Music Arcades: Bob Dylan: Time Out of Mind

April seems to be the Miles and Bob show. But if you asked me to name the two pre-eminent figures of 20th century popular music, I'd probably pick Miles and Bob, so there's no big surprise about their profile here.

I've already let slip that I was disappointed with this album after being talked into buying it (for the princely sum of £16.99 from the deadly HMV, believe it or not). I'd pretty much go along with Michael Gray's account of it in his most recent edition of Song and Dance Man, where he says the album is "riddled with lazy writing and sludgy music". However, he goes on to nominate four 'major' songs on the album: Standing in the Doorway, Tryin' to Get to Heaven, Not Dark Yet and Highlands.

Lucy really likes Time Out of Mind and I'm more accepting of it now that the initial sting of disappointment has worn off. Generally I'm not a fan of Daniel Lanois' productions with Dylan, but the mood he creates at the beginning of Love Sick, including that incredibly dry and close-up recording of Bob's croak, is superb. I've come to appreciate Tryin' to Get to Heaven and Not Dark Yet more in the light of Robyn Hitchcock's and Barb Jungr's covers of them. Highlands is great. On paper it ought to be really boring, but after repeated listens it never is, on account of its Shandyesque diversions and ludicrous humour. And now, as you probably know, Bob owns a slice of the Highlands.