Bob Dylan almost died in 1997. Months later, 'Time Out of Mind' revived his career

A quarter of a century ago, Bob Dylan found vital new life in an album about death's inexorable approach.

"I'm walking through streets that are dead," the rock 'n' roll legend sang — wheezed, really — right at the top of "Time Out of Mind," which came out in the fall of 1997 to end the longest break he'd ever taken from releasing original material. Dylan, then 56, hadn't been silent in the years since 1990's coolly received "Under the Red Sky": He'd put out two collections of folk and blues standards and had reestablished himself as a can't-miss live act on what came to be known as the Never Ending Tour; he'd even followed Paul McCartney and Neil Young (and Tony Bennett) onto MTV's hit "Unplugged."

Yet recording new tunes of his own, he told interviewers at the time, no longer held much appeal, which led many to wonder if the songwriter who changed rock — who convinced the world, for better or for worse, to take rock seriously — had finally run out of things to say.

Then came "Time Out of Mind."

Produced by Daniel Lanois, who'd worked with Dylan on 1989's "Oh Mercy" and with U2