Bob Dylan - My Rough and Rowdy Ways /2020) Anticipation and Discussion Thread

i think i like this album a lot but it's def not very musically adventurous.

https://i.imgur.com/9OPiETA.jpg

I guess I have two responses to that assessment. One is just the question of the extent to which you're supposed to consider roots music on its adventurousness. Or, conversely, whether it's more apt to think about the ways in which it situates itself in relation to its genre precedents. And I think Bob pushes the boundaries with that on this album.

My second one is that I hear things on this album that I think come from him having immersed himself in those Great American Songbook albums he did and I think those reaches are, actually, musically adventurous.

Not sure if this was already noted or not, but Olof Bjorner's site now has more in-depth session info up for this album. Turns out Fiona did not play any piano on the record:

Bob Dylan (guitar).

Charlie Sexton (guitar), Donnie Herron (violin, mandolin, steel guitar), Robert Britt (guitar), Tony Garnier (bass).

6 Bob Dylan (harmonica).

2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Matt Chamberlain (drums).

5 Matt Chamberlain (percussion).

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, & 8 Blake Mills (guitar).

4 Charlie Sexton (background vocals).

10 Donnie Herron (violin).

9, 10 Benmont Tench (Hammond organ).

10 Alan Pasqua (piano).

10 Fiona Apple (piano).

Fiona Apple (background vocals).

Tommy Rhodes (guitar, vocals).

Shit, yes she did. Never mind that part of my post.

you still had some good stuff in there, buddy

Our new favorite Blake Mills is all over this.

This guy: Blake Mills

'made up my mind' is a very blake mills-y song

It's funny that Fiona's new album and "Murder Most Foul" dropped the same weekend and nobody had any idea she played on both.

The “Twelve years old, they put me in a suit...” verse in “Key West” is so great, and comes out of nowhere. I wonder if it’s a fragment of something he had sitting around, and decided to work it in (by tagging it with “...down in Key West”)?

I have a theory (based on nothing) that verse is about discovering music as a kid.

I think it's about when he got his first suit.

When he grew out of it, they gave it to a vagabond. Admittedly, a small vagabond.

He said there are no metaphors on this album, you guys! ;)

I drive fast cars, and I eat fast fooooods . . . :)

I just noticed he says, "wait a minute, boys" exactly the same way as in Hurricane.

In Murder Most Foul that is.

It's funny that Fiona's new album and "Murder Most Foul" dropped the same weekend and nobody had any idea she played on both.

maybe she asked him to!!! #applegate

He also mentioned “Memphis in June” in another song (“Tight Connection to My Heart”). There should be a list of specific things referenced more than once in Dylan songs.

Key West, fuuck

'i've made up my mind' turns me into a puddle every time i listen

Oh God, me too. I find it almost unbearably poignant and beautiful.

It’s going to be one of the modern standards much as ‘Make You Feel My Love’ has become.

"To Make You Feel My Love" is not poignant or beautiful, though

heartfelt otm

Bob Dylan looking, to my eyes anyway, nicely toasted. pic.twitter.com/ANgkpBKGTX

— Danny Baker (@prodnose) July 13, 2020

I shared this on an ILE thread by mistake. No harm in posting here too....

you know what subtly rules? the bass on the chorus of Key West

Bob Dylan has sold his entire songwriting catalog to Universal Music Publishing in a deal reportedly worth more than $300 million https://t.co/tDr2JysbP9

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) December 7, 2020

My kneejerk reaction to this was "No!" but then I realized...what are they gonna do, license it to Victoria's Secret?

Ha, exactly.

“Thanks, dad.”

dang yeah, 6 kids right? $50M apiece

Jesse’s been disowned. Bob hated American Wedding.

I saw this thread was bumped, and was hoping it was for an end-of-year discussion about how good this album was.

I honestly think my experience of this year would have been completely different (and probably much worse) without "Murder Most Foul" coming out when it did. It somehow seemed to meet the needs of the moment - at once something to puzzle about and something to help us grieve - and then look ahead to what was coming: "The soul of a nation been torn away," "If you want to remember you better write down the names," "It is what it is, and it's murder most foul."

"key west" was the one for me. was not expecting for emotional breakdowns to be soundtracked by a new bob dylan song, but it's just astonishing and beautiful

Jesse’s been disowned. Bob hated American Wedding.

However he absolutely loves How High, so it wall comes out a wash.

Wall wash too, sure, why not?

I've tried returning to this album and found three tunes disposable ("Black Rider," "Goodbye Jimmy Reed," maybe "False Prophet"), love "Key West" and "I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You" and "My Own Version of You."

I agree with Lily Dale - not in a profound emotional sense, just in that it was a delightful and exciting aesthetic surprise served up at a time when that was very welcome.

The other day I saw the name 'Lily Dale' in a folk song's lyrics and thought: is that where the name of that ILX poster comes from?

I enjoy 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed' more than anything on this record - which is probably my favourite record of the year as I don't know any others.

I haven’t even been thinking of “Murder Most Foul” among the tracks of 2020 – it feels like something that lives apart from everything else. Like it would be weird to have it at #5 or whatever, you know?

Goodbye Jimmy Reed is definitely among the top of the latter day Dylan blues vamps

According to Spotify, "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" was my most-played song of 2020, which sounds right.

My name comes from Trollope's The Last Chronicle of Barset - less because of any identification with the character, more because it's a book I love and am always evangelizing about. I sort of regret choosing a username that sounds like it could be my real name, though, just because I don't want to confuse people.

I've meant to ask you, Lily, about your name. I keep evangelizing about Trollope to my friends.

Ha, I was wondering as well. It is also a Spiritualist town in Upstate New York.

I started using it years ago to post on the Guardian books blog, because that comments section can get fairly male-dominated and I wanted a name that was identifiable as female. I'm glad I chose a book that I still love.

It's hard to really explain my feeling about "Murder Most Foul," but it's not quite a personal feeling - though I do feel a deep gratitude toward Dylan for releasing it the way he did, so that it felt like a gift. It's more that it was the first great piece of art to come out (that I took notice of, anyway) that seemed like it reflected the world of the pandemic and not the Before Times. We were all re-reading The Plague and cobbling together pandemic playlists and trying to find works of art that seemed to contain some sense of what was going on. And then "Murder Most Foul" came out, and it was like it not only met us where we were but had somehow gone ahead, set guide-ropes for spring and summer 2020. That was the moment, for me, when that sense of intense dislocation eased, when art caught up with the change in the world and everything came back into focus.

I just meant to italicize "personal," not "feeling." Anyway, you get the idea.

i've made up my mind' turns me into a puddle every time i listen

― ACABincalifornia (voodoo chili), Tuesday, July 7, 2020 6:43 PM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

has evolved into one of my very favorite Dylan songs

Me too! So beautiful.

I find that even the songs that don't work as well for me have some intensely poignant and gorgeous moments. "Mother of Muses" is not my favorite song on the album, but the last lines are so devastating that when I hear them I briefly feel like it is.

mother of muses is the one i can't warm up to, lyrically it's pretty rough