In the TV show “Breaking Bad,” Jesse Pinkman visits the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his girlfriend, Jane Margolis. As they were leaving, Jesse complained that many of the paintings were among the 20 or so of the patio door of O’Keefe’s house. “Why,” he asked, “would anyone paint a picture of a door, over and over again?” “But it wasn’t the same,” Jane answered. “It was the same subject, but it was different every time. The light was different, her mood was different. She saw something new every time she painted it.” I thought of this scene as I listened to Bob Dylan’s mesmerizing new album, “Shadow Kingdom,” a reimagining of 13 songs from Dylan’s back catalog. Like O’Keefe’s patio door, Dylan seems to see something new every time he sings his songs.
An ongoing process
The songs on “Shadow Kingdom” were first recorded for a streamed concert video when Dylan’s Never Ending Tour was interrupted by COVID. The “concert” was more of a stage play, set in a smoky bar, where Dylan and his band moved among a room full of shadowy figures who seemed barely aware of the musicians around them. Or perhaps the band members were the shadows, cast by the stories of the bar’s eccentric patrons. In any event, the album demonstrates both the staying power of Dylan’s songs and the continuous process of making art.
Concert-going fans have long been aware of Dylan’s habit of changing the tempos, melodies, and lyrics of his songs. When I saw him in late 2022, for example, every verse of “Gotta Serve Somebody” was different from the original version on Dylan’s 1979 album “Slow Train Coming.” And the arrangements of many familiar songs are so different that one doesn’t recognize them until he starts singing the words. “Shadow Kingdom” demonstrates that this is not simply Dylan mixing things up for the sake of keeping his audience off balance. Rather, they are the process of Dylan continuing to perfect his art. And we are the beneficiaries of it.
Showing what art can do
Except for “What Was It You Wanted?” from his 1989 album “Oh Mercy,” all the songs on “Shadow Kingdom” date from no later than about 1970. Beginning with “When I Paint My Masterpiece” (complete with new lyrics), Dylan takes us through reimagined versions of songs that casual Dylan listeners may never even have heard of, with the possible exceptions of “Forever Young.” You won’t find “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Blowing in the Wind,” “Mr. Tamborine Man” or “Tangled Up in Blue.” Instead, Dylan takes us into the shadow of his own creative genius, both in the arrangements of the songs on the album and his interpretation of them.
But this should not dissuade you from listening to “Shadow Kingdom.” On the contrary, the album is the perfect opportunity to observe an artist still at work perfecting his craft. The band is sharp and tight, combining the timbres of 1965’s “Blonde on Blonde” and 2009’s “Together Through Life.” And Dylan’s voice, always underrated, is as sharp at clear in his early 80s as it’s ever been. In fact, the plaintive performance of “Queen Jane Approximately” is a vocal tour de force. Dylan has always insisted that his art is in the performance of his songs, not in the words on the page.
Among the new lyrics in “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” Dylan sings, “Gotta hurry on back to my hotel room / Gonna wash my clothes, scrape off all the grease / Gonna lock the doors and turn my back on the world for a while / Gonna stay right there till I paint my masterpiece.” The songs that follow are the fruit of his dedication to this task, as Dylan continues to see new things in his songs, and to share them with us. Thus, even when he sings them over and over again, like Georgia O’Keefe’s patio doors, he always finds something different. “Shadow Kingdom” is yet another example of the enduring importance of Bob Dylan, not just as a singer and songwriter, but as an artist, showing us what art can do. And every new thing he finds in his songs is another gift to those of us who admire the genius of the artist, perfecting his craft and adding beauty and grace to the world.
