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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
The Freewheelin’ Edition Part 2
01:02:03
A Complete Unknown depicts Bob Dylan’s ’60s cultural explosion—but all his chart-topping albums came decades later.
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- [00:01]
Sponsor Voice
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- [00:44]
Chris Melanfy
Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One? Series. On our last episode, in the wake of the hit movie A Complete Unknown, we're taking a spin through the full chart history of Bob Dylan, decade by decade. In the 60s, Dylan was a songwriting jukebox and an it boy object of folky fascination, and in the 70s, he was an album rocker who repeatedly topped the LP chart. We're now about to enter the 80s when Dylan is going to take a really unexpected turn into religiosity before spending the rest of the 20th century reinventing himself over and over again. Dylan in the 80s the Searcher one night in San Diego in November 1978 while on tour, Bob Dylan picked up a small silver cross an audience member threw on stage. Dylan had been feeling spiritually empty as his latest tour, his film Reynaldo and Clara, and several recent albums had garnered poor reviews and box office results. A couple of nights later, while in Tucson, Arizona, Dylan said he felt the overwhelming presence of Jesus Christ. A girlfriend who had recently joined an evangelical Christian church in Tarzana, California, called the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, introduced Dylan to the church. Dylan, who had been raised Jewish, underwent a three month discipleship course and soon announced he had become a born again Christian.
- [02:47]
Bob Dylan
I believe in you Even through the tears and the laughter I believe in you Even though we be apart I believe in you Even on the morning after.
- [03:09]
Chris Melanfy
To say the least, Dylan's conversion came as quite a surprise to his fan base, including some of his studio collaborators who reported that Dylan began proselytizing to them. But on the charts at least, Dylan's spiritual awakening invigorated his performance and his music, at least at first. His 1979 LP slow train coming, his first Christian themed album, complete with a cover image of a man carrying a cross, climbed all the way to Number three, his first top three LP since Desire, three years earlier. That was probably because the LP contained a sizable hit, Gotta Serve Somebody, an openly religious yet musically funky ode to spirituality that reached number 24 on the Hot 100 just before 1980 under another name.
- [04:11]
Bob Dylan
But you're gonna have to serve somebody. Yes you are. You're gonna have to serve somebody. Serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you're gonna have to serve somebody.
- [04:30]
Chris Melanfy
But the Christian phase of Dylan's career generated diminishing returns once the 80s began. Two more religious albums followed, Saved in 1980 and Shot of Love in 1981. The former stalled at number 20, the latter at number 33, Dylan's lowest charting LPs since 1964. And both albums received poor reviews and generated no hits. You might say that Dylan's brief religious conversion was a metaphor for his entire 1980s. It was a decade of searching for Dylan, figuring out how he wanted to proceed in the MTV and New Wave era. For example, Jokerman, a reggae inflected single from Dylan's 1983 album Infidels, was promoted with a high concept music video that played on mtv. Yet it did not make a dent commercially. Neither pop radio nor AOR played the song enough to to make the charts. Infidels did reasonably well as an LP, reaching number 20 on the album chart and going gold. Dylan's first LP to do so since Slow Train Coming. But the radio listening public was not converted to reggae inflected Bob. What about synth pop Bob?
- [06:17]
Bob Dylan
Has anybody seen my love? Has anybody seen my love? Has anybody seen my love?
- [06:30]
Chris Melanfy
Tight Connection to My Heart was the lead single from Dylan's 1985 album Empire. Burlesque punctuated by keyboards and guitar playing from members of the hit British band Dire Straits. Dylan had been playing with Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler for several albums. The song, critics noted, bore a striking resemblance to Bruce Springsteen's big 1985 hit Glory Days.
- [07:00]
Bob Dylan
We went back inside, sat down, had a few drinks but all we kept talking about is glory days when we're passing by glory days.
