New Morning: Dylan's Back! | Discovering Bob Dylan, Ep. 14

[@nikosvault]

Wonderful warm album. And the beginning of six magical years (70-76). My favorite Dylan.

[@herrdwabash]

When I saw Bob Dylan in 2014, he either sang at the microphone without any instruments, or sang while playing the piano. As a pianist, I was completely blown away by how good he was at the piano! He was amazing! Bob Dylan is definitely a true musician.

[@matm4331]

Seems interesting to me that "The Man In Me" and "The Big Lebowski" compliment each other perfectly. For the Coen Brothers to have picked that one song and use it so well makes you wonder; was it the perfect song for the movie or the perfect movie for the song? Thanks for the video! I love New Morning...

[@greenpublishing]

I got into Dylan in the early 90s when I was still in High School. At that time I thought New Morning was nice, nothing special, but over the last decade this is the Dylan album I am most likely to reach for. A real grower.

[@djtforever1414]

Time Out Of Mind is now 27 years old - New Morning was released 27 years before that. The time between 1997 and now feels shorter than 1970 to 1997.

[@karlmehltretter2677]

This might be part of because of our general sense of time (80s still seem kind of "current" to me), and also Dylan did not release so many albums since 1997.

[@Vanessa.P]

Oh damn, I love "Winterlude" lol.

[@dylanseveymusic]

Same, sorry I didn’t defend it properly.

[@Vanessa.P]

@@dylanseveymusicI guess I will forgive you this time 😛

[@shane.b.]

LOVE that song

[@1rwjwith]

NEW MORNING is a masterpiece and a masterclass in songwriting craft. I LOVE this album, he plays a lot of piano on this record and I think he isa more interesting pianist than he is a guitarist. I bought this album at 16 in 1970…it was the first Dylan album I actually bought with my own money. I would have to go back to find the masterpieces Hwy 61 and Blonde on Blonde although I knew the hits on those. NEW MORNING I prefer to both John Wesley and Nashville….this is an A plus album.

[@jamesegan2742]

Hey Mr. Sevey: I love this album as much as you do! This was a great segment, perhaps the best yet from you guys! I love New Morning…it is under appreciated and a real sleeper, that has grown with me over the years. I even have the super hi-fi vinyl version, as I just love the sound and feel so much. A special shout-out to Joe for his insightful appreciation of Bob’s piano playing on this album…just fantastic, and reminiscent of Ballad of a Thin Man playing. Sign on the Window is, as I agree with your Dylan, among my very favourite Dylan songs ever (which is saying something), and I agree with Mr. Sevey that the undertone of ‘this must be what life is all about’ line and delivery…that whole yelling cry, that undertone of doubt or incredulity…is what makes it so very special. Just fantastic. And while New Morning is great, check out the version with horns on Another Self Portrait bootleg series…fabulous! For once Al Kooper’s arrangement works. Where Dylan listened to Al Kooper and added the schmaltz on Self Portrait, on New Morning, he trusted his strip down instincts on New Morning, and the album is much better for it. Song after song on New Morning is great, all the way through. Wonderful, earnest performance…Dylan is connected, he’s sincere, he’s playing with new forms, he’s straightforward in his lyrics yet profound. Where Self Portrait was an example of Dylan being (to put it charitably) disinterested, here he is engaged, comfortable yet determined to get his message across. 5 stars! Love, love it! And gentlemen, you both did great in this discussion….really enjoyed it, and love, love this series! Thx and cheers, JPE

[@shane.b.]

I agree with Dylan about this being my favorite vocal era

[@spencerdobkin9479]

It's definitely one of his best. I think his best era vocally was Desire/Street Legal through Infidels.

[@1000whispering]

Re-listened to this album the other day after many years. I really liked it. Especially now as I appreciate Dylan's extensive career as much as I used to appreciate his 60s stuff.

[@Yakaru1]

Same here. All the songs are of an extraordinarily high quality, but none of them are insanely great new-genre-defining culture-changing assaults on the senses like 'Subterranean' or 'Desolation Row' etc etc etc. It takes a bit of getting used to that he stopped doing that (for some reason!!!).

