Modern Times

You may have seen the recent photos of Bob Dylan looking uncannily like Charlie Chaplin, and his 44th album shares a title with Chaplin's 1936 largely silent classic about automation, big business and the overreaching intrusion of the state into private lives. Sort of like today. Dylan sings like he has been traveling by boxcar since 1936; such tunes as "Spirit on the Water" and "Beyond the Horizon" have a sweet, old-timey, Depression-era feel. But images within the same song leap across decades: "The Levee's Gonna Break" could be about New Orleans 2005 or the great flood of 1937. This enchanting album is rife with homespun reflections on philosophy, religion and the never-ending quest for true love. They are summed up by this couplet from hard blues shuffle "Thunder on the Mountain": "I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be/I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee." —Wayne Robins