I'm Not There: Original Soundtrack
(Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax)
First Appeared in The Music Box, November 2007, Volume 14, #11
Written by John Metzger
Thu November 15, 2007, 06:55 AM CST
In determining the soundtrack to I’m Not There, his biopic about Bob Dylan, film maker Todd Haynes was posed with a rather interesting problem. To put it simply, Dylan’s canon has been sliced and diced into so many different configurations over the years — including the brand new, comprehensive, three-disc set Dylan that was compiled by Legacy — that it wouldn’t necessarily be marketable to assemble yet another retrospective. The solution Haynes settled upon was to invite the indie rock community as well as a handful of veteran performers to take a stab at reinterpreting the songs he wanted to utilize in his film. The result is a 34-track collection that stands on its own accord as a fascinating, if not always successful, tribute to the legendary bard.
For years, fans, admirers, and general detractors have argued about Dylan’s capability as a vocalist, and the bulk of I’m Not There: Original Soundtrack provides plenty of ammunition for those who think he’s a better singer than he often is credited for being. Considering that the alterations to the backing instrumental tracks are mostly superficial — Jim James and Calexico simply scuff up The Band’s soulful embrace of Goin’ to Acapulco, while Mason Jennings delivers The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and The Times They Are A-Changin’ in a ridiculously straightforward fashion — the unimaginative arrangements don’t make these cuts pale in comparison to Dylan’s own recordings.
Rather, sung with a complete emotional detachment — which long has been a troubling aspect of indie rock — the material on I’m Not There: Original Soundtrack falters because the project’s participants lack the conviction to make them work. It’s not enough simply to regurgitate the words that Dylan wrote, nor it is sufficient to dress them in weird, symphonic — and ultimately stuffy — arrangements, as Sufjan Stevens did with his labored reading of Ring Them Bells. Instead, Dylan’s poems must be internalized, processed, and understood so that the nuances of his tangled metaphors make some kind of sense.
For all of the spookiness that The Million Dollar Bashers — a loosely knit collective that features Television’s Tom Verlaine and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo as well as organist John Medeski, guitarist Smokey Hormel, drummer Steve Shelley, and bass player Tony Garnier — brings to Ballad of a Thin Man, Stephen Malkmus’ unexpressive vocals completely undercut the song’s urgency. For a moment, it does seem as if the collaborative effort will work, largely because the music keeps everything moving along nicely. However, as verse after verse spews forth from his lips, Malkmus increasingly finds himself lost in the lyrics, and the result inevitably turns what could have been a transcendent experience into a rote exercise. Elsewhere, the various artists’ approaches oscillate from Yo La Tengo’s airy, Donovan-esque interpretation of Fourth Time Around to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s breathy rendition of Just Like a Woman to Karen O’s approximation of Patti Smith on Highway 61 Revisited. Not surprisingly, none of them really succeeds in imparting the same level of significance that Dylan so effortlessly has managed to achieve over the years.
This, however, does not mean that I’m Not There: Original Soundtrack is an outing that must be avoided. In fact, quite the opposite is true, though its best moments largely come from the old-timers who have grown around and into Dylan’s compositions. John Doe, for example, is well suited for tackling Pressing On, and his world-weary vocals settle quite comfortably into the warmth that emanates from the song’s resplendent, gospel-soul core. Likewise, Richie Havens — who certainly isn’t a stranger to reinterpreting Dylan’s work — pulls back the layers of Tombstone Blues to reveal that an Everly Brothers-style folk tune is lurking beneath its surface. As for Roger McGuinn and Willie Nelson, on One More Cup of Coffee and Señor (Tales of Yankee Power) respectively, they each provide the wisdom that is necessary for mutating Calexico’s adventurous support into something more than just window dressing.
Still, even among the serviceable selections, there are some positively brilliant moments: Yo La Tengo puts a Stones-y spin on I Wanna Be Your Lover that is simple but effective. The Hold Steady transforms Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? into a Springsteen-ian anthem. Tom Verlaine leads The Million Dollar Bashers deep inside the murky darkness of Cold Irons Bound. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Loudon Wainwright III unite for an intoxicating trip through Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, and the way in which Cat Power conjures music that yearningly returns Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again to its home is wonderfully inspired.
In the end, however, Dylan is the one who has the last laugh. Countering the
urban grit, with which Sonic Youth slathers the title track to I’m Not There:
Original Soundtrack, is a long, lost recording of the song that Dylan
made with The Band back in 1967. Like a ghostly whisper from the past, it crawls
hauntingly out of nowhere, carrying an air of realism with it that is missing
from most of the material on the set. Dylan sounds ragged, tired, and tormented,
like he’s praying for salvation that he knows won’t ever come. Yet there’s also
a sense that he has moved on for a reason and that he has no interest in looking
in the rearview mirror. As his voice slips alongside Garth Hudson’s luminescent
organ accompaniment, the music acts as a prism that not only reveals Dylan’s
multifaceted personality but also allows him to disappear completely inside his
work. It’s from this vantage point that he magnifies the hairline fractures in
the collection’s construction, which inevitably explains why everyone sounds so
daunted by his presence. 
Of Further Interest...
Stolen Roses: Songs of the Grateful Dead
I'm Not There: Original Soundtrack is available from
Barnes & Noble. To order, Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box