In 1997, Bob Dylan released his first album of original material since 1990’s Under the Red Sky. That album was a critical disappointment and the two albums of folk covers that followed it did little to change the fact that Dylan hadn’t really lit the world on fire in more than 20 years.
Enter Time Out Of Mind, which kind of did just that.
Yet another “comeback” album for Dylan, the Daniel Lanois-produced Time Out Of Mind earned him his best reviews in decades, went platinum and won the Album of the Year Grammy. At 56, Dylan was suddenly once again at the top of his game.
Often an album like this will develop a reputation that outpaces its actual worth, but Time Out Of Mind holds up very well. Half of its songs sit comfortably alongside the best music Dylan has ever written. The weakest track on the album is ‘Make You Feel My Love,’ which feels like a poor fit for Dylan but proved successful for Billy Joel, Garth Brooks and Adele.
Time Out Of Mind is heavy with themes of heartbreak and mortality. I’ll write about the individual songs tomorrow but I’ll kick things off today with one of the best, the slow blues ballad ‘Trying to Get to Heaven.’
I noticed an interesting change between the “official” lyrics to this song posted on Dylan’s website and the words he sings on the album. As written, the third verse contains this line: “I tried to give you everything that your heart was longing for.” As sung, those lines go like this, and epitomize the overall mood of Time Out of Mind: “When you think that you’ve lost everything you find out you can always lose a little more.”
There’s a rumbling in the skies
I’ve been wading through the high muddy water
With the heat rising in my eyes
Every day your memory grows dimmer
It doesn’t haunt me like it did before
I’ve been walking through the middle of nowhere
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door
When I was in Missouri
They would not let me be
I had to leave there in a hurry
I only saw what they let me see
You broke a heart that loved you
Now you can seal up the book and not write anymore
I’ve been walking that lonesome valley
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door
People on the platforms
Waiting for the trains
I can hear their hearts a-beatin’
Like pendulums swinging on chains
I tried to give you everything
That your heart was longing for
I’m just going down the road feeling bad
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door
I’m going down the river
Down to New Orleans
They tell me everything is gonna be all right
But I don’t know what “all right” even means
I was riding in a buggy with Miss Mary-Jane
Miss Mary-Jane got a house in Baltimore
I been all around the world, boys
Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door
Gonna sleep down in the parlor
And relive my dreams
I’ll close my eyes and I wonder
If everything is as hollow as it seems
Some trains don’t pull no gamblers
No midnight ramblers like they did before
I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down
Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door
Meet Me In Montauk 
While this may have been another comeback, it seems Dylan has really found the sweet spot ever since for the past 13 years. This is a cool song, and one with which I am less familiar from this album.
“They tell me everything is gonna be all right
But I don’t know what “all right” even means”
been there