“Thunder on the Mountain” has a touch of Chuck Berry’s style, particularly in the guitar licks and riffs reminiscent of “Let It Rock,” but who in rock music history wasn’t inspired by the creator of the “duck walk”? “Let It Rock” is also reminiscent of Berry’s 1958 hit “Johnny B. Goode.” Chuck Berry himself found his inspiration for his legendary introductory riff in Louis Jordan. This rock song is a good way to open Modern Times, even if its overall style is fairly standard. The sound and production are similar to that of Love and Theft, and Dylan’s new musicians are excellent.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Dylan recorded “Thunder on the Mountain” after seeing Alicia Keys at the Grammys. He told Rolling Stone magazine, “There nothing about that girl I don’t like.
Spirit On The Water
Bob Dylan / 7:43
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, piano, harmonica; Stu Kimball: guitar; Denny Freeman: guitar; Donnie Herron: steel guitar; Tony Garnier: upright bass; George G. Receli: drums / Recording Studio: Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001 / Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan) / Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Production
“Spirit on the Water” is a love song with some allusions to the Bible. The first two lines, “Spirit on the water / Darkness on the face of the deep” refer to the book of Genesis. The penultimate verse, “I can’t go to paradise no more / I killed a man back there,” evokes Cain, the murderer of his brother, Abel. Beyond these biblical references, Dylan sings of the importance of being loved, with the same sense of despair heard throughout his career.
In this song, Dylan seems to have as great a love for jazz as for the blues. This excellent jazzy ballad offers some very good instrumental arrangements for guitar and piano. The atmosphere is light and bright, and Dylan sings with his crooner voice, which foreshadows his 2015 album Shadows in the Night.
Rollin’ And Tumblin’
Bob Dylan / 6:02
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, piano, guitar
Stu Kimball: guitar
Denny Freeman: guitar
Tony Garnier: upright bass
George G. Receli: drums, tambourine
Recording Studio
Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001
Technical Team
Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan)
Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Lyrics
“Rollin’ and Tumblin’” is one of the most famous Delta blues classics. The song is credited to bluesman Hambone Willie Newbern from Tennessee, who recorded it in March 1929 for the Okeh label. Three months later, Charley Patton recorded “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” very similar to Newbern’s blues song, for Paramount Records. Other bluesmen recorded their own versions, including Robert Johnson (“If I Had Possession over Judgment Day”), Sleepy John Estes (“The Girl I Love, She Got Long Curly Hair”), and John Lee Hooker (“Rollin’ Blues”). Muddy Waters’s version, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” dates from 1950 and is one of the best-known renditions, appearing on the Aristocrat label (the future Chess Records) in 1950. Guitarists from the blues-rock scene mostly took their inspiration from Muddy Waters. These included Eric Clapton (with the British rock trio Cream), Johnny Winter (on his 1968 album The Progressive Blues Experiment), and Alan Wilson and Henry Vestine from the blues and boogie-rock band Canned Heat.
Dylan’s adaptation borrowed the first verse of “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” but the others he wrote himself, focusing on the narrator’s unhappy love. The narrator had the misfortune of falling in love with a “lazy slut” who drove him crazy to the point that, “This woman so crazy, I swear I ain’t gonna touch another one for years.” The woman in question is, surprisingly, his wife. Surprise again when the narrator takes on an almost Christ-like dimension: “I’ve been conjuring up all these long dead souls from their crumblin’ tombs.”
Production
Comparing Dylan’s version with Muddy Waters’s version on his 1969 LP After the Rain, the resemblance is stunning. The riff played on slide guitar is similar, even if the tempo is much faster in Dylan’s version. The songwriter appropriates the rest of the song but with his own vision and reformulated text and music. “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” is a country-electric-blues rendition played by a band rushing forward with remarkable cohesion. Besides Dylan’s superb interpretation on piano and acoustic guitar (dobro?), the slide guitar part energizes the piece from beginning to end.
When The Deal Goes Down
Bob Dylan / 5:04
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, piano; Stu Kimball: guitar; Denny Freeman: guitar; Donnie Herron: steel guitar, violin; Tony Garnier: bass; George G. Receli: drums / Recording Studio: Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001 / Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan) / Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Lyrics
The lyrics of “When the Deal Goes Down” are among the most interesting on the album. The two lines “Where wisdom grows up in strife” and “Tomorrow keeps turning around” echo two poems by Henry Timrod, “Retirement” (“There is a wisdom that grows up in strife”) and “A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night” (“Tomorrow I will turn it round and round”). Other passages are inspired by biblical texts. The most striking example is undoubtedly “We live and we die, we know not why,” which alludes to the statement about powerlessness in Ecclesiastes (8:17) in the Old Testament: “I perceived that God has so ordered it that man should not be able to discover what is happening here under the sun. However hard a man may try, he will not find out; the wise man may think that he knows, but he will be unable to find the truth of it.” The title of the song can be viewed as “When the covenant will take place.” What is this covenant? The answer may be found in Genesis (17:4), where the Lord appears to Abraham and says, “I make this covenant, and I make it with you.” Or is it the covenant between Bob Dylan and Jesus Christ during Dylan’s conversion to Christianity?
