Bob Dylan's New Album, Fugue State: A First Look
by John Kendall Hawkins
Dylan's at it again.
Just when you think the Bard from Duluth has no cantankerous croaks left in his voice, we listeners hear that he can always find just a little more. And wow, what a lily pad hopper of a holler it is. For a guy about to croak, here are some ribbit tracks for the ages. Fugue State is sumptuous, understated, gloom-and-doom like you've never heard it before. What a splashy swamp dance. A real arch triumph, a dark tour de force you'll want to listen to over and over and over again. If you need to take that Marley global beat out of your feet, this is the tonic for you, mis amigos.
Fugue State takes off where his last album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, ends -- way too soon for some discerning ears. Including mine. Aside from that dumbass conspiracy epic about JFK -- I mean, what the f*ck was that, some kind of paen to the conspiracy theorist in all Americans who grew up in the 60s and know the The Man for what he is -- a killer and disease. Who can forget the unforgettable "I Contain Multitudes," where he acknowledges other shoulders he's stood on and grooves on intertextuality; funky. But it's the deliberate down beat of "False Prophet" that bought my soul at the crossroads fair. Delicious dark. The way you like it, like Leonard Cohen said. We like it dark. We're real noir motherfuckers. What good's an atrocity somewhere if it doesn't have a ballad written into its DNA?
Dylan's new agent is Larry "Ratso" Sloman, whose female-filled cover of "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is a wonderful Valentine's Day gift, in this month we've set aside to celebrate our better halves, the women, without whom we would not be here. (It depends on how you read the Eden-Adam's Rib thing.) Ratso, who I interviewed last month, with rollicking delight, slipped me some acid-esque demos of the Bard in his new transition -- maybe even prep for his imminent transmigration to the Highlands (wink). Ratso also generously included a partial song list and lyrics, which I'll also consider below. So strap yourself in and enjoy the guacamole. It's on the house.
Like I said, Ratso dignified my cause by slipping me a set of hot demos off the new album to whet my reviewer's panties, as Ratso's radio shock-jock pal and biography subject, Howard Stern, might say. Let me run three song samples by you to see if you hear what I understood.
Song 1: "Usami"
Check out the lyrics -- his best since his Nobel prize-winning days:
Born in Saudi 'Rabia in the year of who knows f*ck off
Opened up his eyes to the tune of a kalashnikov
Always on the inside, his family was rich and powerful
When they asked him why they had to fly those jets
"Well" he answered "W. asked me to".
.
Usami bin was nowhere near Abbottabad
He said, "Are you crazy?" He never heard no copter crash
Some say he lived off terror and asset funds from the Agency
His job was to keep all the sleeper cells in ready latency
.
Usami, Usami
Wing of the cheats needle hay
Usami, Usami
What made them want to pretend they blew you away?
.
Pretend? Jesus, Bob, don't we have enough to deal with the MAGA lot and the MSM calling everything a conspiracy theory in an effort to control the narrative? Pretend? Oy.
Okay, let's unpack this tune. "Usami" to the tune of "Joey" seemingly somehow (or was I stoned?) mocking the great relief we all felt back in 2011 when Obama announced the founding father of the Alfred J. Qaeda corporation had been liquid-dated. We all wanted to know how -- how-- how did we get him, but had to wait until the end of the election cycle in 2012 before a version of events, Zero Dark Thirty, was released at year's end with great fanfare and Oscar nominations for its integrity and journalistic achievements. I'm flummoxed by the history presented here. The Bard seems to be implying that Usama bin Laden didn't get taken out in Abbottabad as reported.
It gets worse: He claims GW Bush directed bin Laden to take out the towers, a lurking implication being that the Bushes and the bin Ladens were items on the rich and famous and secret social network and had each other's backs -- thank God Dylan doesn't bring up that conspiracy theory about the cancelled flights after the events of 9/11, with only the bin Laden extended family, then in various locations in the USA, allowed to fly out. But the music is fabulous. What a nice touch adding that surreal and distorted violin. And if you like it dark, you'll forgive the lapses of rushed judgment. You can hear the Daniel Lanois touch. Me likey. Remember that steel guitar on "Everything Is Broken." Good time sounds, but here put to use to play out his hand in a world gone wrong.
