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Music

Every New Bob Dylan Song Is a Small Blessing and We Should All Give Thanks

His new recording of the Hoagy Carmichael classic “Stardust” is his third triumph in the space of a few weeks.

Bob Dylan's triple album (!) Triplicate is out on March 31. It is, like 2016's Fallen Angels and 2015's Shadows in the Night, a collection of American standards, mostly made famous by Frank Sinatra. The two tracks we've heard so far, "I Could Have Told You" and "My One and Only Love" have both been stunning, trading the grand strings of Sinatra's tracks for slide guitars, allowing Dylan the space to translate the originals into his own broken, playful drawl.

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On Friday, Dylan released "Stardust," Dylan's interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's 90-year-old song, a standard that's been recorded over a thousand times. And, as ever, it's all broken up and rebuilt as in country melancholy; Dylan enters the track more forcefully here than before, his "Sometimes I wonder" muscling into the soft light. He settles in immediately, finding the lilting poetry and the gently swung high grace of the whole thing.

Bob Dylan is a treasure, every new song he releases is a small blessing, Triplicate is destined to be wonderful, and we should all give thanks. For proof, listen to "Stardust" below.

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