Is Bob Dylan overrated?

I bet if people (rock 'n' roll fans) heard "Planet Waves" with no preconceptions about **DYLAN,** most of them would have to love it!!

anyone with a career like that surely has to phone it in sometimes.

(x-post)

Self-Portrait might be the most underrated album of all time.

And I agree with Tab. Dylan as fundamentalist spitfire preacher is definitely underrated. That phase of his might be the most dramatic remove from an established image anyone's ever accomplished. It's interesting how Neil Young did his schizo albums right after, which maybe's another example of Dylan's huge sway over everybody else.

This is bad why?

NOT overrated -- and go ahead and strike up another vote for Self Portrait.

Yeah buddy. I've seen him several times over the past 17 years (first in '87, most recently in '02), and the most recent show was the best hands down. His singing was so sharp and (OK, in its own way) *rich*. But the "mystic signifier" thing is true, I guess, because I think loving Dylan's singing vs. appreciating him as a songwriter or "important influence" or whatever is kind of the dividing line on really digging him or not.

I wouldn't call it that. I just think his delivery is really funny! He has a great sense of comedic timing (even when he's being serious) and almost everything he sings is pregnant with some kind of... I don't wanna say "meaning," it's more like "presence of mind." Like you know he wrote the line to be sung a certain way and the fun of getting to sing it justifies the labor of writing it.

I mean, I'd put him with Sinatra and Ella and Billie and ... not many others, maybe Elvis? Bing? Howlin' Wolf? Hank Williams? ... as great American singers of the recorded era.

But then, that's the kind of statement that makes people say he's overrated. Can't win.

And this is important because so many "clever" singer-songwriters have no idea how to emote comedically and their jokes just don't translate well to being sung.

Idiot Wind: Listening to Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan turned 60 this week, and there's been a predictable wave of tributes and analysis and retrospectives and so forth. But I couldn't help noticing that, except for some puzzled mentions, nobody really talked about one of Dylan's most important contributions to American music: his singing.

I understand why, of course. That reedy, nasal, jarring voice, part sneer and part howl, has always been the dividing line between people who "get" Dylan and people who don't, between those who will allow that "he's written some really good songs" and those who consider him one of the greatest artists of the past century. And so it often goes unexplored and unexplained, either tolerated or venerated but not much examined.

So what is it with his singing? What is he up to? What's it all about?

Well, I've been listening to him for years, and I'm still trying to get a handle on it. When I was a kid, Dylan was the one major element of my dad's record collection that I resisted. I loved the Beatles; I sang along with Simon and Garfunkel; I jumped around my bedroom to The Who; I listened with a sense of daring and danger to the Rolling Stones, who seemed steeped in dark and mysterious adult things. But Dylan? He looked weird. More to the point, he sounded weird. "He can't sing," I would say to my dad, and my dad would just say something along the lines of "You'll understand it someday."

I don't know if that's quite true; Dylan to me seems like someone you don't understand so much as live with, constantly revisiting and rediscovering. But the voice does make more sense to me now. It's the kind of voice I think Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg were looking for, a fundamentally American construction drawn from the country's deeply twined and contradictory roots.

He started out as a folk singer, more an imitator than an innovator, working squarely in white traditions drawn from European balladry and squeezed through the Appalachian hills. But once Dylan mastered that idiom—and he did master it, like no one else—he expanded it. When he went "electric," he plugged in more than his guitar. His singing opened up and got rangier and deeper, his phrasing started incorporating blues rhythms and textures. He didn't just want to be Woody Guthrie or Dock Boggs anymore; he wanted to be Howlin' Wolf, too.

I remember seeing an Esquire magazine list of the all-time greatest blues singers several years ago. Dylan was the only white singer on the list, which was exactly right. People talk about Elvis combining white singing with black music, but that's not really true. Elvis liked the feel of R&B, and he got the bump and grind, but he softened it in the process. Dylan softened nothing, not the white mountain whine or the black Delta moan. He's not comfortable to listen to, and he's not trying to be. He's the sound of cultural tectonic plates shifting and colliding, throwing up mountain ranges where they meet.

