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Bob Dylan: Time out of Mind

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Artist: Bob Dylan
Title: Time out of Mind
Released: 1997.09.30
Label: Columbia Records
Time: 72:44
Producer(s): Daniel Lanois
Appears with:
Category: Pop/Rock
Rating: ********.. (8/10)
Media type: CD
Purchase date:  2002.03.15
Price in €: 6,99
Web address: www.bobdylan.com




 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Love Sick (B.Dylan) - 5:21
[2] Dirt Road Blues (B.Dylan) - 3:36
[3] Standing in the Doorway (B.Dylan) - 7:43
[4] Million Miles (B.Dylan) - 5:52
[5] Tryin' to Get to Heaven (B.Dylan) - 5:21
[6] 'til I Fell in Love With You (B.Dylan) - 5:17
[7] Not Dark Yet (B.Dylan) - 6:29
[8] Cold Irons Bound (B.Dylan) - 7:15
[9] Make You Feel My Love (B.Dylan) - 3:32
[10] Can't Wait (B.Dylan) - 5:47
[11] Highlands (B.Dylan) - 16:31

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


BOB DYLAN - Vocals, Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Harmonica, Piano

DANIEL LANOIS - Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, Mando-Guitar, Photography
TONY GARNIER - Electric & Upright Bass
AUGIE MEYERS - Accordion, Hammond B3 Organ, Vox Organ Combo

DUKE ROBILLARD - Guitar, Electric L5 Gibson (4, 5, 10)
JIM DICKINSON - Keyboards, Wurlitzer Electric Piano, Pump Organ (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11)
BUCKY BAXTER - Acoustic Guitar, Pedal Steel (3, 5, 7, 8)
CYNDI CASHDOLLAR - Slide Guitar (3, 5 , 7)
ROBERT BRITT - Acoustic Guitar, Fender Stratocaster (3, 6, 7, 8)
JIM KELTNER - Drums (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10)
BRIAN BLADE - Drums (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10)
DAVID KEMPER - Drums (8)
WINSTON WATSON - Drums (2)
TONY MANGURIAN - Percussion (3, 4, 10, 11)

MARK HOWARD - Engineer
CHRIS CARROL - Assistant Engineer
GEOFF GANS - Art Direction
MARK SELIGER - Photography
SUSIE Q. - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1997 CD Columbia 68556
1997 CS Columbia 68556
1997 LP Columbia 68556
1999 CD Columbia International 491660

Recorded at: Criteria Recording Studios - 1755 N.E. 149 Street, Miami, FL
Mixed at: Teatro Studios - 826 S. Oxnard Bl., Oxnard, CA



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. 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. 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. Lanois bathes them in hazy, ominous sounds, which may suit the spirit of the lyrics, but are often in opposition to Dylan's performances. 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. It's 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. 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.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All-Music Guide, © 1992 - 2002 AEC One Stop Group, Inc.



Bob Dylan’s "Not Dark Yet" is the key song on his critically acclaimed, Grammy-winning 1997 album Time Out of Mind. It is taken at a languid, unhurried pace, with a soundscape of guitars and organ setting up a sustaining backdrop, as Dylan intones the lyrics. In four six-line verses, each of which contains three rhymed couplets, he calmly, even tiredly, describes a personal world that seems to be slowly grinding to a halt: The last line of each verse is, "It’s not dark yet, but it’s gettin’ there." In the first verse, the narrator describes his physical surroundings. Even though it is late in the day, "it’s too hot to sleep." In the second verse, he tells us that there is pain behind every beautiful thing and goes on to recount what sounds like a Dear John letter he has received from a woman. The third verse speaks of the narrator’s travels and his experiences of "a world full of lies." In the final verse, he anticipates death. The arrangement and Dylan’s vocal reinforce the incredible world-weariness of the lyrics. Of course, 35 years into his recording career, it’s impossible not to hear "Not Dark Yet" as the culmination of Dylan’s world view dating back to the early 1960s. The protagonist of the song is an older, but still recognizable version of the one who spoke of a hard rain that was going to fall back in 1963. By now, he is no longer enraged, but he remains embittered. The most difficult lines in each verse are the penultimate ones, especially the third verse’s "I just don’t see why I should even care." "Not Dark Yet" is the characteristically eloquent statement of an elder statesman who is still taking a dim view of things, but in a particularly tired and passionless way that makes his viewpoint all the more disturbing. "Not Dark Yet" and Time Out of Mind were hailed as a return to form for Dylan, his best work since 1989’s Oh Mercy, and the album won the 1997 Grammy for Album of the Year. In 2000, "Not Dark Yet" was featured on the soundtrack of the film Wonder Boys.

William Ruhlmann, All-Music Guide, © 1992 - 2002 AEC One Stop Group, Inc.



What the Critics Say...

Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.66) - Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's."

Spin (9/99, p.134) - Ranked #29 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s."

Q Magazine (12/99, p.92) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s."

Spin (1/98, p.86) - Ranked #5 on Spin's list of the "Top 20 Albums Of The Year."

Village Voice (2/24/98) - Ranked #1 in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll.

Q Magazine (1/98, p.112) - Included in Q Magazine's "50 Best Albums of 1997."

Rolling Stone (10/2/97, pp.53-54) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...TIME's perspective is that of an outsider speaking to an absent confidant....a more fully realized version of OH MERCY....Dylan has made a coherent, sonically striking but equally subdued ensemble album..."

