A collaboration decades in the making finally comes to light. Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand would have served listeners better with Lay Lady Lay, but The Very Thought of You does the job. It is Dylan putting on his crooner voice, the sound he would make on Shadows in the Night. Pair that with the likeable tone Streisand still performs with, and there is plenty for listeners to like about this extract from The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two. Either lucid from the effects of the heatwave or riding the high of a successful night at the casino, The Very Thought of You sounds blissful. Sincerity is hard to come by in certain chart-toppers Stateside, so it is sweet to hear two veterans of the studio, two creatives whose sincerity cannot be doubted, come together. It may not be perfect, but it has plenty of passion.
That is all we can ask of legends at this point. After so long in the studio, to keep the flame of creativity alive is a borderline miracle. The Very Thought of You is far from miraculous, though it does offer the chance to hear a collaboration Dylan had been keen on decades ago. It seems the flame is still kindled by the veteran songwriter, who jumps at the chance to work with Streisand. Two voices which could not be further from one another, but that is where the music complements one another. It is certainly the song on the album which feels like the featured artist has more control than Streisand. Even Paul McCartney seems comfortable giving My Valentine over to Streisand. But the restrictions placed on audiences when it comes to seeing Dylan include Streisand too, it would seem. A Yondr pouch away from the true experience.
He opens the song, the instrumental feature is not too far from the soppy, romantic style his voice is now suited to, and The Very Thought of You sounds dependent on his feature. Those slow beats of love are adapted to well by the pair, though Dylan is perhaps beyond the point of providing gentle, romantic songs such as this. His gruff tone is suitable for the blues-like rock he pulls out on stage today. This is far from Rough and Rowdy Ways but it is still close to a musical style near and dear to his heart. The Very Thought of You has more than a few delicate moments to it, much of it coming from the overlap Streisand and Dylan have towards the end of the song. Problems which arise here are not because of the collaboration, but because of the stock style of instrumentals used across the album.
How an artist adapts to those features, then, is what matters most. There is a sweetness to The Very Thought of You. Translating that into song, into an earnest performance from two greats, gets harder the more we expect. You can still expect a quality moment from Streisand and Dylan, though it is of the older listening variety. The sort of music you can expect from legends creating for the sake of checking off collaborations, as was the case for Dolly Parton last year. Name value is what these songs provide, but when they can share a sliver of what brought these voices into the public eye and kept them there, that is a wonderful bonus. The Very Thought of You is sweet. For fans of either artist, it marks a strong moment, an answer to a decades-old question Dylan first asked with Lay Lady Lay.
Barbra was gorgeous on that collaboration with Bob Dylan.Well worth encouraging him out of retirement for. Or it would have been , had he retired. What can you say about Bob who couldn’t refuse the long awaited chance ( since he was very young when he sent her an invitation ) to sing with him.