Last Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in my office, entering data into a spreadsheet, when it occurred to me that it was awfully quiet in the building.
"Mind if I put on some music?" I called out to the people in the two adjacent offices.
They didn't mind. I have a pretty good reputation when it comes to my music choices, so I'm sure they expected that I'd play something tasteful.
I had the Bob Dylan CD "Down in the Groove" with me, and I slipped it into the player, confident that my friends would have no problem appreciating the tunes, even if they'd never heard them before. Confident, even though this effort from the middle of 1988 is considered by many in the rock and roll press to be Dylan's worst.
That's right. I wasn't concerned at the prospect of losing the respect of my peers by playing this album, even though famed rock critic Robert Christgau called it a "horrendous product." Why? Because it's not that bad. In fact, I characterize it as a great Dylan album that's mistakenly viewed as unfocused.
Really, what's not to like?
The album kicks off with a primal version of Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Stick Together." Yes, the instrumentation is electric, but the sound comes straight out of the bluesiest roadhouse in the deepest, darkest swamp in Louisiana. It's a joyful affirmation of fidelity and there's just nothing wrong with that.
Like his previous album, "Knocked Out Loaded," the songs on "Down in the Groove" are propelled by many different musicians. In fact, the songs were recorded over a span of a few years and no two songs have the same backing band. This is ordinarily presented as a negative when describing this album, mostly because the production varies little between the songs, but it doesn't bother me at all. Sure it's cool to know that Eric Clapton, Ron Wood, Mark Knopfler, Steve Jones and Paul Simonon backed Dylan, but do I really need to hear Steve Jones playing Sex Pistols-esque guitar to appreciate his contribution? I don't think so. To my mind, the fact that the production is consistent only serves to focus the overall tone of the album.
I bought "Down in the Groove" when it was first released, and I have a great memory of a late night in Dallas, driving around town with my friend and mentor Tommy Wallace, singing along with the tune "Death Is Not the End" as it played on my truck's cassette player. Tommy was twenty years older than me, a Texas hippie, and a committed and knowledgeable Christian. He originally turned me on to Dylan and I was excited to play the new album for him. The song "Death Is Not The End" was right up Tommy's alley, with old-school religion lyrics like "When the cities are on fire with the burning flesh of men, just remember that death is not the end." Pretty stark stuff, and it wasn't long before we were both singing along to the chorus: "Not the end, not the end, just remember that death is not the end."
Dylan collaborates with the Grateful Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter, on two songs on "Down in the Groove." "Ugliest Girl in the World" is silly and playful as Dylan sings his reasons for being "in love with the ugliest girl in the world." It's hard not to smile when he sings "She speaks with a stutter and she walks with a hop, I don't know why I love her but I just can't stop."
On the second collaboration with Hunter, three members of the Grateful Dead stepped in for background vocals and the result was "Silvio," by far the best known tune from this album. It's bouncy and insistent, with more lyrics guaranteed to please my aging hippie friend: "Silvio, silver and gold, won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold, Silvio, I gotta go, find out something only dead men know."
The album winds down with a couple of covers. At first glance, the traditional "Shenandoah" might seem like a strange song for Dylan to have recorded in the musical climate of the eighties, but one listen can easily dispel that notion. Dylan performs the tune with the same electrified primal energy and the result is a very honest rendition, complete with gorgeous and soulful female background vocals.
Last up is a cover of a tune written by Albert E. Brumley, called "Rank Strangers to Me." In what may or may not be a dream, the narrator travels to his "home in the mountain' only to find that his friends and family are gone. The people there, he declares, are "rank strangers to me." In the final verse, he states emphatically: "Some beautiful day, well, I'll meet 'em in Heaven, Where no one will be a stranger to me." I find these lyrics to be strangely dark and beautiful.
The front cover of this album shows Dylan seated on what appears to be a dark stage, illuminated by a single spotlight. There's a definite contrast between the dark and the light in that picture, and that's just what I hear in the sounds and words of this album. Contrast. Dylan's vocals are like a light shining in the darkness of the music, and this is what I believe gives this album a timeless quality. Far from being a "horrendous product," "Down in the Groove" is a tragically underrated Dylan statement.
Peace!
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