Spin (12/97, p.154) - 9 (out of 10) - "...the whole shebang is pretty terrific, stuffed with the fun freedom of train-song rhythms; swampy, organ-studded soul; boyish ballads; and worn-out blues. Hearing them all, you get the sense of a loner's road trip....These are the thoughts of a pilgrim, and he's headed to the grave..."

New Musical Express (9/27/97, p.55) - 8 (out of 10) - "...his most intriguing album for quite a few years....The songs slow-crawl with the finest licks money can buy..."

Entertainment Weekly (10/03/97, pp.80-82) - "...Dylan's songwriting is at once blissfully assured and gleefully uneven throughout....Dylan sounds lively, even playful-in no way is this album a downer. It sounds as if, at 56, he can't wait to be a full-fledged old codger..." - Rating: A+



At the beginning of Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan finds himself in the same dead-day world as on 1964's "One Too Many Mornings." By now, though, he can't be bothered to romanticize the street and the distant dogs' barking; he can only moan about how sick he is of love, of himself. Saying it seems to give him the strength to go on, and go on he does, over 11 songs that are among his most plainspoken and musically eloquent. The reconstituted bottle-blues that sparked the early '90s acoustic masterpieces Good As I Been to You and World Gone Wrong carries over to Daniel Lanois's carefully dirty production and a groove that tops anything Dylan's done in a studio since, at least, Blood on the Tracks. No matter how lousy he feels, this is the work of a mighty, mighty man.

Rickey Wright, Amazon.com



Wenn Bob Dylan seine erste Platte seit sieben Jahren mit neuem Material anhören wird, muß er seine noch kürzlich geäußerte Einschätzung revidieren, die Welt brauche keine weiteren Dylan-Songs. Wie schon für sein ebenso grandioses "Oh Mercy"-Album gewann er Daniel Lanois als Produzenten. Und der schuf ihm ohne falschen Respekt vor der Legende eine lebendige, kreative Studioatmosphäre, in der Dylan mit Top-Instrumentalisten frei von der Leber weg lustvoll Musik machen konnte. Selten war seine Stimme so präsent, klang der Mann zu befreit, sodaß er sogar allen Erwartungshaltungen sämtlich Dylonologen zum Trotz textlich äußerst Profanes von sich gibt. Hier geht es um Musik und Gefühl, nicht um Prophetie. Dank entspanntem Musikmachen wird hier der Mensch hinter dem Mythos hörbar

© HIFI Test - Detlev Kinsler



Bob Dylan war gut beraten, wieder mit Daniel Lanois zu produzieren: Der Franko-Kanadier schuf eine Studioatmosphäre, die der Legende Dylan erlaubte, lebendige Musik zu machen. Nie war die sonst eher nuschelige Stimme so präsent, selten so entspannt. Top-Instrumentalisten arbeiten der Aura der einzelnen Stücke zu. Der Live-Appeal der teils minimalistischen Arrangements unterstreicht ihren spontanen Charakter. Und Dylan gönnt sich die Freiheit, auch mal Profanes zu formulieren. So wird der Mensch hinter dem Mythos hörbar.

© Audio



Bob Dylans 1989er, von Daniel Lanois produzierter Longplayer "Oh Mercy" wird von Dylanologen jeder Couleur zu den besten Platten des legendären Songschreibers gezählt. "Time Out Of Mind" ist jetzt nach sieben Jahren endlich wieder ein Album mit Originalkompositionen des Meisters, und es wurde von Dylan zusammen mit Lanois produziert. Des letzteren Handschrift ist unverkennbar. Die in der Besetzung Baß und Schlagzeug, Keyboards (zumeist Orgel) und elektrische Rhythmusgitarre klassisch schlicht ausgestatte Begleitband liefert einen extrem stimmigen und effektiven Sound, der über das ganze Album hinweg nur wenig variiert. Außerdem hat Lanois eine superbe Einstellung für Dylans Stimme gefunden, die in ihrer raspelnden Tiefe souveräner denn je klingt. Die Tempi der Songs sind mit wenigen Ausnahmen (der Neo-Rockabilly von "Dirt Road Blues" etwea und der akzentuierte Rock-Groove von "Cold Irons Bound") moderat gehalten, und man nimmt sich wiederholt alle Zeit der Welt für Instrumentalpassagen, die den Gesangsvortag von "His Bobness" unterbrechen. Zu den interessanteren Songs des Albums zählen sicher der Opener "Love Sick", dem ein langsamer "walking beat" unterliegt, und das ebenfalls langsame, als Jazz-Shuffle arrangierte "Million Miles". Schließlich gibt es am Schluß "Highland", mit einer Laufzeit von sechszehneinhalb Minuten Dylans bisher längster Song. Schade nur, daß dieser, wie etliche andere Titel des Albums auch, auf einer sattsam bekannten Blues-Akkordfolge komponiert wurde.

© Stereoplay



I had the pleasure and the honor of listening to "Time out of Mind" in its entirety this evening with a set of headphones.

Time has a very spontaneous, improvisational style of performance on most of the tracks by all of the musicians involved. This album has a stripped down sound to it, a very "live" sound. There are 2 guitarists playing at all times on 7 out of 11 tracks, each plucking and strumming short chords continuosly, constantly improvising bluesy, jazzy style guitar work. Sounds great with headphones, each guitarist have his doing his own thing, one in the left channel and the otherin the right channel of my headset. Excellent layering of guitar work, organ and powerful bass riffs.

