So finally we get to hear a track off Tempest and it a doozy. "Duquesne Whistle" is a hearkening back to the Love And Theft that gave us "Summer Days", a 1920s dancehall 20s jazz song with a wonderful middle eight and a spectacular loose limbed ease about it. And while there is no line as great as "the clouds are turnin'' crimson, the leaves fall from the limbs an'…" , "Duquesne Whistle" is probably more important to the overall concept than is immediately apparently.In the Rolling Stone interview, Bob Dylan claimed that he original planned to make Tempest an album more religious, but found the single theme concept album too constricting. But the ghost of the idea lies in "Duquesne Whistle", another traveling song with a twist: "I can hear a sweet voice softly calling, must be the mother of our Lord", Dylan sings as he both rejoices in and leaves a woman. And with the "only living thing comment", you have to think that this is a straight up song of romantic devotion, though quite where they are going, or who is going, is a mystery.
The video adds no light to anything, though it is cool in its own way, with a man's intended courtship of a woman he sees on the street going very very wrong. Dylan is seen from time to time, waling with his posse and ends with a very good joke.
So how good is it? It is great. His best song since tracks off Modern Times.
Grade: A
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