Street-Legal is the eighteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released on June 15, 1978, through Columbia Records. The album was produced by Don DeVito and recorded at Rundown Studios, Dylan's own makeshift recording space. A diversion from the sound of previous albums, the record features the use of a large pop rock band including backing vocalists and horns.
Upon release, Street-Legal received harsh reviews from the American press, but critics in the UK were more positive. Retrospective reviews are also much more positive, though it continues to receive criticism for its production. In the US, the album was less commercially successful than Dylan's past few releases, though it still reached the top 10. The lead single, "Baby, Stop Crying", failed to chart in America but was a top 15 hit in the UK. DeVito remixed the album in 1999, which has led to further positive critical reevalution.
Writing and recording
According to biographer Clinton Heylin, Dylan undertook three "distinct" periods of songwriting prior to the recording of Street-Legal. The first of these is a group of compositions inspired by his recent divorce; a song entitled "I'm Cold" is the only known remnant from these writing sessions. The second is the only group to be represented on the final album, a collection of songs written in the summer of 1977 on Dylan's Minnesota farm.Heylin 2010, p. 92 The third is a group of co-writes with backing vocalist Helena Springs written in the spring and summer of 1978, with a few of the earlier songs from this partnership being under consideration for, but ultimately excluded from, Street-Legal.Heylin 2010, p. 120 Heylin also notes the existence of a fourth group of songs written later in 1978, demoed at tour rehearsals for a prospective follow-up to Street-Legal but ultimately never used following Dylan's conversion to Christianity.
On December 26, 1977, Dylan would partake in a session at Rundown where he would run through the songs for Street-Legal on piano. Many of these compositions were still works in progress. For instance, the melody of "No Time to Think" was "quite different" from its final form, and the lyrics contained inconsistent numbers of lines within verses.Heylin 2010, p. 106 Heylin believes "True Love Tends to Forget" and "We Better Talk This Over" to be companion songs, due in part to Dylan playing them back-to-back at this session. Both songs were also still works in progress, though the latter was closer to completion than the former.Heylin 2010, p. 107Heylin 2010, p. 108 "Is Your Love in Vain?" was absent from this session, but would become the first Street-Legal composition played in concert, and the only to be debuted live before the release of the album.Heylin 2010, p. 100
The songs included on the album were to be registered through a newly-formed publishing company, Special Rider Music, and the new album would be Dylan's first under a "recently renegotiated" contract with Columbia.Sounes 2001, p. 318 When asked in a 1978 interview if his new songs referenced his recent divorce, Dylan stated "we were breaking up for a long time. So [the next album] doesn't reflect too much of that."Heylin 2010, p. 03 According to Heylin, "Changing of the Guards" was not only "definitely" the first song recorded for Street-Legal, but also that there exists "a goodly amount of circumstantial evidence" that it was also the earliest-written composition on the record.Heylin 2010, p. 94 "Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)" is another song "almost certainly conceived" at Dylan's farm, which he then "atypically spen[t] sixth months fine-tuning".Heylin 2010, p. 111 A song entitled "First to Say Goodbye" was mentioned in a Melody Maker report discussing rehearsals for the upcoming tour, but does not appear on tapes from those sessions. Heylin suggests the title may match a song recorded at the December 1977 session but not included on the album; Dylan also mentioned a song entitled "Her Version of Jealousy" in a March 1978 interview, but no recordings have ever been released.Heylin 2010, p. 113 Another Dylan–Springs collaboration, "Stop Now" appears to have been under heavy consideration for the album's final tracklisting, but was not included.Heylin 2010, p. 120
With a tour booked to start in June, and the band expecting a break in the interim between recording and touring, the album needed to be recorded quickly.Heylin 2000, p. 479 The record would ultimately be recorded within a week in April at Rundown Studios, Dylan's makeshift studio in Santa Monica.Shelton 1987, p. 478 Dylan had originally intended to reunite with producer Bob Johnston and record the album at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California.Sounes 2001, p. 318 However, he was unable to book "convenient" dates at the studio, so the decision was made to instead record the album at Rundown. Dylan himself later recalled that he did not want to record there, but had to out of necessity.Heylin 2000, p. 480 Dylan desired a "naturalistic approach to recording that maintained the interplay between each musician", with Arthur Rosato (listed on the album sleeve as "second-in-command") later remarking that despite the fact that recording an album live in the studio had, by 1978, become "all but unheard of", Dylan insisted on recording this way, using a mobile truck with 24-track recording equipment.Heylin 2000, p. 479Heylin 2000, p. 480Heylin 2000, p. 481 He was also "uninterested" in overdubbing vocals, and placed "distinct limits" on the musicians' abilities to overdub.
