Winterlude, This Dude Thinks You're Fine: Bob Dylan's "New Morning"

Bob Dylan, New Morning
(Columbia, 1970)

Steve’s Stocking Stuffer Suggestions, Vol. III

New Morning is to Bob Dylan what Fables of the Reconstruction is to R.E.M. or Presence is to Led Zeppelin. It’s rarely listed in the handful of the artist’s greatest records, but holds a very special place in the hearts and minds of their most devoted fans.

This was the final record in Dylan’s Country Gentleman era, which began as a retreat from madness after the motorcycle crash following his 1966 world tour. He got off the road, and traded in his Mod suits, Beatle boots and mad-genius afro for seersucker, sandals and a patchy beard. In the rural quiet of Woodstock and Saugerties, NY, he started to raise a family and relax a bit. (Bob devoted an entire chapter of his 2004 memoir Chronicles Volume One to this fascinating period.)

But even in his downtime, Dylan was prodigious and brilliant. He laid down over 100 covers and originals with the Band at their Big Pink house, which became known as “the Basement Tapes.” Then came the quiet masterpiece John Wesley Harding, the country Nashville Skyline, the leave-me-alone Self Portrait and then, in 1970, New Morning.

Unlike the folkie anthems and speed-freak put-downs that characterized his music up to Blonde on Blonde, the music of this era evokes contentment, family, wedded bliss, spiritual discovery, mountains’ majesty, warm hearths, country roads and cascading streams. Take this stanza from “Sign on the Window.”

Build me a cabin in Utah
Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
Have a bunch of kids who call me ‘Pa’
That must be what it’s all about
That must be what it’s all about

This was also the first record on which Dylan played a lot of piano (something he now does every night on tour), which helps give New Morning a warm, intimate feel. There’s the Dylan standard “If Not for You,” and a hot toddy of deep-catalog Bob: “Day of the Locusts,” about his trip to Princeton to receive an honorary degree; “Went to See the Gypsy” about an alleged meeting with Elvis; the Walden-worthy “Time Passes Slowly”; the randy “One More Weekend” and the semi-macho “The Man in Me.”

But there are three tracks that make New Morning an ideal stocking stuffer. The charming waltz “Winterlude,” “Father of Night” and “Three Angels” are the closest one can get to A Very Dylan Christmas. And the title cut is a perfect New Year’s tune. The ideal track to kick off some late-night festivities after putting Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on mute.

Too bad New Morning was not upgraded as part of the recent Bob Dylan Revisited program. The CD has a slight hiss which would not be missed were it gone. Nevertheless this is one of the true finds in his bottomless catalog. As Dylan says at the end of the beatnik-scat ditty “If Dogs Run Free,” Get it, baby.