Dylan has reinvented himself once again. This is the album that will establish himself in the 90's as a musical genius. Those who have written him off will be very surprised with this effort. I consider it to be his finest album since "Blood on the Tracks". Bobs voice is excellent throughout. Very little indication of any straining on his vocals. His voice belongs on this record.

"Love Sick" Has a smokey bar room mood about it telling the story about some sort of heartbreak. Similar to the slow, spooky sound of "Man in a Long Black Coat". Monologue style of singing and very effective. Dylan has now adapted his song writing and singing around his vocal abilities. This song has a "bayou" style sound to it similar to some of CCR and John Fogerty songs.

"Dirt Road Blues" struck me at first as sounding like "Maggies Farm" in a way. This is also sort of a jazzy, bluesy type of a "Rock-a-Billy", very up-tempo, "Rockin-at-Midnight tune. If someone had popped this tune in and told me it was a boot from 1963, I would have believed him except for the vocals.

"Standing in the Doorway" This is the first slow, mellow song on the album. Nice rhythm. A swaying style song, struck me as being similar to "Can't Help Falling in Love With You" by Elvis. Excellent vocals, Clear voice. Nice rhythm guitar.

"Million Miles" is another very jazzy, bluesy, smokey bar room mood type of song. Excellent layering of guitar licks in each channel of my headset, each guitar doing its own thing. Very nice jazzy drum work, similar to the style in Brubeck's "Take Five". Excellent organ work. Very up-beat, driving bass guitar. Really starting to get into this album, one excellent track after another, not a dull tune in the bunch yet.

"Tryin' to Get to Heaven" is the 2nd slow piece on the album. Very simple chords, strumming on the electric guitar, light organ. Live sound. Excellent vocals, voice sounds very good. A short and sweet harmonica solo closes this track. This is the only use of harmonica I noticed on the entire album.

"Till I Fell in Love With You" Another jazzy, very bluesy track. Very funky guitars in each channel, nicely layered. Excellent use of organ and electric piano (at least it sounded like electric piano). Reminded me of the funky electric jazz piano sound and riffs of Deodato's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" from 1973. Also has some more of that "Bayou" sounding, layered guitar work. A very beautiful combination (very cool)combination and layering of instruments. Left me with the feeling I had after listening to the B.O.B. version of "Visions of Johanna" for the first time.

"Not Dark Yet" Floating-like feelings from this track. Really nice electric guitar chord strumming and plucking. Very layered guitar work, very bluesy and jazzy sound.

"Cold Irons Bound" One of the high points of this tape. Lead by heavy, up-beat bass and what sounds like spoons throughout. Struck me as having "reggae"(?) style percussion at first. Another incredible, incredible piece, and not even through the whole album yet. Absolutely amazing track. The Dylan/Lanois team really packed a punch with this piece. This track produces so much imagery with the lyrics, vocals and instrumentation. Very psychologically powerful track. Remove the lyrics and you could use this as the backdrop instrumental for Freddie Kruger sharpening his fingertip blades in "Friday the 13th part Twelve" Incredible layering of short guitar licks in each channel constantly building and rebuilding, inter-woven and inter-twined over, under and around each chord. Excellent driving music for the desert or mountains in Utah or Arizona on a bright, summer day. This song is unlike anything I have ever heard before. Spooky, almost scary track. Very well written song. Only a carefully calculated, thoroughly planned studio session by a genius could produce such material. This track is going to turn some heads.

"To Make you feel my Love" Quite a ballad. I can understand why Billy Joel would want to record this piece. "Pretty".

"Can't Wait" is another funky, layered, bluesy tune. Excellent guitar and organ work. The guitar work is so incredible in stereo on this track as is throughout the album. A touch of that "bayou" style guitar again. Excellent vocals, monologue style delivery.

"Highlands" has a live studio feeling to it. A drifting along sort of flowing feeling. Some more of that "bayou" style guitar playing again. Vocals are delivered in another monologue style. Excellent use of percussion with what sounds like a stick and a block of wood. Great layering of guitar work with the plucking and strumming of chords. The timing strikes me as being similar to that of "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest". Sounds very similar to "Clothes Line Saga", but unique. I closed my eyes and felt like I was floating along on a raft in the southern part of the Mississippi in a backwoods bayou area. Another excellent, perfectly chosen combination of lyrics, instruments and vocals. For those who enjoy "The Basement Tapes" sessions, you will love this track. The 16 plus minutes af this track seemed more like 6 or 7 minutes to me. Time flies when you have fun.

To close, I would like to say that Bob Dylan has created another masterpiece with "Time out of Mind". He has reinvented himself once again with an album packed full of surprises with every track. An album full of songs and instrumental combinations unlike anything I have ever heard before. This is a very deep, psychologically stimulating, thought provoking collection of compositions.

The only words that come into my mind at this moment are "thank you Bob Dylan" and "welcome back"

Richard H. Berns - August 1, 1997
Copyright © 1994-2002 CDnow Online, Inc. All rights reserved.



Relative to his more recent efforts, yes, Time Out of Mind is an improvement for Dylan. But of course, that's not saying much. The last time he showed any spark of life was in 1983, on the Infidels album, and even that was spotty - and no, 1989's Oh Mercy was not the saviour most people say it was. There's a curious case of wishful thinking going on with old fans - and this writer is one of them - but frankly, Dylan's songwriting muse left him in 1975, after Desire, and we've been left to sort through the vain attempts at calling her back ever since. Worse still, for someone once so interested in reinvention, he became utterly irrelevant - and surprisingly unimaginative - in his later years. Dylan justifies this work by saying it's more of a "musical" experience, but a return to three- chord rusticity with dirty amps and a raspy groan, dressed up (again) by Daniel Lanois (who laid his sheen over Oh Mercy), is not the answer to Dylan's creative woes. His '60s work was almost all brilliant, Blood on the Tracks was a wonder, but this, this is yet another album we can all do without.