Heylin notes that "if writing the Street-Legal songs in many ways mirrored the Blood on the Tracks experience, the recording sessions resembled his previous attempt to record with a big band, at the early Desire sessions." According to Sounes, the acoustics of Rundown were "terrible", due in part to its linoleum floor and polystyrene ceiling. David Mansfield recalls Dylan growing impatient with the engineering assistants during the recording process, leading to the recording crew having to "scramble" to quickly position microphones and record, resulting in what Heylin calls a "poorly recorded" album. Heylin suggests that Dylan "heard all these great-sounding tapes" from the January rehearsals "and presumably felt that, if they could make tapes like that on a shitty eight-track, recording with one of Wally Heider's mobile trucks would be a sea breeze." Floor-mounted monitors were used instead of headphones, which Heylin describes as a "no-no, purely on technical grounds." Rosato suspended a parachute above drummer Ian Wallace to deaden the sound of his kit. Robert Shelton notes the presence of "technical raw spots" on the album, attributing this to Dylan's desire to "tape it red-hot and from the heart" and the only-week-long recording span. According to Sounes, Dylan "enjoyed working at a brisk clip, and was not overly concerned about sound quality".
The last Street-Legal session was on May 1, which saw the recording of "New Pony", "Walk Out in the Rain" and the also-unused "Coming from the Heart".Heylin 2010, p. 117 Overdubs to "Baby, Stop Crying" were then added on May 2.Heylin 2010, p. 121 Two Dylan–Springs collaborations, "If I Don't Be There by Morning" and "Walk Out in the Rain", were recorded on May 1 and 2, respectively, but not included on Street-Legal. Both were later recorded by Eric Clapton for his album Backless (1978).Heylin 2010, p. 114Heylin 2010, p. 115
Music and lyrics
Sounes describes the songs on Street-Legal as being "concerned primarily with the travails of love", with their "autobiographical references" being obscured by "dense imagery" and references to Tarot and astrology. Shelton considers the collection to be one of Dylan's "most overtly autobiographical" records, containing themes of "loss, searching, estrangement and exile" while also foreshadowing Dylan's conversion to Christianity and the gospel albums which would follow. Writer Michael Gray agrees that the album predicts Dylan's later religious music, as well as noting the multitude of personalities contained within its compositions.Gray 1981, p. 207 Gray notes betrayal as a central theme on the record, opining the album deals both with "Dylan's being betrayed like Christ", and his "need to abandon woman's love". Jeremy Winograd divides the album's tracks into two lyrical categories: one being "cranky, bitchy songs about Dylan's divorce", and the other being "long, convoluted epics that take obscure Dylanesque wordplay to a whole new level."
Musically, Street-Legal is a diversion from previous Dylan albums in its use of an expanded band lineup including backing vocalists and the use of a horn section. Some reviewers have noted a stronger pop influence and have described the musicianship as "slick" and "professional". Jim Beviglia of American Songwriter describes the record's musical aesthetic as a "big-band rock sound" similar to the contemporary work of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger. Winograd says Street-Legal "marks the time when Dylan decided for exactly one album to become a big band, Vegas-style adult pop crooner". Mansfield described the sound of the band as "like Bob Dylan meets Phil Spector". Contrasting these more commercial arrangements is the sound quality and production of the album, which has come under much criticism. Sounes describes its sound as "like it had been recorded under wet cardboard", while Heylin characterizes the record's sound quality as a "twenty-four track morass".Sounes 2001, p. 319
Side one
The album opens with "Changing of the Guards", considered by Winograd to be its "most ostensibly Dylanesque cut" due to its use of "wailing organ and verse–verse-verse folk song structure." Heylin describes the lyrics as a "Babylonian narrative of lust and betrayal, to a period of mortal combat".Heylin 2010, p. 96 Shelton notes the "confound[ing]" and enigmatic nature of the lyrics, while Sounes highlights its references to Tarot as one of the record's prime instances of Dylan disguising his songs' autobiographical references. Heylin notes similarities between the song's verse structure and that of the previous album's "Black Diamond Bay", while also picking out lyrical references to Tom Paxton's "Peace Will Come" and Robert Johnson's "Last Fair Deal Gone Down".Heylin 2010, p. 94Heylin 2010, p. 98 Michael Gray interprets the song as "Dylan reflecting on his own career", while exhibiting the album's theme of betrayal, in this case inflicted not by a romantic partner, but the world as a whole.Gray 1981, p. 212 Gray opines that later in the song, Dylan both addresses his record label and Sara, while other lyrics foreshadow his religious conversion.Gray 1981, p. 213Gray 1981, p. 214 "New Pony" is a blues which many, including some in Dylan's band, have theorized refers to Dylan's relationship with Springs.Sounes 2001, p. 319Hinton 2006, p. 156 Musical characteristics of the track include backing vocalists repeating the phrase "How much longer?", in addition to "muscular drumming pinning down" the song's "12-bar structure". Brian Hinton describes the song as "certainly part inspired by Son House's 'Pony Blues' with a bit of satanism thrown in", while Gray considers it to be the "dark, spiteful corollary" of the similarly blues-influenced "Buckets of Rain" (from Blood on the Tracks).Gray 1981, p. 207 Gray also highlights the juxtaposition of Dylan's "sexy, sleazy" vocal performance with the "gospel plea for deliverance" offered by the backing vocalists as a prime example of the album's "tussle between flesh and spirit".