Just what everybody was clamoring for… an album of Christmas classics sung in the dulcet tones of Mr. Bob Dylan! In a career of head-scratching surprises, on the surface Bob Dylan’s latest release, Christmas in the Heart, might just be the head-scratchingest.

Here are 15 traditional Christmas songs — everything from ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and ‘Winter Wonderland’ to ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ and ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ — played totally straight, complete with a choir of backup singers that make Frank Sinatra’s “j-i-n-g-l-e bells” seem downright gritty.

There is grit here, of course, in the form of Dylan’s ravaged voice. I can completely understand anybody who hears Dylan’s recent output and dismisses it as unlistenable. He croaks and whines with gusto and, on this album especially, the difference between a “normal” voice singing these songs and Dylan doing it is pronounced.

And yet… there are moments of grace on Christmas in the Heart and moments of anarchic fun that cut through the “Is this for real?” factor and reveal it as something rather special. My favorite tracks (included below) are a stately version of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and a rollicking accordion-laced tear through ‘Must Be Santa,’ a song I’d never heard before.

In the latter song , Dylan swaps a list of Santa’s reindeer for a rundown of our most recent presidents, but that’s one of the few liberties he takes with this material. He is mostly reverential. Dylan has always been obsessed with traditional American folk and blues music and these songs embody that same spirit of Americana. The Norman Rockwell-esque cover art is a good indication of what you’ll find inside.

On his last half-dozen albums, Dylan — who once exploded timeworn songwriting conventions — has decided instead to explore them. Christmas in the Heart has much in common with his 90s cover albums Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong. It’s not so much that he’s putting his stamp on these American classics, but rather that he’s acknowledging the stamp they’ve put on him.

I don’t know that I’ll play this album while trimming the tree, but I love it as another brushstroke on the fascinating self portrait Dylan has been painting for nearly half a century.

Little Drummer Boy:

Must Be Santa: