombs

Let's forgive each other darling,
Let's go down to the greenwood glen
Let's forgive each other darling Let's go down to the greenwood glen
Let's put our heads together now Let's put all old matters to an end

Well, I rolled and I tumbled and I cried the whole night long
Aah, I rolled and I tumbled and I cried the whole night long
I woke up this morning and I think I must be traveling wrong


When The Deal Goes Down

In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewildering brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I'll be with you when the deal goes down

We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray
I laugh and I cry and I'm haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Well, the moon gives light and it shines by night
When I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live and then we forgive
Over the road we're bound to go
More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours
That keep us so tightly bound
You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Well, I picked up a rose and it poked through my clothes
I followed the winding stream
I heard the deafening noise, I felt transient joys
I know they're not what they seem
In this earthly domain, full of disappointment and pain
You'll never see me frown
I owe my heart to you, and that's saying it's true
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down


Someday Baby

I don't care what you do,
I don't care what you say
I don't care where you go
Or how long you stay

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

Well you take my money
And you turn it out
You fill me up
With nothin' but self-doubt

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

When I was young,
Drivin' was my crave
You drive me so hard,
Almost to the grave

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

(instrumental)

I'm so hard pressed,
My mind tied up in knots
I keep recyclin'
The same old thoughts

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

So many good things in life
That I overlooked
I don't know what to do now,
Baby, you got me so hooked

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

(instrumental)

Well, I don't want to brag,
I'm gonna ring your neck
When all else fails
I'll make it a matter of self-respect

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

You can take your clothes
Put 'em in a sack
You goin' down the road,
Baby and you can't come back

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

I tried to be friendly,
I tried to be kind
I'm gonna drive you from your home,
Just like I was driven from mine

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more

Living this way
Ain't a natural thing to do
Why was I born
To love you?

Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more


Workingman's Blues

There's an evening haze settling over town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buying power of the proletariat's gone down
Money's getting shallow and weak
Well, the place I love best is a sweet memory
It's a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see
While I'm listening to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from
Creeping it's way into my gut

Meet me at the bottom, don't lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the frontline
Sing a little bit of these workingman's blues

Well, I'm sailing on back, ready for the long haul
Tossed by the winds and the seas
I'll drag them all down to hell and I'll stand them at the wall
I'll sell them to their enemies
I'm trying to feed my soul with thought
Going to sleep off the rest of the day
Sometimes no one wants what we got
Sometimes you can't give it away

Now the place is ringed with countless foes
Some of them may be deaf and dumb
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come
In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover's breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death

Well, they burned my barn, and they stole my horse
I can't save a dime
I got to be careful, I don't want to be forced
Into a life of continual crime
I can see for myself that the sun is sinking
How I wish you were here to see
Tell me now, am I wrong in thinking
That you have forgotten me?

Now they worry and they hurry and they fuss and they fret
They waste your nights and days
Them I will forget
But you I'll remember always
Old memories of you to me have clung
You've wounded me with your words
Gonna have to straighten out your tongue
It's all true, everything you've heard

In you, my friend, I find no blame
Wanna look in my eyes, please do
No one can ever claim
That I took up arms against you
All across the peaceful sacred fields
They will lay you low
They'll break your horns and slash you with steel
I say it so it must be so

Now I'm down on my luck and I'm black and blue
Gonna give you another chance
I'm all alone and I'm expecting you
To lead me off in a cheerful dance
I got a brand new suit and a brand new wife
I can live on rice and beans
Some people never worked a day in their life
Don't know what work even means.


Beyond The Horizon

Beyond the horizon, behind the sun
At the end of the rainbow life has only begun
In the long hours of twilight underneath the stardust above
Beyond the horizon it is easy to love

I'm touched with desire
What I do
Through flame and through fire
I'll build my world around you

Beyond the horizon, in the Springtime or fall
Love waits forever, for one and for all

Beyond the horizon, across the divide
Around about midnight, we'll be on the same side
Down in the valley the water runs cold
Beyond the horizon someone prayed for your soul

My wretched heart is pounding
I felt an angel's kiss
My memories are drowning
In mortal bliss

Beyond the horizon, at the end of the game
Every step that you take, I'm walking the same

Beyond the horizon, the night winds blow
The theme of a melody from many moons ago
The bells of St. Mary, how sweetly they chime
Beyond the horizon I found you just in time

It's dark and it's dreary
I've been pleading in vain
I'm wounded, I'm weary
My repentance is plain

Beyond the horizon over the treacherous sea
I still can't believe that you have set aside your love for me

Beyond the horizon, underneath crimson skies
In the soft light of morning I'll follow you with my eyes
Through countries and kingdoms and temples of stone
Beyond the horizon right down to the bone

It's the right time of the season
Somebody there always cared
There's always a reason
Why some one's life has been spared

Beyond the horizon, the sky is so blue
I've got more than a lifetime to live loving you


Nettie Moore

Lost John's sitting on a railroad track
Some thing's out of whack
Blues this morning falling down like hail
Gonna leave a greasy trail

Gonna travel the world is what I'm gonna do
Then come back and see you.
All I ever do is struggle and strive.
If I don't do anybody any harm, I might make it back home alive.

