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I’d really like to say something smart about Bob Dylan’s latest album, Christmas in the Heart. I’d love to write something like Jon Landau did all those years ago in Rolling Stone about Blood on the Tracks. I really wish, with respect to Mr. Dylan, that I could give a serious critical analysis of this album, because, let’s face it, he’s Bob Dylan, and I think being Bob Dylan must be incredibly sweet. So sweet in fact that you get to this point where you wake up one morning and say “hey, I’m Bob fucking Dylan, I feel like recording an album full of Christmas songs that people don’t really need to hear again, but I’m gonna do it anyway.” Life is sweet because you are Bob Dylan and either you think you can do whatever you want, or you have gone absolutely batty. Those are the only real explanations for this awful album.
First, what the hell is Dylan doing singing about Jesus again? As a Jew, I’m very disappointed, and a little worried. I thought Bob had shed all that Christian stuff from the 70s and was rolling hard at the Chabad telethon. Is Bob trying to tell us something? I realize Dylan has spent fifty or so years confusing everybody, and never fails to keep us guessing; he’s a paradox wrapped in a bunch of word play, delivered to us by the most unorthodox voice in popular music. Of course that’s all well and good, this is Bob Dylan and he’s an icon. After all, Blonde on Blonde should be taught in schools and his impact on music and culture is undeniable; pretty much anything he does should be given the benefit of the doubt. Everything, that is, except Christmas in the Heart, which would best be used as a soundtrack to a George A. Romero film that involves zombies trapping a bunch of music fans in a shopping mall on Christmas eve with this unmerciful album on repeat, and the only way to shut it off is to get past the hordes of the undead.
But, wait! There are so many creepy images I can think of: On “Winter Wonderland”, Dylan sounds like a drunken serial killer following Perry Como home, unsure if he wants to murder Mr. Como, or duet with him. “Christmas Blues” makes me think of a 60-year-old, heavily smoking drag queen covering Norah Jones in a piano bar. And when “O’Come All Ye Faithful” comes on, an awkward vision of Ebenezer Scrooge getting a colonic dances in my head. Susan Sontag once said “the ultimate Camp statement: it’s good because it’s awful”, and I think she may have been prophesying this very album, because Bob Dylan has played the ultimate joke on us with this pile of schlock.
Jason Diamond
Jason Diamond is the editor-in-chief of Jewcy.com, founding editor of Vol. 1 Brooklyn and an associate editor at Impose Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn among a collection ...
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