Track Listing

1. If Not for You
2. Day of the Locusts
3. Time Passes Slowly
4. Went to See the Gypsy
5. Winterlude
6. If Dogs Run Free
7. New Morning
8. Sign on the Window
9. One More Weekend
10. Man in Me
11. Three Angels
12. Father of Night

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40769 in Music
• Released on: 1989-07-19
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
Out of print in the U.S.! 1970 return to form for Mr. Zimmerman after the disasterous Self Portrait. Features Bob backed by a stellar band including David Bromberg, Al Kooper and others. 12 tracks. Sony.

Amazon.com
By 1970, after his infamous motorcycle accident and a mess of an album called Self-Portrait, Dylan had lost his remarkable consistency, but not his talent. New Morning, a collection of songs that lacks the urgency of the singer's '60s material or the country cohesiveness of Nashville Skyline, is nonetheless rewarding in a laid-back way. Dylan, still affecting his low Johnny Cash imitation, sings strongly on the piano-heavy "Winterlude." "If Not For You and "Time Passes Slowly," which never became signature songs by any means, are two of his most underrated performances. Cocktail jazz piano and Martha Stewart's background scat-singing on "If Dogs Run Free" add to the album's experimental spirit. --Steve Knopper

Customer Reviews

Leading up to "Blood on the Tracks"
At the time of this album's release, the critics and Dylan-obsessed viewed it as another disappointment, another stinging reminder that the Bob Dylan of "The Times They Are a-Changin'" and "Like a Rolling Stone" was gone. It generated rounds of mourning. Sure, it was a little better than the awful "Self-Portrait," and less corny than the baffling "Nashville Skyline," an album in which Dylan was so determined to conceal himself, he literally changed his voice. It had a grittier feel, musically, but it another one of those "love and marriage" albums. That was a genre unto itself back then--a genre lots of more politically minded rock fans despised. First Paul McCartney, then Van Morrison, now, omigod, Bob Dylan, singing songs of domestic contentment like "Sign on the Window."

The release of "Blood on the Tracks" should have caused a re-evaluation of "New Morning," along with its successor, "Planet Waves." In fact, Dylan was battling just as furiously during this period, and writing about it just as candidly, but this was a battle where the stakes were personal--trying to keep his family together in the face of the overwhelming, dehumanizing pressures of the outside world. It is a story that resonates more broadly, perhaps, than his earlier work. And it's a tragic story. With "Skyline" and "Self Portrait," Dylan built a wall to protect his family. In "New Morning," the key songs describe the life he was living behind that wall--with his wife and children, in a somewhat idyllic world that gives him time to muse on "what life's all about." But there's a subtle edge of desperation; he can't quite relax. The tension grows in the next album, "Planet Waves," and then explodes as the relationship is demolished in "Blood on the Tracks." The sage continues in "Desire," in which he continues the battle to win her back.

Now that I'm older and have lived several lives, it is these albums by Dylan that make the most sense to me. I still enjoy the classic 60s disks, and like everyone else, can pick out some great songs among his work in the 80s and 90s. But if you are a listener who thinks "Blood on the Tracks" is Dylan's greatest poetic and musical expression, I suggest you try this album and "Planet Waves," playing them in chronological order with "Blood..." and "Desire." This was Dylan's greatest period.

Why just four stars? There are few clunkers, like "One More Weekend," and "The Man in Me." But "If Not for You," "Time Passes Slowly," the odd "If Dogs Run Free," "Three Angels" and the title song each rank with his greatest. They are simpler, more direct, less flashy in a lyrical sense, but they cut to the heart of his subject matter, and confirm his genius.

Very underrated
Perhaps the most underrated Dylan album in his catalogue. It's a shame Bob didn't use the piano as his prominent instrument more often. The songs are wonderfully introspective with a blues and traditional southern gospel flair.

"If Not For You" is an excellent love song that is very laid back and welcoming. It should've been a big pop hit. Songs like "Day Of The Locusts", "Time Passes Slowly", and the title track keep up that laid back, southern porch song type of feel with a stripped down rootsy production. "Winterlude", "Sign On The Window", and "The Man In Me" are just downright beautiful songs, showing an unprecedented vulnerablity that predates Blood On The Tracks.

Overall, I think this is an excellent album and one of the best Bob Dylan albums in my mind. It is a unique, soulful Dylan album. Even better than Blood On The Tracks if you ask me.

