The Rock's Backpages Flashback: Dylan Goes Country On Nashville Skyline
Posted Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:48pm PDT by Ritchie Yorke (1969) in Rock's Backpages
Dylan threw the rock press a major curveball with the mellow country pop of Nashville Skyline, 40 years old this month. A contemporary NME review by Ritchie Yorke puts the album in context. -- Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages
DYLAN HAS CHANGED again. His latest album, Nashville Skyline, the 14-month-later follow-up to John Wesley Harding, presents the folk-rock star in a completely new guise. Vocally, you could be excused for thinking Dylan has started all over again. His voice is unlike the Dylan of old, acoustic, electronic or otherwise.
More's the surprise, because no inkling of this new phase had leaked out. Dylan is very sensitive about things like that. His new contract with American Columbia (CBS in Britain) firmly stipulated that no advance publicity would be accorded any of his albums.
Nashville Skyline consists of ten tracks, nine of which are Dylan originals. If the content of the songs is any indication of the composer's present state of mind, Dylan is carefree and careless. Gone is the bitterness of Dylan's early work, the sharp-edged satire of other albums. The lyrics are straightforward, simple, and (seemingly) honest Dylan appears to be writing plan, simple songs about plain, simple people. Love predominates.
The instrumentation is likewise simple, but deceptively so. His studio group is tight and probably the best he's ever worked with. It punches out the backings with precision and authority. At 27, married with a son, Dylan seems to have found whatever it was he was searching for. His seven years of writing, singing and the ensuing world idolatry, appears to have gone full circle. In many ways, Bobby Zimmerman, the boy from the boondocks (Hibbing, MN) has brought it all back home. His music is a magical marriage of blues and country.
Nashville Skyline seems destined to be Dylan's biggest selling album. Like the Beatles, Dylan has abandoned the leadership quest in pop. He brought together folk and rock and now he seems to be happy just being himself.
Side one opens with a Dylan-Johnny Cash collaboration on his 1963 hit, "Girl From The North Country." Each singer offers several verses separately, and then they team up to carry the song to its conclusion. It's an easy-rolling, inoffensive sort of song, which is likely to be issued as a single.
"Nashville Skyline Rag" is an instrumental, country all the way, with acoustic guitars, fiddles and piano. Dylan offers several highlighted harmonica solos, which blends well with the tune's overall light-hearted feel.
But the album is not all country. "To Be Alone With You" is a funky and mean uptempo blues number, with powerful instrumentation and a swag of Mississippi guitar licks. This is Dylan at his most commercial, and in this context, the most rewarding. "I Threw It All Away" is simple and to the point. He had the girl and he needed nothing else. But he didn't realize it until too late. A universal theme, and far from new, but in the hands of Dylan, it is refreshingly enjoyable. In the final track on side one, Dylan makes it abundantly dear he'd like to spend the night with "Peggy Day." Eminently hummable, and probably the "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" of Nashville Skyline. The guitars chatter away, a pedal guitar break, and a rousing blues climax.
"Lay Lady Lay" makes no pretensions about its meaning, Dylan is infatuated by a girl and he wants her to "lay across my big, brass bed" The song is symbolic of the so-called New Morality, where sexual relations are as inevitable as a bunch of roses or a box of chocolates. Out in the country again on "One More Night", simply mountain music, with some sharp Nashville guitar picking. Reminders of the Jim Webb style of writing in "Tell Me That Isn't True" a jumpy, punchy song, with excellent backing. Dylan winds around the melody, extracting the full flavor of sadness. The arrangement is similar to what you'd find on a Cream or Led Zeppelin album. "Country Pie" is reminiscent of the Beatles as they are now. Humorous lyrics and a heavy-handed pianist. In brief, this is funky country, a rare music form. In the final cut, Dylan becomes all schmaltzy, in the rock concept. "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" is so cute, it isn't difficult to imagine Nancy Sinatra recording it. Again, heavy backing, and Dylan singing in unrecognizable fashion.
You can't help but be amazed at the change in his style. That in a nutshell, is what this album is about--change.
