As the Brexit fiasco continues to rumble on, with songs bearing such titles as ‘Political World,’ ‘Everything Is Broken,’ and ‘Disease Of Conceit‘ it is perhaps not surprising his 1989 album ‘OH MERCY,’ is the Bob Dylan LP currently uppermost in my thoughts.
Indeed, the title itself could sum up the reaction of most people on hearing of the latest Brexit botch-up.
But if by implication that sounds like ‘Oh Mercy‘ is an unremarkable Dylan record rarely given a listen at SAMTIMONIOUS.com, then wrong on both counts. Quite simply it is outstanding, the most consistent and utterly compelling collection of new songs he had put together since ‘Desire‘ (1976) – so by virtue one of the most important albums of the 1980s.
From this distance it does not feel a misjudgement, on any level, to view the 80s as the least gratifying decade of his illustrious career (illustrious sounds so inadequate when describing the accomplishments of Bob Dylan).
It began with him still gripped by the religious fervour that shaped such albums as ‘Slow Train Coming‘ (1979), ‘Saved‘ (1980) and ‘Shot of Love‘ (1981) that to these heathen ears were inclined to sound a touch preachy (although when ‘re-discovered‘ almost forty years later, a certain fascination developed – which is not a sentence I ever expected to write).
By way of irony ‘Oh Mercy‘ contains two songs, ‘Where Teardrops Fall‘ and ‘Ring Them Bells‘ that seep with Biblical overtones, yet convey their message more effectively than anything on his ‘Christian’ album trilogy.
With ‘Oh Mercy‘ Dylan arrived at his seventh studio album of the decade – ‘Saved‘ and ‘Shot of Love,’ followed by ‘Infidels‘ (1983), ‘Empire Burlesque’ (1985), ‘Knocked Out Loaded‘ (1986) and ‘Down In The Groove‘ (1988), a sequence of recordings which at times even the converted (to Dylan that is), could hardly make head nor tail of.
‘Infidels‘ had its moments, certainly more than the two that followed, while the final one on the list only serves to emphasise his waning standards.
For those with the patience something interesting might be found – even if it meant sifting through songs that could range from intriguing to insipid (often from track to track on the same LP). But altogether this is an unfocused collection of albums offering little to enjoy or enthuse over.
But at the point of waving good riddance to a largely dark decade, Dylan comes roaring back with ten affecting songs. Not only signalling a welcome return to near top form, they also re-establish his eminence as the most important lyric writer in the history of rock music – the flair and finesse so absent in his recent work back with aplomb.
When showering him with plaudits for ‘Oh Mercy‘ it is important also to direct a few the way of producer Daniel Lanois, who gives Dylan a clear, vibrant canvas on which to work – the crisp production giving the album atmospheric coherence.
It helps of course that Dylan has come up with material that is both direct and authentic. The laboured meanderings of the past couple of years are forgotten even before ‘Oh Mercy‘ opener ‘Political World‘ has whipped through to its conclusion – the sharp mix of dobro and guitars giving the song an edgy potency, perfect for the moral concerns being conveyed by the writer.
With each verse Dylan cranks up the vocal intensity as the melody continues to churn behind him. The same treatment is applied just as effectively to ‘Everything Is Broken‘ and ‘What Was It You Wanted,’ the latter containing a lyric that is sharp, ambiguous and darkly funny – Dylan sounding mystified each time he makes the point, but revelling in every minute.
The dobro, played throughout by Lanois, is evident again on ‘The Man In The Long Black Coat,’ the centrepiece song of ‘Oh Mercy‘. An elegiac tale woven through stripped back instrumentation, it reads like an intriguing late-night play full of sinister plot deviations – the enigmatic figure at the heart of the story (‘he had a face like a mask‘) prompting fear or fascination in those he encounters. Dylan narrates with a breathy vocal to accentuate overtones of religion and black magic, short sentences with selective detail only adding to the mystique.
On matters of the heart his creative juices appear to have been stirred by the failings of a relationship – the derailment (no ‘Blood on the Tracks‘ pun intended) chronicled in ‘Most Of The Time,‘ ‘What Good Am I?’ and finally ‘Shooting Star.’
On the first couple of listens ‘Most of the Time‘ seemed reminiscent of ‘Congratulations,’ one of his contributions to the first Traveling Wilburys album of two years before, but it soon became apparent this is a song of far greater depth and gravity.
From feeling sorry for himself, Dylan switches to self-loathing on ‘What Good Am I?’ which despite the question mark sounds more like a statement – his culpability in the emotional impasse emphasised by lines such as:
‘If I shut myself off when you start to cry?’
The closing track ‘Shooting Star‘ finds Dylan being achingly clear. On top of a gently rolling melody he conjures three serene verses as the sight of a shooting star brings thoughts of a lover lost to him, along with recounting the shortcomings (his own) that precipitated the split.
But this being Dylan naturally there is a twist – the bridge between verses two and three evokes Hell, the Last Temptation and The Sermon on The Mount. So is he describing a fractured love affair or, bearing in mind where Dylan began the decade, expressing a crisis of faith? Is the power of love being called into question or his belief in a higher power?
Sometimes it would be interesting to know, but to his converts the ambiguity is essential to our DNA (Dylan Needs Analysis). Besides, the fascination lost in trying to work out such things would be immeasurable. Hence, so many of us remain in thrall to Bob Dylan.
On release ‘Oh Mercy‘ received widespread critical acclaim (it also revived his commercial fortunes peaking at number six on the UK album charts), Dylan reacting to having the critics back onside with typical ambivalence.
On ‘Under the Red Sky‘ (1990) too many songs lack drama, this confused set proving his last collection of original songs for seven years. After two albums of folk covers and a patchy ‘Unplugged‘ effort, by the mid-90s his stock had fallen again and while not languishing at 80s levels, there was grudging acceptance ‘Oh Mercy‘ would reign as the last great Dylan album.
Yet as he had done countless times, Dylan would turn theory on its head, emerging in 1997 with the monumental ‘Time Out of Mind.’ It proved once again nobody writes like him and those who write off Bob Dylan do so at their peril.
If only those in charge of Brexit had a millimetre of his vision.
BOB DYLAN – ‘OH MERCY‘ (Released 18 September 1989):
Political World/Where Teardrops Fall/Everything Is Broken/Ring Them Bells/Man in the Long Black Coat/Most of the Time/What Good Am I?/Disease of Conceit/What Was It You Wanted/Shooting Star;
This article was first published on 4/4/2019.
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and an Amazon Kindle book.