Bob Dylan

A grand tour of contemporary song, Willie Nelson's latest finds him showcasing wonders by
such writers as Paul Simon, Lyle Lovett, Bob Dylan and himself – and dueting with Dylan,
Sinéad O'Connor and Bonnie Raitt. Wise to the folk ways that underlie this music, he lends
each gem his sympathetic personality – but so subtly that the songs appear to soar on their
own wings. When Nelson sings with O'Connor on Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up,"... More >

Dylan's second attempt to revive the folk music revival while laying down a new record without writing any new songs is eerie and enticing. He cherishes the non sequiturs, sudden changes of heart, and received or obscure blank spots in these buried songs--all usages he's long since absorbed into his own writing because he believes they evoke a world that defies rationalization. Me, I'm not so sure it doesn't just seem that way because there's no way we can be intimate with their worlds anymore. And while only a crank could resist his liner notes, that doesn't mean it isn't cranky in the extreme to hold, for instance, that the two-timing aristo who gets his in "Love Henry" is "modern corporate man off some foreign boat, unable to handle his `psychosis' responsible for organizing the Intelligentsia," und so weiter. We do not live in "the New Dark Ages." And if we did, Dylan would call out for rationalization right quick. (Grade: A-)