Tryin' to Get to Heaven

I am done down here.
You're in the past, so I'll just
Rush off to heaven.

"I'm tryin' to get to heaven before they close the door." It's a great refrain for a country song, and Dylan, no stranger to country, seizes the moment for this excellent song from the 1997 album "Time Out of Mind."

- It's gonna rain as I wander through the high water. It's hot. I'm beginning to forget you.
- I had to leave Missouri quickly. You broke my heart. Now the book is closed. I'm in the lonesome valley.
- People are waiting for trains. Their heartbeats are loud in my ears. I tried to give you everything. See what good that did.
- I'm going to New Orleans. I'm told everything will be all right. I remember riding in a buggy with Miss Mary-Jane who has a house in Baltimore.
- I'm going to sleep in the parlor and relive my dreams. Is everything as hollow as it seems? 

'Til I Fell in Love With You

I was fine until
You came along. Now I'm screwed,
And I'll have to leave.

This is one of my favorite songs off the 1997 album “Time Out of Mind.” It has the nearly monotonous rhythm and melody focus of much of Dylan’s more recent work, but it serves the single-minded purpose of the song, which is to drive home the point that -- as he has often said in his recent work - life won’t be the same now that he’s met her, and boy is he sorry that he ever did. That’s because she’s like a drug.

After you:
Nerves exploding, body tense, pinned against fence
Hit hard, seen too much
No way to heal me, not unless he gets your touch
He was all right until falling in love with you
House on fire (Charlton Heston)
Got God as my shield, but I’m still in love with you.
Boys play, girls fly away
He’s gonna be famous and wealthy someday and when he’s gone, you’ll know who he was. (Most of this is already true)
Too much junk around here. 
He’s going nuts looking at it. Sweating. Thinking about you too, “the girl who won’t be back no more.”
“Well, I’m tired of talking, I’m tired of trying to explain. My attempts to please you were all in vain.” 

Standing in the Doorway

Woman breaks Bob's heart.
He shouldn't take her back, but
He probably will.

Many of Dylan's relationship elegies, committed to tape and released years after the relationships themselves, are masterpieces in how they reflect on the passage of time doing little to dim some torches that we carry. "Standing in the Doorway," from the 1997 album "Time Out of Mind," is a less charitable song than some. In this one, the singer remains bitter about how the woman left him in the lurch years ago, "standing in the doorway, crying." He goes on like that:

- Time used to move too fast. Now it moves too slow.
- Nothing left to do.
- He might kiss you or kill you if he sees you. Not sure which. It wouldn't matter.
- He has nothing to go back to now.
- Laughter makes him sad.
- The ghost of your old love is still here. It won't go away any time soon, it looks like.
- There are things that he could say, but doesn't.
- He senses God's mercy.
- He would be crazy if he took you back.
- For whom are those funeral bells tolling?
- Last night he danced with a stranger, but it just made him think of you.
- There's no point in explaining.

Red River Shore

Boy pines for a girl
Who said she was not for him.
He never forgets.

This sweet, sad song was never released on any one of Bob Dylan's studio albums, but it did end up on volume 8 of the Bootleg Series, a compilation of alternate versions and unreleased songs from 1989 to 2006. This one is about a girl who as you guessed is from the Red River shore. The singer fell in love with her, despite all the pretty maids all in a row lined up outside his cabin door. He wooed and courted her, but she said to him "Go home and lead a quiet life." He never ended up with the girl, and even though the dream of having her died a long time ago, he has never been able to shake her loose from his mind. The problem is that there is no way for him to be happy except to be with her, so when he returns to the old town to find her, everyone says that they don't know who he is talking about. He then tells this story:

"Now I heard of a guy who lived a long time ago
A man full of sorrow and strife.
That if someone around him died and was dead,
He knew how to bring 'em back to life.
Well, I don't know what kind of language he used
Or if they do that kind of thing anymore.
Sometimes I think nobody saw me here at all,
Except the girl from the Red River Shore."

That leaves me wondering if he's the ghost or she is... or if they both are.

