Here’s a song from Bob Dylan’s great 1997 album Time Out of Mind, a “comeback” record that earned him the Album of the Year Grammy. Amazingly, this is the only Dylan release to ever win Grammy’s top honor.
‘Standing in the Doorway’ is a highlight of this elegiac album. It’s about the end of a relationship, but like most songs on Time Out of Mind, it feels like it’s just as much about the end of life.
1997’s Time Out of Mind was Bob Dylan’s first album of original material in seven years, and the first album of good original material in eight.
This return to form was celebrated both critically and commercially and went on to win several Grammys, including Album of the Year. It’s been 20 years since that career renaissance, two decades that have seen Dylan release his most consistent streak of quality work since the 60s. Continue reading
The 90s were not particularly memorable for Bob Dylan.
He followed 1989’s comeback success Oh Mercy with 1990’s disappointing Under the Red Sky and over the next seven years managed only to release two albums of classic folk covers.
I’ve always been intrigued by the sequencing of Time Out of Mind. The “money” tracks alternate with the more standard blues fare right down the line.
You start out with ‘Love Sick,’ a slow burner that eases you into the album and invites you to tour the soundscape Dylan and Lanois have served up. Next up is ‘Dirt Road Blues,’ a basic blues track that could have fit on any number of Dylan albums (though the lyrics speak to this record’s themes of loneliness and loss: “I’m gonna have to put up a barrier to keep myself away from everyone.”)
‘Standing in the Doorway’ is a yearning epic and one of the best songs on the album. Check out these opening lines:
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.
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