Album Review: Rough and Rowdy Ways by Bob Dylan

Release Date: June 19 2020

This is Bob Dylan’s 39th studio album. At age 79 his voice is still pretty good, however I’d say it doesn’t sound a lot like the classic Dylan vocals. It instead sounds like someone doing an alright impression of him. But it’s still good, he reminds a bit of Leonard Cohen vocally on this album. His songwriting, even in the late stages of his career, is incredible. It’s on par or at least very close to any of his albums from the 60’s. On the song “I Contain Multitudes”, he uses name dropping to describe himself. His old and tired voice works really well with his use of imagery. The Symbolism in each song is so dense and complex, it’s a challenge to really get to the real meaning. I think my favourite song was “My Own Version of You”. My conclusion is that the “You” is Dylan himself. He is trying to create the perfect version of himself by using aspects and traits that he respects in other people. That may be completely wrong, but it’s what I heard. The final song is of course, “A Murder Most Foul”. It’s the 17 minute epic about the assassination of JFK. Again full of name drops, I did think it dragged on a tiny bit. The writing though, was pretty great. In conclusion, this was a bit of a surprising album. I didn’t really think I’d enjoy it as much as I did. It was a slower version of most of Dylan’s previous releases, but that added a bit of a interesting, spooky vibe. It was good, I hope it’s not his last.

Favourite Songs: I Contain Multitudes, My Own Version of You, I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You, Mother of Muses

8/10

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