- [07:14]
Chris Melanfy
And Dylan's video for Tight Connection to My Heart was even higher concept than the clip for Jokerman. It featured Bob starring in a twisty police thriller with a femme fatale. MTV played the clip and AOR played the song enough to get Tight Connection into the top 20 on Billboard's album Rock chart. But the album was a stiff, peaking at number 33. In fact, Dylan's most visible musical moment in 1985 wasn't on any of his records, but rather his brief guest vocal on USA for Africa's charity mega single We Are the World. Technically, for you chart fans out there, this is the only number one song in Hot 100 history to feature a Dylan lead vocal and however brief, it's pretty hard to miss. But as shown in the footage of the We Are the World recording, which was recently resurrected in Netflix, Netflix's hit documentary the Greatest Night in Pop, Bob was anxious about his performance and positively bewildered by his presence on the Quincy Jones produced charity record. By the late 80s, it seemed Dylan's only major personal successes were on the road and mostly in team ups with other acts. A partnership with Dylan's new friend Tom Petty for a joint tour with Petty's band the Heartbreakers was well received by audiences and critics. Dylan and Petty even co wrote a hit song together. Dylan contributed lyrics to Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's 1987 single Jammin Me, a number one album rock 18 Hot 100 hit. The song poked fun at 80s celebrity culture and though Dylan did not sing on it, Petty later revealed that the lyrics, slamming Vanessa Redgrave and Eddie Murphy, were Bob's idea. One year after the Petty tour, Dylan went on the road with the Grateful Debt, a dream pairing for aging boomer fans of 60s rock. The Six Concert Tour in the summer of 87 sold predictably well, but a live LP issued as a souvenir of the tour, simply titled Dylan and the Dead, was savaged by critics as one of the worst albums by either act. It did go gold and generated a top 10 hit on the album Rock chart with Dylan and the Dead's take on Bob's Slow Train, evidence of the loyal Deadhead fan base. By the end of the 80s, the decade was looking like a wash for Dylan commercially. But salvation came from a bunch of friends who formed a multi platinum supergroup more or less by accident. As we discussed in our Tom Petty episode of Hit Parade, the Traveling Wilburys were a side project spawned by George Harrison's smash 1987 album Cloud Nine, which was produced by Electric Light Orchestra frontman Jeff Lynn. It all started one day in early 1988 when Lin was at Harrison's house to record a B side for the Cloud 9 single this is Love. Also hanging out at Harrison's house were his friends Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and rock legend Roy Orbison. The resulting five man jam session, Harrison, Dylan, Orbison, Lynn and Petty generated the song Handle With Care, which everyone quickly realized was just too good to be a B side.
- [12:26]
Bob Dylan
Everybody's got somebody to lean on Put your body next to mine.
- [12:44]
Chris Melanfy
So what started as an impromptu jam became the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup in which the five very famous rock legends billed themselves as a gang of traveling musician half brothers with corn pone pseudonyms. Harrison was Nelson Wilbury, Orbison was Lefty Wilbury, Lynn was Otis Wilbury, Petty was Charlie T. Wilbury Jr. And Dylan was Lucky Wilbury. The pseudonym idea may have been Bob's the Wilburys quickly recorded an album simply titled Volume One that would generate a string of major rock radio and even minor pop radio hits.
- [13:31]
Bob Dylan
It don't matter if you're by my size well it's all right Even if you're older Grain well, it's all right.
- [13:48]
Chris Melanfy
Released in the fall of 1988, Traveling Wilbury's Volume 1 peaked at number three on the album chart, spent more than a year on the chart and went triple platinum. And Bob Dylan was one of the most prolific contributors to the project. Though none of his songs were among the album's big hits, he sang lead on four of its 10 tracks, including the party record Dirty World, the Bruce Springsteen parody Tweeter and the Monkey man, and the new wave rocker Margarita.
- [14:29]
Bob Dylan
Went to the Big Apple took a bite.
- [14:40]
Chris Melanfy
The Wilburys wound up recording two albums. The second, in 1990 had the jokey title Volume Three. A sophomore album called Volume Three Get It Seriously and with hindsight, the Traveling Wilburys project was vital for Bob Dylan. It got him back on the radio, gave him an outlet for some of his most effervescent latter day songwriting, and revitalized him for the 90s, which would be the decade of Dylan's solo professional comeback.
