Shot of Love [Import]

Dylan's critical reputation had sort of gotten into a funk, and this album does not help any matters. Some people want to tell you its one of the great underrated masterpieces of Dylan's career. Being the release immediately after the Christian album SAVED, this does look golden in comparison to that album. If you're were talking about STREET-LEGAL or EMPIRE BURLESQUE, I'd tend to agree, although the later seems to have a fairly good critical reputation. As far as the person who said they like this better than BLONDE ON BLONDE, I just don't see how, although I am not that person. Each to his own I guess.

As far as the Christianity goes, this is the by far the most accessible to a secular audience, although SLOW TRAIN COMING is better aesthetically. There are no explicitly Christian songs here other than "Property of Jesus", allowing it to reach the secular audience more on their level, and yet retaining the fundamentals of Christianity. On it's most basic level SHOT OF LOVE is a Christian record. But instead of preaching to the choir like he did on SAVED (which had no appeal to the secular audience, thus making it not much good in terms of being an evangelical tool), this record dresses its message of freedom and Christianity in pop music, and while the idea is a good one for reaching the lost, aesthetically it only produces mixed results. This record, although only very limited, becomes something of a return to form for Dylan, especially with "Every Grain of Sand", showing he can make his new found faith and his writing come together in a glorious result, which he also did with "Foot of Pride" and "Angelina", which was sadly left off this album. SAVED was something only a converted audience could appreciate, and even then the tracks on that record are so generic and cliche it looses any emotional impact that it should have had. The next release, INFIDELS, is another album I consider Christian, playing almost like a concept album, but for some reason never regarded as such. (For those of you who think "Man of Peace" is an attack on Christianity, in context of the album and its outtakes it is obviously not the case. Instead, he's singing about the anti-Christ, as evidenced by several clues).

This album does what no other Dylan record has done: reincorporate a stray track into the running order, and for good reason as it's one of his best. "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar", originally a B-Side from one of the singles off this album and included since 1985, rocks as hard as anything on HIGHWAY 61 REVISTED, as does "Shot of Love". These are both two strong compositions. "Property of Jesus" I really dig, a minor (Christian) Classic, and "Lenny Bruce" is one of the strongest tracks here. As a reviewer below said, listen to it as a elegy to John Lennon -- that greatly enhanced my listening experience of that particular song.

Then we have one of the few tracks from the 1980s that is undeniably a masterpiece anyway you cut it: "Every Grain of Sand". It angers me that this song often is overlooked by compilers when it should be included. This, "Jokerman", "I & I", "Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love?)", and "Brownsville Girl" can stand proud against any of the 1960s material.

Well, what about the other tracks? They seem, to me, rather generic and not quite up to par, and unfortunately this material constitutes half the album. "Heart of Mine" is good, but not great, "Watered Down Love" is just watered down Dylanspeak "Positively Fourth Street". "Dead Man, Dead Man", "In the Summer Time", and "Trouble" are hardly better, although I do like "Trouble" quite a bit, it being rather funky. But it is still not the best song in the world. Every time I hear "In the Summer Time" it feels like a 5 minute plus song, and its only 3 and a half. That is not a good thing in this instant.

Another perplexing thing, which it shares with the release immediately after this (INIFIDELS), is what was left OFF the album, and in most cases had they been included this would be a much stronger album. "You Changed My Life", "Need a Woman", and "Angelina" are all better songs than the so-so material that did make it onto the album, and with "Angelina", it rivals the only bona-fide classic here ("Every Grain of Sand"). These are all on THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOLUMES 1-3. "Caribbean Wind", from BIOGRAPH, should also have been included. Had he then eliminated the dead weight it would be the other classic that people so want it be to from the 1980s, joining INFIDELS, EMPIRE BURLESQUE, and OH MERCY as the very strong albums of the 1980s, and Dylan desperately needed this.

As it stands, it is just a pop record that has its moments with some average or almost there material. It also has no material that is just absolutely terrible, like, oh, say Dylan's 1986 and 1988 releases respectively. It does have its own atmosphere, and all the songs contribute to that. But instead of excellence it just doesn't sit right with me. Dylan needs help when it comes to track selection, botching both this and INFIDELS, ruining both releases by leaving several great songs OFF of the album that should have been included. But Dylan also proved himself rather inept at judging what should and should and should not be on an album as early as the 1960s, leaving "Farewell Angelina" off BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME and a doing a complete take of "She's Your Lover Now" and putting it on BLONDE ON BLONDE. It would have been nice had FREEWHEELIN been a double lp (he certainly had the material for it), but to be fair to Dylan, that had never been done before and that was only his second release. (A side note: BLONDE ON BLONDE was the first double rock album ever).

But then he wouldn't be Dylan.

