Bob Dylan
Shadow Kingdom
Columbia Records
It would be difficult to claim that any of the songs included on Bob Dylanβs latest album Shadow Kingdom werenβt some of the best of his early catalogue. With selections culled mainly from his first two decades of notoriety, ranging from from albums like Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited all the way to Nashville Skyline and Planet Waves, listeners to Shadow Kingdom will have much to look forward to despite some unevenness overall.
So, how to review an album of songs that are bona-fide Bob Dylan classics, yet involve so much more accordion and harmonica and single-string guitar strumming than the original versions? One way is to consider whether or not these new versions emphasize anything different than the originalsβ¦whether or not Bob Dylanβs changed voice and more advanced age imbue them with any potentially new meaning. Is βForever Youngβ more interesting stripped down and sung by a man who is now 82-years-old? The answer there is yes, yes, it is. But can βTombstone Blues,β in which large portions of the song are only his voice with some very lightly strummed guitar in the back, hold up with the same deepened sense of meaning? Iβm less convinced in this case, despite the eternally intriguing lyrics.
One thing that happens when these songs are propped up by gentle accordion and harmonica and soft curly-cue guitars is that the lyrics seem to take up more space. That almost always works to Dylanβs advantage because heβs such a clever writer, but in a song like βTombstone Bluesβ the brisk pace of the original, lost here, turns out to have been part of its success and surrealism, and with the silliness of the lyrics more pronounced, in such a spare rendition it has the unexpected effect of detraction. In many other cases, however, the album is a success in stitching together (for there are no gaps of silence between tracks) a variety of early career songs and giving them the late-career treatment. First single βWatching the River Flowβ isnβt necessarily βbetterβ than earlier versions, but when this version of Bob Dylan croons, in his gravelly, aged voice,
βIβm still in this all-night cafΓ© /
Walkinβ to and fro beneath the moon /
β¦ to sit down on this bank of sand /
And watch the river flow,β
it hits a little different, less about a wandering, restless young person seeking their way and more about a nostalgic older person finally taking a rest, unsure how to contribute anything more. With the lyrics rising to the surface of these songs, there are many moments like that throughout the album where certain lines seem to take on new interpretations.
Overall, the whole album seems designed to make each song more wistful and melancholic and spare, which has the effect for any long-time listener of putting his age (and our own, perhaps, aging alongside him) in conflict with earlier versions of the songs and ourselves and ultimately Dylan himself. These are older tracks, supremely chosen, and leanly reimagined, an experiment in revision and reinterpretation that reveals the shadowy interiors lurking within each song that have always been there.
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SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: BOB DYLAN – SHADOW KINGDOM
Dan Kennard