That a Jewish kid from northern Minnesota could so completely internalize the great ragged musics of the nation, and that he did it at a time when the people and places that produced them were disappearing and assimilating into the great TV monoculture, is what, as much as anything, makes Dylan a great and uniquely American artist. His voice reaches from end to end of the 20th century, echoing where we've been and calling to us from somewhere up ahead.

I saw him play at Chilhowee Park a few weeks ago. He sounded loose and confident and playful. The stage was full of great musicians. But there was no instrument anywhere to match the one Dylan has carried with him, inside his chest and throat and lungs, for 60 years.

as for his voice i'm a big fan who must attest to having trouble with his voice of late--his phrasing is still marvelous, he even does certain things better than he ever did. but there's something in the natural incapacity of his 'new' voice that i can't get past, the mountain of phlegm coughed up with each line, the range that's dwindled to a minor third or whatever...

dylan did some really interesting things with his voice 'back in the day' that don't get acknowledged; i think he really pushed the limits of his natural range for a long time (not so much with the late 60s from-the-throat stuff and the occasional falsetto but the heavy duty mid-60s singing like 'it's all over now baby blue') and that might account for his voice's character now (that and the cigarettes)

yeah, i'm not trying to convince anyone they're brilliant...

seriously though i admire you a lot, for being so goddam sensible and smart when the culture here seems to mitigate against that so often

Is he still capable of doing cool things with it? Yes. Can it be an expressive tool? Yes. Has he even invented new ways of using his voice - ie., adapting his style to what's left of it? Yes. However, the main part of my criticism is that I think he still hasn't completely adapted himself to it- i.e., sometimes it sounds like he's still trying to sing as though he has his old range, and he doesn't. I think he should probably try to use more concision and brevity - do more with less - stick to a narrower range - perhaps go more bluesy - I think the bluesy numbers on Love and Theft tended to be more successful from a vocal performance standpoint. Because those epic ballads are becoming a bit tiring to listen to, and they didn't use to be.

(xpost)