I'm the oldest son of a crazy man,
I'm in a cowboy band
Got a pile of sins to pay for and I ain't got time to hide
I'd walk through a blazing fire, baby, if I knew you was on the other side

Oh, I miss you, Nettie Moore
And my happiness is over
Winter's gone, the river's on the rise
I loved you then, and ever shall
But there's no one left here to tell
The world has gone black before my eyes

Well, the world of research has gone berserk
Too much paperwork
Albert's in the graveyard, Frankie's raising hell
I'm beginning to believe what the scriptures tell

I've gone where the Southern crosses The Yellow Dog
Get away from all these demagogues
And these bad luck women stick like glue
It's either one or the other or neither of the two

She says, "Look out, Daddy, don't want you to tear your pants.
You could get wrecked in this dance."
They say whisky will kill you, but I don't think it will
I'm riding with you to the top of the hill

Oh, I miss you, Nettie Moore
And my happiness is over
Winter's gone, the river's on the rise
I loved you then, and ever shall
But there's no one left here to tell
The world has gone black before my eyes

Don't know why my baby never looked so good before
Don't have to wonder no more
She's been cooking all day, it going to take me all night
I can't eat all that stuff in a single bite

The judge's coming in, everybody rise
Lift up your eyes
You can do what you please, you don't need my advice
Before you call me any dirty names, you better think twice

Getting light outside, the temperature dropped
I think the rain has stopped
I'm going make you come to grips with fate
When I'm through with you, you'll learn to keep your business straight

Oh, I miss you, Nettie Moore
And my happiness is over
Winter's gone, the river's on the rise
I loved you then, and ever shall
But there's no one left here to tell
The world has gone black before my eyes

The bright spark of the steady lights
Has dimmed my sights
When you're around me all my grief gives away
A life time with you is like some heavenly day

Everything I've ever known to be right has been proven wrong
I'll be drifting along
The woman I'm loving she rules my heart
No knife could ever cut our love apart.

Today I'll stand in faith and raise
The voice of praise
The sun is strong, I'm standing in the light
I wish to God that it were night

The world has gone black before my eyes.


The Levee's Gonna Break

If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
Everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make

Well, I worked on the levee, mama, both night and day
I worked on the levee, mama, both night and day
I got to the river and I threw my clothes away

I paid my time and now I'm good as new,
I paid my time and now I'm as good as new.
They can't take me back unless I want them to

If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
Some of these people gonna strip you of all they can take

I can't stop here I ain't ready to unload
I can't stop here I ain't ready to unload
Riches and salvation can be waiting behind the next bend in the road

I picked you up from the gutter and this is the thanks I get
I picked you up from the gutter and this is the thanks I get
You say you want me to quit you, I told you, 'No, not just yet.'

Well, I look in your eyes, I see nobody other than me
I look in your eyes, I see nobody other than me
I see all that I am and all I hope to be

If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
Some of these people don't know which road to take

When I'm with you, I forget I was ever blue
When I'm with you, I forget I was ever blue
Without you there's no meaning in anything I do

Some people on the road carrying everything that they own
Some people on the road carrying everything they own
Some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones

Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress
Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress
Few more years of hard work, then there'll be a 1,000 years of happiness

If it keep on raining, the levee gonna break
If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
I tried to get you to love me, but I won't repeat that mistake

If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break
Plenty of cheap stuff out there and still around that you take

I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I woke up this morning, butter and eggs in my bed
I ain't got enough room to even raise my head.

Come back, baby, say we never more will part
Come back, baby, say we never more will part
Don't be a stranger with no brain or heart

If it keep on raining, the levee's gonna break.


Ain't Talkin'

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vine
I was passing by yon cool crystal fountain
Someone hit me from behind

Ain't talking, just walking
Through this weary world of woe
Heart burning, still yearning
No one on earth would ever know

They say prayer has the power to heal
So pray for me, mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I am trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well

Ain't talking, just walking
I'll burn that bridge before you can cross
Heart burning, still yearning
There'll be no mercy for you once you've lost

Now I'm all worn down by weeping
My eyes are filled with tears, my lips are dry
If I catch my opponents ever sleeping
I'll just slaughter them where they lie

Ain't talking, just walking
Through the world mysterious and vague
Heart burning, still yearning
Walking through the cities of the plague.

Well, the whole world is filled with speculation
The whole wide world which people say is round
They will tear your mind away from contemplation
They will jump on your misfortune when you're down

Ain't talking, just walking
Eating hog eyed grease in a hog eyed town.
Heart burning, still yearning
Some day you'll be glad to have me around.

They will crush you with wealth and power
Every waking moment you could crack
I'll make the most of one last extra hour
I'll revenge my father's death then I'll step back

Ain't talking, just walking
Hand me down my walking cane.
Heart burning, still yearning
Got to get you out of my miserable brain.

All my loyal and my much-loved companions
They approve of me and share my code
I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road

Ain't talking, just walking
My mule is sick, my horse is blind.
Heart burning, still yearning
Thinking about that girl I left behind.

Well, it's bright in the heavens and the wheels are flying
Fame and honor never seem to fade
The fire gone out but the light is never dying
Who says I can't get heavenly aid?

Ain't talking, just walking
Carrying a dead man's shield
Heart burning, still yearning
Walking with an ache in my heel

The suffering is unending
Every nook and cranny has its tears
I'm not playing, I'm not pretending
I'm not nursing any superfluous fears

Ain't talking, just walking
Walking ever since the other night.
Heart burning, still yearning
Walking until I'm clean out of sight.

As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, a hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma'am, I beg your pardon
There's no one here, the gardener is gone

Ain't talking, just walking
Up the road, around the bend.
Heart burning, still yearning
In the last outback at the world's end.
 

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