'OH MERCY'! PODCAST: SMILE IN THE FACE OF MANKIND: 3 BITTER SWEET LOVE SONGS FROM 'OH MERCY'

THREE SONGS FROM ‘OH MERCY’

Bob Dylan’s 1989 album On Mercy represented a crucial turning point in his career. The ‘post-gospel’ records he had put out in the 1980s had received poor reviews. Most critics and fans agreed that Shot of Love (1981), Infidels (1983) and Empire Burlesque (1985), despite including some brilliant songs, were patchy affairs. By the time of Knocked out Loaded (1986) and Down in the Groove (1988), he did not even seem to have enough new material to fill his albums. His tongue in cheek contributions to the lively ’super group’ project The Traveling Wilburys (1988) were entertaining, although they offered little intellectual or emotional depth.

A new approach was clearly needed. He thus agreed to work with eclectic Canadian producer and musician Daniel Lanois, renowned for his highly distinctive work on U2’s The Joshua Tree (co-produced with Brian Eno). For the first time, the recording of Dylan’s songs was being managed by an ‘authorial’ producer. Lanois, working with Dylan in his home studio in New Orleans, duly fashioned a shimmering and hypnotic soundscape, making the tracks sound mysterious and beguiling. The release of the album subsequently did much to restore Dylan’s critical reputation.

Oh Mercy…

has often been compared to 1975’s album Blood on the Tracks. Both have a distinctive unity of style, sound and themes and both could be labeled ‘comeback’ albums. However, while the earlier work had a complex linguistic approach and richly metaphorical and allusive lyrics, in Oh Mercy such poetic techniques are kept to a minimum. Dylan sticks mainly to direct language and simple rhyming couplets. Whether he is expressing his own real feelings or projecting them through invented characters, he comes across as rather guarded and restrained. Beneath the surface of these self effacing songs, he seems to be struggling to give vent to the musical and lyrical power he has projected in the past. Yet this tone of restraint itself makes Oh Mercy a unique and distinctive addition to his oeuvre. Most critics rated it as his most consistent and effective album of the decade, although Dylan himself (always suspicious of the use of studio ‘trickery’) was somewhat ambivalent about the results.

Most of the Time is a consistent exercise in heavily emphasised irony. The title phrase is used fourteen times and appears at the beginning and end of all four verses. Dylan’s mournful, embittered vocal contrasts against apparently positive lyrics. Lanois’ own bass leads the recording, providing a slow throbbing pulse with occasional ‘drop outs’ that mirror the narrator sometimes missing a heartbeat as he attempts to rise above his troubles. We are taken deeper and deeper into his inner feelings, which are as despairing at the end of the song as at the beginning. Each of the verses begins with four short lines, with the title phrase repeated in lines one and three. The second and fourth lines consist of rather unconvincing claims of the narrator’s supposed ability to cope with his lover having rejected him. He asserts that …I’m clear focused all around/ I can keep both feet on the ground… Later we are told …My head is on straight/ I’m strong enough not to hate… He contends that he is quite sanguine about the situation: …It’s well understood/ I wouldn’t change it if I could… although in the final verse he begins to equivocate: …I’m halfway content/ I know exactly where it went… Each line is preceded by the repeated title phrase, which immediately undercuts the supposedly self assured statements.

Throughout the song the narrator struggles to maintain his dignity. We soon sense that he knows that his pronouncements are hollow – and that we can see through his protestations. The second sections of the verses maintain the plain speak in which the song is written, with some slight metaphorical connotations in the first verse, as Dylan sings …I can follow the path, I can read the signs/ Stay right with it when the road unwinds/ I can handle whatever I stumble upon/ I don’t even notice she’s gone….. But these supposedly self confident statements are always undercut by the repetition of the title phrase. It is as if the narrator is trying desperately to build up his own confidence, but keeps finding himself being held back. At the end of each verse he attempts to convince us (and, more pertinently, perhaps, himself) that he is no longer emotionally invested in the lover. We surely do not believe these pronouncements, which continue with …I don’t even think about her…, …I don’t even remember what her lips felt like on mine… and …I don’t even care if I see her again… If he really feels like this, we must ask ourselves, why does he sound so distraught?

Oh Mercy!

If What Was it You Wanted can be seen as a coded deconstruction of the notion of a romantic song, used as a piece of withering self-examination by a poet who had been suffering from a severe lack of inspiration, What Good Am I is a more direct investigation of the narrator’s self worth. The tone of the lyrics and music are similarly restrained, but the lyrics are more clearly confessional and emotional. The musical setting on the album is even more minimal, with Lanois restricting the backing to quiet and restrained washes of organ and guitar, with many dramatic pauses. Here, however, Dylan – though still half-speaking in places, projects the emotional qualities of the song with a truly soulful and judiciously restrained vocal. As with What Was it You Wanted the song is highly enigmatic and mysterious, with the music again functioning as a constant, and relatively unchanging, backdrop.. In What Good Am I the supposed relationship being discussed is even more nebulous.

What Good Am I again uses simple language, with its rare metaphorical excursions being all the more powerful as a result of this. As with Most of the Time and What Was it You Wanted there is continual repetition of the title phrase. But there is precious little irony in the lyrics or the way Dylan delivers them. The song has five verses, four of which begin and end with the title phrase. This is a song about emotional and spiritual responsibility, in which the narrator asks searching questions about his own self worth. In Don’t Fall Apart From Me Tonight from 1983’s Infidels Dylan had mused: …I wish that I’d been a doctor/ Maybe I’d have saved some life that had been lost /Maybe I’d have done some good in the world/ ‘Stead of burning every bridge I crossed… Here, however, he asks a similar question with much greater subtlety. As with Most of the Time, much of the effect of the song is achieved by what it leaves out, rather than what it actually says.