Submitted by eyolf on
As previously announced, I have put up tabs to the songs performed in Shadow Kingdom. In the fourth issue of Dylanology, I take that as a point of departure for a discussion of the show as a whole. The conclusion – which was a surprise to me – is that it is the most fascinating work of music he has produced in a long time, not primarily because of the arrangements or the performances, but because of what happens between the songs, in the “Kingdom of the Shadowy in-between”.
Jakob Brønnum dissects the seeminly light-weight nonsense verse You Ain’t Going Nowhere from the Basement Tapes (1967), and finds in it a carefully crafted programme for the good life. As a prelude to a series of articles about Mr Tambourine Man, Brønnum also presents this classic, written during the time when Dylan left the political folk movement, as Dylan’s Ars poetica.
Dylanology is subscription-based. The link goes to a free preview of the issue, where one text is included in full: my reflection upon the Dylanological project as a whole: what is it and why do we do it? I take my answer from a Swedish children’s movie.