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30/05/2006

Street-Legal, take 2

When Street-Legal was first released, I didn’t really warm to it. However many times I played it (a lot!), it simply failed to penetrate. Its unusual musicality was welcome, but the dense lyrics were difficult to disentangle; the muddy mix didn’t help.

Now, with the help of the printed lyrics to hand and a re-mastered CD version of the album, Street-Legal turns out to be an under-rated, richly rewarding Dylan outing all along - by turns, hugely apocalyptic and minutely personal.

Although I’m not totally convinced by the attempt to locate Street-Legal as a Robert Johnson tribute (in the first ISIS compilation book, 2nd ed), I was very impressed by another article, analysing the Biblical content of Jokerman, in the third ISIS compilation volume.

Street-Legal is a Dylan masterpiece cleverly disguised as a mediocre mid-career trundle.


Gerry Smith

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