REBEL, SWEETHEART
by Paolo Vites
The best thing that a rock musician can do, as well as an artist, is to inspire his listener. Which way this happens, this is mostly impossible to say, and it doesn't matter to a certain degree: not even the artist knows very much about his art, and true art speaks in mysterious ways. As Bruce Springsteen once said, 'The songs know more about me than what I know about my songs.'
Some years ago Jakob Dylan told me that the main thing he was looking for was to be able to write songs he would have been proud years later. I think that with 'Rebel, Sweetheart' he has a good bunch of songs, if not every single song on this terrific album, to be proud of.
Not that he didn't already write excellent songs to be proud of: like about everyone of my age, I first started to listen to the Wallflowers when their first album came out because, yes, this guy was the son of Bob Dylan so let's see what he is able to do. I soon understood that Jakob was an artist on his own, and the wonderful 'Bringing Down the Horse' gave me the feeling that he was one of the best writers of his generation. I still believe that album is one of the five best albums of the 90's.
With his latter albums, 'Breach' and 'Red Letter Days', I became kind of disappointed: there were more than a couple excellent songs on each of them, but over all I felt like something was missing, like his songwriting was lost in space somewhere, and that he was paying more attention to the sound than to the songwriting.
'Rebel, Sweetheart' brings everything back home: everything is about perfect here, from a songwriting point of view, and really I feel like this is the first 'solo' Jakob Dylan album, if it is possible to say so. His approach to the writing is changed, and while there are some clear influences that come out more than before, like Bruce Springsteen and the Beatles here and there, Jakob is now his own man. He got the key and he knows what doors he needs to open.
I have had this album on loop for about two days now, and the first time I was kind of disappointed: that's a good sign. You have the strength to go back or you just let it go. I'm glad I came back to it: suddenly it was some kind of epiphany and everything made perfect sense to me.
Also I was not very happy with some interviews I've read in the past weeks, all this talk about 'political songs', we don't really need political speeches on a rock album, especially these days. On the contrary, I'm amazed how good the lyrics are here, what a great job Jakob has done like never before: of course these are songs that speak about a man who is confused by the today world, by his country's politics, by the war, but there is more than that and who is the drunk marionette? I don't know why when I listen to that song I can't help but think of the late great Warren Zevon. Not that the song is about him, but every song on 'Rebel, Sweetheart' speaks on multiple levels, and those are, usually, the best songs.
The first 5 songs are a wild tour de force in which Jakob Dylan tries to emerge from the muddy but gorgeous Brendan O'Brien sound, which takes away any pop temptation in which in the past the Wallflowers almost were fallin' in: these songs have blood on it, and you can feel it. There are no guitar solos, everything is in full throttle and I can't help but appreciate the great Rami Jaffe again in the spotlight like in the old days. Seems like Jakob his fighting against the world outside the door, against himself, against his music and in the end he succeeds completely: the music just flows freely and takes you higher every time again.
And
there is 'From The Bottom Of My Heart', which may be the greatest single song
this dude ever wrote, a song that comes out from the nowhere land between the
This is just the beginning: I'm sure that this album will keep surprising me in the next weeks, the next months and possibly years.
Well done, kid.