John Bitzer - October 2, 1997
Copyright © 1994-2002 CDnow Online, Inc. All rights reserved.



So Bob Dylan comes back with his first album's worth of new original material in six years... The punchline is the album's actually good. One reason is that Dylan's diction is less mushmouthed and less mannered than it's been in decades. The others are that the disc is one long dark night of the soul - fraught with intimations of mortality - and plain- spoken to the point of ambiguity. Listen. Every one of these songs is written in the first person. All but two - the straightforward love song, "Make You Feel My Love" (incidentally, the dullest thing on the record) and the 16-minute, story- song, "Highlands" - find the narrator wracked by some Great Lost Love. Does anyone think this stuff is remotely autobiographical? And what about the narrator's repeated professions of ignorance and the uselessness of communication? Isn't this amusing? And refreshing? Do we enjoy records that make us ask questions? None of this would matter much if the music didn't match the mood. Producer/ guitarist Daniel Lanois simply seems to have assembled some sympatico sessionaries and told everyone to stay out of the way. Several songs start with rambling, everybody- fall- in arrangements that wind up sounding like first- take, roll- the- tape demos. The simplicity of the framing puts the focus on the pictures themselves and intensifies the evesdropping intimacy of expression. About half these songs are blues- based; the rest are built on the most basic chord progressions in the folk- country- gospel fakebook. But when they come fraught with such thought- provoking concepts as the extended comic dialogue between the waitress and the narrator of "Highlands" (or his stated desire to trade places with any of the young people on the street if he could...), maybe you'll understand the wisdom's in the questions - not the answers. Right?

Don Waller
Copyright © 1994-2002 CDnow Online, Inc. All rights reserved.



Bob Dylan has been sharing his musical message with folk of all ages for nearly four decades, and 1997 brought us yet another brand new release from this rock `n' roll icon. Despite his recent heart infection scare, Dylan managed so deliver during all of his live appearances (including one at the Vatican!) as well as release Time Out Of Mind, a long-anticipated 11-song collection. Time Out Of Mind embodies the poetry and depth typical of any Dylan release, but this album's self-disclosing lyrics about growing older, and the wisdom that comes with it are borne along beautifully by these soulful, bluesy numbers which gave his fans a new watermark by which to judge his contemporary work.

© 2002 CMJ Network, Inc. All rights reserved.



Bitter, bitter Bob. For his first album of all-new material in over half a decade (and his first new work following his mysterious hospitalization last year), Bob Dylan has made a masterpiece. Whereas on his previous two recordings he presented acoustic interpretations of folk blues tunes, now Dylan is recasting blues and folk themes into timeless classics of his own. He's singing about matters of love, and it's hard to think of another album that's so completely bleak, so terribly dark and so absolutely bitter (Blood On The Tracks, perhaps?). There are several oblique references to broken hearts and pains in the chest, enough to keep Dylan watchers guessing for years.

© 2002 CMJ Network, Inc. All rights reserved.



Since the '50s, Bob Dylan has been devouring the music of blues, country and folk legends. Forty-odd years later, his brooding and profound Time Out Of Mind proves you are what you eat. These 11 new songs were recorded before his hospitalization for a near-fatal heart infection, but it's clear from their tone that Dylan had been taking long walks in the dark with death, redemption and regret long before that episode. "Tryin' To Get To Heaven" feels like a weighty update of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," with Dylan musing about the places he's been and his desire to get to heaven "before they close the door." Though his voice is often the source of more jokes than praise, it is the true star of this disc. Just as producer Daniel Lanois has learned to get the best from Dylan, Bob has learned to get the best from his world-weary voice. His gruff delivery over the dank organ riffs in "Love Sick" and "Million Miles" begs you to call him Blind Bobby Zimmerman, his voice as cagey as a haunted old bluesman. Dylan may be a bit of a social recluse, but lyrically he leaves nothing in his heart hidden. Inside the 16-minute closer "Highlands" and the deliberate dirge "Not Dark Yet," you'll find every grain of sand along with the pearls of wisdom they formed.

Steve Ciabattoni: CMJ New Music Report Issue: 542 - Oct 20, 1997
© 2002 CMJ Network, Inc. All rights reserved.



For those who care to listen, Time Out Of Mind, Bob Dylan's first album of new material in many years, is quintessential Dylan music, slow Dylan magic, mad Dylan magic. The eleven songs are dark journeys undertaken by a reclusive, intense man coming to grips with mortality and irrelevance, as is evident in the haunting "Not Dark Yet". They are songs of sadness, loss, abandonment, and loneliness. They are also abstract redemptions. The muse is gone, the throne's been taken away, and an icon has to reinvent himself another time. This album contains some of the most beautiful music released this year - sad and haunting, yet ultimately triumphant. Daniel Lanois' spare, ghostly production lets the music coil around Dylan's voice like smoke, resulting in a thick and fertile atmosphere. Dylan does not sound as sexy as he did on "Lay Lady Lay" or as vital as he did on "Idiot Wind." His voice sometimes hurts as if you've accidentally touched a wound, but it's still that unique voice. Time Out of Mind is a painful victory, and after 22 listenings, I can say it's another Dylan cure for the millennial blues.