There are superstar pop-cult icons beloved by millions who were or are meaner, nastier, and more spiteful than Bob Dylan (your mom for instance - followed closely by the likes of Lucille Ball, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, and Bill Cosby), but he's within spitting distance of the head of the pack. An idiot windbag and bully from the git-go, his tooth & nail-filled words (his tongue on fire like liar's pants) simultaneously functioning as self-righteous harangues aimed at everyone who doesn't get it/ain't us/in the know, wake up calls for any Mr. or Mrs. Jones-to-be who feels that their freedom is impinged upon by the responsibilities and duties thrown at them by, you know, church/state/manifest destiny/gym teachers/etc..., and hyper-literate (though often clouded with beatnik bombast and trickster whatzits) revenge fantasies designed not only to comfort bespectacled boys wronged by girls from the right counties but also assuage the fears of
those people who worry that the right fingers will not be pointed at people on the wrong side.
Early Dylan fans, not content with the murder balladeers and chain gang troubadours of previous generations, understandably wanted a blowhard to call their own. And as the thinking person's Elvis, Dylan single-handedly trumped the Depression-era love of hard work, war wounds, craftsmanship and dirt with youth, wit, and a cool-ass hair-do. His early appropriation of a dustbowl vocalese and aesthetic (what could be more natural for a 20-year-old kid from the sticks then to sound like a black-lunged miner with miles of bad road behind
him) may have been borne out of a deep and abiding love for dead and dying rail-riding pinkos, but more realistically it was his ticket in to a burgeoning folk scene always on the lookout for sympathetic fellow travelers who would show the proper respect for the decrepit elders
and originators of La Vie de Hootenanny. Once he was through genuflecting at Woodie Guthrie's bedside (and patted on the head by the story-song master), and once he was
through using his Midwestern wiles to get into Joan Baez's back pages (she the shining young star pre-Bob), he had made his mark and could proceed to do what he did. Which was: ruin everything! He was too cool! He was punk as fuck! His sneer was a mile wide! He raised the bar too high! His songs were too good! He looked really cool in pointy boots! He corrupted The Beatles! He made rock "important"! And "serious"! He subjected the world to thousands of horrible singersongwritercountryrockstreamofconsciousnessbroodingbadpoetry bands! He made people who had no business playing the blues play the blues! He was too big for rock, and ever after people wanted to be bigger than rock without ever realizing that rock is plenty big
enough already for whatever they could add to it. Rock before Dylan was mostly fun and then it wasn't (because of him), and it mostly isn't now (because of him). And the rock & roll that most people love doesn't have as much to do with him (it has more to do with Chuck Berry
than Bob Dylan), thus the most popular rock & roll is usually a lot more fun to listen to. As a rule, people who don't listen to Bob Dylan are usually a lot more fun to hang out with. Having said that, everyone should own at least four Bob Dylan albums (Freewheelin', Highway 61,
Blood on the Tracks, and Desire will do). It's funny that the only people who actually approached the ferocity of early pre-motorbike crash Dylan (1966 being the dividing line
between scary can-do-no-wrong Dylan and bloody, beaten, bowed, sometimes scary & good-when-he-feels-like-it Dylan) were the artless garage and punk bands of the 60's and 70's. The artistes of those eras mainly pegged the corn pone/po'boy/nasally/fake Carter
family/should sound like you're 60 when you're 20/spaghetti western Dylan that he could get away with because he was and is a freak of nature and because he invented the shit in the first place. That ferocity was hunger and could previously be heard on Charles Ives and
Eartha Kitt records, and thus it was alien to any pop or folk scene. The juvenile delinquents heard Dean and Brando in his voice, but unfortunately his words were too good and the boring people heard Shakespeare.

• 1963- Not Bad!!!!!
• 1964- Iffy!!!!!
• 1965- Pretty decent!!!!
• 1966- OK!!!!!!
• 1967 onwards- phew crikey Grandad!!!!!

  ― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Tuesday, 17 February 2004 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Any Dylan alb is automatically 'interesting'

If anyone else had written these albums, they'd be considered genius.

And the scary thing is, the stuff Dylan left on the floor, the outtakes, are undeniably better than the official albums!

Yeah, I do like it....the Watchtower rocks, and hey, the band is tight.

This comes through plainly, and I think, brilliantly in the Budokan album (and in his other live albums, esp. Hard Rain and the Rolling Thunder Bootleg). He loves fucking with his songs, changing the cadence and lyrics, changing the whole damn melody sometimes. And its amazing how different the songs can sound. Listen to Simple Twist of Fate from Budokan. Or the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol from the Rolling Thunder Review. Or listen to the narrator shift from early versions of tangled up in blue. Or listen to his version of "Make you Feel My Love," then listen to Garth Brooks' version and tell me he doesn't know how to fill a song with meaning. To me, this is not idle fiddling, but reflects his mastery of the form of popular song and its different possibilities.

In case it's not clear yet, my answer to the thread's question is "No. No. No. What? Are you uhh... NO!" and I think live at Budokan is great. I think it is fair to say he is UNDER-RATED as a singer/general performer.

And, yes, I understand that it is people like me that lead to other people asking the question, "Is Bob Dylan Over-rated"

I like this: Dylan to me seems like someone you don't understand so much as live with, constantly revisiting and rediscovering from spittle's piece. And I also realised that, despite basically growing up to an almost exclusive soundtrack of little Apple Label Beatles 45s, just as someone else said upthread, I rarely listen to the latter yet regularly throw on some Dylan still.

I can't imagine ever getting tired of Dylan. There's always something you've overlooked, or forgotten, about him. Hence the polarized disagreements on so many of his records (Budokan, Planet Waves, Slow Train Coming, Street Legal, etc.).

(Yet, at the same time, i can understand the Boomer adulation/canonization putting a lot of people off, and don't really blame them for their initial responses -- however, I do think it's fair to expect those people to at least give him a chance, as he isn't going away even when he goes away, if you know what I mean.)

Dylan as comedian: Underrated.

He's not bad, but apparently Leonard Cohen was better when he did stand up!!!! (Fact!!!!!)

― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100816/ennew_afp/entertainmentdenmarkusmusicartdylan_20100816152417

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--http://d.yimg.com/a/p/afp/20100816/capt.photo_1281972199149-1-0.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=m1HqIjP297LSUCg1AMo1_Q--

"hmmm...yes...art"

*sips cappuccino*

cups empty imo

overarted

that scott post up there is great, should be in some liner notes somewhere or other

i think dylan was overrated lyrically at times. something like "it's alright ma" is undeniably brilliant, but Blonde on Blonde, though a great record, suffers from too much jester/clown/random dated imagery that works far less often than it should. and though that record was supposed to capture the "thin...wild mercury sound" that he was after, it's ultimately flat and bloodless-sounding when compared to "royal albert hall concert"

i also never understood why people freaked out over Blood on the Tracks, which to me is sort of boring, with the exception of a couple of tracks (esp. you're a big girl now). the oft-maligned Self Portrait is leagues better, i think

that being said, of course he was amazing. so many little-seeming things, like titling a song (positively 4th street) w/no reference whatsoever to the lyrical content, i think was virtually unprecedented in pop music world up until that point? or suddenly and totally changing his trademark singing voice for nashville skyline?

so, i don't think that he's overrated, necessarily, but more that people rate him for the wrong reasons! but same could probably be said about the grateful dead. or the doors, for that matter...

I remember reading that "Boots of Spanish Leather" appeared in the Norton Anthology of American Literature and this seems so appropriate in a way.

Blonde on Blonde, though a great record, suffers from too much jester/clown/random dated imagery that works far less often than it should

Surprisingly I kind of agree with this. BoB used to be my favorite Dylan album - but lately it doesn't quite move me like it used to. It doesn't quite leap out of the stereo with the overwhelming brilliance of something like Freewheelin or Highway 61 - you have to be in the right mood for it. Maybe I've just listened to it too much.

yeah, i mean i like a bunch of songs on blonde on blonde a great deal, but then i'll hear something off of highway 61 and just be delivered those moments where it's truly like whoa, jeepers, no wonder this guy is a legend or whatever

dunno, i love almost everything about Blonde on Blonde -- all the layers of instruments, the sound of his voice. i can see how some of the lyrics could be dated (mainly becuz they were imitated by others for the rest of the 60s), but so much of it is actually pretty straightforward.

that scott post up there is great, should be in some liner notes somewhere or other

thanks for posting that link. great stuff!

BoB is great, obviously, but the band/performances/production just aren't as good as the previous two.

yeah, i like the record lots, but i always feel slightly disappointed by it, production-wise

BoB doesn't have anything i skip over, except maybe the opening track, 'cause i've heard it so much. but i think "Queen Jane Approximately" is the only song from tha trilogy i actively dislike.

yeah, i like the record lots, but i always feel slightly disappointed by it, production-wise

not sure what you don't like, del, but they did a REALLY FINE job with Bob's reissues - sound jumps out o' the speakers, in a good way
xpost

so here's this
http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html

Tried watching this last night. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen and I feel embarrassed for everyone involved. The only saving grace is the WTF factor. Like, why on Earth was this made?

to finally bring you to your low point in life. it's all uphill from here!!

Yeah it is definitely the worst project humanity was ever involved in.

Except maybe ww2

Though to be honest, it really got me thinking. Previously I hadn't considered the song being sung from the perspective of a TV shopping network personality.

what would nostormo have had us do in the face of global fascism and bob dylan's diminished cultural presence

Start a poll

God that was the worst video I have ever seen. It was as if Hitler was the director, Richie Incognito did storyboards and Pomplamoose edited.