- [15:14]
Bob Dylan
It's got to be yellow don't try to fool me don't it make you wanna know Twist that sh.
- [15:28]
Chris Melanfy
We'Ll be back momentarily. This episode is brought to you by Defender. For those who embrace the impossible, the Defender 110 is ready for the adventure. This vehicle has been reimagined with modern design for a new generation of explorers. With a striking exterior that boasts compelling proportions and precise detailing, the Defender 110 masterfully combines style with capability. The Defender is built with adorable, lightweight monocoque architecture to provide extra strength for your next great adventure. And its tough, rigid body design exudes confidence, so when you're behind the wheel, you will too. Engineered to meet challenges head on and tested to the extreme, the Defender empowers you to explore with confidence and embrace the impossible. Whether you're off road or on ready for a wide range of adventures, the Defender family also features the two door Defender 90, the Defender 110 and the Defender 130, which seats up to eight. A vehicle made to go further, the Defender 110. Learn more at LandRoverUSA.com Defender Here's a little tip for all the music fans out there. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. You heard right, 99%. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you you automatically earn cash back. Which means you could earn rewards for those almost front row seats, rideshares to the venue, even that concert merch you've had your eye on since it dropped. If all of that sounds like music to your ears, remember it pays to Discover. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com Credit Card Dylan in the 90s Master of vibes between the two Traveling Wilbur's albums in the fall of 1989, Bob Dylan released his most acclaimed 80s LP just weeks before the 80s were over, oh Mercy, an album that found Dylan contemplating politics and social mores after a decade of Reaganomics and leaning into his middle aged, Froggier voice. Its lead single, everything Is Broken, got Dylan back into the top 10 on the album rock chart, where it reached number eight. Though oh Mercy only reached number 30 on the album chart, critics hailed it as Dylan's best LP since Blood on the Tracks. In the liner notes, the most vital name after Dylan's own was its producer, Daniel Lanois. The French Canadian Lanois, who had overseen blockbuster 80s albums for U2 and Peter Gabriel, was regarded as the prime architect of atmospheric smoldering rock production. Lanois not only brought that ambient aura to Dylan's album, he basically set a template for Bob's next decade. In the 90s, Dylan would be all about the vibes. Unfortunately, Dylan didn't actually record much new material period. In the 90s, he spent a lot of his time painting touring. This was not long after he started his so called Never Ending Tour, which by the way is still ongoing to this day, and reissuing old bootlegs of his acclaimed 60s work. In the first half of the 90s, Dylan's only new albums were collections of traditional folk standards, 1992's Good as I Been to youo and 1993's World Gone Wrong. The 93 album was particularly well received. It made numerous critics lists and won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album. Arriving at the peak of grunge, it seemed to present Dylan as a world weary, acoustic playing elder statesman. The truth was, Dylan was afraid that his wife well of songs had simply dried up. In 1991, he'd told an interviewer, quote, there was a time when the songs would come three or Four at the same time. But those days are long gone. Once in a while, the odd song will come to me like a bulldog at the garden gate and demand to be written, but most of them are rejected. Out of my mind right away. You get caught up in wondering if anyone really needs to hear it. Maybe a person gets to the point where they have written enough songs, let someone else write them, unquote. Finally, in 1996, Dylan began demoing songs again and called in producer Daniel Lanois to record an album, saying that he wanted to sound like an old blues man, like Little Walter or Charley Patton.
- [21:55]
Bob Dylan
I cannot be blue again.
- [22:05]
Chris Melanfy
Dylan also expressed to Lanois that he wanted to recreate the echo of the old 50s records he'd grown up with and the directness of his favorite Buddy Holly recordings.
- [22:22]
Bob Dylan
Words of love, you whisper, soft and true.
- [22:30]
Chris Melanfy
Lanois set up the studio for Dylan to capture those vibes with old microphones and an army of session musicians able to play in a range of styles. The sessions were looser than Dylan was used to, and he wrote dark, ruminative music that seemed inferior, conflicted with thoughts of mortality.
- [22:54]
Bob Dylan
I just don't see why I should even care. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.
- [23:11]
Chris Melanfy
Indeed, shortly after completing the album, Dylan contracted a near fatal fungal infection. He did recover just before the CD was released, but several critics later regarded the album as Dylan prematurely writing his own epitaph. He called the album Time out of Mind. Time out of Mind would not only surpass Dylan's previous collaboration with Daniel Lanois, oh mercy, in terms of moodiness and atmosphere, it also garnered even greater acclaim and much stronger sales, fueled by pent up demand for new Dylan music after seven years of no new self penned material. When it arrived in the fall of 1997, Time out of Mind debuted on the Billboard 200, all the way up at number 10. Dylan's first album to debut within the top 10. It peaked there, but did ride the chart for more than six months and went platinum, Dylan's first million seller in nearly two decades. And surprisingly for such a dark album, it even generated another Dylan standard, a love ballad. Make you feel my love, as Dylan called it. It some other interpreters call it, to make you feel my love features some of Dylan's simplest, most love struck lyrics and a stately melody. It was getting around even before Dylan recorded it. A demo of Dylan's song was passed in 1996 to Billy Joel, who then recorded a cover for his latest greatest hits cd. A full year before Dylan's album came out after Dylan released his version in 1997. To make youe Feel My Love would go on to be recorded by more than 400 artists, including country mega star Garth Brooks, whose version from the soundtrack to the 1998 film Hope Floats topped the country chart.
- [26:12]
Bob Dylan
I'd go hungry, I'd go black I'd.
- [26:19]
Chris Melanfy
Go crawling down the aisle. And a decade later, Adele, whose version on her 2008 debut album 19 is now widely considered the definitive cover. Hers was a top five hit in the UK.
- [26:51]
Bob Dylan
To make you feel my love.
- [26:54]
Chris Melanfy
As for Dylan's Time out of Mind album, it cleaned up not only in sales but accolades. It topped the Village Voices, Paz and Jopp critics poll for 1997, the first time Dylan had done so since 1975, and it swept at the Grammy Awards. To date, in all his years of recording, Bob Dylan had never won a major Grammy on his own. He'd shared in the 1973 album of the Year prize for George Harrison and Friends Concert for Bangladesh, and he'd won a couple of smaller rock and folk prizes. But at the 1998 Grammys, Dylan was arguably the star of the night, not only winning three prizes, including Album of the Year, but also delivering the night's most talked about performance. During Dylan's rendition of the song Lovesick, a performance artist named Michael Portnoy crashed the stage right next to Dylan, bare chested with the words Soy bomb scrawled on his torso. Portnoy then proceeded to wriggle and writhe next to Dylan for nearly a minute while Bob, nonplussed but ever Cool, played on before Portnoy was finally escorted off. St.
- [28:43]
Bob Dylan
I want.
- [28:52]
Chris Melanfy
As ever, just like in his 60s it boy days, Bob Dylan attracted the artists and the freaks. Deep into his 50s, he was still an avatar of cool. The vibey Time out of Mind reinvigorated Dylan's career and his next decade would be improbably one of his most consistently successful on the charts. Dylan in the aughts Coffee House Comeback Kid Bob Dylan kicked off the 21st century by winning another golden statue three years after he dominated the Grammys. This time it was at the Academy Awards. He'd recorded a song for the 2000 film Wonder Boys called Things have Changed. Things have Changed echoed some of the mortality obsessed themes of Time out of Mind, but with a frisky up tempo country shuffle. Dylan even worked plot points from the film, which starred Michael Douglas as an aging novelist and professor, into the lyrics. At the 2001 Oscars, Dylan, who'd never even been nominated for an Academy Award before won best original song for Things Have Changed.
- [30:27]
Bob Dylan
I'm locked intact I'm out of radio I used to care but things have Changed.
- [30:38]
Chris Melanfy
The song was also embraced by radio stations of the adult album alternative or Triple A format. On Billboard's Triple A chart, Things have Changed reach number two. The AAA format, known for dad and mom rock ranging from Coldplay to Sheryl Crow, Jack Johnson to Adele, would be good to Dylan in the Aughts. He scored several top 10 hits on the Triple A chart, including 2006's Someday Baby and 2009's Beyond. Here lies Nothing Beyond Here Lies Nothing.