© 1999 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved.
VH1 Online



You ever have a friend start talking about death and being lonely and depressed and, even though this isn't entirely out of the ordinary for this friend, it's still a little weird and you start to worry and while your friend is in the bathroom you begin throwing all their cutlery out the window? Time Out Of Mind will have many wondering if their old friend Bob should be supervised around sharp objects. Dylan's first original album in seven years is a dank requiem of regret, fear, and stark confession that is all raw emotion. It is also uncharacteristically honest - Dylan chooses to confront his pain instead of cloaking it in his familiar smoke-and-mirror metaphors. Throughout, we find Dylan wandering the streets and watching all of us have a good time - observing, but helpless and unable to influence. How's that for irony? Produced by Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel, Ron Sexsmith, Luscious Jackson), Time Out Of Mind begins with the aching and rather creepy "Love Sick." As in "this kind of love/I'm sick of it." Ouch. Simultaneously terse and languid, the tune evokes a very methodical "Baby Wrote Me A Letter" - accented with an organ drone and a forward vocal placement that, in combination, are positively unnerving. It's on track two, "Dirt Road Blues," that Lanois' flair for the swampy side of things becomes more pronounced. Imagine floating on a raft at night down an algae-infested bayou, a house party growing louder as you draw closer. It's here that the blues take over and set the tone for the next sixty-five minutes. It's an interesting ride. Dylan's voice is ragged and drips with sarcasm, vitriol, and sadness. He does not sound healthy, yet he does not sound sick. He just kind of sounds pissed off. And a tad menacing. Musically, none of the songs break a sweat. All are firmly steeped in tradition and are played at an almost excruciatingly slow pace. But that's mostly the point: the tension that simmers eventually boils over with a particularly cutting or poignant lyric. Take the lovely and taciturn "Not Dark Yet": by all rights, the song should have named the album. Plainly delivered and lifted up by Lanois' signature haunting atmospherics, this will prove a future Dylan classic. With Time Out Of Mind, Dylan the thinker shows a side of himself that has been truly listening to his heart.

Laurel Bowman - September 1, 1997
© 1999 MTV Networks. All Rights Reserved.
MTV Online



With the release of his new album, Dylan once again laughs in the face of all those who had wished that he'd just roll over and play dead. Time Out of Mind, Dylan's 41st album as well as his first of original material in seven years, naturally faced high expectations. It's hard to go wrong with a group of musicians that includes, besides his current band, such legendary figures as Augie Meyers, Jim Dickenson, and Jim Keltner. Fortunately, the songs are also up to the challenge. The first notes of "Love Sick," the opening track, and its first line, "I'm walking through streets that are dead," which Dylan sings in a world-weary voice, set the tone of existential angst. Producer Daniel Lanois helps sustain the mood throughout the rest of the album. "Dirt Road Blues" follows with a quasi-rockabilly arrangement, while some other tracks are more reminiscent of his electric work from the 60s. Dylan has rarely been supported by such a rich sonic tapestry, one that is as nuanced as it is elegantly restrained. The instruments nudge each other and weave in and out of the arrangements in a way that is redolent of a hot and humid, but unfathomable, swamp. There is a sense of psychic disintegration and social disconnectedness to the songs, which are replete with images of relations gone awry. With "Highlands," the 17-minute closer which is as majestic as it is well-nigh inscrutable, the effect is sublime.

Paul-Emile Comeau (Comeauville, NS, Canada)
Dirty Linen



There is a moment near the end of Bob Dylan's 41st album, Time Out of Mind, when the Dylan of 35 years ago reappears. You know, the skinny kid with the hurricane hair and the inscrutable smirk who blasted business as usual in the teeth? That guy.
As the 16-minute-long "Highlands" detours from its verse-chorus-verse path to an extended narrative bridge, the deadpan twang in Dylan's voice becomes more pronounced, and his old sly glee can be glimpsed. The voice - conversational, playful, sensual - snakes over a shimmering blues-guitar riff and the chords of a distant Farfisa organ as it recounts a conversation at a restaurant with a woman, a knockout "with a pretty face and long, white, shiny legs." The narrator and his female companion spar verbally, a comical exchange of clashing values and cryptic, coded messages. Desire cools as the singer realizes that he is in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong woman. He eases out of the joint and conveys the delight of a convict who has just tunneled out into the daylight: "I'm crossing the street to get away from a mangy dog/Talkin' to myself in a monologue/I think what I need might be a full-length leather coat/Somebody just asked me if I registered to vote."

Then the swagger is gone, and Dylan once again wears his 56 years as he rasps, "There's less and less to say ... I got new eyes/Everything looks far away."

Time Out of Mind is thick with faraway ghosts. Although the deluge of breakup songs on the album might suggest that it is a long-lost sequel to Dylan's famed "divorce album" of 1975, Blood on the Tracks, the singer's world-weary delivery hints at a broader intent. When he recorded Blood on the Tracks, Dylan was just entering middle age and was still a major figure in pop culture as he made a conscious return to the spare, folk-oriented intensity of his early albums. Twenty-two years down the road, Time Out of Mind finds Dylan on the culture's fringe, confronting his advancing years and the prospects of failing health (he was hospitalized a few months ago for a heart ailment) and irrelevance.

