2020: Rough & Rowdy Ways - Bob Dylan

Looking back at 30 years of music | Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, The Strokes, Randy Newman, Khruangbin, Leon Bridges, The Lemon Twigs, Zella Day, Fiona Apple

Oct 18, 2024

I think one of the best things about Bob Dylan’s music is that it’s not always tied to one particular time. His career and story are so long and so strong that they are tied to whole decades; his art and catalogue has got plenty of room to breathe and spread out and offer up multiple meanings and readings.

To those who were there for certain events, the songs will be forever linked with them but Dylan has re-worked his songs and re-purposed their parts so often that they will mean so many different things to so many different people. New audiences keep finding them, outside of their original context and applying them to their own times. For some, he’ll always be tied to the March on Washington and to Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. For others, he’ll always be tied to the Newport Folk Festival. To the travelling circus of the Rolling Thunder Revue. For some, his album Love and Theft will always be tied to 9/11 - for being released on that fateful date and containing such prophetic lyrics (“skies full of fire, pain pouring down”) - but for others, all those albums and all the rest will mean something else entirely.

For a lot of us, Rough and Rowdy Ways will always be tied to the pandemic. The epic, dreamlike Murder Most Foul appeared early one morning or late one night while we were all still adjusting to life in Lockdown, and was soon followed by the two singles and then the rest of the album. For a short while we only had it in digital formats or on CD. When the vinyl release arrived, we had just enough time to sneak out of our houses and into our nearest record shops to buy a copy before the world locked down again. We had a new format to listen to these songs on and another lockdown, with all the extra time it brought with it, in which to listen to them and pore over the words; absorb the feel and sound and mood and soul of the album. But still, never the prospect of hearing Dylan deliver these lines in person.

But, just like all his work, these songs contain multitudes and so do our experiences with them. My first experience with these songs was just like everyone elses; listening alone, locked up and locked down, and not sure if i’d ever get to see them on stage, but I’ve now seen them live in concert more than almost any other songs. I’ve seen Dylan do these songs in theatres and arenas; from up close and from far away. I’ve seen him play them at home in London; a little further away in Oxford, Amsterdam or Carcassonne and in real far flung locations like Tokyo, Memphis and New York. Most recently I saw him do them in Prague, and am waiting for him to work his way back to London to see them again, this time at the Royal Albert Hall.

Having heard so many radical, inventive, definitive and just plain different displays of these songs, it’s made it hard to go back to the album versions, at times. Having heard so many magnificent renditions of these songs - sometimes in arrangements so far from the originals - it can be disorienting to go back to the studio versions, which can feel stifled, withdrawn or clipped in comparison (much like our lives felt when we first heard the songs). Having seen so many Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour shows, listening to the Rough and Rowdy Ways album can feel like the songs are playing in the wrong order, with the wrong words or instruments and in the wrong arrangements.

But, there is nothing wrong with this album at all. It might even be his best ever; his most complete, most astonishing and beguiling, most impressive and mature. It might be his album with the deepest depths to plunder, threads to unravel and worlds to explore. His most all-conquering and ever-lasting. Dylan seems particularly proud of it, he’s never put an album on display quite like this before.

You know what I mean? You know exactly what I mean.

The rigidity of the setlists through the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour has made it tricky to write about at times. Added to the consistent setlists is Dylan’s consistently brilliant performance and delivery at these shows, both of which can make remembering which moment came from which show or picking a highlight for any given song a very difficult task. But, while on paper the songs may look the same, those of us who have followed this tour around - and indeed, anyone who has ever seen Dylan live - knows that he is constantly tweaking and tinkering with every song. Always trying a new phrase or phrasing; a new piano motif or a whole new arrangement entirely. Sometimes they’re subtle, sometimes they’re severe. Sometimes they evolve over a week and sometimes they arrive abruptly and fully formed. He is showing off his full arsenal of tools and tricks of the trade on this tour.

Going to see the Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour and watching Dylan de-construct and re-construct his work in this way is like sitting in the studio and watching a master painter paint their masterpiece, over and over again. Here are some of my highlights from the tour so far.