[@bacarandii]

I was 13 when "New Morning" came out. I knew nothing about "Self Portrait." I only knew Dylan from folk songs we sang in Miss Kvinsland's fourth grade class (in a portable). I thought "Blowin' in the Wind" was as old as time and that Woody Guthrie's "Roll On Columbia" (we made Ban roll-on deodorant commercial jokes) was, similarly, part of the Great Mythology of the Pacific Northwest. (Well, we were in Seattle, after all.) I will never forget hearing "If Dogs Run Free" -- because I'd never heard anything like it (on AM or FM radio!) and I LOVED it. Still do to this day. I thought it sounded like my fantasy of "beatnik" music (before I knew what Greenwich Village was, having seen only Bob Denver's Maynard G. Krebs on TV's "Dobie Gillis") -- and that was cool to me! (Also: It's funny.)

[@tonyajm8289]

One of my favourite all time albums. I was a latecomer to this album, but I had newly become a father when I heard this so it also resonates deeply with me. The 70's is my favourite Dylan period. Amazing.

[@lukeharrison2711]

Another excellent discussion. Love New Morning including Dogs Run Free and Winterlude !

[@mikakoskinen1684]

I have all of Dylan's albums and more. New Morning has many great songs, Went to see the gypsy, man in me. Dylan's singing voice on that album is different because he reportedly had the flu.

[@painless465]

I LOVE this album and especially the title track, his most underrated song. When that violin part comes after the bridge is sublime. His most joyous song

[@waynekvetkosky2572]

It's been a while since I listened to "New Morning" but I have recently listened to Another Self Portrait in which my favorite song was Sign on a Window which I had forgotten was on New Morning, my bad. Thanks for your review which allowed me to reconnect. I have to admit New Morning and Dylan in general was on my back burner until Blood on the Tracks resurrected my interest. I enjoyed Dylan in the Concert for Bangladesh

[@MartinLindnerDigital]

i think, what really started my lifelong dylan-journey as a teen back then in the mid-70ts was More Greatest Hits, and Dylan's voice on the new or newly recorded songs it included. i think, i bought New Morning after Blood on the Tracks, and I always loved it in a quiet way. I always listened to it as a whiole album. Dylan Sevey, as always, is very near to the way I hear this music. I agree that it sounds relaxed, but for me there is also a peculiar quiet melancholy in it, that I find even in New Morning and If Not For You, in Sign On the Window (yes, I hear the question in "This must be ..."), in Locusts ... in all of the songs, really. There is vulnerability in this album, and I don't think I sense this in any of the other Dylan albums. Also I agree with all the people here that said that the 70ts voice (plural for me) was their favorite Dylan voice. (And please use more of the time of the podcast to talk about the subtleties in the music, like Dylan S. does with heartfelt brilliance, and less about the dylanistic stuff about how important he was, or wasn't.)

[@stevemalek2970]

Sign on the Window pulled me into the world of Dylan

[@jasongaylor2232]

A bit underrated and one of my favorite Dylan albums. It's like drinking a good cup of joe on a foggy Autumn morning.

[@davidgagen9856]

I much underrated album...coupla great songs..a good listening experience...3.5 stars

[@michaelfendrich1864]

As I listened to this again I thought, "Oh, so this is what it's like to catch your breath." Great album, great reviews, another great segment. Thanks guys

[@Shah-of-the-Shinebox]

I have lots of admiration for New Morning. Its like a third installment of Americana following John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline. I love Day of Locust, The Man in Me (Big Lebowski) and the title track. The album overall has a autumn morning vibe.

[@terrybnad2959]

Back in 1976 I had borrowed a few Dylan albums from one of my Dylan-obsessed classmates, Nashville Skyline, JWH, Freewheelin, but it was New Morning that sealed the deal. I would describe it as my "Gateway" album, very accessible to my conservative young ears!

[@kastastan]

one of his albums i listen to the most, so cozy.

[@ShaneJamesBordas]

I absolutely love this album, always have since my initial flush of Dylanmania in the mid 1980s. I recently read that Mark Hollis was inspired by the vocal sound on the record so that made me go back to it a couple of weeks ago and now here you guys are talking about it... perfect timing! I understand why Joe would want to contextualise the album within the 1970s music scene but I don't think it was ever meant to be some great, grandiose statement. For me, Dylan was so far ahead of the pack that he felt a need to simply take stock of where his life was at that moment and was operating on a level of his own. He became a genre unto himself, if you will. New Morning does what it sets out to do, and it does it beautifully.

