O disco foi produzido pelo próprio Dylan sob o pseudônimo Jack Frost e foi gravado em Los Angeles, com a banda que se apresenta com o músico em turnê: o baixista Tony Garnier; o baterista George G. Receli; os guitarristas Donnie Herron, Charlie Sexton e Stu Kimball; além da participação do guitarrista dos Los Lobos, David Hidalgo, que já havia tocado no disco de 2009 de Bob Dylan, Together Through Life, na guitarra, no violino e no acordeão. A faixa-título, de quase 14 minutos de duração, fala sobre o desastre do Titanic e cita até mesmo o ator Leonardo DiCaprio.
Por estes dias, um trechinho de outra canção de Tempest, vazou na internet. 'Scarlet Town' também já foi parar no tubo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UM3XgeLfo
1.
Duquesne Whistle
[LA
Times] The folky sound of old-time country blues guitar licks quietly unfurl
before the full band explodes into a driving big-beat rhythm as rollicking as
the train ride the song explores. It also signals perhaps a greater focus on
musical arrangements than Dylan fans have been accustomed to, with melodic
flourishes and sharp rhythmic breaks accompanying his metaphor-heavy lyrics in
a song that sounds apocalyptic and hopeful at once.
[Guardian]
Tempest opens with the jaunty Duquesne Whistle, something like a more rambunctious
Nashville Skyline Rag from the 1969 album. Complete with jamming organ and
slick guitar licks (shades of Charlie Christian?), the whistle threatens
"to blow my blues away".
[Mojo]
It starts like some Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys' 1930s Western Swing thing,
like an old song emanating from ancient radio ether, reminding us of Dylan's
love for the roots of American music. But after a verse, it hits ramming speed,
kicking into a ferocious romping rocker propelled by Tony Garnier's walking
bass. The conceit belongs to that grand tradition of long gone train line songs
(think City Of New Orleans), representing older, more soulful values that get
lost when progress mows down everything in its path. "Listen to that
Duquesne whistle blow/Sounds like it's on a final run." A helluva an
opener.
2. Soon After Midnight
[RS]
The doleful "Soon After Midnight" seems to be about love but may in
fact be about revenge.
[Billboard] "Soon After Midnight" is a bluesy doo-wop that echoes the Rays' "Silhouettes" and a bit of Santo & Johnny's "Sleepwalk" in an instrumental break.
[Guardian] It's a mood sustained in the gentle Soon After Midnight – "it's soon after midnight and I've got date with the fairy queen … and I don't want nobody but you" – on which some of Dylan's phrasing recalled for me the feeling of Under the Red Sky, the title track on the 1990 album.
[Telegraph] “I’m searching for phrases to sing your praises,” croons Bob Dylan on Soon After Midnight. [What sounds at first like a gentle country love song contains the admission “My heart is fearful / It’s never cheerful / I’ve been down on the killing floor” and concludes with the threat to drag the corpse of somebody called Two Timing Tim “through the mud”.]
[Mojo] At first one thinks this slow strut is a simple nocturne, a night owl's paean. But as the narrator moves through the moonlight, his multiple women become "harlots" and meet horrific ends. Bob The Ripper? As usual, nothing is revealed, only inferred. Wicked - even evil - delight.
[Billboard] "Soon After Midnight" is a bluesy doo-wop that echoes the Rays' "Silhouettes" and a bit of Santo & Johnny's "Sleepwalk" in an instrumental break.
[Guardian] It's a mood sustained in the gentle Soon After Midnight – "it's soon after midnight and I've got date with the fairy queen … and I don't want nobody but you" – on which some of Dylan's phrasing recalled for me the feeling of Under the Red Sky, the title track on the 1990 album.
[Telegraph] “I’m searching for phrases to sing your praises,” croons Bob Dylan on Soon After Midnight. [What sounds at first like a gentle country love song contains the admission “My heart is fearful / It’s never cheerful / I’ve been down on the killing floor” and concludes with the threat to drag the corpse of somebody called Two Timing Tim “through the mud”.]
[Mojo] At first one thinks this slow strut is a simple nocturne, a night owl's paean. But as the narrator moves through the moonlight, his multiple women become "harlots" and meet horrific ends. Bob The Ripper? As usual, nothing is revealed, only inferred. Wicked - even evil - delight.
3.
Narrow Way
[Billboard]
"Narrow Way" is a seven and a half minute riff-driven tune that
straddles country and blues.
[Guardian] Narrow Way does carry notes of foreboding, heightened by a line about the British burning down the White House, but since when can you hear Bob Dylan singing about a having "a heavy stacked woman with a smile on her face" and not laugh, too?
[Guardian] Narrow Way does carry notes of foreboding, heightened by a line about the British burning down the White House, but since when can you hear Bob Dylan singing about a having "a heavy stacked woman with a smile on her face" and not laugh, too?
[Telegraph]
On the Muddy Waters style, harmonica-driven blues of Narrow Way, Dylan declares
“this is a hard country to stay alive in / I’m armed to the hilt.”
