Knocked Out Loaded (1986)


 

  1. You Wanna Ramble
  2. They Killed Him
  3. Driftin' Too Far From Shore
  4. Precious Memories
  5. Maybe Someday
  6. Brownsville Girl
  7. Got My Mind Made Up
  8. Under Your Spell

 

Released in 1986, Knocked Out Loaded is the sound of an artist drifting through the wreckage of a decade that had offered him little in the way of artistic coherence. Following swiftly on the heels of the critically divisive Empire Burlesque, this record continues Dylan’s uneasy dialogue with the aesthetic demands of the 1980s. The sonic trappings—synthesizers, gated drums, and over-polished production—remain largely intact, as do several of the supporting musicians from the previous album. For an artist whose career was once defined by a near-reckless refusal to repeat himself, this newfound consistency felt more like stagnation than stability.

From the outset, the album does little to allay fears. The opening tracks tread familiar ground, but with diminishing returns. The nadir arrives shockingly early with They Killed Him, a well-intentioned but musically inert tribute to fallen visionaries. Written by Kris Kristofferson, the song’s childlike simplicity might have passed as naive charm in other hands, but in Dylan’s, it becomes an exercise in misjudged earnestness. The arrangement, complete with cloying children’s choir, only magnifies its awkwardness. Rarely has Dylan sounded more disconnected from the material he’s performing.

Yet, amid the mediocrity, a singular triumph emerges. Brownsville Girl, co-written with Sam Shepard, stands as a late-career epic of genuine magnitude. Running over eleven minutes, the track is a sprawling, semi-spoken meditation on memory, myth, and movie Westerns—equal parts narrative and hallucination. The performance is magnetic, the lyricism layered and elusive, and the song itself a reminder that even in periods of creative uncertainty, Dylan remained capable of moments of brilliance. It is not merely the high point of the album; it is one of the few tracks of the era that holds its own against his earlier canon.

Elsewhere, the record recovers modestly. I’ve Got My Mind Made Up, co-written with Tom Petty, benefits from a more grounded rock arrangement and a touch of Heartbreakers swagger. While it stops short of distinction, it at least gestures toward vitality. Likewise, the final tracks are notably more listenable, though none approach the lyrical ambition or sonic cohesion of Brownsville Girl. Commercially, the album fared poorly, even by the reduced expectations of Dylan’s mid-80s output. Critically, it was met with confusion and disappointment, and rightly so. While not entirely devoid of merit, Knocked Out Loaded is perhaps best viewed as a document of artistic dislocation—an album caught between eras, hesitant in direction, and reliant too often on collaborators to compensate for Dylan’s own waning inspiration.

And yet, the presence of Brownsville Girl alone makes it impossible to dismiss outright. In that one sprawling, cinematic track, Dylan reasserts the depth and peculiarity of his artistic voice. Unfortunately, the rest of the album seldom rises to meet it.

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