Together Through Life: 'It's All Good'

Bob Dylan's 33rd album, released Tuesday, April 28. Back porch, pass the jug, jamming, tunes pulled out of the air, and out of the American musical idiom, blues and then some. The album roughly follows the trail blazed by its predecessors, Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft and Modern Times, but it moves off into the woods and thickets, wades through the muddy river beds, and continues to plumb the depths of desire, longing and heartache, but never surrenders to despair. Lyrics for most of the tunes, by or in collaboration with Robert Hunter, legendary Grateful Dead lyricist. While that may seem heretical, since Dylan is our poet extraordinaire, they nevertheless provide flashes of that Dylan humor, such as "My Wife's Hometown." As I have said before, the album made itself known through the early release of "Dreamin' of You" with its remarkable, instantly recognizable hook. But it makes itself known here, in its rough hewn, semi-polished, earthy and affecting mystery, in a voice as old as the ages and then some.

I am still exploring this new gem of Insider-Outsider Art by the reigning American Poet Laureate of the highways and the shadows.

--Brooklyn Beat