Dylan's on the path which led to BLOOD.
When NEW MORNING came out, it was after the wake of the critical and commercial disaster of SELF-PORTRAIT. As I said in my review of SELF-PORTRAIT, there are vestiges of a follow-up (and quite a good one at that) to NASHVILLE SKYLINE. SELF PORTRAIT suffers from an identity crisis, and quite a bad one at that, and some of it seems like a legitimate continuation of the direction Dylan was going and then, because of its excesses, there's a lot that seems like it's Dylan's attempt at throwing his audience and critics a curve ball. One thing should be noted, however. While many have noticed this was released quickly after SELF PORTRAIT, all of this music was cut and in the can before SELF PORTRAIT was ever released, and there is evidence of it being marked for release before the big fiasco of its predecessor.

So what about NEW MORNING? This record just takes Dylan further into the domesticated lifestyle he was living and his music just shows it. Gone are the days of "electricity howls in the bones of her face," and instead we get Elvis send-ups and singing about leaving the kids at home for a weekend and doing jazz send-ups and some poetry set to music ("Three Angels"). While Dylan has always had his poetic flair, he generally fuses his music and his lyrics into a cohesive whole, but here it seems more obvious that it is just a poem.

One thing that truly distinguished NASHVILLE SKYLINE was its very distinctive country feel. JOHN WESLEY HARDING, Dylan's release of 1967, had a very mystical feel to it, and while it had a country flavour, it was not a country album but a different animal altogether which I have never found again. It plays almost like an album about a past which no one in living memory can tell us about and manages to capture it in a mystical setting. NASHVILLE SKYLINE, on the other hand, has all the trade-marks of a country album, but the point is, both have an ascetic cohesion which carries them through into that coveted canon of essential music. All of Dylan's best albums have this cohesion as a trade-mark. NASHVILLE SKYLINE is the only country album that I listen too on a regular basis. It services as Dylan's tribute to that genre of music, and several of the ten cuts have become country standards, while also helping cement the idea of "country rock" being a viable form of art. You can tell Dylan is creating a masterpiece in his chosen genre that he wants to work in, creating one more untouchable album for the 1960s.

Well, the 1970s roll around, and his infamous SELF PORTRAIT release is issued. I think there are traces of a great album hidden in the rubble that is SELF-PORTRAIT, and regardless, it still proves to be a fascinating album (see my review). It's torn between two directions and doesn't know which way to go, because Dylan starts with one agenda and ends with another. Had SELF-PORTRAIT trimmed itself back it would have been a worthy follow-up to NASHVILE SKYLINE.

Now we come back to NEW MORNING. VoodooLord7's review gives you an excellent overview of the album itself, but the most important thing Voodoo points out is the lack of cohesion on NEW MORNING. Actually, I disagree that there is not any cohesion in this album, because there is. The problem is, Dylan is too much involved in his domestic life to put a lot of effort in his art. Voodoolord7 gives the excellent analogy of this being an album that Dylan would record in a cabin in the mountains, having a lazy, laid back feel too it, which it most certainly does.

This is an album from a family man's perspective. In the 1960s, Dylan was a visionary, crafting some of the best music of our times. In the early 1970s, though, Dylan was married, had children, and was doing the family scene. He had settled down, and you can tell from his music. When you listen to NEW MORNING, you get the very distinct feeling that the album was cut by someone who was heavily involved with his family life, and while that is a good thing, the music produced in this period does not rise to the level previously reached by Dylan's music. The lack of cohesion that VoodooLord7 complains about is actually there; but it's not there enough to make this a truly essential Dylan album. The cohesion found on NEW MORNING is a domestic cohesion, with stories and songs that a father would sing to his children. While you can produce truly great music like this, Dylan does not, and his own muse works better working within established genres of music instead of established areas of life outside of the ascetic.

People missed the old Dylan of the 1960s, but like the rest of us, Dylan progresses and evolves. But it must have been something of a shock to hear Dylan singing that children are calling him Pa and that's what life is all about when only five years ago he was belting out the lyrics to "Like a Rolling Stone."

For his art, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS would never had come out had his life not been involved with family in the early 1970s. For my money, I'd rather Dylan (or anyone for that matter), had a good family life because that is more important than art. However, this family relationship began unraveling, and this period of domesticity culminated in BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, his greatest post 1960s album. Dylan had enough experience writing about family to turn out a truly great album, and while NEW MORNING and PLANET WAVES are not great albums, they are both thoroughly enjoyable minor works, NEW MORNING being the better album.