New Morning released: Oct 21, 1970 BUY

New Morning grew partly out of an exploration of the possibility of Dylan’s writing music for a play by the great poet Archibald MacLeish. Dylan writes at some length of his meetings and discussions with MacLeish in his memoir Chronicles, Volume One. The project never ended up working out, although a few of the songs survived, and the album is filled out with love songs, pop songs, pastorales like “Winterlude” (a waltz) as well as the funny, deadpan “If Dogs Run Free,”. Despite some strong and durable songs, this is not one of Dylan’s landmark discs. According to Chronicles he was working hard to dismantle a public image that had become worse than a trap for him and his family. “Time passes slowly up here in the mountains,” he sings. “We sit beside bridges and walk beside fountains…. Time passes slowly when you’re lost in a dream.” The dream, or amnesia as he would later refer to it, would not last all that much longer. If Not for You | listen | Day of the Locusts | listen | Time Passes Slowly | listen | Went to See the Gypsy | listen | Winterlude | listen | If Dogs Run Free | listen | New Morning | listen | Sign on the Window | listen | One More Weekend | listen | The Man in Me | listen | Three Angels | listen | Father of Night | listen |