Arguably his worst record ever. Gave it two stars because Dylan is..well Dylan. Anyone else had done this and I would never have listened to it more than the one time. Came back to it after not bringing it out of storage for years. Thought it would bring back a period where Bob seemed lost, dazed and confused. He was. Have heard a number of these tunes on live performances where they sounded much better..like he'd figured them out finally. Others had covered them and improved on Dylan's! That's so rare. Only possible when he did so poorly. We're talking about my man Bobby. Sad to write this slagging review but have recently revisited all my Dylan to see what has stood up the best. So many are still the greatest of works. Masterpieces. This is not one of them.

Shot of Love and the album that preceded it, Saved, have received, through the years, critical drubbings along the lines of what Dylan's recent movie Masked and Anonymous has garnered. His gospel period, in general, has almost always been looked upon in a generally negative light, and is only now starting to get the credit it deserves with the release of Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan, a collection which features contemporary gospel stars singing some of the man's best songs from the period.

Where does Shot of Love fit into all this? It is an underrated album. However it is not a great album, or a classic. It is much, much more secular than the first two gospel albums; indeed, only one song -- Property of Jesus - is unabashedly Christian. Several of the songs -- Heart of Mine, Lenny Bruce, and possibly several others -- are not Christian at all. There is almost none of the fire and brimstone here that Slow Trained Coming was loaded with; neither is it unabashedly gospel, as Saved was. Dylan wraps the virtues of Christianity up in more everyday forms, and does not bash us over the head dogmatically here; it's barely self-righteous, and it doesn't preach to the choir. Music-wise, none of the songs are in actual gospel style; several are even poppy. Others rock quite hard -- harder than anything since the mid-60's, in fact. Piano is the lead instrument on several songs, often played by Dylan himself. The backup singers do a good job here, and aren't overly intrusive or robotic-sounding, as they sometimes had been in the past. The legendary Jim Keltner is excellent on drums, as always. As for Dylan's singing, let it be known that the album contains some of Dylan's best vocal performances ever. His voice is as sweet as honey on In The Summertime -- a beautiful performance. The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar has one of Dylan's classic nasty snarls of a vocal -- echoing such classics as Positively 4th Street and Like A Rolling Stone -- something his voice was particularly well-suited to in the early 80's, though he didn't use it that way very often. The title track's vocal features a similar virtue, while containing the startlingly forceful lyric: "Why would I want to take your life?/You've only murdered my father, raped his wife/Tattooed my babies with a poison pen/Mocked my God, humiliated my friends." In a typical streak of perversity, Dylan saves his most beautiful vocal for his elegy to Lenny Bruce -- remember, this is a gospel album -- which is sung to a beautiful piano backdrop (anyone who says Bob can't play piano needs to listen to this album, which is chock full of his wonderful playing.) All of the tunes I've mentioned are key tracks. An undisputed highlight, however, is the aforementioned Groom, a ferocious, driving rocker that seems somewhat out of place on the album; indeed, it was not originally there. It is one of his best songs of the 80's -- and one gets to hear The Poet of Our Generation rhyme "January" with "Buenos Aries." The song was released as a B-side and tacked onto the album by virtue of popular demand. (It's a shame that some of the album's other outtakes weren't, too. One of them, Angelina, is a beautiful piece of music with some of Dylan's most enigmatic and complex lyrics.)

However, ladies and gentlemen, all of this is superfluous. Because, and I say it without hesitation, the album is worth buying the album just to be able to hear Every Grain of Sand. This amazingly beautiful song features one of Dylan's most poignant, poetic lyrics, delivered to us through a highly-emotional and emphatic that never fails to drive me to tears every single time I hear it. It is fitting that it is the last song on the last album of Dylan's gospel period: it perfectly sums up everything that he'd been trying to say the whole time. Far removed from the dogma-toting, sometimes self-righteous preaching to be found in his earlier gospel songs, Every Grain of Sand manages to conjure up all of the beauty and the hope of faith, while also succinctly summarizing the darkness and the doubt that inevitably comes into the mind of any thinking, feeling man: "I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea/Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me." The song is further punctuated by not only Dylan's greatest-ever harmonica solo, but his two greatest (again, those who say that he cannot play the harp absolutely must listen to this masterful performance.) His solos are achingly sad, painfully lonely -- and yet redemptive, all at the same time. They're so emotional to be tear-jerking. It is one of the greatest songs he's ever written. I say quite simply: if this song doesn't move you, you have no soul.

Dylan's choice of the penultimate line "I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man" is highly significant. As originally recorded, the line read "...of a perfect, finished plan." The latter seems to be more of a Christian viewpoint, whereas the former is more secular; the two lines are polar opposites, and change the entire meaning of the song and the conclusion that it draws. Are we really hanging in the balance of a perfect, finished plan... or just the reality of man? Dylan's use of the latter line on this album, especially since it is the last song on his last gospel album, leaves the entire period open to re-interpretation.

Not Dylan's best album, and certainly not a classic. Some of the songs I haven't mentioned -- Dead Man, Dead Man, Watered-Down Love, Trouble -- are fairly lightweight, for Dylan especially. But you still owe it to yourself to buy this album for its great songs, and especially for Every Grain of Sand.