Song 2: "Cancer 's Blowing in the Wind"
Yeah, check out the lyrics, man. They'll bite ya. There's no longer a chain link fence separating us from the junkyard dog we've been taunting for years:
.
How many toads most a man crunch down
before they're frying panned?
How many C-notes must a whitey sail
for drugs for his adrenalin gland?
Yes, how many times did the canon's balls fly
before the fem'nists had them banned?
f*ck it, my friend, cancer is in the wind
The cancer is flowin' in the wind
.
Yes, how many years did old Mt. Hood exist
before it was pushed into the sea?
Yes, how many years did some people exist
before we set their DNA free?
Yes, how many times did mighty whitey turn his head
like a Linda Blair Witch Project zombie?
f*ck it, my friend, cancer is in the wind
The cancer is flowin' in the wind.
It's a long time ago that the Bard asked with his guitar licks and character drawls how many times will we let the sh*t hit the fan before we do something about it. But did we listen? No, we didn't listen to the Bard. And now this. I mean, those are some bleak lyrics. Maybe the bleakest since "Dark Eyes" (... a million people at my feet") or the heart-breaking imagery of "Three Angels" (... but does anybody hear the music they play?...) off New Morning. No, we fucked around and made and gushed over The Big Lebowski (probably my favorite classic movie), when we should have got off our asses and got a job fixing the hole we were all in. (But didn't) And now this.
Song 3: "Desolation Postcards in a Row"
Yet again the Master is still at work, bringing us gladly down to new depths of human conditioned anguish. O my soul!
They're selling postcards of the banging
They're painting the whiteboys brown
The funeral parlor is filled with bodies
Welcome to Chinatown
Here comes the kind ambitioner
He sure made Vlad Putin dance
One hand tied to Nietzsche's tight-rope walker
While he diddled in his pants
And the p*ssy Riot squad so restless
Shovelin' up the snow
As Lady-Man looks out tonight
At the Apocalyptic glow
Well, I have to say that I never would have thought that the Bard would come down this road again, Highway 61. God said to Abe you best keep running, and Dylan went on that Endless Tour, which is what Jesus told the flippant scoundrel who said the wrong thing as Suffering Jesus made his way up Calvary, and J dropped that cross right there and pointing said, "You," and some guy went, "Who, me?" and the Lord of Love, who would soon die for our many sins, told him what he could do and what he could do is keep wandering until the Second Coming. And "Who, me?" says you sure you got the right guy? In some strange, really bizarro twist, Dylan's seems to be The Wandering Jew, on tour since some Mark Chapman-esque shmuck yelled out "Judas!" from the audience of Albert Hall in the early '60s.
That same sense of desolation is still young in old Bob. We really fucked up and he wants to know that he can't do all the suffering for us alonr. It's not enough to be soul-sufferer for the length of a Dylan album. We need to go throw a brick through a window somewhere, No, not that brick! That was the Acapulco Gold, for chrissakes. And not that window.
"Desolation Postcards in a Row" is a reminder that whatever Hell the Bard was in when sang those songs in the mid-60s has been replaced with over the line border country blues fit only for a dying breed of men unfit for breeding new blues. And the only sound left now is that soundtrack from Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, Neil Young banging his head against drugged strings, and ending with that Ind-gen epitaph for Mighty Whitey.
There are other tunes just as rivetting and -un. Here are some other songs with partial lyrics for you to cogitate with your presumptions:
"(I Wish Now I'd Taken) That Folkie Mantle"
When old Pete Seeger tried to ax my ride
down Fame and Fortune avenues
deranged old Pete was with old folkie pride
I took it as a hit on my revenues
I said, "Pete, this time I'll let it slide"
and went on to earn my white man's blues.
