Decline and Fall

Picture the scene: it’s some time in the early ‘eighties - the radio may well be talking about Port Stanley, or the Orgreave Coking Plant. It’s probably drizzling. A man in his early thirties picks up a small, nylon-strung acoustic guitar and strums it experimentally. My father (for it is he) begins nasally intoning; “John Wesley Haaaaarding…Was a friend to the pooooooor”, and a child (for it is me) legs it into a neighbouring room.

Now fast forward a few years. It’s 2004, and a man, who has come to resemble his father a lot more during the intervening years than he would have liked, is sitting staring at a freshly-purchased SACD-compatible copy of John Wesley Harding. This was an album first released…ooh…ages ago, in 1967, a time when people still (I’m assuming) listened to music on ’stereograms’, or ‘radiograms’, and when America was celebrated amongst the young as the home of the ‘head’, the radical, and the counter-cultural, rather than as the armoured fortress of Bush. Well, by the time I encountered this particular expression of late-sixties Americana it already seemed very much a thing of the past, an outpouring of an outworn, passé hippyness - at least in my father’s interpretation. Has time improved it?

One thing to bear in mind about this album is that it was highly controversial at the time of its release. Essentially, this was Dylan getting back to basics after a sabbatical prompted by a motorcycle accident, and not all his fans were happy. They wanted more of the acid rush of Blonde on Blonde, not the dour comedown this album seemed to offer: they wanted lyrical complexity and electric organs, not a man armed with an acoustic guitar singing very basic, stripped-down songs. But Dylan’s always been happy to piss off his fans, knowing it’s for their own good.

Well, as with Street-Legal, the SACD repackaging job is nice - just the thing to appeal to a shallow consumerist like me. Gatefold sleeve, exquisite B&W photograph of a bearded, sober-suited Bob looking almost absurdly biblical inside the cover, everything present and correct. I’d heard many negative comments about the remastering job on this album - particularly that the harmonica was too shrill, and the bass too loud - but it didn’t strike me as overly different from previous releases, although the guitar seemed a little low in the mix for my tastes. However, it’s the songs that I’m really interested in here. Previous listenings had not gone well; the bits I’d heard came across as ‘difficult’, with a stark sound, minimal instrumentation (essentially bass, drums and Bob) and a vocal style that seemed indescribably odd (my father’s comment: “Dylan had a motorcycle accident and was rumoured to have broken his neck, then came back and his voice was all, erm, weird”). In truth, I’d never got very far, so this was an opportunity to sit down and listen to the songs properly, without parental guitar-twanging intervention, now I actually had my own place and stereo.

And, predictably enough, what songs they are.

‘John Wesley Harding’ isn’t the best opener, admittedly. It’s an easygoing ramble into folk-legend territory, with appropriately simple lyrics and a tune to match. But by the time ‘As I Went Out One Morning’ gets under way, things are perking up a bit. Kenny Buttrey’s insistent, subtle drumming and Charles McCoy’s bass lay down a spare but striking background for Dylan’s ringing acoustic guitar (often used with a capo on this album, creating a high, evocative sound) and eerie, delicate harmonica. Bob is clearly aiming for a very definite ‘feel’ on this album, and consistently achieves it; its sparse soundscape matches up perfectly with the lyrics, where cryptic fragments of religious symbolism are mixed with the imagery of the old West, creating a timeless, folky atmosphere. ‘As I Went Out One Morning’ is typical of the album’s lyrical inscrutability - there are many interpretations of the lyrics, but as you’ll all have access to Google, I suggest you look for enlightenment yourself at the hands of one of the many obsessive Dylan cranks lurking on the Interweb.

‘I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine’ slows things down a bit, but not in a let’s-slow-things-down-a-bit-and-get-smoochy kind of style, as Bob presents us with a far-from-smoochy visionary religious experience. This album was made well before Dylan went all fundie during the Slow Train Coming period, but he’d been reading the Bible a lot during his break from public appearances, and as a result throws in a lot of religious images, used for their symbolic power rather than for any specific religious purpose. The tune is magisterial, based around about three chords (it may actually be three chords), and accompanied at a suitable plod by Buttrey and McCoy. I found the last verse very disturbing indeed, as the dreamer suddenly imagines himself responsible for the titular Saint’s martyrdom and wakes in terror, so be aware that this song may be unsuitable for small children unless accompanied by adults.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with ‘All Along The Watchtower’ from a certain cover version, so I’ll just add that Bob does a fine job on it. Now the following song, another ‘talking’ piece with Dylan speaking rhythmically over a simple backing, always struck me as tedious, dated and hippyish. Well, with the benefit of experience, I can confirm to you that it’s still tedious, dated and hippyish, and rather than the near-poetry of the rest of the tracks, seems replete with the kind of cod-significance that makes you imagine each line delivered with a meaningful waggle of the eyebrows. Horses for courses, I guess, and I’ve just refused this fence and thrown my rider into a nearby dungheap, but some may like it.