Time's perspective is that of an outsider speaking to an absent confidant, a distant lover, a long-departed audience. He sings about love gone awry, but until the surreal conversation that occurs in "Highlands," that loss never acquires a human face. It's a memory, a dream, a specter, as if Dylan were singing not about a companion but about something far less tangible. He projects the unease of someone adrift in a world that he ceases to understand and that has ceased to understand him.

In this sense, Time Out of Mind is a more fully realized version of Oh Mercy, the 1989 album that Dylan recorded with producer Daniel Lanois. The new album not only reunites Dylan with Lanois, it also expands on the tone set by such Oh Mercy songs as "Everything Is Broken" and "Man in the Long Black Coat," in which Dylan sings, "People don't live or die; people just float."

As it turns out, Dylan was just getting warmed up. On Time Out of Mind, he paints a self-portrait with words and sound that pivots around a single line from the album's penultimate song, "Can't Wait": "That's how it is when things disintegrate."

Lanois, whose heavily atmospheric productions have brought an almost disembodied eeriness to albums by U2, Peter Gabriel and Emmylou Harris, among others, applies a more restrained touch here. The instruments are aligned in the mix with a 3-D depth, and the settings veer from the echo-drenched Sun Records thump of "Dirt Road Blues" to the jazz-organ combo at closing time that is evoked on "Million Miles." Dylan contemporaries such as pianist Jim Dickinson and organist Augie Myers, as well as blues guitarist Duke Robillard, build hypnotic, steady-rolling grooves that suggest a spooky David Lynch soundtrack. The empathetic, low-key support flatters Dylan's increasingly pinched voice to far greater effect than he has received on many of his recordings of the last 15 years.

Mortality bears down hard. "It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there," Dylan declares in "Not Dark Yet." Shots of gallows humor ring out: "I know plenty of people put me up for a day or two," he sings on "Million Miles," as if affirming that he still has contact with the human race. Only "Make You Feel My Love," a spare ballad undermined by greetingcard lyrics, breaks the album's spell.

Time Out of Mind is Dylan's first studio release since the solo acoustic bookends Good As I Been to You (1992) and World Gone Wrong (1993), which reinvestigated the songs that fired his passion as a long-ago would-be Woody Guthrie. Now, Dylan has made a coherent, sonically striking but equally subdued ensemble album that sorts through the mess of the more recent past. Save for the brief reminder midway through "Highlands," the audacity of the young, supremely confident Dylan is long gone. In its place has come a voice that is less instantly arresting but nearly as disconcerting. As Dylan suggests in "Tryin' to Get to Heaven," it's a voice that is confident of only one thing: "When you think you've lost everything, you find out you can lose a little more."

GREG KOT - Oct. 2, 1997
© Copyright 2002 RollingStone.com - RS 770
 

 L y r i c s


LOVE SICK

I'm walking through streets that are dead
Walking, walking with you in my head
My feet are so tired, my brain is so wired
And the clouds are weeping

Did I hear someone tell a lie?
Did I hear someone's distant cry?
I spoke like a child; you destroyed me with a smile
While I was sleeping

I'm sick of love but I'm in the thick of it
This kind of love I'm so sick of it

I see, I see lovers in the meadow
I see, I see silhouettes in the window
I watch them 'til they're gone and they leave me hanging on
To a shadow

I'm sick of love; I hear the clock tick
This kind of love; I'm love sick

Sometimes the silence can be like the thunder
Sometimes I wanna take to the road and plunder
Could you ever be true?
I think of you
And I wonder

I'm sick of love; I wish I'd never met you
I'm sick of love; I'm trying to forget you

Just don't know what to do
I'd give anything to
Be with you


DIRT ROAD BLUES

Gon' walk down that dirt road, 'til someone lets me ride
Gon' walk down that dirt road, 'til someone lets me ride
If I can't find my baby, I'm gonna run away and hide

I been pacing around the room hoping maybe she'd come back
Pacing 'round the room hoping maybe she'd come back
Well, I been praying for salvation laying 'round in a one room country shack

Gon' walk down that dirt road until my eyes begin to bleed
Gon' walk down that dirt road until my eyes begin to bleed
'Til there's nothing left to see, 'til the chains have been shattered and I've been freed

I been lookin' at my shadow, I been watching the colors up above
Lookin' at my shadow watching the colors up above
Rolling through the rain and hail, looking for the sunny side of love

Gon' walk on down that dirt road 'til I'm right beside the sun
Gon' walk on down until I'm right beside the sun
I'm gonna have to put up a barrier to keep myself away from everyone.


STANDING IN THE DOORWAY

I'm walking through the summer nights
Jukebox playing low
Yesterday everything was going too fast
Today, it's moving too slow
I got no place left to turn
I got nothing left to burn
Don't know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you
It probably wouldn't matter to you anyhow
You left me standing in the doorway, crying
I got nothing to go back to now

The light in this place is so bad
Making me sick in the head
All the laughter is just making me sad
The stars have turned cherry red
I'm strumming on my gay guitar
Smoking a cheap cigar
The ghost of our old love has not gone away
Don't look like it will anytime soon
You left me standing in the doorway crying
Under the midnight moon

Maybe they'll get me and maybe they won't
But not tonight and it won't be here
There are things I could say but I don't
I know the mercy of God must be near
I've been riding the midnight train
Got ice water in my veins
I would be crazy if I took you back
It would go up against every rule
You left me standing in the doorway, crying
Suffering like a fool

