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Features Disc of the day
Bob Dylan
New Morning
(Columbia, 1970)
Back from the brink and happy at home... Why is this Woodstock classic always overlooked?
Out of the 500 or so albums featured (so far) in MOJO's Disc Of The Day parade, a Bob Dylan record has appeared only once. In recent times, the resounding success of his Theme Time Radio Hour show and a number one album on both sides of Atlantic have once again proved that after almost half a century, the Dylan dollar remains as strong as ever. It's a fitting time then to raise Bob's Disc Of The Day tally by delving back into the last record that took Hibbing's hero to the top of the UK charts.
On its release, New Morning was considered Dylan's big return to form ("Well, friends, Bob Dylan is back with us again," said Rolling Stone's Ed Ward). Today, it remains one of his most exuberant records. The unfettered joy of the title track with its choral exultations and talk of "rabbits" and "roosters" is, like the rest of New Morning's pastoral hymns, inexorably linked to the place in which it was written. This is the ultimate evocation of Bob Dylan's Woodstock, the east coast community of artists that, under the publicity glare brought by the festival of the same name, had already begun to fragment. Unlike the biblical overtones of John Wesley Harding and the ancient tinkerings of The Basement Tapes, New Morning presents Dylan as a (briefly) contented soul, surrounded by his children, breathing the fresh country air, chopping wood for the fire and, most brilliantly, playing lots and lots of piano.
Bolstered by the return of Al Kooper's Hammond organ swirls, Dylan's country-gospel chords shine through The Man In Me and Sign On The Window; the former a love letter to wife Sara ("But oh, what a wonderful feeling / Just to know that you are near"), the latter a Dylan spiritual par excellence. Those tumbling runs of surreal images still make the occasional appearance: "The man standin' next to me / His head was exploding / I was prayin' the pieces wouldn't fall on me" he sings during Day Of The Locusts, but Dylan's focus is that of a real homebody refreshed after the strange excursions of Nashville Skyline and Self Portrait. Of course, the feeling wouldn't last. After returning to touring in 1974, our hero would face another new morning - a hungover one, sizzling with venom, pain and heartache...
Ross Bennett
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 4:49 PM GMT 22/05/2009
Further Listening
Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey (Warner Bros, 1971)
The Band – Stage Fright (Capitol, 1970)
Neil Young – Old Ways (Reprise, 1985)
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