- [31:22]
Bob Dylan
Nothing but the Moon and.
- [31:27]
Chris Melanfy
Some music industry observers sardonically but not inaccurately called the AAA format Starbucks Radio in the Aughts the ubiquitous coffee chain was also in the music business, selling truckloads of CDs of Americana, Roots, rock, jazz and blues and heritage R and B to folks picking up a latte. Starbucks outlets were credited with helping to turn, for example, the Southern folk and bluegrass soundtrack to the film oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Into a multi platinum success.
- [32:12]
Bob Dylan
Sorrow, I've Seen Trouble All My Days.
- [32:20]
Chris Melanfy
And it was estimated that Starbucks stores sold one quarter of all the copies of the late Ray Charles posthumous triple platinum Duets album Genius Loves Company. So basically, the Aughts was a good decade for the kinds of music Bob Dylan had aged into blues, Americana, country, inflected folk and pop. All of it was on AAA radio stations and on the speakers of Starbucks nationwide. If Dylan was a coffeehouse folkie in the 60s, he would essentially be a coffeehouse elder statesman in the 2000s. By the way, in 2005, Dylan actually signed an exclusive deal with Starbucks to distribute CDs of a rare album, Bob Dylan Live at the Gaslight, 1962 that had been circulating on bootlegs for decades. He literally was a coffee house folkie. More seriously, in the 2000s, Dylan released just three studio albums and all three were chart topping smashes. Maybe they weren't Starbucks exclusives, but their rootsy sound proved to be catnip in the decade of let's call it the Espresso CD. In 2001, Dylan released Love and Theft, his follow up to Time out of mind. The CD happened to come out on 9 11, a grim day in American history. And yet the album was anything but grim. The most rollicking, loosest Bob Dylan album maybe ever. And it was positively steeped in American history. The title of the self produced album was inspired by historian Eric Lott's book, Love and Theft, blackface, minstrelsy and the American working class, and its songs were glosses on various forms of pre rock musical Americana, from hillbilly music to vaudeville to black spirituals. It was genuinely fun coffee house music. Despite its gloomy release date, the album was instantly embraced by the public. When the album chart data came back a couple of weeks after 9 11, Love and Theft had debuted on the Billboard 200 at a lofty number five, instantly making it Dylan's first top five album since 1979's Slow Train Coming. Critics were even more effusive about Love and Theft than they were about Time out of Mind, praising its looseness and Dylan's wry sense of humor. Love and Theft topped the 2001 Paz and Jopp critics poll by an even bigger margin than the 97 album had. Bob's 2001 votes were at a 2 to 1 margin over the second ranked Is this It? By the Strokes. Five years later, Dylan came back with a similarly a loose limbed collection of old timey blues, folk, rock and rockabilly. This time he called the album, with more than a bit of irony, Modern Times. The only thing things that were modern about this 2006 album were the fact that folks could now buy it as an itunes download and that Bob had slipped some contemporary references into the lyrics. The album's opening track, Thunder on the Mountain, included references to chart topping R B singer Alicia Keys, whose Hell's Kitchen childhood Dylan wove into his story song.
- [37:41]
Bob Dylan
I was Thinking About Lisa Keys couldn't keep him cried when she was born in Henry's kitchen I was living down the line. I'm wondering where in the world Lisa Keys could be.
- [37:53]
Chris Melanfy
As for the charts, keep in mind Dylan's 1997 album had debuted on the Billboard 200 at number 10, his 2001 album at number five, and Modern Times. It debuted at number one on the album chart, fueled in part by a special promotion from Apple. As we discussed just last month in our Hit Parade episode about hits spawned by advertising, Dylan was the subject of an ipod Silhouette ad featuring his Modern Times single Someday Baby you can take.
- [38:36]
Bob Dylan
Your clues put him in the side you're going down the road baby and you can't come back Someday baby, you ain't gonna work for me anymore.
