This has been a year in which two of rock’s greatest icons have released new studio albums far ahead of their usual schedule. Bruce Springsteen released Working on a Dream in January, a mere 15 months after Magic was released in October, 2007. To show you why this is so unusual, it took Springsteen more than five years to follow 2002’s The Rising with Magic, and going back over his career, that is much closer to the norm.

Now we have a brand new studio album from Bob Dylan, Together Through Life, and it makes an appearance a mere 32 months after Dylan’s last studio album, 2006’s Modern Times. The gap between Modern Times and its predecessor, Love and Theft, was very nearly five years, and again, going back over Dylan’s career, at least in recent years, that is much closer to the average.

Not to be ungrateful, because I’m very happy when either of these artists releases a new album, but what exactly is going on here? What’s driving these men to speed up their recorded output so dramatically? The answer, it seems to me, is pretty simple — time. Bruce Springsteen turns 60 this year, and although it appears that he is in good health, in the last couple of years he has had to endure the deaths of a longtime collaborator, E Street Band keyboard player Danny Federici, and Terry McGovern, who was Bruce’s friend and assistant for years.

Bob Dylan will be 68 years-old on May 24 (Happy Birthday, Bob!), and he also must be facing his mortality after witnessing the demise of many old friends and colleagues, and having his own health scare in 1997 when he was hospitalized with histoplasmosis, a potentially life-threatening fungal infection. It’s apparent that both of these artists feel that they have more to say, and they both realize that none of us is given to know how much time we have left. A bit morbid perhaps, but perfectly understandable. (more…)