Never Just One Thing, Pt. XVIII: Is "Time Out of Mind" a Masterpiece?

July 11, 2025

Never Just One Thing, Pt. XVIII: Is "Time Out of Mind" a Masterpiece?

Typically, with great bands or artists there is consensus around the aesthetic worth or achievement of each of their records. With the Beatles it's impossible to say which album is "best," though everyone agrees that every LP beginning with Rubber Soul (with A Hard Day's Night thrown in) is a masterpiece. Not even their most acclaimed record, Sergeant Pepper's, can be said to be better than their other great records. Mostly, it was audacious, but that's not enough to stake a claim of "greatest" on. Everyone knows that after Tattoo You (or maybe Emotional Rescue) Rolling Stones recordings became irrelevant, but everyone agrees on the relative worth of all the rest of their records. Exile on Mainstreet usually comes out on top by a whisker, but no one would argue that their other great records aren't actually great. Basically, for every major artist or band the hierarchy and value of recordings is usually pretty clear -- except for Bob Dylan that is. That's what makes him the ultimate "never just one thing" guy.

I have argued elsewhere in this series that Dylan is the truest incarnation of the spirit of Ralph Waldo Emerson and the American Renaissance we have in the arts today. This is because, as with Emerson's writing, the point is not to put forward a program but to set off limitless associations in one's consciousness, to set those synapses sparking. This is why one major bio of Emerson is subtitled The Mind on Fire. The other reason is because Dylan knows that, as Emerson put it, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Let's just say that any number of Dylan records would not have been advised if he had a marketing consultant. The Country phase? The Christian phase? The Sinatra tribute? I don't think so. Dylan actually makes this latter connection explicit, using a line from Emerson confrere Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" as a song title on his most recent record, My Rough and Rowdy Ways (itself a Jimmy Rodgers reference). The line is "I contain multitudes," which concludes this stanza:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

In society, when one of us contradicts ourselves in word or deed, we are called hypocrites, and we desperately seek to deny it. But Dylan actually makes a virtue of it. He shows us that when freed from the fear of being a hypocrite (or the fear of any number of fully human things) we become more creative and experience greater peace of mind, since we then find ourselves dealing with the core virtue of acceptance.

Indeed, if you are a Dylan fan you cheerfully accept that a record you love will be precisely the one that is disliked by another. You can find fans peacefully hashing out these sorts of debates on Reddit threads all the time. It's quite entertaining, and illustrates the in-my-view positive human trait of caring deeply about things that "don't matter." With Dylan, my favorite instance of this phenomenon pertains to his early-80s recording Infidels (which I wrote about here). I love it, though I do get why people might hate it. But imagine my surprise when I recently encountered a Reddit conversation on "Dylan's most overrated record" and learned that for many people Blood on the Tracks fits this description. What? Are they just trying to be contrary? For many of us this is one of the most unimpeachable albums in the entire rock canon, along the lines of Pet Sounds or Who's Next or something like that. But okay, this is the way it is. The divergence of opinion on Dylan is because he is never accommodating of the listener. He's not a Billy Joel or Nat King Cole type, accomplished musicians who position well as entertainers.

As a case study, let's turn to Time Out of Mind, a record I have long been lukewarm on but which is hailed by many, many publications and people as a masterpiece, and, indeed, Dylan's greatest record. It actually won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1997. I'll do a song-by-song analysis, but first let's consider a couple meta problems. The first is the matter of Dylan's voice -- strange coming from me since for decades I was the guy who would strenuously push back when people would express the common opinion that they think his songs are great but they can't stand his singing. Indeed, my case would be that not only is his singing not bad, but is in fact terrific. I wrote about Dylan's musicality here, and used an example from Infidels to show the incredible sophistication and invention of his vocals. The closest comparison would be with jazz singing, though he is in no recognizable way a jazz singer. I was recently watching some clips from the 70s, and his variations on "Simple Twist of Fate" were unbelievably creative. To a greater extent than any rock singer I can think of Dylan used his voice to bring out different implications of the lyrics. Essentially I loved his singing through 1989's Oh Mercy (listen to "Ring Them Bells," for example). But by the time of 1997's Time Out of Mind, his voice had taken on a tone and timbre that I find off-putting. Mine wasn't an uncommon response. I saw Dylan address this once by asking, What about Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen? Okay, fair point, but still, but still . . . there's an unfavorable difference to my ears.