- [38:54]
Chris Melanfy
Would Modern Times have started on top without the ipod ad? Apple CEO Steve Jobs took credit in 2006, but we'll never know. Exposure at Starbucks might also have helped, and clearly Dylan was already on an upward trajectory after his two previous albums. Moreover, Dylan's third album of the Aughts didn't have an ipod ad backing it up and it too opened at number one.
- [39:30]
Bob Dylan
Coming back for more I know these feels I've been here before.
- [39:43]
Chris Melanfy
Together through life Dylan's 2009 album fell somewhere in the middle sonically among his recent LPs, neither as jaunty as Love and Theft, nor as morose as Time out of Mind. Its main distinguishing features were the addition of accordion from Los Lobos member David Hidalgo and songwriting from longtime Grateful Dead lyricist and friend of Dylan, Robert Hunter, one of very few co writers Dylan had ever composed. With its most popular track, the aforementioned Triple A radio hit Beyond Here Lies Nothing wound up in a trailer and an episode of HBO's series True Blood, further evidence that Dylan remained relevant even with a millennial audience.
- [40:43]
Bob Dylan
Nothing we could call harm while I'm.
- [40:48]
Chris Melanfy
Moving after the night When Together Through Life debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, it gave Bob Dylan his first pair of consecutive chart topping studio albums since Blood on the Tracks and Desire in 1975 and 76. Its opening sales were down nearly 70,000 copies from Modern Times, likely the result of the lack of an ipod ad, but both albums went down in the record books as chart toppers. All in all, the Aughts presented the most controlled chart experiment of Dylan's career. Three albums of roughly similar Americana and pre rock genre stylings, self produced by Dylan with his well traveled touring band, all benefiting on the charts from Dylan's post comeback brand of high quality roots rock. The bard of the Starbucks decade was now, for better or worse, a known quantity. But as Dylan Sang on his 2009 album's last track, I feel a change coming on the next decade would offer some surprises. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Defender. For those who embrace the impossible, the Defender 110 is ready for the adventure. This vehicle has been reimagined with modern design for a new generation of explorers. With a striking exterior that boasts compelling proportions and precise detailing, the Defender 110 masterfully combines style with capability. The Defender is built with a durable, lightweight monocoque architecture to provide extra strength for your next great adventure. And its tough, rigid body design exudes confidence. So when you're behind the wheel, you will too. Engineered to meet challenges head on and tested to the extreme, the Defender empowers you to explore with confidence and embrace the impossible. Whether you're off road or on, ready for a wide range of adventures, the Defender family also features the two door Defender 90, the Defender 110 and the Defender 1 130, which seats up to 8. A vehicle made to go further the Defender 110. Learn more at land roverusa.com forward/defender.
- [43:48]
Bob Dylan
What'S.
- [43:48]
Sponsor Voice
The best time of day to get a deal?
- [43:50]
Bob Dylan
All day with Jack in the Box's.
- [43:52]
Chris Melanfy
All day Big deal meal. You get to choose from four entrees like the supreme croissant and five tasty.
- [43:58]
Bob Dylan
Sides, plus a drink starting at $5. So hurry in or take your time. You've got all day at Jack.
- [44:06]
Sponsor Voice
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- [44:39]
Chris Melanfy
Dylan in the Tens and twenties Interpreter, mystic say this for Bob Dylan. Ever since he got his mojo back on Time out of Mind, he has been unafraid to try whatever strikes his fancy. That has been especially true in the last decade and a half of his still creatively fertile life. As you've no doubt noticed in our previous Dylan Decade by Decade segments, you can usually tell what direction Bob's next decade will go about a year before it starts, and the 2010s were no exception. Arguably, the project that pointed to his new artistic course was, I kid you Not, a Christmas CD he released in late 2009.
- [45:32]
Bob Dylan
Here comes Santa Claus, Here comes Santa Claus right down Santa Claus today Fixing and blixing an oldest reindeer Pulling on the reins Bells are ringing, children singing, bodies marrying brides.