Dipping again into the 1930s repertory, Dylan based “When the Deal Goes Down” on the melody of “Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day),” recorded by Bing Crosby in 1931. Dylan’s performance is successful, and he is obviously moved by his text. This sweet retro ballad allows listeners to briefly hear Donnie Herron’s violin, probably recorded by overdub since he also plays the steel guitar.
Someday Baby
Bob Dylan / 4:56
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar; Stu Kimball: guitar; Denny Freeman: guitar; Donnie Herron: violin; Tony Garnier: upright bass; George G. Receli: drums / Recording Studio: Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001 / Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan) / Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Lyrics
“Someday Baby” is characteristic of the evolution of blues music since the recordings of the 1930s. This folk-blues song was recorded in 1935 by Sleepy John Estes and harmonica player Hammie Nixon. In 1955, Muddy Waters recorded a superb electric version under the title “No More Trouble.” In 1971, the Allman Brothers Band recorded their arrangement of Muddy Waters’s version. Thirty-five years after the Allman Brothers, Dylan came up with his own rendition. He may have kept the structure, but he changed the lyrics. The story spins around the marital problems of a poor fellow, but is punctuated with lines of the purest Dylan style.
“Someday Baby” is an upbeat blues song, with the boogie spirit so important to John Lee Hooker and even the masterful “Shake Your Hips” by the Rolling Stones. But Dylan’s version actually borrows its rhythm from “Trouble No More” by Muddy Waters. Dylan’s group learned its lessons from the master of Chicago blues, and Dylan sings falsetto for the first time in his career, which is an achievement. There is an excellent alternative version on The Bootleg Series Volume 8, done at a medium tempo, and Dylan’s vocal delivery there is more intimate. Another illustration that he never sings a song the same way twice!
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
Bob Dylan won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance for his version of “Someday Baby.”
Bob Dylan / 6:07
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, piano
Stu Kimball: guitar
Denny Freeman: guitar
Donnie Herron: steel guitar, violin (?)
(?): organ
Tony Garnier: bass
George G. Receli: drums, percussion
Recording Studio
Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001
Technical Team
Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan)
Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Lyrics
“Workingman’s Blues #2” is another example of Dylan’s art of creating a song from different pieces, like a puzzle, playfully following his inspiration. The line in the fourth verse, “Sleep is like a temporary death” is from Henry Timrod’s poem “Two Portraits.” The title of the song is a reference to “Workin’ Man Blues” by Merle Haggard, which peaked at number 1 on the country charts in 1969.
“Workingman’s Blues #2” is in no way an adaptation. If Haggard’s country-rock song is up-tempo, Dylan, on the contrary, recorded a ballad with a melody of great subtlety. The difference is also evident in the lyrics. “Workin’ Man Blues” recounts the life of a worker who has to feed his wife and nine children, and likes to drink a few pints of beer. “Workingman’s Blues #2” is much more profound: the songwriter talks about the condition of the American working class at the beginning of the 2000s, where “The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down” and “They say low wages are a reality if we want to compete abroad.” His pen is also carried by epic and poetic inspiration, “No man, no woman knows / The hour that sorrow will come / In the dark I hear the night birds call.”
Production
This lyrical ballad has some resemblance harmonically to Dylan’s “’Cross the Green Mountain,” a song written and recorded for the soundtrack of the 2003 Civil War film Gods and Generals. “’Cross the Green Mountain” is included on The Bootleg Series Volume 8. The voice is soft, the interpretation intimate, but the accompaniment is not quite suitable. The arrangements are there to serve the text. An organ is heard throughout the piece. Unfortunately, the organist is not identified. Note the short instrumental interludes, not really successful, with a guitar out of tune (about 1:30 and 2:50). “Workingman’s Blues #2” is nevertheless one of the high points of the album.
Beyond The Horizon
Bob Dylan / 5:36
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, piano; Stu Kimball: guitar; Denny Freeman: guitar; Donnie Herron: steel guitar, violin; Tony Garnier: bass; George G. Receli: drums, percussion / Recording Studio: Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001 / Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan) / Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Production
Bob Dylan may have been thinking of “Beyond the Sunset” by Hank Williams when he wrote the lyrics of this rather sentimental song. The narrator is very much in love; “at the end of the rainbow life has only begun.”
Dylan borrowed the melody from “Red Sails in the Sunset,” written by Hugh Williams and Jimmy Kennedy in 1935. The tune was a huge success as performed by Bing Crosby in the mid-1930s. The songwriter was not afraid to acknowledge his source of inspiration with a reference to Crosby in the line, “The bells of St. Mary, how sweetly they chime,” recalling the 1945 film The Bells of St. Mary’s, starring Crosby and Ingrid Bergman.
