Dylanology 15 (July 2022): Planet Waves Revisited, pt. 2: The Songs
Part two of the attempt to figure out why Planet Waves is not one of Dylan's most beloved albums.
I’ve been approaching this issue of Dylanology with some trepidation. I did after all end the previous issue with a proclamation that the album may not be that good after all: that the reason why it is not a top-three classic is not because it has been overlooked, but because the material just isn’t good enough.
How can I get away with such as verdict? I’m not sure I can, but here is my take, song by song.
1: Contented Love
On a Night Like This
The opener, “On a Night Like This”, sets a lot of the themes that pervade the album, both musically and thematically.
I am going to say a lot of nice things about this song, but let’s get one thing on the table and off again right away: The beginning.
Is it the weirdest album opener Dylan has released? No. He has a track record in that department. Blonde on Blonde has “Rainy Day Women”. World Gone Wrong has its irresistably unappealing title track. Self Portrait begins with the corny, silly, and weirdly charming bad-pun song “All the tired horses” (Cool, Bob! A rider’s block in song and rhyme!), and so on.
That said, that guitar thing that sets the song in motion (and thus also sets the album in motion) is seriously disturbed. It’s the diametrical antithesis to the rimshot of “Like a Rolling Stone”, (which I discussed back in Dylanology 2): it has no direction, no pulse, no urge, it’s an amoeba in sound.
There is no reason to believe that Dylan is careless about how his albums are sequenced – on the contrary – so I tend to think that this must be deliberate (and the fact that so many of his albums start with a weird display only strengthens this impression): he has actually wanted his album to start with the musical equivalent of Dylan’s own legendary wet fish handshake.
It may not be an important point, it has just always puzzled me.
The song itself is divisive. Some – like Clinton Heylin – hate it. I really love it, both because of the scene that Dylan paints, because of the way he paints it, and because of the way it is played.
Is it a great song? Perhaps not, but I don’t care: it makes me happy. It sounds very recognisable, perhaps tied to a certain age, around 30, when one is no longer young and eager, but actually likes the idea of sitting comfortably and perhaps clandestinely next to someone by the fire while the wind is howling outside. “There’s more frost on the window pane with each new tender kiss” captures the scene perfectly. It’s the introverted version of protest: the world outside is not a place to change, but to avoid. In that sense, this – and not Maggie’s farm – is Dylan’s “farewell-to-protest” song.
And the bass! God, is Rick Danko a great bass player!
So there are the three themes already there: topics that are more inward- and backward-looking than before, a musical deliberateness, and the intense musicianship of the Band.
One of the criticisms that was frequently directed against Planet Waves was that it’s too happy, too much like New Morning. “On a Night Like This” may to some extent fit into this (although I personally don’t think it belongs there). But there are other candidates – incidentally some of the weakest tracks of the album. So in order to get those out of the way, here are: the Happy Love Clunkers.
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