Love and Theft begins and ends with worlds ending. “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum” concludes with a man dying in a Mardi Gras like party, while “Sugar Baby” ends with the potential of death from a broken heart. On Dylan’s 31st album, released on Sept. 11, 2001, Dylan explores death plenty. But there’s still a sense of optimism, and the proof is that he’s still tinkering around with his style after all these years. Love and Theft is both predictable and completely surprising. It features all the characters and signature Dylan vocal stylings that is to be expected, but songs like “Honest With Me” and the fascinating shifting pace of “Cry a While” show that not only does Dylan have a lot of life left in him and his music, but that he’s still releasing some of his best music.—Ross Bonaime
Bob Dylan – Mississippi
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4kwdcw#user_search=1
REVIEWS
I remember the night I bought Bob Dylans “Love and Theft”. My friend and I had driven to Blacksburg, Virginia from our small college in Radford. It was a Monday night. This particular store stayed open after midnight on Mondays so you didn’t have to wait until the next morning to buy new releases. As we drove home, I listened to the first three or four tracks and remember not being overly impressed. I had taken the drive with high expectations as Rolling Stone had given the album five stars. I went home and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning to a cool late summer day. You can feel the changing of the seasons early in the mountains. I walked to class but it was cancelled. It was September 11th 2001.
Of course, Bob Dylan is no psychic. Like the rest of us, he had no way of knowing what that Tuesday had in store for the nation. Obviously, that tragic event haunted me for the next several months. By sheer coincidence, “Love and Theft” became my soundtrack for that particular period. I listened to it as I thought about the randomness and cruelty of the world. In the weeks following, I also reflected upon the kindness and unity a national tragedy can bring. Maybe the album’s release date is why it has resonated with me over the years. But in the material itself, you can recognize the duality of mans character. In it there is chaos, destruction, despair, judgment, and hope for redemption. Those were all things I thought about deeply on that Tuesday. I know Dylan had thought about them too, and obviously longer than me.
read More at https://www.furious.com/perfect/dylanloveandtheft.html
Time Out of Mind was a legitimate comeback, Bob Dylan’s first collection of original songs in nearly ten years and a risky rumination on mortality, but its sequel, Love and Theft, is his true return to form, not just his best album since Blood on the Tracks, but the loosest, funniest, warmest record he’s made since The Basement Tapes. There are none of the foreboding, apocalyptic warnings that permeatedTime Out of Mind and even underpinned “Things Have Changed,” his Oscar-winning theme to Curtis Hanson’s 2000 film Wonder Boys. Just as important, Daniel Lanois’ deliberately arty, diffuse production has retreated into the mist, replaced by an uncluttered, resonant production that gives Dylan and his ace backing band room to breathe. And they run wild with that liberty, rocking the house with the grinding “Lonesome Day Blues” and burning it down with the fabulously swinging “Summer Days.”
Read more at :https://www.allmusic.com/album/love-and-theft-mw0000012576
Dan Wilson Reviews and Interprets Bob Dylan’s “Love and Theft”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HUJQUy70M
sources: https://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/09/the-15-best-bob-dylan-albums.html