[@MikeVernonProd]

New Morning is such a genuine and heartfelt record. It truly does stand out in the Dylan catalogue as possibly one of his two most positive, upbeat albums (the other being Saved). It is always such a joy to listen to. The Man In Me and Sign On The Window are masterpieces that I would consider as top 25 Dylan compositions. I also really enjoy One More Weekend which is a blues song that just cooks in a way that I don’t think Dylan ever matched in the same way. I also agree with (co-host) Dylan that If Dogs Run Free and Winterlude are not bad tracks. I certainly didn’t like them much at first because they sound so out of place within the discography, but now I appreciate them for what they are: a confident artist relaxed and willing to experiment a little. It helps that the production is immaculate on those tracks. I really have no negatives to speak of with the album, perhaps it could have been sequenced a bit differently as some of the songs fade out and start rather abruptly. I think Three Angels would have been better closer than Father of Night. But these are minor quibbles. I have no hesitation in giving New Morning 5 stars.

[@davidgagen9856]

Pretty Saro is amazing from Self Portrait Bootleg

[@aronpolasek4506]

I enjoy the sound and feel of “New Morning”, but I don’t really connect with many of the songs on it. It’s always had the feel of a bridge album for me…a bridge to albums on the horizon that I absolutely adore. But it’s a nice way to ease into my favorite Dylan period, which is 70s Dylan. My go to version of ‘If Not For You’ is the laid back take with George Harrison on guitar from “The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3”.

[@seanjockel43]

This was the first Dylan album I played. I wasn't into Bob until I saw him at the Concert For Bangla Desh. Although I don't thinks it's his best it is the one I play the most.

[@neiltheblaze]

Awhile back I went on a Dylan binge and found I liked "New Morning" much better than my admittedly patchy memory of it. I didn't own this one back in the day, and still don't - but I heard it and found it a pretty good listen.

[@collinmurr3207]

I just love this album. Start to finish, it's such a great listen. I feel like this and Bruce Springsteen's Lucky Town are proof you can make great music from a place of happiness and contentment. Like you guys, Sign on the Window has to be my favorite on the album. Those gospel piano chords and the way he sings "Brighton girls are like the moon" really sell it. Even though he didn't finish The Devil and Daniel webster project, I can hear that all over this album, like the title track, Father of Night, Three Angels, and even Winterlude. Somhow, I even feel like If Dogs Run Free fits perfectly into the album, despite being so different. The arrangements sound great and fit the songs, with Dylan's piano playing being a standout. Most people call Blood on the Tracks his best album of the ''70s, but it's New Morning for me.

[@painless465]

New Morning and BOTT are just so different. While I think BOTT is a greater achievement/ album, I have to be in a particular mood to hear it. New Morning is the one Dylan album I can put on at any time and it sounds great Like candy for the soul

[@Yakaru1]

If Dogs Run Free is a great song. I'd really never noticed the brilliant lines in Dylan S. picked out. "True love needs no company" is worthy of Neil Young (master of hiding the most profound truths in amongst a bunch of cliches, though Dylan of course can do it by hiding them amongst equally stunning lines.) (Actually, if that line was a Buddhist sutra, it would improve Buddhism!) There was a big debate in the late 60s about whether or not Dylan is really "a poet". That song and the even more spectacular 3 Angels show that he's something much greater than just a poet. I was born in '66 and grew up in the shadow of the two great mountains that had just disappeared -- The Beatles and Dylan. Dylan had the disadvantage that you can't really break up with yourself and start a new solo career. So everything he recorded post BoB sounded like a bit of a failure. But listening to this album again now (for the first time in about 20 years) I'm surprised at how good it is. I always liked it, but it's really, (like JWH), another timeless album. I think this album actually did have quite some influence culturally, albeit somewhat invisible. It made it respectable again to settle down and have a family, after the wild sixties. (I was born in 1966, and grew up around young adults who were obsessed with starting a family and catching rainbow trout, and trying to convince themselves that it really is what it's all about.)

[@Yakaru1]

(Sign on the Window I wanted to mention too, as poetry too, of course.)

[@seanjockel43]

Before self portrait was released bob had intended to fill new morning with more covers. Once self portrait was released Coulmbia said no way and insisted on all original songs Several of the rejected covers were used for the 1973 Dylan album. Columbia asked Al Kooper to be at thr sessions to give more of a traditional Bob sound.

