Oh Mercy
| Oh Mercy | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Bob Dylan | ||||
| Released | September 18, 1989 | |||
| Recorded | February–April 1989 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 38:46 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | Daniel Lanois | |||
| Bob Dylan chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Robert Christgau | B |
| Entertainment Weekly | A– |
| MusicHound | |
| Rolling Stone | |
Oh Mercy is the twenty-sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 18, 1989 by Columbia Records. Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of poorly-reviewed albums. Oh Mercy gave Dylan his best chart showing in years, reaching #30 on the Billboard charts in the United States and #6 in the UK.
The recording of the album is described by Dylan in his book Chronicles Volume One. Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin notes that Dylan finished recording the basic tracks for the album on March 29, 1989 but added new vocals (and other overdubs) for almost all the tracks the following month.
The album opens with "Political World", a song that Dylan described in Chronicles Volume One as a "catalog of troubles...almost an update on 'With God on Our Side.'" A cranky tirade against the modern world, it begins with the verse, "We live in a political world/Love don't have any place/We live in a time where men commit crime/And crime don't have a face", to which Allmusic critic Thomas Ward commented, "… which leaves one to argue, which age does this not apply to?" Ward criticised the song's "irrationality and sweeping general statements", describing it as "on the whole [...] a rather trite, cloyed song."
In regard to "Everything Is Broken", Dylan wrote, "Danny didn't have to swamp it up too much, it was already swamped up pretty good when it came to him. Critics usually didn't like a song like this coming out of me because it didn't seem to be autobiographical. Maybe not, but the stuff I write does come from an autobiographical place." A propulsive, riff-driven number, it was the first single issued from Oh Mercy.
"Ring Them Bells" is one of the more celebrated tracks on Oh Mercy, and also where Lanois's production is at its most subtle and restrained. The song features some spiritual overtones, invoking St. Peter, St. Catherine and a "Sweet Martha" who may or may not be the biblical Martha. It opens with the verse, "Ring them bells ye heathen/From the city that dreams/Ring them bells from the sanctuaries/'Cross the valleys and streams."
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