How did I get hear? #11 - Paul Johnson on Bob Dylan's "Oh Mercy"

I was handed this album as a “$7.99 SALE!” bestickered CD by my therapist in 2002.



I’d started my dream job as a graduate, got some money in my pocket and a head full of snakes. It should have been the best of times, but I’d snuck into a fragile ebb with no tools to figure it out.



Tim, my GP-nominated counsellor was a good guy. We talked a lot about music and fathers: John Lennon served as a handy nexus of the two. Tim outed himself as a huge Dylan fan, and I wanted to know more. I’d spent the previous few years away from ‘rock music’ (as many of us did) and I had no meaningful Bob in my life. The closest my Dad’s music collection got was perhaps Willie Nelson’s ‘Stardust’ or ‘Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits’, and outside of The Beatles or Elvis I only had basic outline of the classics.



He handed ‘Oh Mercy’ over with a shrug.: “This isn’t one of the big famous ones, but… this is one I’d recommend as a fan. I’m not supposed to give my clients gifts, but this was only 8 bucks so I think it’s OK”. 



No black and white photo of a folk hero. Instead, some truly lurid 1980’s street art, a man wearing the same style of oversized double breasted suit that Michael Douglas would wear in a ‘Michael Douglas’ film. Bright teal, peach and pastel washes. Crosshatched, period correct typography. Middle aged, millionaire Bob Dylan on the back – wearing a straw hat looking like he’s accidentally eating pretzels in Cabo. Is his hair wet? Why is Bob Dylan’s hair wet? Why is he poolside? Isn’t he supposed to trudge up and down Greenwich Village with a guitar case? 

 

Tough sell. Jarring shift of context. Is that a saxophone?



Inside this ’80’s pastel cover are raw, quiet songs driven by doubt, regret and uncertainty. Clearly being the spokesperson of a generation hadn’t allowed Bob to rest easy. Oh Mercy is a lesson in failure. I’ve always loved the tension between the champagne-crisp 80’s sheen of the production and the collapse in the lyrics: “Everything Is Broken” - but at the same time you can’t help but imagine him working in a rag-rolled ochre studio interior with angular, expensive European lightning. It was an odd introduction to the Zimmerman canon (and also of Daniel Lanois – masterstroker of steel guitar and space reverb), but I’m glad this was the path I took to get inside the pyramid.

This is an album that feels like it belongs inside a clattery CD case. Probably one that’s cracked with the hinges broken off and the “$7.99 SALE!” sticker half torn off, still semi-sticky with a coating of lint. It’s a desperate, subtle, broken thing, and it always rewards the time I spend listening to it.