Expecting Rain

An attempt to listen to all of Bob Dylan's studio albums in order over the summer, climaxing with the release of the newest Bob Dylan album sometime in September. There will be about 2-3 albums per week.

Part 12:
New Morning
Release: October 21, 1970

Join in the experience of hearing the albums in sequence. Play some New Morning on the 4th of July and report back! Catch up if you're just joining us. Or don't--play through the first 11 in your head--most of us can probably do that, huh?

allmusic review:
Dylan rushed out New Morning in the wake of the commercial and critical disaster Self Portrait, and the difference between the two albums suggests that its legendary failed predecessor was intentionally flawed. New Morning expands on the laid-back country-rock of John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline by adding a more pronounced rock & roll edge. While there are only a couple of genuine classics on the record ("If Not for You," "One More Weekend"), the overall quality is quite high, and many of the songs explore idiosyncratic routes Dylan had previously left untouched, whether it's the jazzy experiments of "Sign on the Window" and "Winterlude," the rambling spoken word piece "If Dogs Run Free" or the Elvis parable "Went to See the Gypsy." Such offbeat songs make New Morning a charming, endearing record.
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Bob Dylan
Release: March 19, 1962
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The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Release: May 27, 1963
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The Times They Are a-Changin'
Release: January 13, 1964
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Another Side of Bob Dylan
Release: August 8, 1964
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Bringing It All Back Home
Release: March 22, 1965
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Highway 61 Revisited
Release: August 30, 1965
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Blonde on Blonde
Release: June 20, 1966
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The Basement Tapes
Recorded: June-September 1967 Release: June 26, 1975
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John Wesley Harding
Release: December 27, 1967
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Nashville Skyline
Release: April 9, 1969
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Self Portrait
Release: June 8, 1970
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New Morning
Release: October 21, 1970

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Release: July 13, 1973

Dylan
Release: November 16, 1973

Planet Waves
Release: January 17, 1974

Blood on the Tracks
Release: January 17, 1975

Desire
Release: January 16, 1976

Street Legal
Release: June 15, 1978

Slow Train Coming
Release: August 20, 1979

Saved
Release: June 20, 1980

Shot of Love
Release: August 12, 1981

Infidels
Release: November 1, 1983

Empire Burlesque
Release: June 8, 1985

Knocked Out Loaded
Release: August 8, 1986

Down in the Groove
Release: May 31, 1988

Oh Mercy
Release: September 22, 1989

Under the Red Sky
Release: September 11, 1990

Good as I Been to You
Release: October 27, 1992

World Gone Wrong
Release: October 28, 1993

Time Out of Mind
Release: September 30, 1997

"Love and Theft"
Release: September 11, 2001

Modern Times
Release: August 29, 2006

Together Through Life
Release: April 28, 2009

Christmas in the Heart
Release: October 13, 2009

It'd have been interesting to see him go this route another album or two before he got back on his hopped up New York trip.

It's the only one like it in his canon. James Taylor was doing it better I guess.

Odd to see Allmusic single out One More Weekend as a highlight... of the songs I don't skip (everything but If Dogs Run Free, that is) One More Weekend is definitely my least favorite. That said, this album has grown on me a lot since first few listens. It's no grand masterwork, but it's a very enjoyable piece of work nonetheless. Went to See the Gypsy is fantastic, as is Sign on the Window; but my favorite section is the tripartite ending: The Man in Me, Three Angels, Father of Night. Lovely!

Awesome album.

One of my favourites, tied with Planet Waves at number 10 spot. His voice on this album is very nearly my favourite, but Rolling Thunder & John Welsey Harding just bit it. The roughness is amazing, I believe he had a cold? Sign On the Window is heartbreaking when he reaches that middle-eighth, same with Went To See The Gypsy. I have this on vinyl, great sound! On iTunes, I edited Spanish Is The Loving Tongue, the solo b-side version. Which is amazing. I put it in between The Man In Me and Three Angels. Anyway fantastic album.

