On his first album of original material in eight years, Bob Dylan sings of betrayal, dismemberment and rock 'n' roll.
Organized by his widow Fiona, “Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine” has Kacey Musgraves, Eric Church, Sturgill Simpson, Brandi Carlile, Bill Murray.
But you can detect a bit of Sinatra’s playfulness in Dylan’s spry delivery here — the clear enjoyment Sinatra took in portraying roguish smoothies and silver-tongued thugs. “Go home to your wife / Stop visiting mine,” he sneers over the last-wine-bar-on-Earth guitar of “Black Rider,” “One of these days I’ll forget to be kind.” He’s glowering and winking at the same time.It’s a funny moment, of course, for a funny record.
But as always Dylan’s not worried about reflecting the times; he’s taking the long view on an album stuffed with names and totems from the past. Most notably, there’s “,” the 17-minute-long epic that first appeared as a surprise single in March in which he traces the twisted meanings of the Kennedy assassination — not an uncomplicated event, as it happens, in the troubled story of American race relations.
“Mother of Muses” ponders the motives of various well-known military figures “and the battles they fought”; “I Contain Multitudes,” which Dylan called “trance writing,” quotes one of Walt Whitman’s famous verses and name-drops Anne Frank. He also appears to have nature on his mind — lots of references to weather and seasons and flowers, as in “Key West ,” where he’s got more swagger-ific bars about blooming bougainvillea — along with sex: “I break open your grapes / I suck out the juice,” he sings, practically licking his lips, in “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” while his panting delivery in “Crossing the Rubicon” somehow makes that one feel even dirtier.
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