- [45:46]
Chris Melanfy
The media had a bit of a laugh, okay, a lot of a laugh, when Bob dropped Christmas in the heart. Hearing the now croaking voiced Dylan take on such chestnuts as Here Comes Santa Claus, the Christmas Song and Silver Bells prompted at least one article with the headline, Isn't it ironic? One critic, Michelangelo Matos, writing for the A.V. club, said in a half admiring review, quote, bob Dylan is such a fruitcake. No, it's no joke, but it is in places, hilarious. Dylan surely knows just how wrong his mangled, liquefying granite voice is for lots of this material, and there are times when he flaunts that what the hell? Quality. Unquote. On the other hand, several critics praised Dylan for his guilelessness in taking on these songs, and years later, several Artists wound up emulating Dylan's vocal arrangements on tracks like Must Be Santa. Also in the moment, Christmas in the Heart sold pretty well, debuting atop Billboard's holiday albums chart, which admittedly is not hard and more impressively, a sturdy number 23 on the all genre Billboard 200 chart. Finally, with hindsight, maybe the most important aspect of Christmas in the Heart was how it signaled Dylan's next phase. Less singer, songwriter, more song interpreter. In the tens, he would generate several hit albums, taking on music he didn't compose.
- [47:56]
Bob Dylan
Someone maybe laughing, you may hear her laughing.
- [48:06]
Chris Melanfy
When Dylan released his 2015 album Shadows in the Night, he posted this statement on his website, quote, I don't see myself as covering these songs in any way. They've been covered enough buried. As a matter of fact. What me and my band are basically doing is un uncovering them, lifting them out of the grave and bringing them into the light of day. The sincerity with which Dylan took on great American songbook standards like Some Enchanted Evening and Autumn Leaves was touching. And the arrangements shamelessly placed his vocals front and center, the very thing casual fans claimed they liked least about Dylan. The other surprising aspect of Shadows in the Night was whom it was implicitly honoring, vocal legend Frank Sinatra. All of Dylan's selections were songs that Old Blue Eyes had recorded or otherwise made famous, Full Moon and Empty Eyes. In a Slate review of the album by cultural historian Ben Yagoda, he pointed out the irony of Dylan, who in the 60s was regarded as the ultimate self contained singer songwriter, doing an entire album dedicated to Sinatra. The surprising thing about the record, Yagoda wrote, is that it was Dylan, along with the Beatles, who turned the Sinatra performance model, a singer interpreting songs written by other people on its head. With his straight faced, loving, if unorthodox interpretations of these songs, Dylan was expressing clear affection affection for Frank Sinatra and his era of pre rock standards. So much so that in 2016 Dylan issued a second album of standards called Fallen Angels that again was composed largely of songs associated with Sinatra.
- [50:37]
Bob Dylan
Melancholy mood Forever haunts me Steals upon me in the night Forever taunts me I would a lonely soul Am I stranded high and dry by a melancholy mood?
- [50:52]
Chris Melanfy
On the charts, these albums did equally well. Both Shadows in the Night in 2015 and Fallen Angels in 2016 peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200, continuing Dylan's streak of top 10 studio albums, which raises an interesting conundrum in how we understand Dylan's ongoing popularity.
- [51:18]
Bob Dylan
I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you Come rain or come shine.
- [51:30]
Chris Melanfy
As I discussed in last year's Barbra Streisand episode of Hit Parade. Streisand's fans have been so famously, unfailingly worshipful of her, as parodied by Mike Myers Saturday Night Live character Linda Richman, that they will dutifully buy any album of her interpreting any material and send it to the top of the charts. Now, Dylanologists are equally famous for their obsessive worship of their hero. That's why critics coined the term Dylanologists, to capture the way these fans hang on Bob's every recording, every interview, every utterance.
- [52:15]
Bob Dylan
But I'm gonna love you like nobody love you, comrade, or come shine.
- [52:28]
Chris Melanfy
Dylan's fame is supposed to attach to what he writes. It's why, in 2016, Dylan didn't just win a Nobel Prize, he won it in the field of literature. Yet the success of albums like Shadows in the Night and Fallen Angels suggests that Dylanology encompasses whatever Dylan says, whatever he applies his voice to in song, or indeed in song choice. This nicely sets up what may be Bob Dylan's last great chart feat, the first time he ever scored a number one hit on a Billboard song chart. And he did it in his own inimitable style.
