Modern Times (2006)

All songs on this long, thoughtful, and satisfying Bob Dylan album are credited as written by Bob Dylan even though the titles include “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and “The Levee’s Gonna Break,” which, you know—they’ve been done. But in some alchemical process I see starting with his early-‘90s cover albums, Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, continuing (and peaking) with “Love and Theft”, and arguably finishing up here (or maybe Together Through Life, Tempest, or Rough and Rowdy Ways, none of which I know as well because they haven’t impressed me enough to go beyond a few casual listens), it feels less like some kind of plagiarism and much more like an artist who has entirely absorbed his sources and is capable of spitting them back out in new forms—these songs feel old and new all at once. Wikipedia scholars have been hard at work identifying those sources and pulling them out of the wonderful stew of Modern Times. Muddy Waters of course for “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” Bing Crosby for “When the Deal Goes Down,” Sleepy John Estes, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Muddy Waters again for “Someday Baby” (not to mention his own “Maggie’s Farm”), and ... Ovid?! ... for specific lines of the lyrics. I wanted to say Dylan wrote his own words for the various blues / country standards, which justifies his authorship, but with Ovid now in the picture all bets are off, public domain or no. Amazingly, none of this gets in the way in terms of the pleasures of these 10 long songs. I’m not exactly sure how Dylan gets away with his thievery but he does and that’s a fact. Indeed, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” and “The Levee’s Gonna Break” are high points of a very good set. Much is result of a band nearly as well-versed in the standards and with whom he had been playing on tour for the year previous. A lot of what’s great here is this sympathetic, well-rehearsed band that is so clearly in synch with him. But Dylan remains the sun around which these planets whirl. Rock critic dean Robert Christgau gave the album a rare A+, which he also applied to “Love and Theft”. I’m still more a partisan for that one, along with Time Out of Mind, operating in another sphere entirely. But Modern Times is like your favorite easy chair. You can sit in its lap every day, often hearing new things and, even when you don’t, it’s practically pure comfort. Put it on and pull up a seat.