bob dylan once said "The world don't need any more songs"(1991)* and he probably had a point. there's a song about everything...well, just about everything. so maybe he came to this conclusion sometime around the Oh Mercy and Under the Red Sky albums. Afterall, he released no original work for 6 years after that interview. An album that was his last real statement - on aging and mortality of course. After Time Out of Mind, he released 2 albums which were practically cover albums. Using these old tunes and styles (mainly from the 20's, 30's and 40's) he wrote lyrics which reflected his worldview, old codes of conduct, and themes on love. There are also plenty of quotes and allusions from books such as The Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn and Confessions of a Yakuza (released in 91 - is this what bob spent his time studying for the next few years instead of writing songs?). There are also plenty of re-arranged lines from the poetry of Henry Timrod in there. I dont buy the argument that these lines slipped into bob's songs unconsciously. Bob probably marked out lines from these works that he liked and incorporated them into the songs.
The desire to write new songs is gone, but bob dylan now is like some out of time crooner from the 30's in a world that has moved on - a time when bing crosby regularly topped the charts. It's hard to imagine a similar singer regularly topping the charts today. But Bob has moved full circle. When he was just a young kid in new york he used to say in interviews "I had to write these songs simply because nobody else had and these were the kind of songs i wanted to sing"
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