- [53:21]
Bob Dylan
TWAS A Dark Day in Dallas November 63The Day that Would Live on an.
- [53:30]
Chris Melanfy
Infamy In April 2020, near the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, Dylan released a song called Murder Most Foul that got a lot of attention in the press and on social media, and not just because we were all locked down, socially distanced and bored. For one thing, the track was nearly 17 minutes long, the longest song Dylan had ever release. Yes, ever, even dating back to his rambling 60s epics like Sad Eyed lady of the Lowlands or Desolation Row. For another thing, Murder Most Foul's lyrics were Dylan's idiosyncratic take on the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the lyrics, Dylan proffers poetic theories about the killing and ties it to larger movements in American culture.
- [54:31]
Bob Dylan
The day they blew out the brains of the king thousands were watching. Owen saw a thing. It happened so quickly, so quick, by surprise, right there in front of everyone's eyes.
- [54:50]
Chris Melanfy
Critics, fellow artists and, yes, Dylanologists had a field day interpreting Dylan's fevered stream of Murder Most Foul lyrics. Dylan threw in improbable references to other musicians, including the Kingston Trio, Eagles, the who, even Billy Joel, as well as cultural figures like Marilyn Monroe and Wolfman Jack. What did it all mean? The consensus was that Dylan was testifying less about the JFK assassination and more about the power of art in times of national trauma, a resonant theme at the height of a global pandemic, Bob was serving as our mystic. For the pandemic, Play Merchant of Venice.
- [55:43]
Bob Dylan
Play Merchants of Death Place. Tell them I Starlight for Lady Macbeth. Don't win, Mr. President. Help's on the way, Your brothers are coming. There'll be hell to pay.
- [56:05]
Chris Melanfy
Now the fun Chart twist In its first week, given all that media attention, Murder mosfal sold about 9,800 digital downloads at electronic music retailers like Apple's iTunes. That wasn't a staggering number in the absence of major radio play for Murder Most Foul. It wasn't enough to get the song on the Hot 100, but that download sales total was enough for the song to debut at the top of rock digital song sales. That's a very minor chart in Billboard's array of rankings. Nonetheless, it made headlines because it was Dylan's first number one on any Billboard song chart ever in chart history. Sure, Dylan did it on a digital chart that didn't exist back when he was flipping signs in an alleyway and singing Subterranean Homesick Blues in 1965, but still, even with Asterisks, a number one song for Bob Dylan in 2020, the man still knows how to create his own weather, how to warp the zeitgeist when he chooses. In the last five years, the first half of the 2000s, Bob Dylan has released two more albums, 2020's acclaimed Rough and Rowdy Ways, a number two hit, and 2023's Shadow Kingdom, which peaked at number seven on Billboard's album sales chart. Even more than his albums of Sinatra standards or Murder Most Foul, the Shadow Kingdom album was perhaps Dylan's most personal reminiscence. It is composed largely of new recordings of songs from the early days of Dylan's career, from most likely youy Go youo Way and I'll Go Mine to It's All over now, baby blue. Dylan's 2023 take on his 1974 classic Forever Young is particularly affecting.
- [58:24]
Bob Dylan
May you always do for others and let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rope and may you stay Forever Young.
- [58:56]
Chris Melanfy
Here's a song from Dylan's first ever number one album, one that he wrote for his son, but really, I think, also for himself when he was at one of the many crossroads in his career, one at which he needed to inspire himself with a prayer to keep climbing every rung. And then, in his 2023 recording the 82 year old Bob Dylan is still climbing, still touring, interpreting, creating. His most acclaimed movie was titled Don't Look Back. But even today, when a portrayal of Dylan is back in movie theaters and his name is on everyone's lips again, Bob Dylan is still not looking back.
- [59:47]
Bob Dylan
Forever young.
- [59:55]
Chris Melanfy
I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Mullanthe. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Derek John is executive producer of Narrative Podcasts and we had help from Joel Meyer, Slate Editor in Chief Hilary Fry also oversees Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Milan Fee.
- [60:57]
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