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Why it matters
Recorded in his own Santa Monica studio with the large band from his 1978 tour, it pairs dense, symbolic songs with horns and gospel-style backing singers.
After a world tour in early 1978 with a large band, Dylan took the same group into Rundown, his rehearsal studio in Santa Monica, and recorded the album in about a week with producer Don DeVito. The sound is big and soulful: saxophone, keyboards and a trio of gospel-trained women singers answering his vocals, a long way from the folk or country records of the past. The songs are dense and full of symbolic imagery, about broken relationships, spiritual searching and a sense of danger, and they foreshadow the religious turn that came soon after. The original mix was widely criticized as murky, and American critics were generally cool. In Britain it found a warmer welcome, helped by a big European tour that year. A remixed version issued in 1999 brought out the detail, and the album's reputation has risen steadily since.
Track list · 9 songs
A dense allegory of a long struggle, a lost lover and an old order about to fall.
faith · time
Its page ›A sultry, menacing blues in which a man sings about a pony as a thinly veiled stand-in for a lover.
love
Its page ›A man caught among temptations, duties and lost loves finds he never has a moment to stop and reflect.
time · freedom · loss
Its page ›A man tries to comfort a heartbroken woman and offers to help her if she will let him.
love
Its page ›A traveller asks a mysterious guide where they are heading and how long the ordeal will last.
the road · war
Its page ›A man worn down by an unsteady love asks his partner not to deceive him or let him go.
love
Its page ›A man suggests to his partner that their relationship is over and they should part without bitterness.
love · loss
Its page ›A man searching for a lost lover through a dark, dreamlike night comes out the other side changed.
love · loss · the road
Its page ›
Where its songs lead
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