Review: The Tempest by Bob Dylan

I listen to Bob Dylan’s music. I’m interested in his music, but I am not a fan of the man. I don’t believe much of what is written about him, nor do I believe much of what he says about himself.  I’ve never attended a performance during his endless-seeming tours.

I didn’t always listen to Dylan’s music; in fact, when I was younger I didn’t care for it. I was vaguely aware of the folk-singer Dylan, the Blowin in the Wind Dylan, the icon of the ’60’s. But I am no fan of the ’60’s; you can keep all your hippy-dippy stuff, thank you very much.  By the ’70’s, when I formed my opinion, he was another boring celebrity whose so-called art was about celebrity and lifestyle; a hot-house plant with nothing to say. What was worse was that he was off the rails, sometimes appearing as a mascara-bedecked David Bowie wannabe, other times singing about Jesus. And always self-conscious–Kiss seemed more genuine.

The nadir occurred one night at a party in 1978. The host played a spoof album by someone imitating and mocking Dylan. There were a lot of Dylan imitators back then, and this hack was especially bad. Even with my low opinion of the man, I was shocked to discover it was Dylan singing; it was a live recording of one of his performances. That night firmly established Dylan’s place on my ‘Avoid At All Costs’ list.

Then, not long after the party, I was painting in my tiny Manhattan studio and Desolation Row came on the radio. It was electrifying. I had never heard it or any of the songs related to it. Actually, I had never heard anything like it. Desolation Row is poetry, simple and honest poetry, that has nothing to do with celebrity, or pop music for that matter. I instantly understood what the fuss was about.

I began buying his albums and listening to his music–Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. There was a period when I listened to nothing except Dylan; it drove some friends crazy. Since that time, I regularly buy his new music, although that has tapered off in recent years.

Since my discovery, Dylan has filled my collection with many wonderful songs, songs of breathtaking beauty. But the ratio of mediocre songs to great songs is heavily weighted to the mediocre–say, 60 to 40%. The majority of songs I listen to once and never again, while some few others I play time and again.

Why such unevenness? In part, I think, it’s because Dylan has eclectic tastes and remains curious–an altogether healthy thing. He tries different genres; some fit him; some don’t. Songs sometimes feel tentative. But–to state the obvious–how do I know? I have no interest in psychoanalyzing the man.

Bob Dylan

With The Tempest, Dylan has come full circle and speaks again with that simple poet’s voice, which–so say I–is his true voice. Once again, as he did in Desolation Row, he conjurers up the Titanic. In The Tempest, the ‘pale moon rising in her glory’ tells us the story of the sinking of the Titanic. Enlisting the always-honest moon, the first of many myths and symbols employed in the song, to narrate the tale is smart; we are sure to learn the true details of the event.

We are carried along on the majestic ship as it hurls toward its doom. The song unfolds in a series of efficient vignettes as the passengers realize and then confront their fate. Angels and mythic symbols, such as Cupid and the Reaper, intertwine with the passengers who assume mythic, if not heroic, stature themselves.  The bishop “turned his eyes up to the heavens said, ‘The poor are yours to feed’.”

The harrowing drama is punctuated several times by the sleeping Watchman who ‘dreamed the Titanic was sinking,’ For duty’s derelict, the dream is all too real.

Like all good poetry, the song works on many levels. Mythic symbols are real, and the real assumes mythic dimensions. The song enters the rarefied realm of artistic achievement sometimes called truth, sometimes called beauty; where distinctions between real and myth are irrelevant.

Dylan, in his heyday, was not an inventor of myth or symbol, but a discoverer and arranger of them. It takes a strong, secure voice to breath life into commonplace symbols, which in the hands of lesser artists (and sometimes Dylan’s), never get beyond the trite and precious.

This song is a 14-minute artistic feast–masterful. It easily holds its own with anything produced by the artist.

They waited at the landing
And they tried to understand
But there is no understanding
For the judgment of God’s hand

–The Tempest

[Photograph copyright REUTERS/Russell Boyce]