Not Dark Yet

Bob is getting old
And the world has gotten worse.
And it’s not done yet.

Bob Dylan: the crown prince of resignation. Theme song: "Not Dark Yet." This melancholy look-back-on-life-at-dusk song defines Dylan's later-stage motive: summing up the highs and lows of life and their inextricable union. It's from the 1997 album "Time Out of Mind" which established this outlook that Dylan has brought to most of his music over what is now nearly two decades. 

Summary:

1. Sunset. Too hot to sleep. Soul turned to steel, but still plenty of scars.
2. No more sense of humanity. Pain accompanies every beautiful thing. She wrote him a letter, and she was nice about it while being honest.
3. Bob's been to London and Paris, the river and the sea. He's been on the bottom in a world where everyone lies. He's not looking for anything from anyone. "Sometimes my burden seems more than I can bear. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there."
4. You think he's moving, but he's standing still. He's numb, and "I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from. Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer. It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there."

The music soars under the able hand of producer Daniel Lanois, and despite its mere four verses, it's epic stuff. It's just not what you want on during your period periods of bitterness, regret and your seventh wine spritzer.

Million Miles

He tries to get close.
She's a million miles away.
And she stays that way.

Here's another grubby blues song from 1997's "Time Out of Mind" album. The refrain sums it up: "I'm trying to get closer, but I'm still a million miles from you." Physics and interstellar travel across the endless gulf between humans will get you every time.

Elsewhere in space:
- She took a part of him that he misses. He doesn't think it can go on.
- She lied to herself, but that's OK, he lied to himself too.
- She took the silver and gold and left him in the cold. Even though people ask about her, he doesn't share everything.
- He's trying to bury his memories of doing what he never meant to do.
- He needs her love badly, and he wonders about the meaning of life.
- He keeps his eyes open, he doesn't even wink. He wonders if he will get a chance in the next life to think.
- He's not sure to whom he wants to talk.
- Last thing she said before she hit the street? "Gonna find me a janitor to sweet me off my feet." He says, "yeah, whatever, do what you have to do."
- I wish you'd rock me. I'd rock you in return.
- "Well, there’s voices in the night trying to be heard
I’m sitting here listening to every mind-polluting word
I know plenty of people who would put me up for a day or two
Yes, I’m tryin’ to get closer but I’m still a million miles from you."

Make You Feel My Love

I'd abase myself
To make you feel my love, or
I could sing this song.

This song from the 1997 album "Time Out of Mind" has been covered by a number of artists, most notably Adele. Garth Brooks also did it. The first person to sing it was Billy Joel, whose version came out earlier than Dylan's. It's not hard to see why the song has proven to be the most popular of Dylan's more recent hits. It's a straight-up love song, and as Paul McCartney said, some people want to fill the world with silly love songs -- and what's wrong with that? I'd like to know. 'Coz here I go again...

Your conditions:
- Rain in face
- World on case
- No one to dry tears
- Storms raging on sea and on highway of regret
- Winds of change blowing

What he can do for you:
- Offer warm embrace
- Hold you for 1 million years
- Would never do you wrong

What he would do to himself for you:
- Go hungry
- Go black and blue
- Go crawling down the avenue
- Everything
- Make you happy
- Make dreams come true
- Go to ends of earth for you

Love Sick

He loves you, but he
Wishes he'd never met you.
That's what "love sick" means.

"Love Sick," the first song on the 1997 album "Time Out of Mind," marked Bob Dylan's official entrance into the house of rockers who are old and wistful and can do no wrong because they've become too old to court critical failure. That sounds cynical, but I don't mean it that way. In Dylan's case, I think it's fully deserved. This song in particular defined the path of Dylan's work and critical reaction to it up to the present. It's a morbid, mysterious and bitter song, and though I wasn't captivated when it came out, my opinion has changed. It's a good one. It's also noteworthy for appearing in a Victoria's Secret commercial. It's pretty hot, though I don't buy an underwear-clad angel in a cowboy hat. Also check the "soy bomb" moment that this song encountered when Dylan performed it at the 40th Grammy Awards show.

