It’s never clear what exactly motivates Bob Dylan, so maybe it was coronavirus or maybe it wasn’t, but the 78-year-old legend has released two new tracks over the past month and a half, his first new original material since his 2012 album Tempest.

The first track, released in late March, was titled ‘Murder Most Foul.’ At just under 17 minutes, it is the longest track Dylan has ever released, and the first about the John Kennedy assassination, a subject that has always fascinated him. It’s extremely spare musically, a spoken-word poem set to a somber piano and strings backdrop.

I’ve spared my gentle listeners having to sit through a song that’s almost as long as an episode of your favorite sitcom. It’s a nice track, but the length borders on absurdity.

‘I Contain Multitudes,’ the newer track, is a bit more traditional. At 4 1/2 minutes, it’s a little bit of a thing compared to its predecessor.

Dylan sounds better here at 78 than he has in decades. I’m sure that has a lot to do with the fact that he is talking more than singing, but it works.

Taking its title from Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself,’ the track name-drops a host of icons, including William Blake, Anne Frank, Indiana Jones and The Rolling Stones.

It’s uncertain whether these two tracks signal an upcoming album release by Dylan, but given that his last three records contained covers of the classic American songbook, it would be appropriate for him to put out at least one more album of original material.

[Note: This post was written several days in advance, so it doesn’t include the news (helpfully supplied by commenter Erik below) that Dylan yesterday announced the June release of a new album, Rough and Rowdy Ways.]