“You’re a Big Girl Now” is from Blood on the Tracks, the 1974 album that ranks by any measure in Dylan’s top five. The noises-off and count-ins, the noodling fades, and laughter all add atmosphere and authenticity to an album that has plenty of light and air and which breathes. The unplugged, vamp-till-ready quality is immensely appealing and there’s some very nice playing – though from who it’s not clear, as there are no notes. What’s interesting about Standing in the Doorway is its weighting toward Dylan’s 1980s song catalogue, with two songs from Shot of Love (1981), the third and least distinguished of his Christian albums, and three from the Infidels sessions (1983), in which Dylan walked the hyphen of Judaeo-Christian belief. There have been countless albums of all-Dylan songs, not least the Joan Baez set Any Day Now (1968), in which 16 of them, few obvious, were arranged into a song-cycle. The production is of necessity stripped back and simple, guitars, mandolin, and keyboards, Hynde’s husky voice to the fore, with its distinctive catch, and push-pull phrasing inviting you to listen anew to the lyrics, especially on songs from alums that reside largely unplayed in our Dylan collections. Recorded on mobile phones, Walbourne sending Hynde an instrumental idea to which she added a vocal, and so on, back and forth, Standing in the Doorway is a quietly compelling album that gets seriously under the skin.
The opening gig last month, at London’s Royal Opera House, was a somewhat ragged affair – but then it’s been 18 months since anyone made live music.
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I remember where I was sitting the day that Kennedy was shot – every reference in the song… That’s when I called James and said, ‘let’s do some Dylan covers’ and that’s what started this whole thing.” Released as a download in May to mark Dylan’s 80th birthday, Standing in the Doorway: Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan is now available as a CD, and Hynde is playing a series of concerts celebrating the album. I was lifted out of this morose mood that I’d been in. “Listening to that song completely changed everything for me. When Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne sent it to Chrissie Hynde, she was immediately hooked.
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