Music Review: Bob Dylan - Together Through Life

Together Through Life originated as a songwriting assignment. Bob Dylan was hired to write a ballad for the main character of Olivier Dahan’s My Own Love Song, which is set in the American South. In an interview on his website Dylan explains, “We started off with ‘Life Is Hard’ and then the record sort of took its own direction.” That “direction” leads Dylan and his band, augmented by Heartbreaker Mike Campbell on guitar and Los Lobos David Hildago on guitar and accordion, to join the music of the region with tales of love and woe written by Dylan and co-lyricist Robert Hunter.

Hildago’s accordion and Donny Herrron’s trumpet on “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” provides a sound from the bayou as the narrator, likely down on his luck, has nothin’ but the love of his pretty baby, which is all he needs. A mandolin and steel guitar are up front, leading the ensemble on “Life Is Hard” while Dylan adds a weariness to his nasally delivery, as when he sings, “Admitting life is hard/ Without you near me.” It’s a touching song about the one who got away, likely reflected upon while drinking sorrows away.

With music co-credited to Willie Dixon, “My Wife’s Home Town” is a blues tune about a guy seemingly trapped in a love affair, bewitched by affections that can turn a good man bad. “If You Ever Go To Houston” is a country tune with the narrator offering advice about traveling the Lone Star state from the adventures he’s had.

“Jolene” is a blues tune that swings and sways, likely reminiscent of her hips on the dance floor. She breaks hearts without even trying and makes “a dead man rise and holler she's the one.” The guitarists trade licks and should get a rise out of the listener. This could have been about the homewrecker Dolly Parton sings about from a different point of view, but their eyes are different colors. The band’s musical journey takes them to the Southwest as the accordion-led Tex-Mex arrangement of “This Dream of You,” written solely by Dylan, backs the narrator’s tale of denial as he keeps “living on” through the dream of a former relationship.

Article Author: El Bicho

El Bicho writes for a number of movie web sites, including Cinema Sentries, which he runs for the geniuses of Forwerd Media. He also occasionally cleans up around here. Follow at twitter.com/ElBicho_CS

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