O but I wish now I'd taken that folkie mantle
and let the winds of change blow me around
How I wish I'd taken that folkie mantle
and never changed my goddamn sound
.
"It's Dark Now (Really Dark) and Getting Darker"
Jesus has come and gone, he blew them all away
when he came riding in on four horses and said, "Pray!"
but he came among non-believers and Nietzsche acolytes
and girls to boys and boys to men. and men in tights
someone in the candlelit crowd (grids down) cried "Judas!"
and J got off his high horses and b*tch-slapped Mr. Rudist.
It's dark now, really dark, and it's gonna get darker still
smoke em if ya got em or drop the doomsday pill
.
"Post-Post-Post-Apocalyptic Blues"
The sweet things in life are gone now of course
I knew it would end badly when Sarah wanted divorce
Jakob's ladder lost rungs when his voice refused to go hoarse
and things went from good to bad to worst -- and then worse
Mama's in the basement
mixing magic mushroom stews
Daddy's in the morgue
having paid his dues
I'm late to the party
with Weathermen blues
.
"Talkin' To The Ghosts of My Own Past"
Sunday mourning out riding in a summer storm
thinking about all the blues I'd let get away
my strummin was fine, my voice was in form
the only market I hadn't captured was the gay
But that changed when Jimmy rode in on a pink palomino
and heard me riffin blues, my mouth harp blazin'
and said, "You sound just like that old crooner Dino,"
asked for an autograph and showed me some horsey pacin'
.
Yes, I was out ridin and met the whole sordid cast
from the early boy balladeer to the wizened old man at last
I compared notes with Jesus Odysseus tied to the mast
I was talkin' to the ghosts of my own past
.
And rounding out these rich and lavish blues that you won't find busked on Beale Street are the following intriguing titles:
"I'm the Wandering Jew, Forgive Me Jesus"
"CRISPR Critters Everywhere"
"Where Has All the Money Gone?"
PLUS, a bonus bootleg "Country Pie" (instrumental version)
PLUS, a bonus bonus bootleg "Dylan Does Reggae"
The bleak and spare soundscape of Fugue State that provides the muddy water for Dylan to sulk in is exquisitely realized in these songs of wonder and transportation. I'll be Frank (help yourself to the Jesse role), but looking at that title, "Usami," I was thinking, here we go again, an album-side filled with murky (at best) historical analysis. Hurricane Carter got the Bard into some hot water. Facts were had by poetic license, some say (not me, for the record). He was arrested for knowing too much about the barroom murders that night. Dylan fans panicked at his arrest:
Some people (not me) believe he should have been arrested for knowing too much about the Joey Gallo murder. I mean, the lyric, "He could see it coming up as he lifted up his fork," is a detail that only someone with insider knowledge could have. If he gleaned the volatile information contained in the lyric from a waiter at the spaghetti joint Joey frequented, then the Bard has placed a life in danger and probably forced (or will force) him to go into the Witness Protection Program.
And, while we're at it, just how do you know he opened his eyes to the tune of an accordion? Is that possible? Are we talking synesthesia here? Was Joey gifted? Was he born with a caul? And, also, I think Dylan got "Neighborhood Bully" all wrong. How can you glorify the apart-hate state there, Bob? Couldn't you have been just a little "self-loathing" on the Jew front? The Israelis are firing cruise missiles named Hellfire at Palestinian kids with imported Southie yellow bus rocks. Jeesh.
No, but Dylan is at his finest here. This post-post-post Apocalyptic take on lemmings run wild, and the catastrophic merge with machines we call the Singularity, could well represent the zeitgeist of the whole disassemblage and big bang whimpering pot-and-pans crashing down an echoic stairwell for a century come to a post-tragic end, some lid wobbling like a drum kit rim job.
It all ends badly. There are no innocents any more, the Bard tells us. Jesus has rolled up his sleeves and come home to kick some ass:
I highly recommend Fugue State just before you take your oxycontin excursion into comfortably numb fullness tonight. Sleepy tight, don't let the dreadbugs bite
