CD Odyssey Disc 650: Bob Dylan

I’m just back from the gym and I feel great. I generally feel great today – the residual effects of a movie I watched last night called “About Time.” The movie reminded me that life needs to be savoured, not just lived. I love the way art in all its forms can inspire the human spirit to something greater, even if that something greater is just seeing glory in the ordinary.

Disc 650 is….John Wesley Harding

Artist: Bob Dylan

Year of Release: 1967

What’s up with the Cover? It’s one of them there old timey photos. Actually, it is an effort to look like one of those old timey photos. Someone should’ve told Bob that people didn’t smile in old photos – it was considered inappropriate. Actually, telling him that would’ve just made him smile more broadly.

How I Came To Know It: I was just buying more Bob Dylan from the late sixties, knowing this is generally a ‘can’t miss’ era for him.

How It Stacks Up:  I now have 19 Bob Dylan albums (I recently added 1983’s “Infidels” and his new release “Tempest”). “John Wesley Harding” isn’t as good as “Infidels” but it is better than “Tempest” – taken against the whole 19 I have, it fares poorly amid strong competition. I’ll rank it 14^th overall.

Rating:  3 stars but almost 4

Sandwiched right between the sardonic folk-rock stylings of “Blonde on Blonde” and the country-inspired Americana of “Nashville Skyline,” “John Wesley Harding” is a bridge that doesn’t fully find its footing in either camp. This might explain why I’m usually picking one of those other two records to play when I delve into my late sixties Dylan.

It is a shame, too, because there is plenty to recommend “John Wesley Harding.” It has a nice relaxed pace. The song lyrics still have the social edginess that is the quintessence of early Dylan, but there is a kind of quietness in the delivery.

Part of this is Dylan’s voice, which is starting to transition from shrill doom-sayer into his brief foray into sixties country crooner. “Nashville Skyline” is so smooth many of the songs don’t even sound like Dylan, and “John Wesley Harding” is starting to pick up this vibe.

Even the harmonica pieces are more relaxed and restrained. I appreciated this, because often Dylan’s harmonica is less an addition to a song than an endurance test. He uses it to put you on edge, and it sure does. The more restrained soloing on “John Wesley Harding” gives a different take on Dylan’s song constructions.

The songs have an Americana feel that is a bit more traditional than many of Dylan’s previous albums. In places it reminded me strongly of his eponymous debut, the majority of which are covers of folk standards.

On “The Wicked Messenger,” “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” and others, there is also more than a hint of the biblical overtones that would dominate Dylan’s music a decade later. Although I’m not religious, I’ve always found Dylan’s exploration of his faith insightful, even at its most confusing and uncertain.  Explorations of faith should be like that – it’s how you know you’re doing it right.

None on “John Wesley Harding” are more confusing to me than “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest.” Judas Priest here is not the metal band that would be of some importance in my formative years, but rather just a reference to some sort of angel of temptation, who is apparently willing to give (lend?) gambler Frankie Lee a roll of tens. More precisely so that Frankie can ‘take his pick’ from the roll of tens, making me wonder if some of them are counterfeit.

Anyway, things don’t end well for Frankie Lee, who ends up later visiting Judas Priest in his house and eventually dying of thirst. Despite the fact that this song spells out its moral at the end as follows:

“Well, the moral of the story

The moral of the song

Is simply that one should never be

Where ones does not belong

So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin'

Help him with his load

And don't go mistaking Paradise

For that home across the road.”

Good advice overall, but I’m not sure it is supported by the song’s narrative. Maybe he should’ve warned against borrowing tenners from Satan, or reminded us to bring water to a house party?

The album is full of songs that aren’t terribly famous and according to Wikipedia (which is never wrong) the two singles “The Drifter’s Escape” and “All Along the Watchtower” didn’t even chart. Of course, “Watchtower” did alright for Jimi Hendrix. I prefer the Hendrix version, but I also really like Dylan’s original. Because it is stripped down I appreciated the skeleton of the song’s construction more, and the lyrics also came out a lot stronger.

A stray observation - the songs have very long titles, many of which are full sentences. You know, Bob, you could just take a few words – like instead of “I Am a Lonesome Hobo” how about “Lonesome Hobo”? How about just “St. Augustine”?

Song titles aside, I’ll admit this is not one of my favourite Bob Dylan albums. That said, it is still very good, and worth more listens than I’ve currently given it. It’s just hard to crack the starting lineup on the Bob Dylan CD carousel.

Best tracks:   John Wesley Harding, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, All Along the Watchtower, Dear Landlord, The Wicked Messenger, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight