by Jochen Markhorst
“On the bus he’s playing these cassette tapes of all this great old traditional stuff, because by then he knew I was really into it. He said, “This is a good song, you should learn this one.” “And this one, see how this turned into this, and then Hank Williams wrote–” You know, he totally knows the history of all that music in the United States. He knows all those songs. Just off the top of his head.”
G.E. Smith in Ray Padgett’s Flagging Down The Double E’s, 2 March 2025
Before Rough And Rowdy Ways hits the shops on 19 June 2020, we’ve already been introduced to three pre-releases: the bonus track “Murder Most Foul” and to tracks 1 and 2 of the album, “I Contain Multitudes” and “False Prophet”. Brilliant, surprising, rich songs that are really raising expectations for the upcoming Dylan album – his first featuring original songs in eight years (Tempest, 2012); if these two songs set the standard, then we can look forward to the best Dylan album since Time Out Of Mind (1997).
As the initial excitement about the quality and the overwhelming lyrics of the three songs begins to subside, an overall picture emerges. “Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache”, “All The Young Dudes”, “Pink Pedal Pushers”, “Hello Mary Lou”, “Only The Lonely”, “Hello Goodbye”, “Nobody’s Bride”, “Miss Pearl”, “Hello Stranger”, “Ball And Chain”… following that long list of song titles in the meditative track “Murder Most Foul” (containing more than 70 titles and references), we again hear a suspiciously large number of song titles in the two pre-released “real songs”, “I Contain Multitudes” and “False Prophet”. Ten explicit ones, and then a handful more references such as the flowers are dying from “Danny Boy”, red blue jeans from “Be-Bop-A-Lula” and I’m the last of the best from Dr. John’s “Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya”. It’s starting to look as though the songs on the upcoming album have an overarching theme: songs.
Then the full album by the elderly Nobel Prize winner –79 at the time – is released. It is indeed a magnificent, exceptionally rich album, filled with nine brilliant, fascinating songs (plus a separated tenth track, the bonus track “Murder Most Foul”). And the first listen confirms the suspicion: Dylan seems, rather unusually, to have created a sort of concept album. The art of songwriting, the relationship with the audience, the songwriter’s psyche, the artist’s mission, the impact of a song, the magic of the radio… though the songs themselves are multicoloured mosaics, each song has, to a greater or lesser extent, a sub-theme related to songs, and together the nine songs form one large mosaic: the singer and his song.
It is a wonderful gift for the fans, and even more so for the puzzle-loving Dylanologists. The unravelling of the songs, the journey of discovery through the many, many sources from which Dylan draws inspiration, the infectious joy of playing, language love and music-historical archaeology displayed by the old master: even after six years of playing the nine songs on Sides A, B and C inside out, Rough And Rowdy Ways still fascinates.
Following Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B (June 2023) and Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A (October 2025), Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side C has now been completed, six years after the album’s release. This side of the record features the enchanting “Mother Of Muses”, my personal favourite “Crossing The Rubicon” and the monumental “Key West”, which many fans consider to be the highlight of the album.
Three down, only one more to go… I’d say it’s about time Dylan started thinking about the follow-up to Rough And Rowdy Ways. Would be his 40th studio album. Nice round number.
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle: 
- Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
- Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
- Desolation Row: Bob
- Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
- Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
- Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
- Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
- Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
- I contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
- Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)
- Bob Dylan’s 1971
- Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden – Bob Dylan kicks open the door
- It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A
- Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side C