While Dylan for years was labeled as a folksinger, it is clear that throughout his career he has shown surprising eclecticism. This is the case with “Beyond the Horizon,” which takes listeners back to the era of Tin Pan Alley. Dylan appropriated this melody from Kennedy and Williams to reassess it. He sings with sweetness and fragility. Jazzy guitars, upright bass, steel guitar, piano, drums played with brushes, and even violin—all the musicians are in tune with Dylan’s vocals as a heartfelt crooner.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
“Red Sails in the Sunset,” which inspired Bob Dylan to write this song, was adapted by many other artists, including Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, the Platters, and even the Beatles in their formative years at the Star-Club in Hamburg.
Nettie Moore
Bob Dylan / 6:53
Musicians: Bob Dylan: vocals, piano; Stu Kimball: guitar; Denny Freeman: guitar; Donnie Herron: violin; Tony Garnier: bass, cello; George G. Receli: drums, percussion / Recording Studio: Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001 / Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan) / Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Production
Initially, “Nettie Moore” was a ballad sung by slaves before the Civil War, and later by traveling minstrels during the late nineteenth century. It was known under the titles “In a Little White Cottage” and “Gentle Nettie Moore.” Dylan uses a part of the chorus, “I miss you, Nettie Moore / And my happiness is o’er” to express the loneliness and pain of a man who feels “[E]verything I’ve ever known to be right has proven wrong.” He goes on to tell another story: “I’m going where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog.” By Southern, Dylan refers to the famous Southern Railway crossing, while “Yellow Dog” refers to the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad. Thus, the intersection of these two lines would be a kind of idealized South.
The climate of “Nettie Moore” is nondescript, and can be categorized as somewhere between a folk and an ethnic song. Each note Dylan reaches for and each word he sings is done calmly and sweetly, accompanied by a very creative arrangement, including a highly streamlined rhythm section (bass drum, tambourine, cymbals) and cello playing pizzicato as well as with the bow. “Nettie Moore” is one of the best songs on Modern Times.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
The line “Blues this morning falling down like hail” in “Nettie Moore” is from Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson’s “Hellhound on My Trail,” released in 1937.
The Levee’s Gonna Break
Bob Dylan / 5:43
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, piano
Stu Kimball: guitar
Denny Freeman: guitar
Donnie Herron: guitar (?)
Tony Garnier: bass
George G. Receli: drums
Recording Studio
Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001
Technical Team
Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan)
Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Production
Five years after “High Water (For Charley Patton),” Bob Dylan dedicated another song to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which had a terrible impact on the population and the economy of the Southern states. The song “The Levee’s Gonna Break” borrows from “When the Levee Breaks,” first recorded by the musical husband-and-wife duo Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy in 1929 and covered by numerous artists, including the British rock band Led Zeppelin as the last track on their fourth album (1971). The song has a recurring line “If it keep on rainin’ the levee gonna break.” At the same time, a chaotic love story emerges in a climate of apocalypse.
“The Levee’s Gonna Break” has a rockabilly ambience. Dylan sings in a very relaxed voice, almost in the background. The group provides an effective accompaniment. Stu Kimball and Denny Freeman take turns playing solos. Dylan seems to be both on acoustic rhythm guitar and on piano (far in the mix). Yet “The Levee’s Gonna Break” is the only song on the album where Dylan and his musicians play with no real conviction.
ECHOES OF KATRINA
When Modern Times was released on August 29, 2006, including “The Levee’s Gonna Break,” it had been just one year since Hurricane Katrina had devastated several Southern states. Coincidence?
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
On November 4, 1961, Bob Dylan performed at Carnegie Hall in New York. He sang “Backwater Blues” by Bessie Smith, who was also inspired by the Great Mississippi Flood.
Ain’t Talkin’
Bob Dylan / 8:48
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, piano
/> Stu Kimball: guitar
Denny Freeman: guitar
Donnie Herron: viola, mandolin (?)
Tony Garnier: upright bass
George G. Receli: drums, percussion
Recording Studio
Sony Music Studios, New York: February 2001
Technical Team
Producer: Jack Frost (Bob Dylan)
Sound Engineer: Chris Shaw
Genesis and Production
The closing track on the album Modern Times, “Ain’t Talkin’” is based on the idea of the lone pilgrim as described in “Highlands” (Time Out of Mind). The only essential difference is that the lone pilgrim of “Ain’t Talkin’” doesn’t seem to have found his final destination. He walks without speaking, with a burning heart; at the end of the song, “In the last outback, at the world’s end.”
Again, Dylan wrote a text exuding spirituality. The “mystic garden” refers to the Garden of Eden in Genesis, and the lines “The wounded flowers were dangling from the vines / I was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain” symbolize the forbidden fruit. Will the pilgrim walking in silence (perhaps Dylan himself) end up losing his faith because of all the suffering and violence he encounters? Perhaps, at the end of the song, as he walks “out in the mystic garden” to find “There is no one here, the gardener is gone.”
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 87