In the Last Outback at the World's End: Bob Dylan's Modern Times

Modern Times, the new Bob Dylan album, cuts through the smoke and debris of the past five years and then, in the great honky tonk blues tradition, keeps moving on down the line. This dude will keep making music until he can't do it any more, just like his predecessors, just like his handful of peers and hopefully, just like musicians coming over the next rise.

The blues tracks on Modern Times are so fun that I've barely gotten to the slower numbers. These are foot stomping compositions that draw on traditional songs and arrangements, with special Dylan tweaks. "Thunder on the Mountain" kicks things off: "Today's the day, gonna grab my trombone and blow," Dylan proclaims. Exactly what he means from then on out is anybody's guess, but the overall feel is archetypal, primal, sometimes ominous and sometimes jaunty. The traveling minstrel talk-singing of Troy and New Orleans, the Great Flood and the Apocalypse. "All the ladies in Washington scrambling to get out of town / Looks like something bad gonna happen, better roll your airplane down."

Love and Theft, Dylan's last new studio album, came out on September 12, 2001 -- the day after. When I heard "High Water" that week, I felt strangely reassured. There was something comforting about Dylan's rag-ass voice and kick-ass band despite the shock of the attack and global destruction. "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum" seemed to sum everything up in some surreal but apt way: "Tweedle-dee Dee is a lowdown, sorry old man / Tweedle-dee Dum, he'll stab you where you stand / I've had too much of your company,/ Says, Tweedle-dee Dum to Tweedle-dee Dee." So it seemed then and so it seems now.

Five years later and he's done it again. Modern Times is going to do well -- and Dylan is big again. I got to see him at the Detroit State Theatre in March of 2004, the perfect venue. This time when he comes through, he'll play the gigantic Palace of Auburn Hills. Smaller gigs suit the material far better, so I'm grateful I saw him in Detroit proper.

The blues kickers are still the ones that grab me right away (given his crackled voice, it's harder for him to pull off a slow waltz number). After "Thunder on the Mountain," there's the Dylan version of the ancient "Rollin' and Tumblin'" with sauntering vocals: "I ain't nobody's house boy, I ain't nobody's well trained maid. . . Sooner or later, you too shall burn." At turns scary and merry, it's hard to tell exactly what the man's up to, but it hardly matters. This is good.

"Someday Baby" is a man-woman blues ditty with all the ups and downs and in-betweens of a relationship. "The Levee's Gonna Break" has all sorts of antecedents and has a catchy, low-key feel, making it hard not to mutter along with the troubador: "If it keep on rainin', the levee gonna break / Some of these people don't know which road to take . . . Some people on the road carryin' everything they own / Some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones." In the same song, he's got a well-articulated blues response to the disasters of life: "Put on your cat clothes, mama, put on your evening dress / Few more years of hard work, then there'll be a thousand years of happiness."

"Ain't Talkin'" ends Modern Times. It vaguely reminds me of "Idiot Wind" from Blood on the Tracks, but it's quieter and far eerier, because it's also more complicit. "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." Proceeding through the complex human heart of light and darkness, Dylan ends on just the right note: "Ain't talkin', just walkin' / Up the road, around the bend. / Heart burnin', still yearnin' / In the last outback at the world's end."

He'll be back.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).

Ciao!