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In 1970, New Morning was released, an album in many ways anti-Dylan, just as Self Portrait had been only four months earlier, a sensational failure from an artist who until then had almost never missed a beat.
This album, as I was saying, is anti-Dylan because it is neither folk, nor rock, nor blues, except in a few flashes: it was conceived as the soundtrack to Archibald MacLeish's theater comedy titled The devil and Daniel Webster. For this play, Dylan wrote New Morning, Time Passes Slowly, and Father of Night which represent the embryo of the album.
Time passes slowly is a good pop song, musically led by the piano with typically blues chords: the piano is the main instrument of this album, another uncommon feature for Dylan who plays it with great flair in all tracks.
"Time passes slowly and we try to stay right," almost a warning to the audience, after the many criticisms that had rained down on him from the previous Self Portrait:
Time passes slowly
up here in the daylight
We stare straight ahead
and try so hard to stay right
New Morning is one of the few rock episodes of the album, it foreshadows in some ways some rock-gospel atmospheres of the conversion period, with a beautiful guitar solo and the tight rhythm of the drums: the lyrics are joyful, romantic, speaking of the joy of being still alive with the loved one next to you:
So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you
New morning
Father of Night, a piano piece, tribal, at times dark, which led to a heavy quarrel between Dylan and MacLeish, according to whom the "father of the night" should have been the Devil. The author of the piece had instead identified God as the subject, also anticipating the Christian conversion period that would come about ten years later:
Father of day, Father of night, Father of black, Father of white
If Dogs Runs Free, is a Jazz piece, a beautiful and refined Jazz from another time, with two extraordinary guests, Al Kooper at the piano and Maeretha Stewart on backing vocals. Again, the theme is love, the tone is joyful, like the music that accompanies it:
If dogs run free, then what must be, Must be, and that is all
Winterlude is another delightful piano sketch, a bar piece, beautiful in its simplicity. Redone (one might say copied/plagiarized?) musically by Principe De Gregori who made a tremendous success of it with the title Buonanotte Fiorellino, while Dylan's much superior original remains a minor piece in his discography to this day.
Three Angels and The man in me are among Dylan's most beautiful, in my opinion, ballads: the first is a poignant and brief organ piece, the second a piano ballad with an almost reggae rhythm: a slowed-down reggae that ends up becoming a soul/rhythm and blues piece.
If not for you was the most successful song, and single, perhaps the weakest piece on the album, revisited a few years later by George Harrison.
This album, often criticized, is in reality a small, in my opinion, "pop" gem of Dylan, who returns to sing with his voice, sometimes biting and tender in alternating moments, but never out of his depth as he had been on the previous album, and returns to play songs that manage to stand the test of time.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 If Not for You (02:44)
If not for you,
Babe, I couldn't find the door,
Couldn't even see the floor,
I'd be sad and blue,
If not for you.
If not for you,
Babe, I'd lay awake all night,
Wait for the mornin' light
To shine in through,
But it would not be new,
If not for you.
If not for you
My sky would fall,
Rain would gather too.
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,
I'd be lost if not for you,
And you know it's true.
If not for you
My sky would fall,
Rain would gather too.
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,
Oh! What would I do
If not for you.
If not for you,
Winter would have no spring,
Couldn't hear the robin sing,
I just wouldn't have a clue,
Anyway it wouldn't ring true,
If not for you.
05 Winterlude (02:26)
Winterlude, Winterlude, oh darlin',
Winterlude by the road tonight.
Tonight there will be no quarrelin',
Ev'rything is gonna be all right.
Oh, I see by the angel beside me
That love has a reason to shine.
You're the one I adore, come over here and give me more,
Then Winterlude, this dude thinks you're fine.
Winterlude, Winterlude, my little apple,
Winterlude by the corn in the field,
Winterlude, let's go down to the chapel,
Then come back and cook up a meal.
Well, come out when the skating rink glistens
By the sun, near the old crossroads sign.
The snow is so cold, but our love can be bold,
Winterlude, this dude thinks your'e fine.
Winterlude, Winterlude, my little daisy,
Winterlude by the telephone wire,
Winterlude, it's makin' me lazy,
Come on, sit by the logs in the fire.
The moonlight reflects from the window
Where the snowflakes, they cover the sand.
Come out tonight, ev'rything will be tight,
Winterlude, this dude thinks you're grand.
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By ilsuonatorejones
"New Morning" is only a technical rehearsal for a resurrection.
Dylanesque: A transition album, pure and not simple.
