This album, New Morning, came as a relief after Dylan’s fascinating but uneven and puzzling Self Portrait. It was a sign that Dylan was back on track — but in fact the album is excellent on its own merits, not just compared to Self Portrait. It’s one of Dylan’s best. The lyrics contain some simple but beautiful poetry and the easy, country-inflected arrangements fit the songs perfectly.
The eccentric, deadpan Three Angels, not much remarked upon in the Dylan literature, ranks among Dylan’s best religious songs (though the more conventional, psalm-like Father Of Night does not.)
Three angels up above the street
Each one playing a horn
Dressed in green robes with wings that stick out
They’ve been there since Christmas morn
The wildest cat from Montana passes by in a flash
Then a lady in a bright orange dress
One U-Haul trailer, a truck with no wheels
The Tenth Avenue bus going west
The dogs and pigeons fly up and they flutter around
A man with a badge skips by
Three fellas crawlin’ on their way back to work
Nobody stops to ask why
The bakery truck stops outside of that fence
Where the angels stand high on their poles
The driver peeks out, trying to find one face
In this concrete world full of souls
The angels play on their horns all day
The whole earth in progression seems to pass by
But does anyone hear the music they play
Does anyone even try?
Copyright © 1970 by Big Sky Music; renewed 1998 by Big Sky Music
Father of night, Father of day
Father, who taketh the darkness away
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly
Builder of rainbows up in the sky
Father of loneliness and pain
Father of love and Father of rain
Father of day, Father of night
Father of black, Father of white
Father, who build the mountain so high
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky
Father of time, Father of dreams
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams
Father of grain, Father of wheat
Father of cold and Father of heat
Father of air and Father of trees
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories
Father of minutes, Father of days
Father of whom we most solemnly praise
Copyright © 1970 by Big Sky Music; renewed 1998 by Big Sky Music
Songs 11 and 12 closing the album.
I can see your point. “Father of Night” has always sounded like a rushed filler job.
It’s all right, and undoubtedly heartfelt, but it doesn’t worm its way into your consciousness like “Three Angels”, with its quirky but unforgettable images.
Remember walking by snowy night on the banks of the River Charles,
with this as the basic background of our lives?
I do — also playing it at Christmas in Exeter. It’s a winter’s album.
I always think of New Morning as the perfect Sunday morning record – probably the most warm and relaxed thing ever recorded by a guy not know for doing warm-and-relaxed. It’s also one of his most underrepresented live. If I’m not mistaken, six of its ten tracks have never been played before an audience. The shapeless and bleary versions of New Morning I heard in 1991 would better have been left that way. The lovely versions of the quirky If Dogs Run Free were highlights in 2000.
How an artist can get from “Blonde On Blonde” to “New Morning” in four years is one of the great mysteries. Family and faith were part of it, but only part.
“He was never known to make a foolish move”
And there was no man around who could track or chain him down.