Customer Reviews

Nashville Skyline

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Along with The Byrds' "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo", Dylan's "Nashville Skyline" is the beginning point of the greatest inroads country music ever made, into rock music. Dylan was criticized in the mid-60's for abandoning acoustic folk and then in 1969 for abandoning the artsy rock of "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde On Blonde". But herein lies the essence of Dylan's greatness. His uncanny sensibility and his profound ability to fully grasp a genre and make it his own. The songs on this album are deceptively simple and straight to the point. Bob abandoned all socio-political ranting to make an album of pure joy that celebrates the highs and lows of love. Aside from the classic "Lay Lady Lay" we have the underappreciated "I Threw It All Away", "Tell Me That It Isn't True" and "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" as well as the uptempo feelgood shuffle of "Country Pie" and the instrumental "Nashville Skyline Rag". Even Dylan's humorously out of tune and badly timed duet with Johnny Cash on "Girl From The North Country" seems to work perfectly here. The only criticism I have of this great album is that it's too short, running less than 30 minutes. By the end, you want the music to just keep going. Dylan chose to close out his work of the tumultuous 1960s with a serene, easygoing and non-combative work of art. Excellent!

It's a shame that people who knock country music limit themselves by their own ignorance of american musical history. "Country" music, "a la" Hank Williams and Patsy Cline is nothing more than the Anglo response to the blues. Dylan knew this, and his admiration for the country blues of John Hurt, Son House, Skip James ultimately lead him to country music. And his tinkering with country music has provided inspiration for, I think, numerous and wonderful performers. One has to imagine that Gram Parsons, Nanci Griffith, Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Jay Farrar (the fabled Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt), Gillian Welch, Ryan Adams (Whiskeytown), and countless others have found inspiration in the music and lyrics of "Nashville Skyline." Amen to that.

Although I'm hard-pressed, at best, to speak for Dylan, I have to assume he was just exploring another form for melody and lyric. A new feel, a new vibe. That high-lonesome sound. He could have cranked out "Highway 61 Revisted" followed by "Highyway 61 Revisted, Again" and then "Even Yet Still More Highway 61" but Dylan despised categorization (witness his scathing replies to the Time Magazine interviewer in "Don't Look Back). "Nashville Skyline" is Dylan sxploring the world of sound and defying the critics who sought to pigeonhole him.

Believe me, I'll be the first one to tell you that Hollywood has indeed raped Nashville. But do yourself a favor: don't limit yourself to your own misguided judgments about country because of what Garth Brooks has done to it, and don't keep your impression of Dylan confined to a "Freewheelin'-Highway 61-Blonde/Blonde-Blood on the Tracks" box. He was, and continues to be, so much more

Country, Folk, and Rock are really very related music forms, but you wouldn't know it from the opinions of fans. A lot of rock stars began with country or folk (Buddy Holly, and to an extent Elvis Presely) because Rock hadn't yet been fully defined. By the time Dylan released "Nashville Skyline" the borders were firm as mortar.

All of the warning signs were there: Dylan abandons the protest folk music scene only to take up arms with their ultimate enemy, the pop/rock scene. Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and many others were furious and felt betrayed. Dylan then became the coolest rocker out there, and he made some incredible music. Then, just like before, he runs head first into enemy territory: country music. Anyone who thought that Dylan would permanently nest up with the rock/pop scene probably wasn't paying attention. Just like "Bringing it All Back Home" was the transitional album between folk and rock, and "Highway 61 Revisited" was the full blown rock thing, "John Wesley Harding" was the transition between rock and country and "Nashville Skyline" was the full blown country thing. Both "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Nashville Skyline" show mastery of their respective genres.

"Nashville Skyline" is a country album. It's not country rock, nor "Bob Country" - it's a full blown down home bona fide country album. The music and the lyrics reflect this. To almost drive this point home there's even a rag called "Nashville Skyline Rag"; you don't get much more country than that.

There is steel guitar, strongly picked acoustic musicals that almost sound right out of Bob Wills, "clop clop" horse trot rhythms, and of course Johnny Cash (a side note: "Girl From The North Country" is a traditional folk song that has been covered by numerous people, so I'm confused why the song writing credits don't say "Traditional" as they should).

