Culture

Modern Times

Folk-blues

Christianity Today January 1, 2006

“They say prayer has the power to heal / So pray for me mother / In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell / I am a-tryin’ to love my neighbor and do good unto others / But oh, mother, things ain’t going well.” —from “Ain’t Talkin'”

Bob Dylan once titled an album Time Out of Mind, but it might be more fair to say that he’s got time on his mind. “The Times They Are A-Changin'” he told us in the early ’60s, and, nearly forty years later, he was still telling us the same story—”Things Have Changed.” And now comes Modern Times, the third in a series of bewildering latter-day masterworks from the Voice of a Generation, and further proof that, over the course of a career that has spanned four decades, innumerable musical genres, and at least two belief systems, Dylan’s song has always been the same. Nothing has changed and everything has changed, both at the same time.

Entire volumes could be written (and have been written) about Dylan’s peculiar and indelible vision, and, in the past year alone, his story has been well documented in his own set of memoirs and in a celebrated documentary by Martin Scorsese. The socially aware protest songs, the druggy absurdist storytelling, the albums of heartbreak and romantic desolation, the Jewish upbringing and shocking conversion to evangelical Christianity—it’s all part of the Dylan lore, and any one phase of his career gives ample material for interpretation and speculation. What’s curious, though, is that his past three albums—masterpieces Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft, as well as the brand new Modern Times—have, in a sense, summarized everything that he’s ever said before: The world is going to pot, humanity is nothing but a bunch of cads and villains, women are nothing but trouble, death lies in wait around every corner, and only God can save us now.

Musically and lyrically, ModernTimes falls somewhere between the two albums that came before it; with its laid-back blues and gently crooned parlor songs, it’s the perfect follow-up to the somber confessions of Time Out of Mind and the careening rockabilly of Love and Theft. If that first album found Dylan looking Death in the eyes and wearing his heart on his sleeve, and the latter found him cracking knock-knock jokes and bad puns like a half-crazed court jester, the new record finds our humble narrator once again in pensive, serious mode, but not without a faint smirk. Dylan knows that these are perilous days, but he can’t help but see some humor in them just the same.

Of course, these songs are sung against a backdrop of death; Dylan, 65, has been increasingly aware of his own mortality in recent years—especially in the wake of a life-threatening heart infection in 1997. In the sweet love song “Spirit on the Water,” he’s seeing ghosts, and even feels like one himself. Just a few lines later, Dylan pledges to join his lover in Paradise, but immediately retracts the statement—”I can’t go to Paradise no more,” he sighs, wearily recalling that he “killed a man back there.” Later, he reworks the vintage tune “The Levee’s Gonna Break,” and it’s hard to hear it as anything other than a somber reflection on the destruction of New Orleans. (The same song also acknowledges—perhaps bitterly—the awesome power of the Divine: “Everybody’s saying this is a day that only the Lord could make.”)

There are songs of love and commitment throughout the album, but don’t think ol’ Dylan’s gone soft on us—in some of these tracks, the ladies are still nothing but trouble. “I’m flat-out spent, this woman’s been driving me to tears/ This woman’s so crazy, I swear I ain’t gonna touch another one for years,” he vows in “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” before going on to say that “there’s nothing more depressing than trying to satisfy this woman’s mind.” It’s not that Bob dislikes women—rather, he’s tapping into that well-worn vernacular of the blues. After all, Christ never promised a life of ease, and Dylan’s lyrics bear witness to the fact that even the faithful walk a hard road, and nothing in this world ever truly satisfies. “Now I’m all worn down with weeping / my eyes are full of tears, my lips are dry,” sings our man in “Ain’t Talkin,'” and, with his jaded and weathered voice, it’s hard not to relate.

Through it all, Dylan admits his own failures. At the beginning of the album he tells us that he’s “already confessed, no need to confess again,” yet in the same song he admits that he “ain’t no angel,” and even reveals his own fallen perspective: “shame on your greed, shame on your wicked misdeeds / I’ll say this, I don’t give a damn about your needs.” In the epic “Ain’t Talkin'” he’s more apologetic: “I’m a-tryin’ to love my neighbor and do good unto others / but oh, mother, things ain’t going well.”

He’s a fallen pilgrim trying to make it through a fallen world—he’s “walkin’ through the cities of the plague.” There’s “no altars on this long and lonesome road,” and the forces of darkness lie in wait, seeking to “crush you with wealth and power.” And all the while, Dylan can’t stop “thinkin’ bout that gal [he] left behind.” It’s the same story he’s been telling us for forty years, rendered here in the rich language of the blues—as he sang on Time Out of Mind, “it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there.” For the faithful, though, there’s still one light shining in the night sky, and it’s enough to make the journey bearable. Dylan reminds us of this beacon in “Thunder on the Mountain,” and it’s enough to carry us through the rest of the album: “Some sweet day,” he vows, “I’ll stand beside my king.”

Unless specified clearly, we are not implying whether this artist is or is not a Christian. The views expressed are simply the author’s. For a more complete description of our Glimpses of God articles, click here

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