It had been eight years since he released an album of original songs. The wait is now filled since Bob Dylan released Rough and Rowdy Ways on Friday . In this 39th studio album, which appears 58 years after its first opus, there is a 17-minute ballad on the assassination of John Kennedy and a tribute to the American blues singer Jimmy Reed.
Rough and Rowdy Ways is the first album by the Nobel Prize winner for literature since Storm in 2012, even if the artist has released several cover albums in the meantime. The opus mixes blues, rock and folk sounds with lyrics oscillating between black humor and nostalgic evocations of ghosts from the past, all sung in a rocky voice.
More topical themes than ever
“Murder Most Foul”, a river song, which retraces the assassination of John Kennedy in Dallas while describing the evolution of the American counter-culture of the 60s, rose to the top of the Billboard ranking when it was released in March. The song notably brings to mind the memories of many legendary artists of the time such as the Eagles, Charlie Parker, Stevie Nicks, Woodstock and the Beatles.
Bob Dylan, 79, also recalls the 1921 racial massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma where up to 300 black people lost their lives. The hired singer has often referred to police brutality and racism in his most famous titles of the 1960s and 1970s, such as "Hurricane".
Hope to resume tour
In "False Prophet", the second track from the six-minute album, the artist makes fun of his own legend. "I ain't no false prophet (I am not a false prophet) / I just said what I said / I'm just here to bring revenge on somebody's head (Je I'm just here to avenge someone), ”he sings.
This album is "arguably his most beautiful poetic expression to date," according to the British music magazine NME . Rolling Stone magazine called the album "absolute classic".
Despite his age, Bob Dylan has spent the last three decades of his life on an almost permanent tour. The coronavirus pandemic forced him to cancel a series of concert dates in Japan and North America in the spring and summer, but the singer has promised to return to the scene as soon as it is safe to do so. .
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