MUSIC REVIEW: BOB DYLAN - 'CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART'

An Album of Yuletide Tenderness From A Legend in Song

By: Ramus Dahl

October 4, 2009

(Columbia Records) I’ve got a real bad problem with Christmas.  I put up the Christmas tree no less than a week after Halloween.  I start playing Christmas carols around the house starting November 1^st and run that playlist to the ground ’til the second week of January.  It’s a bad problem.  My wife hates it.  Everybody hates it.

I suppose there’s something in my disjointed psyche and incurable nihilistic bent that finds, in the Christmas season, that faint, flickering glimmer of hope and faith and love I feel is being consumed by the obese appetite of excess consumerism. Ironic, I know. (No time to explain that one right now.)

Or…maybe it’s more biological.  Maybe I’m just in tune with the natural biochemical reactions inside of me that are necessary to carry life on through the symbolic death that winter brings to the natural world, only to be reborn in the spring.

For the love? I’m messed up.   Yet, despite my better senses to the contrary, this process has repeated itself for a near three decades now, and I don’t see signs of anything changing as I creep up to year 30.  There’s no turning back now. Especially now that I’ve received word that Bob Dylan is releasing a Christmas album. What the…?  A Christmas album?  Bob Dylan? These were more or less my exact words when I was told the same thing down at Donn’s Depot on 5^th Street last Friday night (if I remember correctly).  The initial shock and then subsequent laugh at the absurdity of such a claim was followed by an odd and all-too-familiar sense of sincere curiosity. What the hell is Bob doing?  Why now?  A Christmas album?

For we (that is, you and I and everyone else on this damn planet with working ears to hear this stuff) all know good and well that the Christmas album -- or rather, the ever-elusive “good” Christmas album --represents a sort of Holy Grail of all musical greats, and most of those who have brazenly girded up their loins to pursue its miraculous powers have never returned from their quest.   Those that do return do so with a euphoric ease of artistic conscience -- a musical nirvana of sorts -- that literally preserves their artistic integrity at least once a year for the remainder of human history (see: Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond, etc.).

The others? Well…I’ve heard there’s a place where Randy Newman serves cocktails to Jessica Simpson, fresh off of having her wisdom teeth yanked out of her skull while she duets “Feliz Navidad” sitting on a baby grand played by John Tesh in a purple sequins leotard.  Hell. Terrible visions.  But let’s clear our minds for just one second and return our focus to Bob Dylan’s Christmas album.

Entitled Christmas in the Heart (to be released on October 13th),Bob Dylan's Christmas album marks the famed poet and modest guitar player’s 34^th album to date and perhaps the rogue’s most ambitious project ever.  It’s flat-out insane.  Suicide!  But dammit if it’s not the most Bob Dylan thing Bob Dylan has done since he was spontaneously struck blind while riding his 500cc Triumph Tiger 100 through the back roads of Woodstock, New York in ’66!

Now here I am on an unseasonably brisk September night here in Austin, Texas in the waning days of 2009, listening to Bob Dylan singing “Do You Hear What I Hear?” with an ice-cold bottle of Bud Heavy in one hand and a handful of candy corn in the other, wondering if I should vomit or sing along.

The issue between me and the latter-day Dylan (and I’ve defended that bastard with my blood and tears many a time) is this:  the man can hit that nostalgic nerve better than any other, and I’m a dimwitted sucker for the notion that somewhere, sometime long ago, things were better.  The ancient Greeks (among other civilizations) had this same dimwitted notion, and they warmly referred to it as the “The Golden Age.”

We Americans estimate that “The Golden Age” happened somewhere between the end of the first World War and the assassination of JFK…more or less (depending on who you’re talking to — there’s a contingent of Baby-Boomers who raise strong, impassioned arguments against this approximate time-frame). Nonetheless, you have herein the apex of Christmas classics, albums etc., as America was effectively able to translate the pagan/Catholic tradition through the worst economic collapse we’ve ever endured (as of today) and two of the most expansive wars in modern human history. Ah…where am I?  Yes…yes!!!  Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart takes its cue from this bygone era long since past, long since lost in the high-def, digital, flash-and-gig world of the music business in the 21^st century.  Dylan croons “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “O’ Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles),” “Little Drummer Boy,” and “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” among other classics, like a grizzled old man in the back of a church-house somewhere in dust-bowl Louisiana with a Marlboro Red dangling from under his graying mustache and guzzling a hearty mug of wassail.  A beautifully poetic vision, no doubt…throw in the vintage female backup singers he’s got on this record and you can literally reach out and grab the sugarplum visions that go dancing through your head. Dear Lord!!  What the hell is happening?  I’ve convinced myself I like this?  Fair enough, Bob, fair enough.

There are a few originals in there (such as the more rumpus “The Christmas Blues”), but the real gems on this record are the iconic tunes, such as “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” “The First Noel,” and “The Christmas Song” (based, of course, on my own personal bias).  Word on the street is that 100% of the proceeds for Christmas in the Heart will be donated to Feeding America “to provide food during the holiday for millions in need.”

For what it’s worth, that little impetus alone may be enough for me to indulge my Christmas fix a little early this year and reach into the shallow pocketbook for Dylan’s attempt to tackle and master the most divisive and controversial tunes known to Western music.

Standout Tracks: "The Christmas Blues", "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", "The First Noel"

For Fans Of: Christmas Tunes