Read dozens more Dylan reviews and interviews at www.rocksbackpages.com. Over 14,000 articles by the greatest writers from the finest rock publications of the last 40 years.
DYLAN HAS CHANGED again. His latest album, Nashville Skyline, the 14-month-later follow-up to John Wesley Harding, presents the folk-rock star in a completely new guise. Vocally, you could be excused for thinking Dylan has started all over again. His voice is unlike the Dylan of old, acoustic, electronic or otherwise.
More's the surprise, because no inkling of this new phase had leaked out. Dylan is very sensitive about things like that. His new contract with American Columbia (CBS in Britain) firmly stipulated that no advance publicity would be accorded any of his albums.Nashville Skyline consists of ten tracks, nine of which are Dylan originals. If the content of the songs is any indication of the composer's present state of mind, Dylan is carefree and careless. Gone is the bitterness of Dylan's early work, the sharp-edged satire of other albums. The lyrics are straightforward, simple, and (seemingly) honest Dylan appears to be writing plan, simple songs about plain, simple people. Love predominates.
The instrumentation is likewise simple, but deceptively so. His studio group is tight and probably the best he's ever worked with. It punches out the backings with precision and authority. At 27, married with a son, Dylan seems to have found whatever it was he was searching for. His seven years of writing, singing and the ensuing world idolatry, appears to have gone full circle. In many ways, Bobby Zimmerman, the boy from the boondocks (Hibbing, MN) has brought it all back home. His music is a magical marriage of blues and country.
Nashville Skyline seems destined to be Dylan's biggest selling album. Like the Beatles, Dylan has abandoned the leadership quest in pop. He brought together folk and rock and now he seems to be happy just being himself.
Side one opens with a Dylan-Johnny Cash collaboration on his 1963 hit, "Girl From The North Country." Each singer offers several verses separately, and then they team up to carry the song to its conclusion. It's an easy-rolling, inoffensive sort of song, which is likely to be issued as a single."Nashville Skyline Rag" is an instrumental, country all the way, with acoustic guitars, fiddles and piano. Dylan offers several highlighted harmonica solos, which blends well with the tune's overall light-hearted feel.
But the album is not all country. "To Be Alone With You" is a funky and mean uptempo blues number, with powerful instrumentation and a swag of Mississippi guitar licks. This is Dylan at his most commercial, and in this context, the most rewarding. "I Threw It All Away" is simple and to the point. He had the girl and he needed nothing else. But he didn't realize it until too late. A universal theme, and far from new, but in the hands of Dylan, it is refreshingly enjoyable. In the final track on side one, Dylan makes it abundantly dear he'd like to spend the night with "Peggy Day." Eminently hummable, and probably the "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" of Nashville Skyline. The guitars chatter away, a pedal guitar break, and a rousing blues climax.
"Lay Lady Lay" makes no pretensions about its meaning, Dylan is infatuated by a girl and he wants her to "lay across my big, brass bed" The song is symbolic of the so-called New Morality, where sexual relations are as inevitable as a bunch of roses or a box of chocolates. Out in the country again on "One More Night", simply mountain music, with some sharp Nashville guitar picking. Reminders of the Jim Webb style of writing in "Tell Me That Isn't True" a jumpy, punchy song, with excellent backing. Dylan winds around the melody, extracting the full flavor of sadness. The arrangement is similar to what you'd find on a Cream or Led Zeppelin album. "Country Pie" is reminiscent of the Beatles as they are now. Humorous lyrics and a heavy-handed pianist. In brief, this is funky country, a rare music form. In the final cut, Dylan becomes all schmaltzy, in the rock concept. "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" is so cute, it isn't difficult to imagine Nancy Sinatra recording it. Again, heavy backing, and Dylan singing in unrecognizable fashion.
You can't help but be amazed at the change in his style. That in a nutshell, is what this album is about--change.
Read dozens more Dylan reviews and interviews at www.rocksbackpages.com. Over 14,000 articles by the greatest writers from the finest rock publications of the last 40 years.
