Time Out of Mind - Background and Writing

Background and Writing

In April 1991, Dylan told interviewer Paul Zollo that "there was a time when the songs would come three or four at the same time, but those days are long gone...Once in a while, the odd song will come to me like a bulldog at the garden gate and demand to be written. But most of them are rejected out of my mind right away. You get caught up in wondering if anyone really needs to hear it. Maybe a person gets to the point where they have written enough songs. Let someone else write them."

Dylan's last album of original material had been 1990's Under the Red Sky, a critical and commercial disappointment. Since then, he released two albums Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong of folk covers and MTV Unplugged, a live album of older compositions; there had been no signs of any fresh compositions until 1996.

Dylan began to write a fresh string of songs during the winter of 1996 at his farm in Minnesota, which would later make up Time Out of Mind. Criteria Studio in Miami, Florida was booked for recording. In a televised interview with Charlie Rose, Lanois recalled Dylan talking about spending a lot of late nights working on this chapter of work. Once the words were completed, according to Lanois, Dylan considered the record to be finished saying, "you know whatever we decide to do with it, that's that." Lanois replied: "what's important is that it's written."