I do really love the timber of his voice here.

i listen to Sign On The Window and Went To See The Gypsy (usually the demo version though) a lot. If Not For You, New Morning, The Man In Me, and Father Of Night are all great too.


anyone know why the cover is a little different on the official website:

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/music/new-morning

The Big Lebowski introduced me to this album.

an album within an album

Forerunner of Knocked Out Loaded.

Another shorty. Good album though, good album.

The Columbia CD release from 1994 appears to have a white cover:
http://www.discogs.com/Bob-Dylan-New-Mo ... ase/374983

Be a bit careful with this one... The original CD was shit; the remastered CD is a fecking car crash of treble and volume all over it. Get the lovely recent vinyl from here or, if vinyl pops and rumbles bother you too much, get the excellent vinyl drop from the Japanese pressing.

I agree with STENSTON. IT's off beat songs that are so different and original is what makes it listenable, but there are no classics here. Nothing you would cheer for live. But still enjoyable because you wont hear stuff like this anywhere else, from Dylan or anyone.

I was just thinking about this the other day, what albums by other artists would I consider similar to New Morning in terms of mood, feel. sound, theme, etc. Any thoughts?

By the way, I love the album.

Yesiree!!

Never understood those who were put off because this wasn't REAL Dylan. This is Dylan through and through. Just not Blonde on Blonde part 10. I just LOVE Went to See the Gypsy, Day of the Locusts, New Morning. All of it really.
I love in Gypsy were he sings "How I you he said to me, I said it back to him." I can picture that moment. That's one of the things I love about Dylan. How visual his writing is.

In many ways, this is like the dark side to Nashville Skyline, although a lot of the songs on here are happy, a lot more are sad. Adding the solo piano version of Spanish Is The Loving Tongue on this album really makes it better! that's what I did.

Also If Dogs Run Free is amazing! Don't get the hate for this, the piano playing is probably the best Bob has ever done, it's such a groovy track, listening to it now on my vinyl, the sound is out of this world!

I think Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey is kind of a bed fellow in it's mood and feel. Though much better than Bob's album.

There are certainly similarities, though New Morning feels much more personal to me and maybe that's why I like it a lot more. For Nashville Skyline he seems to be playing a part. It feels like an album he made down in Nashville under the guise of this new adopted persona. New Morning seems much more like a true expression of his life and feelings at the time. Day of the Locusts is obviously personal and then just the whole happy with my new domestic rural family life mood. It feels like an album that comes right out of his house in Woodstock.

Thanks Ain't Talkin. Love Astral Weeks and Moondance but have never really made it past those two so will have to check out Tupelo Honey.

Another one that seems similar in mood to New Morning, at least to me, is the Cat Stevens album Tea for the Tillerman. Both have that feeling of starting anew, leaving the city/materialistic life behind and starting over with a simpler life in the woods or the mountains or wherever. At least that's the feeling I get from them both.

except that tea for the tillerman has one of the most condescendingly sexist songs ever in wild world!

Just adding it's a brilliant album .

Never really occured to me compare the two, because Dylan's is much earthier, and not suffused with a whiff of the metaphysical like Tillerman is.

Yeah, but it's only sexist if you think he's making a statement about all women. I always thought of it as a very specific woman he was writing about, a lover who was leaving him, a younger woman who in his mind was not very worldly or street smart and had to some extent "gotten by" on her looks. Surely there are at least a few women (and men) in the world who fit that mold and isn't it ok for him to write a song about one? Dylan would be the most sexist man on the planet if you were to take all of his songs about ex-lovers and think of them as statements on females as a whole.

is Winterlude an original Bob melody? if so, it's terribly underrated... too bad he couldn't come up with a better lyric for it.. still a nice little song.

Sign on the Window, One More Weekend, Man in Me, Gypsy... a lot of good songs here, i think i'll have in on rotation for awhile!

the only one i dont like is If Not For You... go figure, that's the one that appears on all the Best Ofs.. Reminds me of Saved, where Solid Rock and Saved get all the glory while pretty much every other track is better.