It’s been an eventful few years for Bob Dylan. Most notably, of course, he was the shock awardee of Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, and gave his lecture just a few months ago. And understandably, just like his revolutionary music, it was rambling, mumbling and most importantly, charming.
On a newly released compilation of his earliest hits called Just Bob Dylan , there is a glimpse of his evergreen energy and timeless song writing.
The 21-track compilation features the twangy guitars and the coarse but often sublime, soaring vocals on songs like ‘Fixin’ to Die’, while turning to an ominous, somewhat quiet blues voice on ‘House of the Rising Sun’. And when it is not just the strum of the acoustic guitar, it is the sorrowing sound of the harmonica that comes in on ‘Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad’, channelling the homesick blues.
A lot of Dylan’s most accessible work, at least on the internet, are live versions of songs. It is probably a move that worked for the better of Dylan. It feels like total nostalgia hearing the lo-fi recording of ‘Death of Emmett Till’, which Dylan wrote to detail the murder and trial of an African American teen in 1955.
There is some joy, of course, like the vibrant ‘Hard Travellin’, the charming ‘Pretty Peggy-O’, the fast-paced ‘Highway 51’ and the even-faster ‘Gospel Plow’, all undercut with Dylan’s steely voice. The compilation, otherwise, features rare and lesser-heard songs that oscillate between Dylan the storyteller and Dylan the depressed, moody artist.
The stories shine through on songs like the comical ‘Talkin’ New York’, ‘Hard Times in New York Town’ and the debut album cut ‘Song to Woody’, which is dedicated to fellow American songwriter Woody Guthrie and ‘Roll on John’. But then, there’s Dylan’s obsession with death, on the morose ‘See That My Grave Is Kept Clean’, and the sublime ‘In My Time of Dyin’’.
In retrospect, when you hear songs about death that were arranged and sung by a 20-something Dylan, it really puts in perspective the emotional distress of the times and perhaps, the artist’s own tortured soul being bared on record. Now at 76, Dylan still draws crowds – even the ones who know he’s just not got much of a voice any longer – and sings about love, death, melancholy and history.
Just Dylan selects a big chunk of his debut album, perhaps to give a glimpse of the youngest version of one of the world’s best-known songwriters, but in that process, it does skip his claim-to- fames, like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ or ‘Desolation Row’ and ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.
Even then, at a time like this, any collection of Dylan songs are precious, knowing his vast discography.
