A lot of people thought that 2012’s Tempest would be Bob Dylan’s last album. Dylan himself grouchily pointed out that Shakespeare had used a “the”, but didn’t quite deny anything.

Bob Dylan: Rough and Rowdy Ways
Columbia

A lot of people thought that 2012’s Tempest would be Bob Dylan’s last album. Dylan himself grouchily pointed out that Shakespeare had used a “the”, but didn’t quite deny anything. What followed were three very patchy albums of covers, Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels and the three-disc Triplicate, which allowed Dylan watchers to conclude that Tempest was to be his last album of original material. Like a lot of the later output, it had been uneven, bleakly brilliant on things like “Early Roman Kings”, “Pay In Blood” and the 14-minute title track, hitting something of a bathetic bump on its last track, “Roll On John”, a mash-up of Beatles lines addressed to their creator.

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