Line #62 Music/StreetLegal


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dylanstreetlegallpf.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''Fortune calls; I stepped forth from the shadows to the marketplace...'']]
3
4	''Street-Legal'' is the eighteenth studio album by Music/BobDylan, released in 1978.
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6	The album came at a time of transition for Dylan. He'd just gone through a very public and bitter divorce from Sara Lownds. Also, his film ''Renaldo and Clara'' had opened to scathing reviews then quickly closed.
7
8	But it also came at a time when the music world was in turmoil. Music/ElvisPresley had died (which deeply affected Dylan). {{Disco}} and ArenaRock dominated the charts, and both had their own hedonistic excesses. Meanwhile, PunkRock was rising up from the underground with its irreverent energy.
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10	All in all, it wasn't a great time to be a 37-year-old rock icon. So how did Bob Dylan handle a [[HollywoodMidLifeCrisis Mid-Life Crisis]]?
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12	By recording an album that was a curious mix of dense, poetic, sometimes cryptic lyrics and slick arrangements, augmenting the usual Dylan sound with saxophone, violin and gospel-style female backing vocalists.
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14	Needless to say, this caught many people off-guard. It became his first studio album of the decade to miss the Top 10 in America (peaking at #11 in ''Billboard'') and drew his harshest reviews since ''Music/SelfPortrait'' (with that album's main antagonist Greil Marcus leading the way here as well). Interestingly, the reaction in Britain [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff was much different]]. It was released to rave reviews and got to #2 on the charts, with "Baby, Stop Crying" becoming a hit there as well.
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16	One big criticism at the time was the album's muddy sound. In 1999, producer Don [=DeVito=] remixed and remastered it, which started a gradual re-evaluation of the album. It's now appreciated as the last stand of "old Dylan" before his Christian phase. Some go even further and call it his most underrated album. "Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)" was a staple of Dylan's early 2000s concert setlists.
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18	----
19	!! Tracklist:
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21	[[AC: Side One]]
22
23	# "Changing of the Guards" (7:04)
24	# "New Pony" (4:28)
25	# "No Time to Think" (8:19)
26	# "Baby, Stop Crying" (5:19)
27
28	[[AC: Side Two]]
29
30	# "Is Your Love in Vain?" (4:30)
31	# "Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)" (5:42)
32	# "True Love Tends to Forget" (4:14)
33	# "We Better Talk This Over" (4:04)
34	# "Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)" (6:16)
35
36	----
37	!! Tropes of Yankee Power:
38
39	* BaldMystic: "Changing of the Guards"
40	-->They shaved her head\
41	She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
42	* TheBusCameBack: 39 years after this album, Dylan brought keyboardist Alan Pasqua back to do the piano accompaniment for his Nobel Prize lecture.
43	* CallBack:
44	** The opening line of the album is "Sixteen years, sixteen banners united." It had been sixteen years since his debut album, and this was his sixteenth studio album if you don't count ''Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid'' and ''Dylan''.
45	** "Where Are You Tonight?", as befitting the final song of his last album before his Christian phase, has a few. The title had already been used as a recurring line in [[Music/BlondeOnBlonde "Absolutely Sweet Marie"]]. It uses a similar chord progression and lyric structure to [[Music/Highway61Revisited "Like a Rolling Stone"]]. And there are some similarities to [[Music/BloodOnTheTracks "Tangled Up in Blue"]], with lines about lovers meeting and breaking up, references to parents and strippers, and the song opening up with the narrator wondering about his old lover.
46	* CreditsGag: A few oddball titles for people. Instead of producer, Don [=DeVito=] is credited as "Captain in Charge". Larry Kegan (a childhood friend of Dylan who had been paralyzed in a swimming accident in his teens and still kept in touch with him)[[note]]in 1956 Kegan, Dylan and another friend were hanging out together in St. Paul, Minnesota on Christmas Eve and decided to pool some money to record a vanity single at a music store under the name The Jokers, which is the oldest surviving Dylan recording.[[/note]] was "Champion of All Causes". Two members of Dylan's staff, Arthur Rosato and Ava Megna, are "Second in Command" and "Secretary of Goodwill". Mary Alice Artes (his girlfriend at the time) is "Queen Bee".
47	* EnemyWithin: Cited by name in "Where Are You Tonight?"
48	* EpicRocking: The album's shortest song is still over four minutes, and its longest is over eight.
49	* EveryScarHasAStory: "Where Are You Tonight?"
50	-->If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise\
51	Just remind me to show you the scars
52	* HallOfMirrors: "Changing of the Guards"
53	-->The palace of mirrors, where dog soldiers are reflected
54	* MagicalNativeAmerican: In "Where Are You Tonight?" the woman's father is a "full-blooded Cherokee" who can [[{{Seers}} predict the future]].
55	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: In "New Pony", the narrator names the pony [[{{Satan}} Lucifer]].
56	* NoTimeToThink: "No Time to Think".
57	* ProductionForeshadowing: It's been argued that some of the album's lyrics have covert Christian themes, perhaps indicating that Dylan was already pondering the religion even before he formally converted. It's worth noting a possible BilingualBonus: "Señor" means "mister" in Spanish, but it can also mean "Lord".
58	* QuestioningTitle: "Is Your Love in Vain?" "Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)".
59	* ShoutOut: This is one of his deepest albums lyrically. Practically every line is some sort of reference to something.
60	** Music/RobertJohnson gets a few nods. Besides "Is Your Love in Vain?", in "Where Are You Tonight?" he quotes the lines "Killing me by degrees" ("Preachin' Blues") and "Juice running down my leg" ("Traveling Riverside Blues").
61	** "Señor" seems influenced by the work of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda Carlos Castaneda]], who wrote a book called ''Tales of Power''.
62	* SouthOfTheBorder: "Señor" (of TheSavageSouth variety).
63	* TarotMotifs: "Changing of the Guards" is filled with Tarot allusions, and ends by directly referencing the King and Queen of Swords. The Empress, The Magician and The (High) Priestess make cameos in "No Time to Think".
64	* TranquilFury: Implied in "Where Are You Tonight?".
65	-->It felt outa place, my foot in his face\
66	But he should-a stayed where his money was green
67	* TwelveBarBlues: "New Pony".

Context Music / StreetLegal