[@seanjockel43]

The tracks that Bob recorded with Gerorge Harrison and Charlie Daniel's couldn't be used because George was only in the US of a visiting visa. The sessions had to be listed as a rehearsal due to George not having a work visa.

[@gregdale1066]

Dylans face is glowing when Joe gives props for the great piano:)

[@Yakaru1]

I don't usually watch the video onscreen while listening, but I always switch back in to see Dylan's reaction when Joe says something nice!

[@seanjockel43]

A top 10 song for me has been Day of The Locus. I heard it often on FM Sadly he has never performed it live. FYI the man standing next to me. His head was exploding was David Crosby

[@scottanthonyweidner8692]

Only 28 albums left!!!

[@pissinateapot7040]

I have a feeling we'll get a new studio album soon....

[@brettcarlson9636]

FYI this isn’t in your guys’ playlist for Discovering Bob Dylan. Had to search for it.

[@Skroskznik]

Another fantastic episode, quick note love that 1970 collection with George Harrison I got it on CD, so good.

[@ClubCatJohnKite]

I love If Dogs Run Free. It feels and it breathes and it's lyrical. Beautiful. (I don't consider Harrison's If Not For You a cover. The writer is playing and singing on it. But, yes, it's definitive.)

[@maggiebryan2355]

❤❤❤

[@djtforever1414]

Sign On The Window is 1 of my favourite Bob songs. The Bootleg Series volume 2 version of If Not For You is better than the album version.

[@stefano.b65stef77]

Good new morning guys! "new Morning" is one of those albums which are underrated, i catched up on it after a while, it was gathering dust on the shelf. I like it more than self portrait, in a ranking it could be in the top 10 at the bottom of it, it's growing little by little, it could even reach number 8

[@wesleyorser4451]

There is lost film footage of the recording of the master take for The Man in Me that was recorded on camera but never leaked until the last year. Look it up!

[@wesleyorser4451]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/m32TlKiZlrVjpas

[@thetrevorosborne]

good but not great album some really interesting unusual songs with the title song being the highlight for me. nice discussion as usual cheers guys

[@179rich]

Great defense of Dogs Run Free Dylan 💪

[@TastesLikeMusic]

It still sucks no matter how many pretty words Dylan says about it. - Joe

[@willem-janageling3907]

The Dude abides your response to The Man In Me.

[@reginaldcampos5762]

3.5 stars: a very cheerful album by Dylan. Its like Blonde on Blonde without the snark and crazy lyrics. Not really a bad song on it, but there's only a few I can say I like a lot while the rest are forgettable. My favorite songs are: If Not For You Went to See the Gypsy Winterlude If the Dogs Run Free Sign at the Window The Man in Me Father of Night

[@Leo-qe3gl]

Joe is taking this project really serious😂. Five months and 10 Dylan albums later Joe will like Dylan a little little little bit. But only once in the year.😂

[@bradsmith2858]

Underrated and forgotten album in my opinion. If it wasn't for big labowski this would probably be even more over looked.

[@awrogers3013]

I flip from Joe, d very slightly prefer NM over NS.. Ps. Can’t wait to see..think the floodgates will soon be opening….he’s such a devotee of no other, I can’t see BOTT missing…

[@painless465]

I think New Morning is way better than Nashville Skyline. Not close

[@SamNitzberg]

I believe that all the guitar playing you guys are referring to by Buzzy Feiten is actually David Bromberg playing. Sounds like him pretty clearly to me, anyway.

[@TastesLikeMusic]

Feiten is on some tracks, the credits were hard to figure out. - Joe

[@WowThereBuddy1]

I get not liking If Dogs Run Free, but no idea what’s to dislike about Winterlude.

[@TastesLikeMusic]

It’s fine. It’s just not necessary or interesting. - Joe

[@kensilverstone1656]

The four later Bootleg songs should have been on Self-Portrait and Self-Portrait should have been scrapped. Dylan always puts out good morning--like you say, when he wants to.

[@AnnoyingCritic-is7rp]

Dylan albums are often over produced or underproduced, or leave out great songs and include a lot of bad ones. I would say this is Dylan's best album - not his best songs - but as an album as a whole. It is perfectly produced. There are no bad songs. The vocals have never been better. There is no real politics or society level philosophy, and it is superficial - but delightfully so.

