Twenty-Five Years of “Love & Theft”: “Everybody Get Ready to Lift Up Your Glasses and Sing”

From the fade into the opening track, “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” Bob Dylan launches listeners into the aural landscape of “Love and Theft,” his 31^st studio album that honors the history and influence of black music on American culture. The album is a bricolage of contemplations of movement, mortality, love, and life that borrows from both black musical traditions and myriad other historical, cultural, social, and literary influences. In this way, “Love and Theft” is firmly rooted in Dylan’s larger project of integrating the history of American music with the history of race in America. Released on September 11, 2001, a day that indelibly changed the American social, cultural, and political landscape and, for many of us, it’s challenging to divorce the tensions between the apocalyptic events of that day with the excitement we felt due to the release of new Dylan material. We are not suggesting that there is a relationship between the two outside of our memories and experiences of both. The tension between our love for Bob Dylan and his music and what was stolen on that day lingers in our consciousness. Now, on the 25^th anniversary of the release of “Love and Theft,” we’ve put together an expert panel in this joint release of Songs of Experience and Infinity Goes Up on Trial to discuss the album and its legacy.