There are great songs on this album, the most obvious of which is "Lay Lady Lay." I've never heard steel guitar used like a string section in this way before. "I Threw it all Away" is a great country ballad with some of Dylan's most humorously suggestive lyrics: "Once I had mountains in the palms of my hands..." "Tonight I'll be Staying Here With You" is also a great country ballad that probably any country singer would like to have written. It's probably fair to say that Dylan's country music powers shine brightest on the ballads ("Tell Me That it Isn't True" is more evidence of this). The faster numbers are the weakest on the album: "Peggy Day" and "Country Pie", though they're a lot of fun and have this tendency to strap onto your neurons for good.

The album may take a little getting used to if your head is full of "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Blowin' in The Wind". However, it will likely grow on you and become a standard by which you can judge other country albums. This was the album that opened up country music to me. There's good stuff out there, and you can find it if you follow Dylan's example and don't allow yourself to get fenced into listening to only one musical style.

What a breath of fresh air. Having heard most of his work prior and following this album, I must say this is the finest work I have heard from the genius.

Bob Dylan is a fine poet, but I never had such a complete appreciation of him until now. This album is short, sweet and simple. No cryptic reflections on human emotions, no protest songs, just simple love songs, sung with a relaxed and heavenly passion.

When he sings about lost love ("Tell Me That It Isn't True", "I Threw It All Away"), you can feel and relate to his sorrow. His songs about finding or having love ("To Be Along With You", "Peggy Day", etc..) contain a refrained joy that makes you want to dance. Then there is the all time classic gem, the duet with Johnny Cash, "Girl From The North Country". "Lay Lady Lay", "One More Night" and "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" are as romantic as romance gets.

This is a magnificient album from start to finish.

I grew up listening to this album and it was essential listening on long car journeys. It is a piece of genius crossover by Dylan and was a hallmark of its time that lead to other artists, essentially bands such as the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, following in Dylan's direction that lead to the start of Country Rock. The highlights of this album are the opening track with Johnny Cash, Girl From The North Country, and I Threw It All Away, a great song about love and loss. The musicianship is excellent with Nashville's finest session muso's on display and Bob Johnston's usual production finesse.Don't take any notice of ignorant opinion saying Dylan sounds weird on this production. [...] This is an excellent piece of music.

I know a couple of people who love, love, love this album, but I can't quite see why. It certainly is warm and charming; its country sounds and melodies are set right off with a good, heart-felt, spontaneous duet with Johnny Cash on the classic "Girl from the North Country." Check out Dylan's voice! It takes some getting used to, and I still can't figure out why he "smoothed it out." Oh well. But too many songs rely on easy (lazy?) rhymes and ideas, and the whole thing is less than half an hour long, with one song ("Nashville Skyline Rag") a rather pedestrian instrumental. Of course I'm not trying to be critical of Dylan's desire over the years to experiment with styles and confound fans and critics; it's just that this one seems a little too relaxed and simple; it lacks depth. "John Wesley Harding" sounds simple and straight-forward, but it is not at all. OK, enough bitching: the songs "I Threw It All Away," "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You" and "One More Night" are very good, and "Lay Lady Lay" is a Dylan masterpiece. There's a great bootleg out there of the entire Dylan/Cash sessions that yielded "Girl from the North Country"--it opens with a cool version of "One Too Many Mornings." I really recommend "Nashville Skyline" only for Dylan fans; the sad thing is that it's a little more accesible (to those who can't take his "normal" singing voice) but not nearly as challenging or, indeed, satisfying.

Bob Dylan's album immediately before this one, John Wesley Harding, had a country-tinged atmosphere and two bona fide country songs that closed it, but Nashville Skyline is a country album sho' 'nuff. And I must say that I am not a country music fan, but this album is of a high quality. It meets Bob Dylan's high standards of excellence. Dylan's re-working of his song Girl From The North Country (from his 2nd album) with Johnny Cash in tow is an excellent way to start off the album. From there, we have a dose of enjoyable country classics: the nice instrumental Nashville Skyline Rag, two great songs in To Be Alone With You and I Threw It All Away (featuring one of Dylan's most eloquent verses), the incomparable Lay Lady Lay (surely one of his classic compositions), and two other fine songs, Tell Me That Isn't True and Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You. All these songs are great; granted, there are some lesser songs here as well. A few minor works, such as Peggy Day and Country Pie, permeate the album, but they are also enjoyable in their own little way. This is a sound, of course, that Dylan never returned to fully (not that he has ever been one to retread old ground), and it's interesting for that reason alone. Aside from that, though, this is quite simply a good album. Dylan has a sweetness of voice here that has never been heard again (even on the concert performances of these songs), a trend that started on JWH (after the motorcycle accident), and sweetened, perhaps, by a brief respite from cigarettes. There is also a lot of excellent steel guitar playing on this album. It's quite good at what it does. My only complaint, therefore, is that there is just not enough of it. The album is a mere 27 minutes long. And while it is necessarily of a very simple and direct nature (and is very good at what it does), this is still inevitably somewhat disappointing coming from Dylan - the man who pioneered longer songs in the first place, and who routinely put out albums over 50 minutes long in the early 60's, a time when most people were putting out 2 minute singles and half-hour albums. His two masterpieces Desolation Row and Sad-Eyed Lady of The Lowlands together on an album would be nearly as long as this. Alas, this is the album, and it is good, and you will like it if you are a Bob Dylan fan, or even looking for a good country album that you might normally not consider. Comes reccommended.

