NEW YORK: US folk and rock legend Bob Dylan released his first album of original songs in eight years on Friday with the ten-track “Rough and Rowdy Ways.”
Dylan’s 39th studio album, which comes 58 years after his first, features a 17-minute ballad about the assassination of John F Kennedy, as well as a tribute to American electric bluesman Jimmy Reed.
“Rough and Rowdy Ways” is the Nobel winner’s first collection of new material since “Tempest” in 2012, although he has released a number of cover albums in the interim.
It sees Dylan mix gritty blues with folksy storytelling, his signature raspy voice delivering lyrics that switch between bleakly haunting and darkly humorous.
At times he sounds warm, at other times scathing.
In the album’s opening song “I Contain Multitudes,” the 79-year-old grapples with mortality.
He starts by singing tenderly, “Today and tomorrow and yesterday too / The flowers are dying like all things do.”
Later he says: “I sleep with life and death in the same bed.”
Dylan was asked about the lyrics in a recent interview with The New York Times, his first since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.
“I think about the death of the human race. The long strange trip of the naked ape,” he replied.
“Not to be light on it, but everybody’s life is so transient. Every human being, no matter how strong or mighty, is frail when it comes to death. I think about it in general terms, not in a personal way.”
The songs run through 20th century pop culture, touch on myths and refer to historical and fictional figures — some light, others tragic.
In “I Contain Multitudes,” Dylan cites Indiana Jones, Anne Frank and the Rolling Stones in the same verse.
“Murder Most Foul,” first revealed in March, retells the shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas while describing the evolution of 1960s counterculture.
The song, which rose to the top of the Billboard chart, is packed with artist name-drops including the Eagles, Charlie Parker, Stevie Nicks, Woodstock and The Beatles.
Dylan — some of whose most-loved songs from the 1960s and 70s addressed police brutality and racism, such as “Hurricane” — also mentions the Tulsa race massacre of 1921.
The “Birdman of Alcatraz,” a convicted murderer who became a respected ornithologist raising birds in prison, gets a mention, too.
Recounting Kennedy’s slaying, Dylan sings: “We’re gonna kill you with hatred, without any respect / We’ll mock you and shock you and we’ll put it in your face / We’ve already got someone here to take your place.”
In “False Prophet,” the album’s six-minute second track, Dylan sounds cocky and unapologetic as he addresses his own mythology.
“I ain’t no false prophet / I just said what I said / I’m just here to bring vengeance on somebody’s head,” he sings over a slow blues riff.
British music magazine NME called the album “arguably his grandest poetic statement yet.”
In a review on its website, critic Mark Beaumont wrote “Rough? Perhaps, but it certainly has the warmth and lustre of the intimate and home-made.”
Rolling Stone magazine hailed it an “absolute classic,” calling it one of Dylan’s “most timely albums ever.”
“As Dylan pushes 80, his creative vitality remains startling — and a little frightening,” wrote critic Rob Sheffield.
Despite his years, Dylan, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2012, has toured almost non-stop for the past three decades.
The coronavirus crisis forced him to cancel a string of dates in Japan and North America this spring and summer, but he has promised to be back on the road as soon as it’s safe to do so.
Bob Dylan releases first original album in almost a decade
https://arab.news/wvc7r
Bob Dylan releases first original album in almost a decade
- Dylan’s 39th studio album comes 58 years after his first
- “Rough and Rowdy Ways” is the Nobel winner’s first collection of new material since “Tempest” in 2012
How science is reshaping early years education
DUBAI: As early years education comes under renewed scrutiny worldwide, one UAE-based provider is making the case that nurseries must align more closely with science.
Blossom Nursery & Preschool, which operates 32 locations across the UAE, is championing a science-backed model designed to close what it sees as a long-standing gap between research and classroom practice.
“For decades, early years education has been undervalued globally — even though science shows the first five years are the most critical for brain development,” said Lama Bechara-Jakins, CEO for the Middle East at Babilou Family and a founding figure behind Blossom’s regional growth, in an interview with Arab News.
She explained that the Sustainable Education Approach was created to address “a fundamental gap between what we know from science and what actually happens in nurseries.”
Developed by Babilou Family, the approach draws on independent analysis of research in neuroscience, epigenetics, and cognitive and social sciences, alongside established educational philosophies and feedback from educators and families across 10 countries. The result is a framework built around six pillars; emotional and physical security, natural curiosity, nature-based learning, inclusion, child rhythms, and partnering with parents.
Two research insights, Bechara-Jakins says, were particularly transformative. “Neuroscience shows that young children cannot learn until they feel safe,” she said, adding that stress and inconsistent caregiving can “literally alter the architecture of the developing brain.”
Equally significant was evidence around child rhythms, which confirmed that “pushing children academically too early is not just unhelpful — it can be counterproductive.”
Feedback from families and educators reinforced these findings. Across regions, common concerns emerged around pressure on young children, limited outdoor time and weak emotional connections in classrooms. What surprised her most was that “parents all sensed that something was missing, even if they couldn’t articulate the science behind it.”
At classroom level, the strongest body of evidence centres on secure relationships. Research shows that “secure attachments drive healthy brain development” and that children learn through trusted adults. At Blossom, this translates into practices such as assigning each child “one primary educator,” prioritising calm environments, and viewing behaviour through “a neuroscience lens — as stress signals, not misbehaviour.”
Bechara-Jakins believes curiosity and nature remain overlooked in many early years settings, despite strong evidence that both accelerate learning and reduce stress. In urban centres such as Dubai, she argues, nature-based learning is “not a luxury. It is a developmental need.”
For Blossom, this means daily outdoor time, natural materials, gardening, and sensory play — intentional choices aimed at giving children what science says they need to thrive.
