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07/09/2006

Slate’s review of Modern Times – encore

Thanks to Matthew Caley:

“Yes, the Slate review was quite good, but it's restrictive to call 'Beyond The Horizon’ and 'Moonlight' love songs - surely BTH manages to be about 'death' or 'living beyond the expected death' as much as it is about love - read the lyrics again in that frame of mind and a whole new meaning opens up. As for 'Moonlight' it is cunningly written as a 1930's type swing-ballad but simultaneously as a murder ballad - as if written by the murderer.

“It’s not that these are definitive readings as much as that Dylan's skill as a songwriter [and singer] is in keeping these readings open and eminently plausible.

“Quite a few of the MT songs seem to be about death - Someday Baby, particularly.

“I seem to remember someone once saying that it helps to take each Dylan song as simultaneously being about 'his beloved, God and the audience'. Perhaps now that principle could be expanded to include 'his beloved, God, the audience and death'.

“Certainly, this technique means that you don't reduce the songs - and Dylan's skill and intelligence - by mono-readings.”

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