{"id":40699,"date":"2008-01-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/new-morning\/"},"modified":"2008-01-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-15T00:00:00","slug":"new-morning","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/new-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"New Morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Morning<\/i> was Bob Dylan\u2019s eleventh studio album and his first to feature original material since 1969\u2019s Nashville Skyline<\/i>. Released hot on the heels of Dylan\u2019s ill-conceived and universally derided album of cover versions, Self Portrait<\/i>, this album was seen at the time as an indication of Dylan\u2019s return as a creative force. Although it\u2019s undoubtedly a step in the right direction, hindsight has shown that New Morning<\/i> didn\u2019t exactly herald a career renaissance as monumental as 1975\u2019s Blood On The Tracks <\/i>did. Still, on the surface of it, the album certainly sounds like a return of the Dylan of old. Gone is the soft country crooning style that he had adopted since Nashville Skyline, <\/i>and in its place is the more familiar nasal whine that people either love or hate.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Perhaps the most obvious problem with this disc is its lack of any truly arresting songwriting moments. Even Nashville Skyline<\/i>, bland as it was, contained the classic track \u201cLay Lady Lay,\u201d which prevented it from being a truly mediocre Dylan album. Unfortunately, there\u2019s nothing on here of that song\u2019s calibre, let alone anything strong enough to rival the likes of \u201cThe Times They Are A-Changin\u2019\u201d or \u201cLike A Rolling Stone.\u201d<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The fact is that Dylan was almost certainly undergoing something of a creative drought during the writing and recording of this album. Just prior to the start of recording sessions, Dylan had attempted to write songs for the poet Archibald MacLeish\u2019s Broadway musical Scratch. However, the project was abandoned due to his inability to produce suitable material, leading MacLeish to comment in a note to his publisher that Dylan \u201cproved simply incapable of producing new songs, and things looked desperate until we decided about a month ago to use old songs of Dylan\u2019s.\u201d At least three of the songs on this record (\u201cNew Morning,\u201d \u201cTime Passes Slowly\u201d and the sinister album closer \u201cFather Of Night\u201d) date from this barren period.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The album starts off promisingly enough, though, with the jauntily good-humoured \u201cIf Not For You,\u201d a love song as pure and straightforward as any Dylan has ever written. While it\u2019s not a masterpiece, the song certainly has a catchy enough melody and is a pleasantly entertaining listen. This is something of a recurring problem with this album; superficially, it often sounds like a great Dylan record, but it never once grabs the listener like so much of his earlier work does. In fact, at times the record comes perilously close to being a rather boring listen.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all bad, though: \u201cDay Of The Locusts\u201d is a mildly rousing song with a memorable refrain that cynically recounts Dylan\u2019s visit to Princeton<\/st1:placename> University<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> to pick up an honorary Doctorate in Music (an experience that Dylan didn\u2019t altogether enjoy, judging from the lyrics of the song.)<\/o:p><\/p>\n

For my money, the standout track on the album is the wistful, melancholy wonder that is \u201cSign On The Window.\u201d This song is the only time on the album that Dylan really sounds like the words he\u2019s singing are coming straight from the heart. I have absolutely no idea what the line \u201cBrighton<\/st1:place> girls are like the moon\u201d means, but Dylan sings it with such feeling and conviction that you just can\u2019t help thinking enthusiastically, \u201cYeah\u2026 that\u2019s right, Bob!\u201d<\/p>\n

Other tracks that rise above the prosaic mediocrity of this collection are \u201cWent To See The Gypsy,\u201d inspired by a visit to Las Vegas<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> to see Elvis, and \u201cTime Passes Slowly,\u201d which paints a bucolic picture of rural life while darkly commenting on the inherent dullness and emotional stagnation that such an environment breeds. There are some moments of experimentation on the album, too: \u201cIf Dogs Run Free\u201d is an excursion into jazz, complete with scatted backing vocals, but for the most part comes across as a flimsy misfire. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, \u201cpatchy\u201d is the word that most comes to mind when considering New Morning<\/i>. At least half of the tracks can be considered filler, with \u201cWinterlude\u201d in particular being so utterly pointless a piece of music that it leaves the listener wondering if the song isn\u2019t some kind of joke. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

It would be nearly three years before Dylan would again release an album of original material and listening to the largely insubstantial content of this album, it\u2019s hard not to conclude that Dylan\u2019s muse had indeed deserted him for the time being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":29164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5866],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-40699","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bob-dylan","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40699"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}