Just four years separate the release of New Morning and Blood on the Tracks, but the two albums have much more in common than first thought. With Planet Waves releasing in between, the link between Bob Dylan’s alleged attempt to confront disappointed Self Portrait listeners and his heartbreaking career-best in 1975 is somewhat muddled. But there is a clarity which comes from listening to The Man in Me on repeat for several months of the year. What presents itself is a sickening contrast of who Dylan was trying to be, and who he ended up becoming. Not in the eyes of an audience, that does not matter for either of these releases, but for those who knew him outside of the studio. It’s an album of constant change, so many that musician Al Kooper was ready to cut ties with Dylan after its completion. Dylan pushes himself and others to their very limit on New Morning.
Crucial to understanding this link between New Morning and Blood on the Tracks is the perception listeners had of Dylan at the time. Self Portrait is an admittedly underwhelming piece of work to those expecting the same level of quality as Highway 61 Revisited or Blonde on Blonde. But it was not a disastrous listen. To suggest New Morning was hurried out to counter the lacklustre response is to suggest Dylan cared for what people made of his music. He didn’t budge when he faced criticism for electric instruments, nor did he bow down to expectations when he would shift his live shows into religious sermons just a few years after the release of Blood on the Tracks. Audience expectation is what guides the lesser artist. To play up to a listener is to accept that they are in control of your creative output.
Coincidence is the reason for New Morning releasing so soon after Self Portrait. What is not a coincidence is the shift in tone and how Dylan wrote of love between New Morning and Blood on the Tracks. The last-minute changes would affect his 1970 release frequently. He and Sarah Lownds would divorce in 1977, though it sounded like the relationship had soured around the Blood on the Tracks period. It’s not relationships which guide New Morning, and to an extent, Blood on the Tracks. It’s a desire to do more with life. Dylan was clearly moved in new directions following his motorcycle crash. He retreated from the public eye and would work on projects like New Morning, a celebration of life at its most ordinary.
Dylan said: “After the accident, I started thinking about …how short life is.” Short it may be, but it’s making the most of it that matters. He shifts from the conscious stream of his ‘60s works to a more hands-on, particular writing style featured in the ‘70s. That can be heard on The Man in Me, a song which would sound cheesy in the hands of another artist, but sounds thoroughly gutting and honest, the latter a rarity for Dylan in his music. It’s an honesty which would translate to Blood on the Tracks, but there it was not a longing to do better but a disregard for the other who had caused hurt and pain. It’s not a long walk from one feeling to the other, not least when it comes to recording these songs.
Erratic recording is what New Morning contends with. It’s why it feels lopsided. Winterlude and If Dogs Run Free are notoriously poor efforts, but even they are calls for peace. That is something Dylan would not have on Blood on the Tracks. The contrast could not be clearer. The Man in Me is a song where Dylan hopes to be better, while Idiot Wind is an excellent, poisonous counter. The title track, too, is a soft country ballad paying tribute to a life of relaxation. How many of these are influenced by the need to write for Archibald MacLeish’s play, Scratch, and how much is a projection of Dylan’s easy-going life in Woodstock, is unknowable. There is surely an overlap at play, and it was not all rosy moments to be contrasted with Blood on the Tracks. Day of the Locusts is the first sign of a fracture in this idyllic living.
Dylan may have been away from the spotlight, but he was not absolved of public responsibility. Blood on the Tracks has a longing and, frequently, an anger to it. New Morning has a soft, bubbling frustration in songs like Day of the Locusts and Time Passes Slowly. The latter is a discontent with the peace found on If Not for You, which feels like a direct opposite to the harshness and blunt skill of songs like Buckets of Rain or Simple Twist of Fate. Songs like this feel like explanations of a mood or decision, as though Dylan was trying to understand the route he had taken or the choice he had made. These two albums find him in extremely different parts of his life, but the satisfaction is wavering for him in both spots.
Thoughts on domesticity are what have changed. It’s the link between New Morning and Blood on the Tracks laid bare. Sign on the Window, The Man in Me, and One More Weekend are songs of pleasing a lover, or at least hoping to. Gone are the trail songs, the life on the road, which affected Dylan’s very best works. They return on Blood on the Tracks as though they had been hindered by domesticity. Light and cheerful efforts only get you so far. A master of that tone, like Paul McCartney, can stretch and mould them as much as he likes, but it is the outside world affecting him, rather than his leaving his mark, which keeps him there. It does not suit Dylan, even if New Morning is an underrated gem of his discography.
Neither works were expected, though New Morning was well received at the time of its release. It plays up to the tone audiences were wanting from Dylan. He leans into it, just a little, because the simpler life has softened his writing style. An artist does not need to live in hardship to create their best works, but it certainly gives them something to write about. Such is the case for Blood on the Tracks, an album which many may forget is a horrificly dark piece of work, given how much we listen to it, returning to the grooves over New Morning. People like to hear about suffering in songs because it is easier to extract a meaning and relate their life to it. New Morning is an outline of sorts, a blueprint for what was to come on Blood on the Tracks. It’s a reaction to the domesticity which has now passed, and by the sounds of it, would never return to Dylan, who even now is always on the move.
