‘I must have been mad, I never knew what I had, until I threw it all away…’
My dad passed away in November of 2018. I’ve been trying to think of a way to honour his memory that would have a bit of permeance – something that I could tangibly create that I could then return to in later years. I settled on For Pete’s Sake – a YouTube series in which I go through my dad’s record collection and review them one record at a time. To accompany those videos, I will also be writing a written review of each album. This will give me a bit more room to explore the records themselves in greater detail on a musical level. The videos will be more dad-centric, while these reviews will focus more on the music. This week, it was the turn of Bob Dylan’s 1969 album, Nashville Skyline…
Dylan had already started veering towards country music with his 1967 album, John Wesley Harding, so it’s no surprise that he continued down that route with Nashville Skyline, even going so far as to record the album in Nashville with country music royalty, Johnny Cash. The Man in Black lends his soulful croon to opening track, ‘Girl from the North Country’ – a reworking of an old Dylan song that originally appeared on his second studio album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The version released for Nashville Skyline is undoubtedly the definitive version, however, with Cash on top form whilst providing a fascinating juxtaposition with Dylan’s own newly adapted croon (a singing stlye that he adopted for this album and then pretty much dropped immedatiely – he claims his voice changed so dramatically because he quit smoking).
This being a country record, the general tone is wistful melancholia, and that is never more apparant than on lead single ‘I Threw It All Away’ – a gorgeous lovelorn breakup song that finds Dylan in rare introspection mode, taking full responsibility for the end of a relationship without resorting to his usual acerbic bitterness. It’s the best song on the record. ‘Tell Me That It Isn’t True’ continues on this vein with Dylan seeing his ex with a new lover and realising what he has lost. Unfortunately, the rest of the record doesn’t love up to those highlights with ‘Peggy Day’ and ‘Lay Lady Lay’ representing a low point for Dylan’s ‘new’ singing voice as it grates with the simplistic arrangements and pedestrian lyrics.
Despite finishing strong with ‘Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You’, a hopeful missive that ends what is an unrelentingly sad record with a glimmer of hope, Nashville Skyline is undoubtedly a curio in this stage of Dylan’s career. At 27 minutes, it’s one of the shortest records in his back catalogue, and while it works as an experiement in dabbling in a specific genre, I’d imagine it’s nobody’s favourite Dylan record (except I know this isn’t true, but rather, it shouldn’t be anyone’s favourite Dylan record).
Nashville Skyline is worth exploring for country music fans or people looking for another side of Bob Dylan, but there are much better Dylan records out there for everyone else.