Judging from it reviewers, lots of people aren't sure how to react to "Nashville Skyline." I got sick of reading reviews that began "normally I don't like country music" or screeds about how Dylan should have been cranking out political songs instead. This is my take on the album:

I believe Dylan knew what he was doing. After having settled down to raise a family, he had no wish to write "Blonde On Blonde" II while high on acid, or go marching in the streets. There had to be another direction. And so he looked toward a genre neglected and reviled by all those people who still won't shut up about how great his electric trilogy was.
"Nashville Skyline" is a genre exercise that sometimes transcends its genre or otherwise does it honor. And sometimes it willfully chooses to wallow in conventions--the lyrics to a song like "Peggy Day" are so silly and pop-stupid that you think "This must be a joke!" But Dylan's face is always straight. He loves this music too much to condescend toward it, even if that means accepting all the warts.

There are several bits of intentional fluff, and five top notch efforts: "I Threw It All Away," "Lay Lady Lay," "One More Night," "Tell Me That Isn't True," and "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You." Collectively they feature some of the best melodies and vocals of Dylan's career. While staying true to the spare, twangy and catchy Nashville sound, they're also instantly accessible pop--and that's why I think this album was created.
I read somewhere that Dylan hoped to increase his audience with "Nashville Skyline." The move didn't work, and Dylan dropped his new voice. But while working within country music he also created his first pop album--accessible, and wonderfully melodic, with simple, fluid lyrics.

The album's shortness points to the eventual creative drought and lack of direction that would plague Dylan until he retouched base with "Planet Waves." There's nothing wrong with the melodies or Dylan's vocals, but he's running out of things to say and ideas to express. The reasons for this still aren't clear. Dylan could have made more albums in the same format as "Skyline," but with more creative lyrics, and perhaps might have found a mass audience. He chose retreating to the spineless, confused covers of "Self Portrait" instead.

Lastly, a word on Dylan's much abused vocals: Dylan's voice on "Nashville Skyline" is no more affected or irritating than the precious sneer used on "Blonde On Blonde"--it's just more pleasurable to listen to. I like this voice a good deal, and Dylan uses it with loving care. It's a pity he proceeded to squander and drop it. His modulation and phrasing are a beauty to behold, odd as they are.

Bob Dylan doing a country album? It's true. Nashville Skyline is basically a country album. Even Johnny Cash and Charlie Daniels show up on this album. Most people who are really into Dylan probably don't listen to alot of country. But fans of both country and Dylan will love this album. Dylan shows that he can sucessfully change his sound and even his voice completely and still make brilliant. The most well known song on the album is Lay Lady Lay, which is a great song, probably the best on the album. Girl From The North Country, with Johnny Cash is also a great song. Nashville Skyline Rag is one of Dylan's only instrumentals, and it is still great. Every song is great. What else did you expect from probably the greatest songwriter of all time? Essential for Dylan Fans.

The year was 1969- The Stones put out "Let It Bleed", Cream said "Goodbye", The Beatles put out "Abbey Road", Led Zeppelin put out two great albums, and Rod Stewart sang his heart out on Jeff Beck's "Beck-Ola". Each of these albums had at least one LOUD track, and each stayed as far away from Nashville as possible. But, the king of the '60s, Bob Dylan, had neither loud tracks and embraced Nashville.

The album, released in April 1969, has many of the best lyrics in the Dylan oeuvre. The album opens strong with the duet between Bob & Johnny Cash on Bob's old song "Girl From The North Country". It closes 27 minutes later with "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You", a song begging for somebody to cover it (Jeff Beck did in '72). No track gets much longer than 3 minutes. A pleasing album for a short trip.