Together Through Life

Composition and recording

Dylan is backed on the album by his regular touring band, plus David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Dylan commented on Campbell's guitar work in his interview with Flanagan: “He's good with me. He's been playing with Tom for so long that he hears everything from a songwriter’s point of view and he can play most any style.”

Release and promotion

Rumors of the album, reported in Rolling Stone magazine, came as a surprise, with no official press release until March 16, 2009—less than two months before the album's release date. Dylan produced the record under his pseudonym of Jack Frost, which he used for his previous two studio albums, Love and Theft and Modern Times. The album was rumored to contain "struggling love songs" and have little similarity to Modern Times.

"Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" was available as a free download for one day on Monday, March 30, 2009, via Dylan's official site.

"I Feel a Change Comin' On" was released for streaming on Monday, April 6 on The Times Online website, as well as the third installment of his interview with Bill Flanagan.

Artwork

The album's cover photo is the same as that on the cover of American author Larry Brown's short story collection, Big Bad Love.

Reception

Reception has been favorable. The record maintains a score of 76/100 at critic aggregator MetaCritic ("Generally favorable reviews"). During the Flanagan interview, Dylan gave his own thoughts about how the record would be received: "I know my fans will like it. Other than that, I have no idea".

Rolling Stone gave the album 4 stars out of 5. Describing the album as a "murky-sounding, often perplexing record", David Fricke of Rolling Stone writes, "Dylan, who turns 68 in May, has never sounded as ravaged, pissed off and lusty". BBC noted that the album is "a masterful reading of 20th century American folk, albeit shot through with some mischievous lyrical twists" and compares it to "some Chicago urban blues tribute". According to Mojo, "Together Through Life is an album that gets its hooks in early and refuses to let go". The reviewer described it as "dark yet comforting". Uncut and Blender both gave the album 5 stars out of 5, saying that it was "unbelievably good." iF Magazine.com says it "explores the bluesy side of his skills in a slight, but delightful set of ten originals."

Corey DuBrowa of Paste Magazine, in his 8.10/10 review, stated:

Dylan’s never spent much time contemplating the rearview mirror, but Together Through Life finds him more resolutely focused on the treacherous horizon ever before: Song after song decries the mess we’re in (the sneering, sarcastic jump-blues “It’s All Good,” in which Dylan’s ravaged voice attacks the clichéd phrase as if it represented every banker, politician and Ponzi-scheme cheat he could conjure; “My Wife’s Home Town,” a bluesy jaunt that surveys the current economic wreckage as if from the passenger-side window of a car up on blocks) without forsaking the idea that love—and the comfort we find in shared misery—is essentially all we have left when a lifetime of ambition and achievement are swept away by the winds of change. You’d have to go all the way back to 1974’s Planet Waves—which Dylan summarized as “cast-iron songs & torch ballads”—to find a record on which he sounds so simultaneously anxious and enervated. Indeed, when Dylan croaks in “I Feel a Change Comin’ On,” “[I’ve] got the blood of the land in my voice,” you can hear quite plainly the sadness, disappointment and exhaustion of which he sings.

Versions

The album is available as a one-CD version containing only the new material that Dylan recorded, or as a 3-disc deluxe version including the album itself, the "Friends & Neighbors" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour and a DVD featuring an interview with Dylan's first manager Roy Silver (recorded for the Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home, but unused).

There is also a two-LP deluxe vinyl version, containing the same songs as the CD. In the US, the CD is included as part of the vinyl package.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter, except where noted; all music composed by Dylan.

When pre-ordered from iTunes, consumers also got a bonus track of a studio rehearsal of "Lay Lady Lay" recorded in 1969.

Personnel

Charts

The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 125,000 copies in its first week of release. It then reached number one on Top Internet Album, Top Digital Album, Tastemaker, Top Rock Album, and Most Comprehensive Album. In the US the album has sold more than 300,000 copies to date.