It’s on BobDylan.com this morning. Click here for page one of four. It ends with “To be continued.” I’m glad they got someone as sharp as Bill Flanagan to do this promotional interview. He also did one of the classic interviews with Bob Dylan, back in 1985, in his book Written in My Soul: Conversations With Rock’s Great Songwriters.

Obviously, this entire interview is going to be essential reading. But I find this part most highly interesting so far:

The new record’s very different from Modern Times which was a number one hit. It seems like every time you have a big hit, the next time out you change things around. Why don’t you try to milk it a little bit?

I think we milked it all we could on that last record and then some. We squeezed the cow dry. All the Modern Times songs were written and performed in the widest range possible so they had a little bit of everything. These new songs have more of a romantic edge.

How so?

These songs don’t need to cover the same ground. The songs on Modern Times songs brought my repertoire up to date, and the light was directed in a certain way. You have to have somebody in mind as an audience otherwise there’s no point.

What do you mean by that?

There didn’t seem to be any general consensus among my listeners. Some people preferred my first period songs. Some, the second. Some, the Christian period. Some, the post Colombian. Some, the Pre-Raphaelite. Some people prefer my songs from the nineties. I see that my audience now doesn’t particular care what period the songs are from. They feel style and substance in a more visceral way and let it go at that. Images don’t hang anybody up. Like if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed. Images are taken at face value and it kind of freed me up.

In what way?

Well for instance, if there are shadows and flowers and swampy ledges in a composition, that’s what they are in their essence. There’s no mystification. That’s one way I can explain it.

Like a locomotive, a pair of boots, a kiss or the rain?

Right. All those things are what they are. Or pieces of what they are. It’s the way you move them around that makes it work.

The BobDylan.com site is also sporting a promotional image for the album, which I have to assume is going to be the cover.

As if the title wasn’t uncharacteristic enough, now there’s this, which at first glance looks a lot like an ad for jeans or something like that. Actually “Together Through Life” wouldn’t be a bad slogan for Levis, come to think of it. I don’t say this to be critical: I personally find it very amusing. And I can’t wait for the record.

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Addendum: More on that cover photo in this post.

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Also see Mary’s post at BabyBlueOnline, especially her thoughts towards the bottom on “Dylan as a restorationist” — a fascinating consideration of what he meant in some of his comments to Bill Flanagan.

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