Bob Dylan: Street-Legal - 1978
"I brought my steel guitar and I had it in rehearsal and every time I'd go to start unpacking it, Bob would go, 'We don't need that.' All of a sudden the instrument that I played all over the place in the previous band, he didn't want to see it, let alone hear it" - David Mansfield
Released in 1978, following from Blood On The Tracks and Desire. Hmmm. Tough ask. In many ways, though, this is my favourite Dylan album. As a young punk in 1978 I loved it. I loved the saxophone-based sound, played by Spector (and Mink De Ville) veteran Steve Douglas. I loved the romance of many of the songs and also the urgency in Dylan's delivery.
Many find the album too dominated by the saxophone, too sort of poppy in its approach and that it utilises too many gospelly female backing vocalists. They criticise another of my favourites, the same year’s Live At Budokan for the same reasons. Personally, these are some of the reasons I like it. Dylan, heavily in debt due to his messy divorce from Sara, however, was at his most irascible during the hurried recording of the album. You would never have known, though, as it comes over as breezy, accessible and vibrant, surprisingly.
Tell me where it is you're heading.....
Changing Of The Guards is a stormer of an opener - “on midsummer’s eve, near the tower”- then that thrilling saxophone riff. I love this song, its glorious imagery and its celebratory tone. There is a notorious mistake left in the recording at one point when Dylan fails to come in at the right place but it doesn't affect the song's infectious ambience much.
New Pony is a repetitive, slightly pedestrian but still appealing, familiar Dylan blues and it now sounds great. Check out that guitar sound. No Time To Think is an eight minute, piano driven masterpiece. Again it is packed with imagery and enhanced, in my opinion, by the female backing vocalists (as I said, I know that there are many do not share that opinion).
Baby Please Stop Crying was a surprise hit in the summer of 1978. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, as it had a laid-back radio-friendly sound. I remember at the time that it sounded odd hearing Dylan played on daytime pop radio.
The old “side two” began with the beautiful saxophone and yearning lyrics of Is Your Love In Vain? (a track dismissed by many as too poppy and shallow, but not by me) before we progress to another of the album’s cornerstones - Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power) - with its much-quoted line of “tell me where is it you're heading, Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?”. Great percussion backing on this and Dylan’s mysterious, questioning vocal. It is the track that most Dylanologists claim saved the album. I can accept that to an extent but there are definitely several other fine tracks on there.
True Love Tends To Forget is another lovely, romantic, saxophone-dominated goodie, again, many dislike it but I, perversely I guess, love it.
We Better Talk This Over is a melodious, laid back piece of soulful easy rock and the closer, the magnificent Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat), with its insistent Paul Simon-esque rhythms and New York references. I once walked along Elizabeth Street one evening just because Dylan mentions it in this song. Unfortunately, it proved to be just an unremarkable, busy city street. In the song, though, there is a wonderful atmosphere and it is full of evocative images. This is one of my favourites on what is a favourite album of all time.
In contrast to 99.9% of Dylan aficionados I feel there is not a duff track on the album. Regarding popular analysis, many will say that there are deep religious references buried in the lyrics of songs like Señor and possibly Changing Of The Guard and No Time To Think that would provide a pointer to Dylan’s new direction - a shock salvation that would pre-occupy him for the next four years. There was a slow train coming.
Interestingly, between Desire and the sessions for this album, a track was recorded called Seven Days, that was probably far more likely the first sign of Dylan's increasing spirituality. It is a lively, bassy groove in the Desire style. I can understand why it didn't make this album, though, it wouldn't quite have fitted in.
