Rough and Rowdy Ways

by 
AlbumJun 19 / 202010 songs, 1h 10m 38s
Singer-Songwriter Americana
Popular Highly Rated

On his first LP of original songs in nearly a decade—and his first since reluctantly accepting Nobel Prize honors in 2016—Bob Dylan takes a long look back. *Rough and Rowdy Ways* is a hot bath of American sound and historical memory, the 79-year-old singer-songwriter reflecting on where we’ve been, how we got here, and how much time he has left. There are temperamental blues (“False Prophet,” “Crossing the Rubicon”) and gentle hymns (“I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You”), rollicking farewells (“Goodbye Jimmy Reed”) and heady exchanges with the Grim Reaper (“Black Rider”). It reads like memoir, but you know he’d claim it’s fiction. And yet, maybe it’s the timing—coming out in June 2020 amidst the throes of a pandemic and a social uprising that bears echoes of the 1960s—or his age, but Dylan’s every line here does have the added charge of what feels like a final word, like some ancient wisdom worth decoding and preserving before it’s too late. “Mother of Muses” invokes Elvis and MLK, Dylan claiming, “I’ve already outlived my life by far.” On the 16-minute masterstroke and stand-alone single “Murder Most Foul,” he draws Nazca Lines around the 1963 assassination of JFK—the death of a president, a symbol, an era, and something more difficult to define. It’s “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” that lingers longest, though: Over nine minutes of accordion and electric guitar mingling like light on calm waters, Dylan tells the story of an outlaw cycling through radio stations as he makes his way to the end of U.S. Route 1, the end of the road. “Key West is the place to be, if you’re looking for your mortality,” he says, in a growl that gives way to a croon. “Key West is paradise divine.”

9.0 / 10

Six decades into his career, Bob Dylan delivers a gorgeous and meticulous record. It is the rare Dylan album that asks to be understood and comes down to meet its audience.

5 / 10

10 / 10

Bob Dylan remains an immeasurable and inimitable force

The NME verdict on Bob Dylan's first album of original material in eight years, which was preceded by three singles including 'Murder Most Foul'

When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, the first songwriter to receive the honour, he didn’t seem too bothered. It took him two weeks to say anything about it at all, and he finally deigned to pick it up more than three months after the ceremony. As his last three albums have been filled with cover versions of American standards, his own writing has looked like a low priority lately.

Review: Bob Dylan's 'Rough and Rowdy Ways'

His first new material since 2012’s ‘Tempest’ is a soothing fit for the lockdown mood in which time and meaning feel strangely stretched and untethered

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10 / 10

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Pretty but redundant songwriting from an artist who no longer has his finger on the pulse“I ain’t no false prophet/I just said what I said” Bob Dylan sings on his new album Rough and Rowdy Ways.

9 / 10

Bob Dylan has always been a student of America. An artist almost uniquely tuned in to the emotional spasms of the land that bore him, the country’s

Dylan’s first new songs in eight years contain – and namecheck – multitudes.

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The album encompasses the infinite potential for grace and disaster during the most turbulent of ages.

8 / 10

The question of authenticity has been a cloud over the life and career of Bob Dylan since his 1961 arrival in New York City.

Full of bleak and brooding rhythm and blues, Rough and Rowdy Ways reveals Dylan at his lyrical best

100 %

Album Reviews: Bob Dylan - Rough And Rowdy Ways

The wise old poet has stirred up a cryptic cauldron of truths and clues, philosophy, myths and magic

Dylan is on a roll. Woe betide anyone who gets in his way

Bob Dylan's Rough and Rowdy Ways is a masterpiece. New music review by Tim Cumming

9 / 10

Uncut's definitive review of Bob Dylan's 39th studio album, Rough And Rowdy Ways, in full