When the last rays of daylight go down
Buddy, you'll roll no more
I can hear the church bells ringing in the yard
I wonder who they're ringing for
I know I can't win
But my heart just won't give in
Last night I danced with a stranger
But she just reminded me you were the one
You left me standing in the doorway crying
In the dark land of the sun

I'll eat when I'm hungry, drink when I'm dry
And live my life on the square
And even if the flesh falls off of my face
I know someone will be there to care
It always means so much
Even the softest touch
I see nothing to be gained by any explanation
There are no words that need to be said
You left me standing in the doorway crying
Blues wrapped around my head


MILLION MILES

You took a part of me that I really miss
I keep asking myself how long it can go on like this
You told yourself a lie; that's all right mama, I told myself one too
I'm trying to get closer but I'm still a million miles from you

You took the silver, you took the gold
You left me standing out in the cold
People ask about you; I didn't tell them everything I knew
Well I'm trying to get closer, but I'm still a million miles from you

I'm drifting in and out of dreamless sleep
Throwing all my memories in a ditch so deep
Did so many things I never did intend to do
Well I'm trying to get closer, but I'm still a million miles from you

I need your love so bad, turn your lamp down low
I need every bit of it for the places that I go
Sometimes I wonder just what it's all coming to
Well I'm tryin' to get closer, but I'm still a million miles from you

Well I don't dare close my eyes and I don't dare wink
Maybe in the next life I'll be able to hear myself think
Feel like talking to somebody but I just don't know who
Well, I'm tryin' to get closer but I'm still a million miles from you

The last thing you said before you hit the street
"Gonna find me a janitor to sweep me off my feet"
I said, "That's all right mama.... you..... you do what you gotta do"
Well, I'm tryin' to get closer; I'm still a million miles from you

Rock me, pretty baby, rock me 'til everything gets real
Rock me for a little while, rock me 'til there's nothing left to feel
And I'll rock you too
I'm tryin' to get closer but I'm still a million miles from you

Well, there's voices in the night trying to be heard
I'm sitting here listening to every mind polluting word
I know plenty of people who would put me up for a day or two
Yes, I'm tryin' to get closer but I'm still a million miles from you


TRYIN' TO GET TO HEAVEN

The air is getting hotter
There's a rumbling in the skies
I've been wading through the high muddy water
With the heat rising in my eyes
Every day your memory grows dimmer
It doesn't haunt me like it did before
I've been walking through the middle of nowhere
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

When I was in Missouri
They would not let me be
I had to leave there in a hurry
I only saw what they let me see
You broke a heart that loved you
Now you can seal up the book and not write anymore
I've been walking that lonesome valley
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

People on the platforms
Waiting for the trains
I can hear their hearts a-beatin'
Like pendulums swinging on chains
When you think that you lost everything
You find out you can always lose a little more
I'm just going down the road feeling bad
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

I'm going down the river
Down to New Orleans
They tell me everything is gonna be all right
But I don't know what "all right" even means
I was riding in a buggy with Miss Mary-Jane
Miss Mary-Jane got a house in Baltimore
I been all around the world, boys
Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door

Gonna sleep down in the parlor
And relive my dreams
I'll close my eyes and I wonder
If everything is as hollow as it seems
Some trains don't pull no gamblers
No midnight ramblers, like they did before
I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down
Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door


TIL I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU

Well my nerves are exploding and my body's tense
I feel like the whole world got me pinned up against the fence
I've been hit too hard; I've seen too much
Nothing can heal me now, but your touch
I don't know what I'm gonna do
I was all right 'til I fell in love with you

Well my house is on fire; burning to the sky
I thought it would rain but the clouds passed by
Now I feel like I'm coming to the end of my way
But I know God is my shield and he won't lead me astray
Still I don't know what I'm gonna do
I was all right 'til I fell in love with you

Boys in the street beginning to play
Girls like birds flying away
When I'm gone you will remember my name
I'm gonna win my way to wealth and fame
I don't know what I'm gonna do
I was all right 'til I fell in love with you

Junk is piling up; taking up space
My eyes feel like they're falling off my face
Sweat falling down, I'm staring at the floor
I'm thinking about that girl who won't be back no more
I don't know what I'm gonna do
I was all right 'til I fell in love with you

Well I'm tired of talking; I'm tired of trying to explain
My attempts to please you were all in vain
Tomorrow night before the sun goes down
If I'm still among the living, I'll be Dixie bound
I just don't know what I'm gonna do
I was all right 'til I fell in love with you.


NOT DARK YET

Shadows are falling and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writing what was in her mind
I just don't see why I should even care
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well, I've been to London and I've been to gay Paree
I've followed the river and I got to the sea
I've been down on the bottom of a world full of lies
I ain't looking for nothing in anyone's eyes
Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here against my will
I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.