I Contain Multitudes (Newark, NJ 2023)

At some point, there was a subtle shift in the chord progression of this song. It now opens up with a real satisfying modulating figure which recalls Mohammed’s Radio. More mid-tempo than the album version, on this night in Newark Dylan was possessed at the piano. He played a shimmering, almost flamenco-feeling pattern underneath his vocal and throughout the instrumental sections at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

False Prophet (Carcassonne, France 2023, Memphis, TN 2024)

This is one which has had a few different arrangements over the years, but Dylan and his excellent band really locked into one that worked on the summer tour last year and have stuck with it ever since. The song really swings in the verses and really rocks in between them. The band builds up a head of steam while Dylan is singing and then unleashes all that energy into a raucous breakdown between his lyrics.

The show in Carcassonne was outside in the middle of summer - the venue itself is set inside the walls of castle - and we were sat a few rows from the front. In the last light of the evening we could see every line on Dylan’s face, every little nod or indication he gave to his band. But when the group shattered into the first breakdown during False Prophet I had no idea what had just happened. It felt like the song split in half, the night was rent in two. I’d never heard anything like it. It was like a needle skipping into a new song without warning. Before the shattered fragments of the song they had started could settle, they were all off in a new direction, miraculously staying in step with each other while Dylan pounded his piano. And then they fell just as quickly back into their original groove and carried on the song as if nothing had happened.

To me, this is always a highlight of any show (they’ve dropped the section from the song now on the latest leg) but the only version that came close to that gear-shift in Carcassonne came in Memphis, in the spring of this year. At that moment when they shattered into the breakdown, Dylan took off on the most demented and demonic piano part I’ve ever heard. Forget Mary Lou and Miss Pearl, he is our fleet-fingered guide to the underworld.

My Own Version of You (Orlando, FL 2024)

Not my favourite song in concert, it feels like they never really settled on a formula for this one that really put the song over. It was most fun to see it in Florida, though, as on the first night it was a slow-burn bluesy number, with a lot of space and time between the beat and Dylan’s delivery, whereas on the very next night it was totally transformed into an upbeat, bouncing rocker.

I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself To You (Prague, Czech Republic 2024)

One of Dylan’s most beautiful songs, and one that always summons his most beautiful delivery. The way he drags out the penultimate line of each verse in concert is stunning. I’ve heard people all around me at these shows alternately gasping or being moved to tears during this one over the years. Recently, on the second night in Prague, he held the notes out for even longer than usual. If you thought he’d already wrung every ounce of emotion out of this one already, then just take a listen to this version.

Black Rider (London, England 2022, Tokyo, Japan 2023)

This one has seen a few different arrangements, and my favourite might be the midnight-waltz version that started in Japan in 2023 and caught on in a flash - turning this into a graveyard smash - but the versions from London stand out in my mind for a few reasons. The first is Charley Drayton’s inventive drum-work. This is a dark, eerie song, with a twisted mood and feel. Drayton understood that, and duly experiemented with his kit; at one point dragging a chain across his snare or toying with his cymbals, seeming more like a foley artist working on a horror film score than a drummer in a rock band.

The other standouts in London were Dylan’s vocals, and piano. Drenched in echo, his voice was duly haunting on this one, with subtle inflections teasing the words out. And he’s kept the echo effect up through the rest of the tour, but whenever I hear this one now, I am hearing the echo of Dylan’s great delivery at the London Palladium. And his piano? He found a bass figure early in the run of shows and kept toying around with it, exploring it over the next nights. There's no piano on the album, so hearing his playing all over these songs in concert adds whole new dimensions to the tracks.

Goodbye Jimmy Reed (Philadelphia, PA 2023)

For a while they played this one as a low-key, stripped back number which is way wrong for a song like this. All the best versions have been loud, fast and loose. A particularly rocking one came at the Fillmore in Philadelphia last year. Dylan was having fun toying with his phrasing, his piano playing and, most of all, his audience. He started the song sat behind his piano, out of sight to most of the crowd, but burst to his feet for the instrumental breaks. Each time he popped up he was met with a huge roar from the audience, which cracked him up, and led to a more exaggerated spring to his feet and hammering at his piano as the song went on. Dylan was in a great mood all night, and in even better voice.