The second is the matter of subject matter and general tone. I was reading a review that came out in Mojo Magazine around the time of Time's release and in it renowned Dylan authority Greil Marcus (whom I find unreadable, BTW), referred to it as "as bleak and blasted" a work as we have seen from a major artist in quite some time. Not inviting, but that certainly is no disqualification for greatness. And in fact he meant it as a compliment. I get that. Here's an example. Years ago we went to NYC to see a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Upon returning to the apartment of the friend we were staying with I said how much I enjoyed it. To which she responded, How is that possible for such a depressing play? My argument was that the quality of the writing and performances overrode the specifics of the content. That's art. Now let's see if this is also the case with Time, as I return to it now with open ears and open heart and open mind.

First up, we should note the overall sound. Famously, Time is a Daniel Lanois production. When you choose to work with him you essentially are choosing, at least to some degree, to fit your aesthetic into his. He employs a sort of murky ambient sound that makes records sound like they are in another dimension. But somehow they really do sound great. People flock to Lanois to get some of the magic, which actually often is the result of the efforts of his sound engineer, Mark Howard, rather how George Martin owes a lot of "his" genius results to the engineering work of Geoff Emerick. In an extremely gracious move, Dylan actually acknowledged Howard's contribution when he accepted the Grammy for Time.

With "Love Sick," the record gets off to a strong start, sonics wise, with Bob's well-phrased vocals set against some stark guitar chords played right on the beat against a minimalist ambient background. In terms of arrangement and sound this is the best song on the record. But despite the frequent praise for this song -- Marianne Faithful, for one, called it her favorite Dylan song -- I actually find the lyrics a tad banal. It hinges on the play of words where love sick actually means he's sick of love instead of being painfully in love. Which is clever but maybe not much more. A good start to the LP, but I just don't see this as one of his great songs, which it really should be if this is a masterpiece album. "Love Sick" is bookended on the recording by "Highlands," a sixteen and a half minute (you read that right) sort of stream of consciousness song that comes across like recitative in an opera (which, as Sondheim notes, is the worst part of opera). It contrasts musing on the highlands as a dreamscape with a telling of an encounter with a Boston waitress. While it has some of the better lyrics of the record, it's also monotonous. An epic like "Idiot Wind" has a superb melody; this has virtually none at all. It does include an interesting, telling couplet: "Insanity is smashing up against my soul / you can say I was on anything but a roll." There was a crisis that separates the first from the second half of Bob's career.

There are a few songs on the record that are stronger than those two and great on their own terms. Before I get to those let me zero in on what I see as the central shortcoming of the LP, namely, its overreliance on the blues. Five of the ten songs present variations on the form. The best one to my ears is "Million Miles," a spooky shuffle, with some decent lyrics. "You took a part of me that I really miss" it opens. "I keep asking myself how long it can go on like this." "Dirt Road Blues" is sort of rockabilly, also with some decent (note the faint praise) lyrics, though I only really appreciate them when I look at the lyric sheet, which is not the way it should be. The other blues cuts are "'Til I Fell In Love With You," "Cold Irons Bound," and "Can't Wait." I imagine a lot of people find these cuts to be really cool, since the playing from the band is top-notch; they are experienced players and can give it a lived-in sound. Here's the thing, though. These songs are, once again, also sort of monotonous. There's a samey-ness that wears out it's welcome. The blues can be diverse, but that's not the case here. Essentially the blues format provides a standardized container. So there is a lack of melodic invention that brings the record down, along with repetitious lyrical structure. I'd say Time would have been better with just two blues, maybe "Million Miles" and "'Til I Fell," which achieves a nice chill groove at the end.