COLD IRONS BOUND

I'm beginning to hear voices and there's no one around
Well, I'm all used up and the fields have turned brown
I went to church on Sunday and she passed by
My love for her is taking such a long time to die

I'm waist deep, waist deep in the mist
It's almost like, almost like I don't exist
I'm twenty miles out of town, in cold irons bound

The walls of pride are high and wide
Can't see over to the other side
It's such a sad thing to see beauty decay
It's sadder still, to feel your heart torn away

One look at you and I'm out of control
Like the universe has swallowed me whole
I'm twenty miles out of town in Cold irons bound

There's too many people, too many to recall
I thought some of 'm were friends of mine; I was wrong about 'm all
Well, the road is rocky and the hillside's mud
Up over my head nothing but clouds of blood

I found my world, found my world in you
But your love just hasn't proved true
I'm twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound
Twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound

Oh, the winds in Chicago have torn me to shreds
Reality has always had too many heads
Some things last longer than you think they will
There are some kind of things you can never kill

It's you and you only, I'm been thinking about
But you can't see in and it's hard lookin' out
I'm twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound

Well the fats in the fire and the water's in the tank
The whiskey's in the jar and the money's in the bank
I tried to love and protect you because I cared
I'm gonna remember forever the joy that we shared

Looking at you and I'm on my bended knee
You have no idea what you do to me
I'm twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound
Twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound


MAKE YOU FEEL MY LOVE

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling down the avenue
There's nothing that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rollin' sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love


CAN'T WAIT

can't wait, wait for you to change your mind
It's late; I'm trying to walk the line
Well it's way past midnight and there are people all around
Some on their way up, some on their way down
The air burns and I'm trying to think straight
And I don't know how much longer I can wait

I'm your man; I'm trying to recover the sweet love that we knew
You understand that my heart can't go on beating without you
Well, your loveliness has wounded me, I'm reeling from the blow
I wish I knew what it was keeps me loving you so
I'm breathing hard, standing at the gate
But I don't know how much longer I can wait

Skies are grey, I'm looking for anything that will bring a happy glow
Night or day, it doesn't matter where I go anymore; I just go
If I ever saw you coming I don't know what I would do
I'd like to think I could control myself, but it isn't true
That's how it is when things disintegrate
And I don't know how much longer I can wait

I'm doomed to love you, I've been rolling through stormy weather
I'm thinking of you and all the places we could roam together

It's mighty funny; the end of time has just begun
Oh, honey, after all these years you're still the one
While I'm strolling through the lonely graveyard of my mind
I left my life with you somewhere back there along the line
I thought somehow that I would be spared this fate
But I don't know how much longer I can wait.


HIGHLANDS

Well my heart's in the Highlands gentle and fair
Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air
Bluebelles blazing, where the Aberdeen waters flow
Well my heart's in the Highland,
I'm gonna go there when I feel good enough to go

Windows were shakin' all night in my dreams
Everything was exactly the way that it seems
Woke up this morning and I looked at the same old page
Same ol' rat race
Life in the same ol' cage.

I don't want nothing from anyone, ain't that much to take
Wouldn't know the difference between a real blonde and a fake
Feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery
I wish someone would come
And push back the clock for me

Well my heart's in the Highlands wherever I roam
That's where I'll be when I get called home
The wind, it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme
Well my heart's in the Highland,
I can only get there one step at a time.

I'm listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound
Someone's always yelling turn it down
Feel like I'm drifting
Drifting from scene the scene
I'm wondering what in the devil could it all possibly mean?

Insanity is smashing up against my soul
You can say I was on anything but a roll
If I had a conscience, well I just might blow my top
What would I do with it anyway
Maybe take it to the pawn shop

My heart's in the Highlands at the break of dawn
By the beautiful lake of the Black Swan
Big white clouds, like chariots that swing down low
Well my heart's in the Highlands
Only place left to go

I'm in Boston town, in some restaurant
I got no idea what I want
Well, maybe I do but I'm just really not sure
Waitress comes over
Nobody in the place but me and her

It must be a holiday, there's nobody around
She studies me closely as I sit down
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?"

She looks at me, Says "I'd bring you some
but we're out of 'm, you picked the wrong time to come"
Then she says, "I know you're an artist, draw a picture of me!"
I say, "I would if I could, but,
I don't do sketches from memory."

"Well", she says, "I'm right here in front of you, or haven't you looked?"
I say," all right, I know, but I don't have my drawing book!"
She gives me a napkin, she says, "you can do it on that"
I say, "yes I could but,
I don't know where my pencil is at!"

She pulls one out from behind her ear
She says "all right now, go ahead, draw me, I'm standing right here"
I make a few lines, and I show it for her to see
Well she takes a napkin and throws it back
And says "that don't look a thing like me!"

I said, "Oh, kind miss, it most certainly does"
She says, "you must be jokin.'" I say, "I wish I was!"
Then she says, "you don't read women authors, do you?"
Least that's what I think I hear her say,
"Well", I say, "how would you know and what would it matter anyway?"

"Well", she says, "you just don't seem like you do!"
I said, "you're way wrong."
She says, "which ones have you read then?" I say, "I read Erica Jong!"
She goes away for a minute and I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street, but nobody's going anywhere

Well my heart's in the Highlands, with the horses and hounds
Way up in the border country, far from the towns
With the twang of the arrow and a snap of the bow
My heart's in the Highlands
Can't see any other way to go

Every day is the same thing out the door
Feel further away then ever before
Some things in life, it gets too late to learn
Well, I'm lost somewhere
I must have made a few bad turns

I see people in the park forgetting their troubles and woes
They're drinking and dancing, wearing bright colored clothes
All the young men with their young women looking so good
Well, I'd trade places with any of them
In a minute, if I could

I'm crossing the street to get away from a mangy dog
Talking to myself in a monologue
I think what I need might be a full length leather coat
Somebody just asked me
If I registered to vote

The sun is beginning to shine on me
But it's not like the sun that used to be
The party's over, and there's less and less to say
I got new eyes
Everything looks far away

Well, my heart's in the Highlands at the break of day
Over the hills and far away
There's a way to get there, and I'll figure it out somehow
But I'm already there in my mind
And that's good enough for now

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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