Mother of Muses (London, England 2022, Memphis, TN 2024)

Maybe the most consistent song from the whole album, both in terms of its arrangement and delivery, there’s not really a version of this one that you can go wrong with. The London Palladium felt like an appropriately stately place to hear this paean delivered, and the London audience was duly appreciative of Dylan’s moving performance, but to hear it sung in Memphis - with its references to Elvis and Martin Luther King and to have just visited Sun Records, Graceland, the Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum - was a profound and spiritual experience.

Crossing the Rubicon (Memphis, TN 2024)

With most of the other songs, the arrangements changed over time but this is one from the album that Dylan tinkered with the lyrics the most. The last song from the album to be added into the setlist, this one debuted with a risque set of new lyrics that didn’t last for long. The power inside this song laid latent for a while, but it finally erupted into a real force last year and carried into early 2024. The swells in between songs where Bob’s piano would lock in with Donnie Herron’s steel guitar and the drums was like being blasted with canon fire from close range. That overwhelming force from the song has receded again on the latest leg, but I can’t wait until it comes roaring back again.

Key West (Philosopher Pirate) (New York, NY 2021)

I could have picked any number of versions of this one - it’s probably had the most new arrangements and changes out of any Rough and Rowdy Ways songs - but the ones from first shows on the tour that I saw, at New York’s Beacon Theatre in 2021, will always be special. With Donnie Herron on accordion, this long, strange, meandering story unfolded over ten glorious, hazy, dreamlike minutes.

Murder Most Foul (Lockdown, 2020)

Dylan’s magnum opus. If it’s not his greatest song - and it probably is stretching most people’s definition of what a song is to the limits; it’s more like an epic poem or an ancient tapestry - then it is at least his greatest work. His greatest cultural contribution, or comment on the world. This is Dylan’s most mesmerising, his most brilliant outpouring of genius and, I think, the most important piece of American art from the last fifty years, or maybe more.

Elsewhere in the year…

For myself and a lot of people I know, Rough and Rowdy Ways was our defining lockdown album. For a lot of other people it was Taylor Swift’s folklore.

For others still, it was Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher, which was released on the same day as Rough and Rowdy Ways. I love this album, too. There is a wonderful balance of darkness and light on it. A low light, for sure, but a light nonetheless. It’s an atmospheric album full of understated and restrained singing and hushed instrumentals, but the moment when all that explodes into the crescendo of I Know The End is one of my favourite moments from any album in our new, abnormal world.

Speaking of The New Abnormal, The Strokes captured the zeitgeist with the title of their new record. Bad Decisions saw them back to their post-Room on Fire best and picked up on the promise of their 2018 Future Present Past EP.

Randy Newman delivered a standalone lockdown song, Stay Away. Alongside the comical warnings to stay away from him and not to touch your face, and the dreams of what was to come “when this mess is over”, Newman delivered a message which is true in any time:

Be kind to one another
Tell her you love her every day
If you're angry about something, let it go

Leon Bridges and Khruangbin teamed up for a swirl of psychedelic soul, perfect for stepping outside of time in lockdown. Also stuck outside of time, The Lemon Twigs were back with another slice of 70’s style art-glam-rock. These guys are so inventive, so talented and, probably more than anything else, so fun.

Zella Day was also drifting in and out of a sort of 70’s sensibility on her dreamy Where Does The Devil Hide EP. Opening with the flower-child People Are Strangers, Day’s voice is carried along on a current of strings, guitars, drums, harp and chimes, produced by Black Key Dan Auerbach. She might be wondering where the devil is hiding in the EP title, but she won’t find him up here in the heavens among music like this. My Game has got a kind of ABBA drive to it, whilst Purple Haze might be a little bit more Fleetwood Mac to some. Whatever she is influenced by, she should be a lot better known than she is with songs like these.

Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters was recently named by Pitchfork as the best album of the 2020s so far. It’s one of the most inventive and daring albums to have come out in not only that time period, but from any time period. It’s also one of the strongest artistic statements anyone has made, or assertions of themselves on record. If Khruangbin or Zella Day were making music with a dreamlike quality, then a lot of Fetch the Bolt Cutters goes the other way and deals in the realms of nightmares. That’s no bad thing. The album may be overwhelming, it may be intimidating and frightening but it is also towering, singular powerful and affecting.

And she still found the time whilst making it to swing by the studio and lend her piano playing to Dylan’s Murder Most Foul.