I’m walking through streets that are dead
Walking, walking with you in my head
My feet are so tired, my brain is so wired
And the clouds are weeping

Did I hear someone tell a lie?
Did I hear someone’s distant cry?
I spoke like a child; you destroyed me with a smile
While I was sleeping

I’m sick of love but I’m in the thick of it
This kind of love I’m so sick of it

I see, I see lovers in the meadow
I see, I see silhouettes in the window
I watch them ’til they’re gone and they leave me hanging on
To a shadow

I’m sick of love; I hear the clock tick
This kind of love; I’m love sick

Sometimes the silence can be like the thunder
Sometimes I feel like I’m being plowed under
Could you ever be true? I think of you
And I wonder

I’m sick of love; I wish I’d never met you
I’m sick of love; I’m trying to forget you

Just don’t know what to do
I’d give anything to be with you

The Grammy performance, with Soy Bomb omitted:

Highlands

All done with the world,
Paradise so far away,
Bob pretends he's there.

"Highlands" is the last song on the 1997 album "Time Out of Mind," and is Dylan's longest studio recording. It is an enigmatic 16 minutes and 32 seconds, and one of his most interesting streams of consciousness. I say that with reservation, because "Highlands" enmeshes the surreal aspects of the song into ordinary events. It's impossible to summarize, and probably would take a series of haiku to do it justice. At its most general -- and I had to sacrifice so much to make this one work -- the singer longs to be somewhere else because everything where he lives is conspiring against him. By this, I mean other people, life, the idea that the good times have passed. People complain about this and that, other people seem to be in far more enviable positions. His conscience would trouble him if he had one. He wanders, nowhere to go, and lets things happen to him. It would be better if he could be in the highlands where none of this would matter. He concludes that he's there in his mind and that's good enough for now. I'm not crazy about my work on this. I would happily put yours in its place.

Verse by verse:
- Heart's in the highlands. Gonna go there when he's ready to go.
- Lots of changes and wind in his dreams, but everything's the same on waking. Rat race and cage.
- Wishes he were younger. Doesn't want favors. Doesn't know a real blonde from a fake.
- He wants to listen to loud Neil Young, but "Someone's always yelling turn it down." What does life mean?
- Insanity rising. He's not on a roll. He'd be mad if he had a conscience, but if he did have one, he'd pawn it.
INTERLUDE STORY: Bob and the Waitress -- A tale of Boston
- Bob goes to Boston, sits in an empty restaurant.
- It might be a holiday. The waitress is pretty. She asks him what he wants. Boiled eggs.
- They don't have any. She asks him to draw her picture. He says, "I would if I could, but I don't do sketches from memory."
- She says she's right here. He doesn't have his book. She gives him a napkin. He says he doesn't have his pencil.
- She gives him one. He relents and draws her picture. She says it doesn't look like her.
- He says it does. She says it doesn't and he must be joking. "I wish I was!" he says. She says he probably doesn't read women authors. 
- He says it doesn't matter, but she's wrong. He's read Erica Jong. She goes away for a minute and he leaves.
BACK TO THE ORIGINAL STORY:
- Bob's lost in life. He feels further away than ever before.
- Young people looking fine are having fun in the park, drinking and dancing. He wishes he were one.
- He avoids a mangy dog, talks to himself, thinks about buying a full-length leather coat. Someone asks him if he's registered to vote.
- The sun shines on him, but it's not the same sun. Party's over. Nothing to say. Everything looks far away with his new eyes.

Dirt Road Blues

Bob's walking the road,
Hoping his baby comes back.
He'll hope forever.

In the second song from the 1997 album, "Time Out of Mind," Bob and his band play a grungy blues theme that hits the usual Dylan themes:

- Baby's gone, she won't come back.
- Bob goes wandering, hoping for a ride, just like Robert Johnson.
- He'll keep walking until his eyes bleed and he's been freed.
- He's looking for the sunny side of love, but getting rain and hail.
- He'll have to put up a barrier between himself and everyone else.