[Mojo]
A jump blues 'bout wimmin troubles. The put-down artist who sang "You're
an idiot, babe/It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe," now
scorns his lady with a withering "Even death has washed its hands of
you." Best couplet: "I'm still hurting from an arrow that pierced my
chest/I'm gonna have to take my head and bury it between your breasts."
4.
Long and Wasted Years
[Uncut]
The reflective mood of several other tracks, including stand-outs “Soon After
Midnight”, “Long And Wasted Years” and “Pay in Blood” will no doubt recall for
some the sombre cast of “Not Dark Yet”
[Mojo] A gorgeous ballad in which the protagonist apologises to his love for hurting her feelings. He admits he wears shades to hide his eyes because "There are secrets in them that I can't disguise" and in one line explains decades of Dylan photos.
[Mojo] A gorgeous ballad in which the protagonist apologises to his love for hurting her feelings. He admits he wears shades to hide his eyes because "There are secrets in them that I can't disguise" and in one line explains decades of Dylan photos.
5.
Pay in Blood
[RS]
The vengeful "Pay in Blood" has Dylan darkly repeating, "I pay
in blood, but not my own."
[Billboard] The bite of Warren Zevon comes out in "Pay in Blood," the chorus of which ends with the gripping line "I pay in blood/but not my own."
[Billboard] The bite of Warren Zevon comes out in "Pay in Blood," the chorus of which ends with the gripping line "I pay in blood/but not my own."
[Guardian]
The darkness does finally start to descend with the gospel-influenced Pay in
Blood ("I pay in blood … but not my own" ).
[Mojo]
A swaggering, threatening, don't-x-with-me and the second Tempest song where
Bob plays the fiend. "Legs and arms and body and bone/I pay in blood but
not my own."
6.
Scarlet Town
[LA
Times] There’s an ominous and mysterious tone to “Scarlet Town,” which adds
another batch of colorfully named characters to the roster of Dylan song
habitues: Uncle Tom, Uncle Bill, Sweet William, Mistress Mary and Little Boy
Blue turn up on the streets of Scarlet Town.
[Billboard]
Another song from the new album, "Scarlet Town" will play over the
end credits of the first two episodes, which air Aug. 17. "Scarlet
Town," rooted in English folk with banjo, acoustic guitar, fiddle and
drums providing the accompaniment, plays out as a tale of doom, fate and
potential redemption.
[Guardian] Scarlet Town – which is the setting for the Child Ballad Barbara Allen that Dylan has sung throughout his career.
[Guardian] Scarlet Town – which is the setting for the Child Ballad Barbara Allen that Dylan has sung throughout his career.
[Mojo]
We're in Masked and Anonymous territory here, Twenty-Worst Century amorality,
where "the end is near," with "the evil and the good living
side-by-side" and where "all human forms seem glorified."
Perhaps he's referring to the Internet. A loping finger-pointer with a nice
slow banjo plucked by Donnie Herron.
7.
Early Roman Kings
[Billboard]
A 12-bar blues that features David Hidalgo of Los Lobos on accordion.
[Telegraph] The throwaway blues of Early Roman Kings.
[Telegraph] The throwaway blues of Early Roman Kings.
[Mojo]
The only Tempest tune that's been officially YouTubed. As he's done in
disparate songs from Bob Dylan's 115th Dream to Isis, the author erases
boundaries between historical and mythical epochs and collapses time into
Bobworld. Is this about Romulus? If so, he's wearing a sharkskin suit and
there's talk of "ding dong daddies" and "Sicilian courts,"
all set to a Mannish Boy musical template.
8.
Tin Angel
[RS]
"Tin Angel" is a devastating tale of a man in search of his lost
love.
[LA Times] The nine-minute “Tin Angel,” a remarkably
straightforward ballad of romantic betrayal and retribution.
[Guardian]
The slow-burning Tin Angel.
[Mojo]
Full of betrayal and more pierced hearts, this is where Tempest sets up the
first of the 1-2-3 punch of epic songs that close out the album. Ultra-violent,
Shakespearean imagery in a description of a doomed love triangle that literally
goes up in flames. To quote another rock poet, no one here gets out alive.
9.
Tempest
[Uncut] The title track alone taking up a fair chunk of
that, with verse following verse in a manner that might remind you of
“Desolation Row”. The album’s title track, meanwhile, is a 14-minute epic that
revolves around the sinking of The Titanic.
[RS]
The title track is a nearly 14-minute depiction of the Titanic disaster.
Numerous folk and gospel songs gave accounts of the event, including the Carter
Family's "The Titanic," which Dylan drew from. "I was just
fooling with that one night," he says. "I liked that melody – I liked
it a lot. 'Maybe I'm gonna appropriate this melody.' But where would I go with
it?" Elements of Dylan's vision of the Titanic are familiar – historical
figures, the inescapable finality. But it's not all grounded in fact: The
ship's decks are places of madness ("Brother rose up against brother. They
fought and slaughtered each other"), and even Leonardo DiCaprio appears.
("Yeah, Leo," says Dylan. "I don't think the song would be the
same without him. Or the movie.").