Track number 6, ‘Drifter’s Escape’ is a vast improvement, though. Once again I’m not going to address the lyrical content - other than to say it’s as oblique as the rest of the album. Three verses, one-and-a-half chords, a driving rhythm, bluesy harmonica, and Bob in fine vocal form, singing in a high voice somewhat reminiscent of a synagogue soloist. It’s followed by ‘Dear Landlord’, the subject of another well-known cover version - this time by Joe Cocker - and a showcase for Dylan’s functional, saloon-bar piano, which blends well into the track’s blues-inflected sound.

The next song is quite possibly the best of the lot, despite bearing the unpromising title ‘I am A Lonesome Hobo’, which rather leads one to expect a Guthriesque slice of social realism. Nothing could be further from the truth, really, as Buttrey and McCoy lay down an oddly contemporary-sounding alt-countryish groove, while Dylan’s harmonica wails over the top. The titular hobo, appropriately for an album fusing Americana with biblical imagery, has strong touches of the Wandering Jew: Dylan renders him a formerly prosperous man (’I had fourteen-carat gold in my mouth, and silk upon my back’) who for some largely unspecified transgression is condemned to ‘wander off in shame’. Bob pulls off the same one-chord-trick used in ‘Drifter’s Escape’ (sans capo this time) but varies it with a little flurry of, erm, three chords at the end of each verse. It’s a laconic but utterly compelling song, with a chilling quality emphasised as Dylan finally warns the audience not to repeat his mistakes ‘less you wind up on this road’, ending with more desolate, plaintive harmonica.

‘I Pity The Poor Immigrant’ (a song title guaranteed to enrage Daily Mail readers) is a slow plod with eloquent lyrics and a melody lifted from a folk song, quite in the early ’60s style. In case you’re worrying Bob’s going all retro at this point, he sings this one number in a very odd voice indeed, developing a curious nasality that sounds part-way between Captain Pugwash and the disastrous Ewan McGregor interpretation of Alec Guinness (which, come to think of it, sounded pretty much like Captain Pugwash). It’s a fine song but did leave me scratching my head rather, so the bouncily apocalyptic slice of bluesy folk called ‘The Wicked Messenger’ came as something of a relief. Featuring a pleasantly twangy guitar riff as accompaniment to more biblical wierdness, it’s an excellent closer to the main run of the album, although Dylan being Dylan, he still has a surprise up his sleeve.

Well, three surprises actually. The first is that the band is joined by a pedal-steel guitarist, and the second is ‘Down Along The Cove’, a straightforward bit of country with a twelve-bar blues form in which Bob abandons the portentous atmosphere of the other tracks in favour of a celebration of very earthly love. The third, and biggest, surprise is the album’s closing track, ‘I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight’. After an album full of strange tales, bizarre portents, and impending doom, Bob turns out what is almost without question the greatest country-and-western love song in history, and he’s not even a country-and-western artist. Lazy steel guitar and come-hither harmonica introduce Bob imploring his partner to turn off the light, crack open a bottle, and settle down for some serious lovin’, as we’re suddenly reminded that the artist in question is a lusty man of 26 - a surprise as he’s spent the best part of the past hour sounding about a million years old. It’s a wonderful performance of a near-perfect song. What the hell was he thinking? I’m not sure, but it’s one of the best things he’s ever done, and is somehow ideal to finish the album, a statement of simple happiness as an answer to the tortured songs preceding it.

Well, what a big adventure it’s been. All I can say is buy, or at least listen to, this album - the non-SACD version is now available for peanuts, so there’s no real excuse not to. Skip ‘The Ballad of Frankie Lee…’ if you like, get ready to boggle over some of the lyrics, and time it so that ‘I’ll be Your Baby Tonight’ is playing as your beloved walks through the door, and you’ll be in for a very good evening. It appears, then, that I seriously misjudged this album in the past. Move over, Dad - this stuff is far too good for the oldies to keep to themselves.