Cold Irons Bound

Wrong about my friends,

Wrong about you, wasted life.

And I'm still in love.

A recurring theme in Bob Dylan's songs, particularly from 1997 onward, is this combination:

1. I made lots of mistakes in life, particularly with leaving the right woman and staying with the wrong one.

2. The future is bleak and my bones are old and I wish things had turned out better.

3. I really blew it with you, but I love and miss you anyway, and there's nothing to be done about it.

"Cold Irons Bound" from "Time Out of Mind," released in 1997, is one such song. Have a look:

1. Voices/no one around. He's used up, fields brown. She passed by while he was on the way to church on Sunday. His love has taken such a long time to die.

2. Waist deep in mist/like I don't exist.

3. Sad to see beauty decay, sadder to see heart torn away.

4. Looking at you: out of control, like the universe has swallowed me whole.

5. Too many people to recall. Thought some were friends. Wrong!

6. Your love hasn't proved true.

7. "Some things last longer than you think they will / There are some kind of things you can never kill"

8. I'm thinking about you only. You're not.

9. I tried to love and protect you. I'll remember our shared joys.

10. You don't know what you do to me.

Here is a rip-roaring version of the song, way more exciting than the version on the album. And Dylan has that look on his face. the one that's halfway to bitter, yet still looks like the cat in the cream.

Here's another great live version. Dylan's in a good mood again, even shuffling somewhere between the twist and the moonwalk as he plays.

Cocaine Blues

Cocaine's bad for you,

causes trouble, makes you sick.

Try a little more.

There must be a bottomless barrel of songs about cocaine use in the pop and blues worlds. "Cocaine Blues," which Bob Dylan performed in 1961 and 1962, and again in 1997 on the Aug. 24th show at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia (a show that I attended, so I remember this song well), is a song with endless variations too. There are more recordings out there of Dylan doing this song in concert in the late 1990's, but the 1997 recording is available commercially on volume 8 of the Bootleg Series.

The Reverend Gary Davis popularized the song, and according to the Wikipedia entry, said he learned it in 1905 from a traveling carnival musician named Porter Irving. It spread through the folk scene where plenty of musicians including Dylan learned it. Possibly the biggest-selling cover of the song would be Jackson Browne's, which he recorded for the 1977 live album "Running on Empty."

The lyrics are straightforward about the drug being a big kick and a hell of a monkey to shake off your back. There are three sets of lyrics that Dylan sang for the song. I'll paste the 1997 lyrics here because they're short and get to the point:

Everytime my baby and me go up town
police come and they knock me down
Cocaine all around my brain

Hey baby, better come here quick.
This old cocaine is making me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Yonder comes by baby, she's dressed in red
She's got a shot-gun, says she's gonna kill me dead.
Cocaine all around my brain

Early one morning, half past four
cocaine came knockin' on my door.
Cocaine all around my brain

Cocaine's for horses and it's not for men
Doctor said it kill you, but he don't say when.
Cocaine all around my brain.

Can't Wait

I have looked for you

For years. I want you so bad.

Better find you soon.

"I’m doomed to love you, I’ve been rolling through stormy weather. I’m thinking of you and all the places we could roam together."

More gut-bucket swamp-rock from the 1997 album "Time Out of Mind," produced by Daniel Lanois with that humid sound of his. Dylan in "Can't Wait" sings about how he can't wait for a former lover to change her mind. He wants her back, he can't live without her, he can't understand why this is and he can't wait because without her, he'll die. That all being said, he doesn't know what he would do if he saw her. He probably wouldn't be able to control himself. He concludes that he's the one as he goes "strolling through the lonely graveyard of my mind." When they parted, he left his life with her many years before. It's definitely not a situation you want to be in unless you make your living writing songs like this.

Here is a stunning performance of the song from a performance in Portsmouth, England, 2000.

Cold Irons Bound

Bob won't stick around.
He's 20 miles out of town
En route to some place.

Can't Wait

You left long ago.
It took me years to find you.
What if I die now?