A close look at a Dylan classic

I have been contemplating for some time writing a book about Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding album, as a follow-up to the worldwide publishing sensation that is Saint Dominic's Flashback.

I have some doubts: there is, of course, a lot more stuff about Dylan and his music out there already than there is about Van; and there are not many of the very few people involved in making JWH who are still alive to ask about it.

But I do feel that it is a relatively neglected album. There has been a great deal attention paid to the wild mercury sound of 1965-66, to the Basement Tapes, and now (with the release of The Bootleg Series Volume 10) to the fascinating but rather lesser work of Self Portrait and New Morning. Meanwhile, John Wesley Harding sits there enigmatically in its own space, refusing to draw attention to itself...

A book about the album would need to take a very close look at its contents, given that there is less to say about how it was made. I thought I'd have a test run by writing about one of the best songs on it, 'I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine' and you can see 4000 or so words on the subject here.

I'd be very glad of any comments - worth pursuing?

Meanwhile, in the doldrums...

Over three weeks since my last post and I'm rather lacking in inspiration. Do you have spells when music loses its flavour somehow? It's been a while since I've been knocked out by something new on record and the only gig I had booked this month - John Smith at the Unitarian Church in Brighton last Saturday - struck me as good rather than astonishing...

The first records I've bought in over a month are a new EP from Kurt Vile, It's A Big World Out There (And I am Scared), and Yo La Tengo's new 7", 'Super Kiwi', both ordered on automatic pilot, because I'll be seeing them both in December. They're both sounding pretty good, chugging along nicely. But, as you'd expect from out-takes from their respective latest albums, there's nothing groundbreaking about them.

My jaundiced mood is hardly helped by the news of Roy Harper's criminal charges. One shouldn't prejudge, of course, but it's hard not to feel let down - and disappointed to realise that his wistful concluding remarks at the Festival Hall last month were probably less to do with intimations of mortality than an expectation of being banged up.

Gloom, doom and more gloom - and that's before we get on to Lou Reed checking out way too soon since we last spoke...

I'll be back soon - and promise to cheer up before tackling the best of 2013 lists.