Overskriften er lidt af en personlig tilsnigelse, for selv fik jeg først nøglen til Bobby Dylan’s uomtvistelige genialitet gennem Oh Mercy-pladen i 1989 – bedre sent end aldrig. 27. april opfølger Dylan sin udsøgte Modern Times med det nye album Together Through Life. Her et par interessante ord fra mesteren selv om den kommende plade, taget fra en samtale på www.bobdylan.com med Bill Flanagan:

Bill Flanagan: The new record’s very different from Modern Times which was a number one hit. It seems like every time you have a big hit, the next time out you change things around. Why don’t you try to milk it a little bit?

Bob Dylan: I think we milked it all we could on that last record and then some. We squeezed the cow dry. All the Modern Times songs were written and performed in the widest range possible so they had a little bit of everything. These new songs have more of a romantic edge.

BF: How so?

BD: These songs don’t need to cover the same ground. The songs on Modern Times songs brought my repertoire up to date, and the light was directed in a certain way. You have to have somebody in mind as an audience otherwise there’s no point.

BF: What do you mean by that?

BD: There didn’t seem to be any general consensus among my listeners. Some people preferred my first period songs. Some, the second. Some, the Christian period. Some, the post Colombian. Some, the Pre-Raphaelite. Some people prefer my songs from the nineties. I see that my audience now doesn’t particular care what period the songs are from. They feel style and substance in a more visceral way and let it go at that. Images don’t hang anybody up. Like if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed. Images are taken at face value and it kind of freed me up.

BF: In what way?

BD: Well for instance, if there are shadows and flowers and swampy ledges in a composition, that’s what they are in their essence. There’s no mystification. That’s one way I can explain it.

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