Life Is Hard

Artist: Bob Dylan

Album: Together Through Life

Year: 2009

Grade: 4 pretzels

With all this talk about the 1960s, it only seems appropriate to have a new album coming out by one of the most iconic voices of that decade. Bob Dylan joins fellow “legendary” songwriters Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young in releasing new material this year. However, unlike those latter two, Dylan has never really faded out of the public consciousness (at least not unwillingly). Dylan has somehow kept his work relevant through the decades. He even appears to be in the middle of a sort of Dylan-renaissance lately, which started with 1997’s masterful Time Out Of Mind album. Since then, Dylan sounds like he’s accepted himself for who he actually is. He’s long since left behind his protest singing and warped, surreal lyricism. He’s simply a gruff old man, now, singing and playing away.

Dylan’s voice is definitely the most attention-grabbing part of Together Through Life. His old nasal whine has rusted and disintegrated so far that all that’s left is a rough, raspy croak. The man is approaching his seventies and it shows. But, as might be expected, Dylan turns this weakness into a strength on the album. A world-weary romantic song like “Life Is Hard” is heartbreaking with that worn voice adding a whole range of emotions to a few very simply lyrics.

Simplicity seems to be the name of the game on this album. The Dylan of earlier decades would jam eighty-million ideas into a song and still be upset when he had to move on. Now, his songs usually consist of a solid, bluesy groove, with a minimum of flashy frills and details. His lyrics have also been simplified, moving away from the abstract word-associations from albums past, instead opting for elegant, well-crafted ballads, love songs and wallowing blues numbers. There’s no denying that this is a very different Dylan than most people are used to, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less of a musician or storyteller.

Together Through Life has an amusing Tex-Mex flavor running through it, best heard on “This Dream Of You”, which comes complete with a bit of ranchero accordion. This gives the album a bizarre, southwestern feel, as if Dylan is camped out on the Mexican border, strumming away at his guitar and singing the blues to every cactus who bothers to listen to him. In fact, many of these songs sound like they weren’t really meant for other people to hear. In many ways, songs like “It’s All Good” and “Life Is Hard” feel like tunes Dylan is singing to himself, trying to reassure himself that he’s ok as the years creep by. At the end of the day, this album actually sounds very lonely.

In listening to this album, you can’t compare it to Dylan’s work from the 60s. If you do, you’ll inevitably be disappointed. You have to understand that Bob Dylan is a different creature than he was so many years ago. He’s no longer the maverick poet-rocker, ripping the doors off the institution with a few choice words. He’s no longer the iconoclastic young man he once was. Bob Dylan is old. You simply can’t deny that. But, being Bob Dylan, he’s found a way to have his music age with him. Both have grown rougher with time, but that only feels appropriate. After all these decades, Dylan doesn’t have to pretend to be a grizzled old bluesman. That’s what he actually is.