Listen to the album
Why it matters
Recorded with producer Daniel Lanois, it was Dylan's first album of new original songs in seven years and his first major critical comeback in decades. Its dark, aging voice and murky sound won the Grammy for Album of the Year and opened his late-career run.
Dylan reunited with Daniel Lanois for Time Out of Mind, recording in Miami in early 1997 with a large band that included Jim Dickinson and Augie Meyers on keyboards, several guitarists and two drummers. The sessions were tense, as the two men again disagreed about sound, but the result is a murky, layered record in which Dylan's voice, now cracked and weathered, sits inside echoing guitars, organ and loose blues grooves. The songs keep returning to aging, lost love, distance and endurance, from the slow "Not Dark Yet" to the sixteen-minute closing ramble "Highlands". Shortly after the recording Dylan was hospitalized with a serious heart infection, and when the album came out that autumn many heard it through that news. Reviews were rapturous, and it won the Grammy for Album of the Year. "Make You Feel My Love" went on to be widely covered, and the record began the late period many count among his best.
Track list · 11 songs
A man walks through a world that has gone sour, sick from a love he can neither keep nor shake.
love · loss
Its page ›A man walks a dusty road looking for a lost love, hoping something will change.
the road · love
Its page ›Left behind by a lover, the singer lingers between staying and going, unable to let the feeling die.
love · loss
Its page ›A man feels endlessly far from the woman he loves, even as he tries to get closer.
love · loss
Its page ›A weary traveler moves through river towns and train stations hoping to reach salvation before time runs out.
faith · the road
Its page ›A man says love has wrecked him, leaving him sleepless, sick and unable to go on as before.
love · loss
Its page ›An aging man takes stock of a life that is fading toward its end, though night has not quite fallen.
death · time
Its page ›Rejected and trapped, the singer feels himself carried away as if in chains, far from the one he loved.
love · loss
Its page ›A plain promise that the singer will go to any length to comfort and stand by the person he loves.
love
Its page ›A man consumed by longing for a woman says he cannot keep waiting for her much longer.
love · time
Its page ›A man rambles through a city day, including a long exchange with a waitress, while his mind is set on a distant, longed-for place.
time · the road
Its page ›
Where its songs lead
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