Monthly Archives: February 2010

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Song of the Day #588: ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’ – Bob Dylan

Bringing It All Back Home is, of course, another of those six albums I consider Bob Dylan’s absolute finest. Not only did it signal a groundbreaking, eye-opening new direction for Dylan, folk music, rock music, music in general… it’s also chock full of some of the most amazing songs ever committed to tape.

Yesterday’s track, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues,’ kicks everything off in classic style but look at some of what follows: ‘She Belongs To Me,’ ‘Maggie’s Farm,’ ‘Tambourine Man,’ ‘Gates of Eden,’ ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),’ and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,’ to name just a few. I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again… Bob Dylan could have ended his career five years after it started and he’d still go down as one of the greatest musical artists in history.

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Song of the Day #587: ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ – Bob Dylan

Volumes have been written about the shock waves created when Bob Dylan “went electric.” My favorite depiction of the occasion comes in Todd Hayne’s extraordinary Dylan biopic I’m Not There, in which Dylan and his band take the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, open their guitar cases, pull out machine guns and begin firing on the crowd. Then a quick cut to them tearing into ‘Maggie’s Farm,’ with about the same effect on the audience.

As an aside, if you’re any sort of Dylan fan (or movie fan) you should make a point to watch I’m Not There. It’s an “art film,” no doubt — it does, after all, include portrayals of Dylan by both a young black boy and Cate Blanchett, among others — but it comes closer to capturing the spirit and wonder of Bob Dylan than anything else I’ve ever seen.

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Song of the Day #586: ‘Sad Eyes’ – Josh Rouse

In 2005, Josh Rouse released Nashville, my favorite of his albums and (probably not coincidentally) the one that introduced me to his work. Every track on this album is superb. Listening to it as preparation for this blog entry, I started reconsidering placing it at only #8 on my decade’s-best list.

In contrast to the two concept-heavy records that preceded it, Nashville is just a collection of songs. But the musical exploration of those records helped settle Rouse into a songwriting groove that had him hitting the sweet spot on every one of these tracks. From the Smiths-inspired ‘Welcome to the Hamptons’ to the blues-swing of ‘Why Won’t You Tell Me What,’ every note feels like the right one.

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Song of the Day #585: ‘Flight Attendant’ – Josh Rouse

A year after Under Cold Blue Stars, in 2003, Josh Rouse released another semi-concept album, 1972. The album was named after the year Rouse was born (and the year I was born, incidentally) and the music and packaging were designed to evoke that era.

1972 is a definite candidate for Rouse’s best album. It’s certainly his most fun and musically adventurous… he packs strings, horns, flutes and eclectic percussion into every song and gives his falsetto a workout on tracks both sensual and surreal. He even finds room for a mournful acoustic track that makes the best use of gospel backup singers this side of Lyle Lovett.

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Song of the Day #584: ‘Women and Men’ – Josh Rouse

In 2002, with the release of his third full-length album, Under Cold Blue Stars, Josh Rouse the caterpillar became Josh Rouse the butterfly. While his first two albums established him as a solid pop-rock songwriter, they didn’t set him apart from the pack. Under Cold Blue Stars very much did.

This is a concept album loosely based on the lives of Rouse’s parents, or as he puts it in the production notes, “a Midwestern couple in the 1950s.” The songs don’t exactly tell a linear story but they touch on different moments in a relationship, from the giddy lovesick beginning through trials of infidelity and emotional and physical distance through to a comfortable, if not outright happy, finish.

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