Bob Dylan - Together Through Life

With his mind on his women and his women on his mind

Dylan already addressed workingmen’s blues and the end of the world on 2006’s Modern Times. Just as 1997’s bleak, mortality-obsessed Time Out Of Mind begat “Love & Theft”’s comedy-party four years later, he’s now thankfully put the diminishing returns of his lateperiod apocalyptic imagery away, just as the rest of the world goes into recession obsession. As its sleeve depicting youthful lovers suggests, Dylan’s gone sex- and women-crazy on Together Through Life, proving, aged 67, he still knows how to have fun when the engineer asks, “Is it rolling, Bob?”

While the muse has been on intermittent hiatus through his three-album 00s, Dylan’s continually kept his hand in with enough one-off soundtrack contributions for a mini-album. Most of these have proved masterly songs in their own right though, Things Have Changed aside, Dylan’s been fairly content to let them slide past all but the most committed Bobcats. A recent commision for Oliver Dahan’s film My Own Love Song, however, saw him turn out Life Is Hard. Enthused with this new song, Dylan ran nine others off in quick succession, giving us this 33rd studio album.

On the one hand that catalyst’s simplistic title is an immediate signpost to the more stripped-down approach Dylan’s taken for Together Through Life. Rather than the sophisticated country-jazz of Modern Times, here’s a raw rock’n’roll cacophany with a Cajun twist, Los Lobos’ David Higaldo driving virtually every song with his accordion. On the other hand, however, pulling out perhaps his best crooning voice this side of 1963’s Moonshiner, Life Is Hard's Iament of love lost is a wrong-footer. His beloved may be absent here, but the album is full of a lasciviousness not seen since "Love & Theft". My Wife's Home Town walks a line between bemoaning and being somewhat caught under the spell of a woman with “stuff more potent than a gypsy’s curse”. Convinced she’ll have him on the run after killing someone, “I just want to say that Hell’s my wife’s home town” Dylan concedes with a laugh, to a tune a hair’s breadth away from Muddy Waters’ I Just Want To Make Love To You. Later on, Shake, Shake Mama pushes the old-time primal rock’n’roll urges further. While on opener Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ Dylan’s ship’s in harbour with spread sails, he now asks his woman to shake with him like a ship out to sea, while also recalling those less respectable ladies who “really know your stuff”, though their “clothes are all torn and their language a little too rough”.

Clearly, those looking for great political statements won’t find them here but, having turned his back on protest songs at their point of greatest exposure in the mid-60s, it’s no surprise that Dylan’s not fussed on making grand declarations during world crises. Even passing references to lying politicans and “people in the country so sick they can hardly stand” on the closing Dylan List SongTM It’s All Good play second fiddle to the real concerns at hand: women leaving their husbands, Dylan “rolling in your place” this time tomorrow, and an appeal for lovergirl to come along with him. “You know what I’m saying,” he cajoles her, “it’s all good.”

It’s a fitting closer. Together Through Life might not be the most enduring Dylan album of them all but, yes, it is all good and, in embracing his libido along with his age (there’s no escaping the weathered voice), it’s a more successful, believeable celebration of living forever young than the likes of Mick Jagger could ever muster.

5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars

Sony | 88697438932

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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