[LA
Times] The devastating title track, a 14-minute epic that relates the history
of the Titanic with greater power than James Cameron’s overstuffed film.
“Tempest,” couched as an old country waltz, finds Dylan (as he also does in “Tin Angel”) almost entirely avoiding the oblique imagery and playful metaphor on which he built his reputation as rock’s greatest songwriter, instead keeping his lyrics firmly planted on the ground -- or, in this case, in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic in 1912.
“Tempest,” couched as an old country waltz, finds Dylan (as he also does in “Tin Angel”) almost entirely avoiding the oblique imagery and playful metaphor on which he built his reputation as rock’s greatest songwriter, instead keeping his lyrics firmly planted on the ground -- or, in this case, in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic in 1912.
Yet
every one of the song’s 45 verses still packs a punch. Here's one sample:
Mothers and their daughters
Descending down the stairs
Jumped into the icy waters
Love and pity sent their prayers
Descending down the stairs
Jumped into the icy waters
Love and pity sent their prayers
[Billboard]
The song that will get the most attention though is the nearly 14-minute title
track track. "Tempest," 45 verses written in accentual-syllabic verse
with no chorus, is set aboard the Titanic, with characters ranging from an
artist named Leo -- DiCaprio, one might assume -- to Jim Dandy, who hands over
a chance at survival to youngster.
[Guardian] The title track, which lasts almost
14-minutes and tells the story of the sinking of the Titanic over the course of
45 verses. This last is a subject Dylan has touched on previously (in a line on
Desolation Row), while several blues and folk songs have tackled it – Richard
"Rabbit" Brown's Sinking of the Titanic and the Carter Family's The
Titanic among them. Dylan told Rolling Stone his song evolved from fooling
around with the melody to the latter, but what we end up with is something on a
bigger scale. And just as the 16-minute Highlands from Time Out of Mind
namechecked Neil Young and Erica Young, it's Leonardo DiCaprio who gets a
mention here, among a cavalcade of characters.
[Mojo] The almost-14 minute title track about the sinking of the Titanic. The lords and ladies within initially dance before ending up as floating corpses. There's a character named Leo with a sketchbook, echoing the Hollywood version as well as history's. Some folks "slaughter" each other over lifeboat space, others perform great acts of heroism - a microcosm of humanity. And a mysterious character called "The Watchman" repeatedly dreams of the disaster and tries to save the victims. Is he on or off the ship? Is he contemporaneous or does he exist now? We're not told, adding to the surreal nightmare.
[Mojo] The almost-14 minute title track about the sinking of the Titanic. The lords and ladies within initially dance before ending up as floating corpses. There's a character named Leo with a sketchbook, echoing the Hollywood version as well as history's. Some folks "slaughter" each other over lifeboat space, others perform great acts of heroism - a microcosm of humanity. And a mysterious character called "The Watchman" repeatedly dreams of the disaster and tries to save the victims. Is he on or off the ship? Is he contemporaneous or does he exist now? We're not told, adding to the surreal nightmare.
10.
Roll On John
[Uncut]
“Roll On John”, the album’s closing track, a wistful tribute to John Lennon
that quotes lines from several Beatles songs, including “Come Together” and “A
Day In The Life”.
[RS] Tenderness finally seals Tempest, in "Roll On, John," Dylan's heartfelt tribute to his friend John Lennon.
[RS] Tenderness finally seals Tempest, in "Roll On, John," Dylan's heartfelt tribute to his friend John Lennon.
[LA
Times] A 7 1/2-minute benediction directed at John Lennon, invoking several
snippets of lyrics from the late Beatle’s songs.
[Billboard]
The album's final track is a tribute to John Lennon, "Roll on John."
In one verse Dylan references the Beatles songs "Come Together,"
Ballad of John and Yoko" and "Slow Down"; elsewhere on the
ballad he combines the metaphysical with the historical.
[Guardian]
Then finally, there's Roll on John, which digs back into the blues and into
William Blake to tell part of the story of John Lennon; it's warm, mysterious
and moving – and an excuse to dig out that famous footage of the pair in London
taxi cab – with Dylan at one point singing: "I heard the news today, oh
boy!" In terms of the Dylan canon, does it bring to mind the crepuscular
menace of Not Dark Yet?. Perhaps it's more Forever Young.
[Telegraph]
The album’s beautiful, surprising conclusion, Roll On John, is almost out of
character, a shaggy, loose piano and organ lament for one of rock’s great
dreamers, John Lennon. Dylan sings to his lost friend “your bones are weary,
you’re about to breath your last / Lord you know how hard that bit can be”
before breaking into an elegiac, bittersweet chorus (“Shine a light / Move it
on / You burned so bright / Roll on John”).
[Mojo]
And in the end, pretty much a blow-by-blow account of the murder of Dylan's
friend John Lennon. Bob imagines the physical experience of dying that John
endured in his final moments, down to "breathing his last." Terribly
sad, terribly moving, and appropriate for all of us who consider Dylan and
Lennon the titans of rock 'n' roll artistry - once two very stoned young pals
in the back of a limo having too much fun. "You
burned so bright/Roll on John."
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