Responses to Dylan's Shot of Love were along this lines of Greil Marcus' 'what is this shit?' review of Self Portrait. Shot of Love was seen primarily as a continuation of Dylan's two Gospel albums when in retrospect it is clear that the album is a transition to his next album Infidels. Infidels itself was received as a return to form and as a secular album in contrast to the three earlier Gospel albums. The fact that Infidels is drenched in biblical imagery and allusion means that, while different from Dylan's two Gospel albums, it is lazy, inaccurate and misleading to describe Infidels as a secular album.
There are two main changes to Dylan's work as documented on #16 in the Bootleg Series. One to do with recording techniques, the other to do with the way in which he wrote about faith.
Dylan has regularly refreshed his work and inspiration by returning to the roots of the music he loves. His first album mapped those roots by including blues, country, folk, and gospel. The Basement Tapes, Self Portrait, the two 1990s acoustic albums, and the series drawing on the Great American Songbook all represent moments of returning to his roots music. While not predominantly covers albums, Dylan's Gospel albums also involve a similar return to a genre which is part of his roots. Gospel is entwined through the blues, country & western and folk music, as well as forming its own genre. Rock and roll emerges out of blues, country and gospel in particular which is why when the Million Dollar Quartet of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash were recorded in an impromptu jam session what they sang was primarily Gospel.
By ending with music from the Shot of Love period Trouble No More leads into Springtime in New York. Tracks left off Shot of Love and Infidels were among the highlights of Biograph and The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991, so Springtime in New York returns us to a period when Dylan began to embrace the reality that his best work was often missing from the albums he released following his Gospel period. It is as though the extreme reaction to his Gospel records and concerts unsettled Dylan to the extent that he was trying to judge what would play well with his audience as opposed to simply following his own path regardless.
This showed itself in two ways. First, following Shot of Love, he abandoned his practice of playing live in the recording studio by adopting the practice of recording by working with contemporary producers and then current production techniques and sounds. This approach worked well on Infidels but led to Empire Burlesque being both over-produced and mired in the sounds of the 80's.
Second, Dylan left classic songs such as Caribbean Wind, The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar, Angelina, Blind Willie McTell, Foot of Pride, and New Danville Girl off these albums. While each album included other classics such as Every Grain of Sand, Jokerman, I and I, and Dark Eyes, had the songs left off these albums been included the reaction to the albums as a whole would have been enhanced. In addition, these dense, wordy yet illuminating songs would have made it clearer that, in this period, Dylan was moving away from the simplistic and direct expression of faith that characterised the Gospel albums to songs where his exploration of faith was both more allusive and open.
A song like ‘Sweetheart Like You’ from Infidels illustrates this well, as we see here a wonderfully contemporary depiction of Christ's incarnation in a song that was consistently viewed by reviewers as an example of Dylan's misogyny. The song actually expresses the exact reverse of misogyny being written from the perspective of a misogynist male employee in an all-male workplace that is literally a hell of a place in which to work. To be in there requires the doing of some evil deed, having your own harem, playing till your lips bleed. There's only one step down from there and that's the ironically named 'land of permanent bliss.'
Into this perverted and prejudiced environment comes a woman, the sweetheart of the song's title. She is a Christ figure; a sinless figure entering into a world of sin and experiencing abuse and betrayal (is 'that first kiss' a Judas kiss?) from those she encounters and to whom she holds out the possibility of a different kind of existence. Dylan makes his equation of the woman with Christ explicit by quoting directly from Jesus: 'They say in your father's house, there's many mansions' (John 14: 2).
The song's narrator is confused and challenged by her appearance. He wants to dismiss her out of hand and back to his stereotypical role for her - 'You know, a woman like you should be at home / That's where you belong / Watching out for someone who loves you true / Who would never do you wrong' - but he can't simply dismiss her as she is really there in front of him and so he begins to wonder, 'What's a sweetheart like you doin' in a dump like this?' All the time he asks that question there is the possibility that he may respond to her presence without abuse or dismissal.
So, as was the case with Trouble No More, with Springtime in New York, The Bootleg Series represents a significant re-evaluation of a period of Dylan's work which had largely been written off (Shot of Love and Empire Burlesque) or thoroughly misinterpreted (Infidels) by those who wanted back the Dylan that they thought they had possessed rather than the Dylan who was actually evolving in front of them. Springtime reveals the inadequate nature of much initial response to a complex changing artist like Dylan while also showing that such initial misunderstandings of his work by becoming the standard response actively prevented understanding of the work until challenged by unreleased songs the quality and spirituality of which could not be denied.
Read my posts of Dylan and apocalypse here, Trouble No More here, Dylan as Pilgrim here, and all my posts featuring Dylan here.
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Bob Dylan - Lord, Protect My Child.