Now for the best cuts, the true keepers. First up is "Standing In the Doorway." When it appears, that's when I perk up. It oozes aura and heart feeling, which ironically is what I don't hear in the blues cuts. I want to be touched by music, and this one does that. It's a slow and stately song, which is better suited to the Lanois sound than the blues are. I hear honest regret. I especially like when he sings "I would be crazy / to take you back / it would break every rule." The next strong cut is "Trying To Get Heaven." It is a mid-tempo tune with one of the LP's better melodies, one that inspires one of his best vocal performances, with plenty of that trademark Dylan insinuation. Excellent midsection with Dylan harmonica. Majestic even. Again, the Lanois sound is heard to best effect in this style. Third up, is "Not Dark Yet," which to my ears could be considered part of the Dylan canon. Each verse comes around to the killer hook/punchline: "It's not dark yet / But it's gettin's there." Like the other entries here in my best-of paragraph, it's stately and quietly brooding. This song really captures some of that bleakness that Greil Marcus mentioned. Consider this couplet a mission statement: "I’ve been down on the bottom of a world full of lies / I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes." Whoa. Because the song works as art, this bleak song is often covered and Bob himself has played it 166 time in concert. Finally, we come to the most controversial song on the LP, "Make You Feel My Love." Lanois didn't want it on the record, because he felt it was too sentimental and didn't work with the other songs. This may be true, but I also think it's the best song on Time. A man in still-unrequited love makes his case to his beloved. It's an interesting set-up, and Bob's lyrics make good on the potential. These are the record's liveliest, most inviting lyrics, and the melody is not only the LP's best, but one of Bob's best overall.

So, my verdict? This is a good, not great, record. My measuring stick for a true masterpiece is that the record does nothing except move from strength to strength to strength. You're listening and you go, Damn that song is really good. Then the next song comes up and you think, Damn that song is really good. All the way to the end. The Clash's London Calling is like that. Lucinda's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Hell, Blood on the Tracks for that matter. This record isn't like that for me. The redoubtable Robert Christgau gave Time an A minus, so in his view we're not at masterpiece level at all. I'll give it a B plus. It feels just too workmanlike to me; too many songs are missing that essential touch of grace that I like for me to go higher. To put things on context, I much prefer Dylan's earlier record with Lanois, 1989's Oh Mercy. It breathes, it's brighter, and Bob is at the top of his vocal game. I also prefer the record that followed Time, a record in the same vein as it, 1999's Love and Theft. The songs are just better and more complex and varied.

In the end, I think the divide in opinion on Time (such as there is one; I seem to be in a distinct minority), owes to the fact that Dylan's career basically divides cleanly into two parts: before the 90s and the 90s to the present. What's interesting is that these two parts are almost entirely discontinuous. The aesthetic of the second half is nothing like the aesthetic of the first. So let's suppose you are a millennial and the aesthetics of the 60s and 70s not only don't mean anything to you -- you might even actively dislike them, as they carry latent hints of whatever later generations perceive as lame in the boomer generation. You might then listen to 90s Dylan and say, Now that's what music should sound like. But that's not me. I hear earlier Dylan and my heart soars and my mind is on fire.

THE "NEVER JUST ONE THING" SERIES

Part I: Dylan’s Mysterious Musical Maturation

Part II: The Nature of Dylan’s Art

Part III: Dylan's Verbosity and the Path to Poetry

Part IV: Close Reading Dylan's "Idiot Wind"

Part V: Don't Overlook Dylan's Musicality

Part VI: On Dylan's Identity Tricksterism

Part VII: What Dylan Knows and Doesn't Know

Part VIII: Dylan, Taylor Swift, and Genius Inflation

Part IX: Close Reading "Simple Twist of Fate"

Part X: The Authentic Zen of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit"

Part XI: Mr. Tambourine Man's Tale of Comin' Down

Part XII: A True Song - Dylan's "I Threw It All Away"