Bob Dylan, explored
‹ Basement and Country
Cover of New Morning

Listen to the album

Why it matters

Arriving only months after Self Portrait, it was welcomed as a return to original songwriting with warm, domestic songs about family and country life.

Recorded in New York in 1970, with Bob Johnston credited as producer and Al Kooper closely involved, the album followed Self Portrait by only four months. Dylan plays piano on much of it, and the sound is warm and homespun, touched with gospel, country and even a dash of jazz on one track. A few songs began as music for a stage play by the poet Archibald MacLeish, a collaboration that fell apart. Another was inspired by his trip to Princeton to receive an honorary degree that year. Elsewhere he sings about contentment, the countryside and family life, the mood of a man settled with his wife and children. Critics who had been baffled by Self Portrait greeted it with relief, some hailing it as a comeback. George Harrison soon recorded "If Not for You", and the album has kept a quiet, affectionate following ever since.

Track list · 12 songs

  1. 1If Not for You
  2. 2Day of the Locusts
  3. 3Time Passes Slowly
  4. 4Went to See the Gypsy
  5. 5Winterlude
  6. 6If Dogs Run Free
  7. 7New Morning
  8. 8Sign on the Window
  9. 9One More Weekend
  10. 10The Man in Me
  11. 11Three Angels
  12. 12Father of Night

Where its songs lead

If Not for You · Covered byIf Not for YouGeorge Harrison · 1970George Harrison released his own version on All Things Must Pass in the same year Dylan put the song out.If Not for You · Covered byIf Not for YouOlivia Newton-John · 1971Olivia Newton-John's first hit was her version of this song.Father of Night · Covered byFather of NightManfred Mann's Earth Band · 1973Manfred Mann's Earth Band stretched the short hymn into a long rock piece on Solar Fire in 1973.

Read onWikipedia ↗MusicBrainz ↗