Time Out of Mind - Recording Sessions

Recording Sessions

When Bob read me the lyrics of this record we were at a hotel room here in New York city. The words were hard, were deep, were desperate, were strong.... That's the record I wanted to make.

Dylan demoed some of the songs in the studio, something he rarely did. Elements of Dylan's touring band were involved in these sessions. Dylan also used these loose, informal sessions to experiment with new ideas and arrangements. Dylan continued rewriting lyrics until January 1997, when the official album sessions began. It would mark the second collaboration between Dylan and Lanois, who had previously produced Dylan's 1989 release Oh Mercy and was known for his work with U2, Emmylou Harris, etc.

By now, new personnel hired for the album included slide guitarist Cindy Cashdollar and drummer Brian Blade, both hired by Lanois. Dylan brought in Jim Keltner, who was Dylan's tour drummer from 1979–1981. Dylan also hired Nashville guitarist Bob Britt, Duke Robillard, Tex-Mex organist Augie Meyers, and Memphis pianist Jim Dickinson to play at the sessions.

According to Lanois, Dylan likes old 1950s records since "they had a natural depth of field which was not the result of a mixing technique." He used a Sony C37A microphone, which was also used to record Dylan's album Oh Mercy. Various other devices were used to produce the album's distinctive sound. Lanois also devised a method to accommodate new or revised lyrics later in an original take, since this was often the case with Dylan.

With two different sets of players competing in performance and two producers with conflicting views on how to approach each song, the sessions were far from disciplined. Years later, when asked about Time Out of Mind, Dickinson replied, "I haven't been able to tell what's actually happening. I know they were listening to playbacks, I don't know whether they were trying to mix it or not! Twelve musicians playing live—three sets of drums,... it was unbelievable—two pedal steels, I've never even heard two pedal steels played at the same time before! ... I don't know man, I thought that much was overdoing it, quite frankly. "

Lanois admitted some difficulty in producing Dylan. "Well, you just never know what you're going to get. He's an eccentric man..." In a later interview, Lanois said Dylan and he used to go the parking lot to discuss the recording in absence of the band. Lanois elaborated their discussion on the song "Standing On The Doorway". "I said 'listen, I love "Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands". Can we steal that feel for this song?' And he'd say 'you think that'd work?' Then we'd sit on the fender of a truck, in this parking lot in Miami, and I'd often think, if people see this they won't believe it!" With Time Out of Mind, Lanois "produced perhaps the most artificial-sounding album in 's canon," says author Clinton Heylin, who described the album as sounding "like a Lanois CV."

I just wanted to say, one time when I was about sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at the Duluth National Guard Armory...I was three feet away from him...and he looked at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was -I don't know how or why- but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.

Dylan also talked about his difficulty at the recording sessions in an interview with Guitar World magazine. "I lose my inspiration in the studio real easy, and it's very difficult for me to think that I'm going to eclipse anything I've ever done before. I get bored easily, and my mission, which starts out wide, becomes very dim after a few failed takes and this and that." In the same interview Dylan cited Buddy Holly as an influence during the recording sessions.

In relation to past works like Highway 61 Revisited, Blood on the Tracks, and Infidels, Dylan said: