New Dylan Album on the Way- and-the Oracle Gives another Interview

Who of us given some of the great tracks on Modern Times can resist another Dylan fix? Who can resist another glimpse into the musical worlds Dylan now so masterfully creates? Yes folks a brand new album (not one of those compiliations of outtakes and rejects that he likes to throw out from time to time) the title is intriguing enough--Together Through Life-- to be released in April 28. As expected there is a new interview out--designed to create the necessary "buzz"--in it Dylan delivers the same mixture of wry wisdom, humor and mystery as he prepares his audience for another musical reinvention. Asked why he doesn't "milk" his best selling Modern Times album and not change things around:

"I think we milked it all we could on that last record and then some. We squeezed the cow dry. All the Modern Times songs were written and performed in the widest range possible so they had a little bit of everything. These new songs have more of a romantic edge."
How so?
These songs don’t need to cover the same ground. The songs on Modern Times songs brought my repertoire up to date, and the light was directed in a certain way. You have to have somebody in mind as an audience otherwise there’s no point.
What do you mean by that?
There didn’t seem to be any general consensus among my listeners. Some people preferred my first period songs. Some, the second. Some, the Christian period. Some, the post Colombian. Some, the Pre-Raphaelite. Some people prefer my songs from the nineties. I see that my audience now doesn’t particular care what period the songs are from. They feel style and substance in a more visceral way and let it go at that. Images don’t hang anybody up. Like if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed. Images are taken at face value and it kind of freed me up.

The last point is an important one--Dylan's supersensitivity to all aspects of his personae--including the prophet image that has stuck with him since the early days
must have been a burden. Now he has found, it seems, a way to work through it--to free himself artistically even more. So eager anticipation across the globe--this is a master setting an example for all of us boomers as to the possibilities of reinventing and reimagining ourselves..and we all should pay close attention.