[@Vanessa.P]

"Zeitgeist" alert 🚨 😂

[@DavidHarrison-pv9lt]

well i said last time that if Jack liked Dogs Run Free and 3 Angels i would force myself to listen to a whole Elton John record, and i came closer than i thought i would. "Dont mind them" is not really "liking" them.... phew.... But i was seriously impressed with Dylans valiant effort in defending Dogs Run Free.(which involve separating the execrable music from the lyrics..... First let me say that the actual image of dogs running free always bothers me because most dogs definitely dont run free. Most of us are about as free as the average dog anyway, restricted to whatever life-trap we have wound up in. anyways........ what if i changed the music? Bob is always changing the music to his songs... how would Dogs run free sound if set to the music of a different song?..... Gates of Eden for example.... nah not really,,,, after careful consideration i "mentally" inserted Dogs run free lyrics into Early Roman Kings music and arrangement *with a few adjustments for verse length).... boy did it "sound" better. But then i thought how do the lyrics in the two songs stack up against each other....... nahhhhh ..... Dogs Run Free isnt even close.......and most people would only rate Early Roman Kings as good "but not great" on Bob;s song list. ERK is the sort of song that sends you scrambling to wiki to look up "were there actually Roman Kings?" Bob is doing what he does here conjuring up meaning by juxtaposing apparent contradictions, references, quotes, word games, and including a visceral description of some sort of sex life far removed from blades of grass standing up straight and tall. Nahh sorry Dylan, nice try though :)

[@MrUnclesean]

ahead of free wheelin' ? no Joe no!

[@kenkaplan3654]

Well I can understand how life experience shapes our response to artists. For someone like Sevey, relationships seemed to have played a big part in your life so I can understand having bonding to this album. For me , with a much more unfortunately disrupted relationship to women, this stuff for me is just not significant. I barely listened to it as I did also did not to Skyline and Harding as what was meaningful to me about Dylan was absent for the most part. Not interested in songs from the front driveway, although Harding to me is an attempt in not fully realized material to try and make sense of things after the crash and withdrawal, and is interesting from that perspective. Everyone is different, some love Harding, some love the others. I wonder if it were anyone but Dylan and its context of release, what critical reception, if any, would it have gotten. If Stephen Stills, for example, had released it, would anyone have even cared? Contrast this with Jackson Browne's first two albums. There is just no comparison. Whatever Dylan thought he had "found", and I always believed personally (if I may be presumptuous) that Dylan found salvation too much in women, that was to explode big time. but as Joe alluded to, the fire then came back. One could argue Dylan's breakup and divorce saved his career. Will be interested to see reaction to BOTT when he finally regains his full artistic power and quits playing around. Strange that the man who wrote Girl From North Country, Corrina Corrina, Love Minus Zero, to Ramona, Sad Eyed Lady, Lay Lady Lay , If Not For You, and others is considered not a good writer of love songs. Dylan had two great focuses in his music imo (Skipping Evangelical nonsense), women and his relationship to America. Although the Bible and Judeo Christian heritage informs many images, I think those are mainly the adjectives in his life narrative, not the nouns or verbs.,

[@kevinjoseph517]

north country is not his...it is an old folk he rewrote....'Contrast this with Jackson Browne's first two albums. There is just no comparison.' whats that mean?

[@kenkaplan3654]

@oseph517 Browne's first two albums are far superior to New Morning but not in tier (but excellent-outstanding) to Dylan's best. There is nothing on NM that comes close to most of the songs on the debut album and half of "For Everyman". Browne wrote one of the few political songs to rival Dylan's best ("Lives in the Balance".)

[@xvx5872]

Maybe, this album could make me not despise bob dylan? I will check and see. Maybe it will make be figure out why dylan doesn't suck?

[@dtchinacat3973]

Olivia Newton John has the best "If Not You"!😻

[@rodneygriffin7666]

This album is the complete Opposite of John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band also released in 1970. I Love them both for the same reasons. Listen to them back to back and see them almost mirror themselves.

[@kevinjoseph517]

NEW MORNING...weak but not horrible. NASHVILLE SKYLINE is 27 minutes...outrageous.

[@davidgagen9856]

John Wesley Hardin.....less grandious theme? Come on

[@dylanseveymusic]

“Seemingly” less grandiose. Not as many of the sweeping epics that had been on the records before it, and without the poetic verbosity. Obviously, there’s a lot more there when you look into it deeper.

[@davidgagen9856]

Ok...seemingly....it is a remarkable album, on a whole other level to the other 2.