I had to buy a new keyboard because I vomited all over my computer. The only thing that nauseates me more are these best of 2013 album lists.

I think it is truly amazing and delightful.

Yeah it's ok. I changed my mind lol

I didn't like it until I got to the house show channel, those guys were great. The rom com is pretty good too.

Maron's garage is a lot less drab than I imagined it to be.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-bob-dylans-brilliant-like-a-rolling-stone-video-20131120

I agree with the general proposition there that the video is fantastic, but I'm not sure I agree with this:

"The overall effect is head-spinning but incredibly compelling: the more you surf through the 'Like a Rolling Stone' video, the more the song's contempt seems to be addressed to all of western civilization. By the time you land on a vintage live performance of the actual Bob Dylan, he feels like the only real person in existence."

I get how you could experience it that way, and maybe that was indeed the director's intention, but it seems more like a shared celebration to me. It's such a liberating song to yowl along to, and that's what connects everybody--they're all having fun yowling along. Also, some of the participants aren't actors; I don't think we're supposed to feel contempt for Drew Carey.

i think it's meta in that it implies that Dylan's "message"--and by extension this kind of art--can no longer break through the ocean of shit that is the culture (TV and its successor the Internet) but by putting the song in the mouths of celebrities, it's a pyrrhic best chance of getting listeners too young to have grown up with it to actually get the message. And the celebs get to wink at their own complicity while also showing that they "get it"

I like that interpretation.

xp yeah that's kind of what I got too. In a way it's very self-deprecating -- showing the song's increasing irrelevance today, where we're too media-overloaded to even engage in that level of contemplation of an individual's plight

I like that interpretation.
― clemenza, Sunday, November 24, 2013 3:31 PM

thanks!

I don't know that "Like a Rolling Stone" could ever be irrelevant, though. "You're invisible now"--whatever the context, I think most every kid's going to go through this at one point or another. It's a sobering, important moment in your life.

Maybe, but that presupposes starting from a kind of romantic individualism that seems a little deader today than it was back then

Apparently there is also a 41-CD complete albums box about to hit the shelves, so he's trawling for newbies with deep pockets I guess!

holy shit i only just watched the video

At some point, because of the way the two hip-hop guys are presented, I expect this--meaning the video's director, not Dylan I would hope--will find its way into the Pop Music's Race Problem thread.

That's actually just one guy, Danny Brown, he's pretty well known and that's how he dresses, kind of eccentric guy

this seems like the kind of thing that was made just to be passed around on the net rather than enjoyed.

I wish some old people would get upset over it.

What's the name for the 0 point about which an artist's under or overratedness oscillates?

this seems like the kind of thing that was made just to be passed around on the net rather than enjoyed.

i think it's hugely enjoyable and impressive and i don't know if i have any deep thoughts on it beyond that

Yeah, it's interesting, but I'm not sure what to make of it either - using Like a Rolling Stone as an elegy for old media? A satire on the continuity between the "active" channel-surfer and the ADD continual partial awareness of the web? I mean, the original song was always sort of nihilistic anyway, wasn't it?

"The overall effect is head-spinning but incredibly compelling: the more you surf through the 'Like a Rolling Stone' video, the more the song's contempt seems to be addressed to all of western civilization. By the time you land on a vintage live performance of the actual Bob Dylan, he feels like the only real person in existence."

I get this, feel like the effect is probably intentional - all the other "performances" of the song are intentionally divorced from the content (they aren't really performing the song, the words have just been placed in their mouths) and then you see Bob (not singing, interestingly) and oh yeah here is the dude actually doing his song, "this is what authenticity looks like", that juxtaposition is pretty striking.

Aside from however you interpret the video, the thing that makes it so great for me is the most obvious explanation of all: surprise. I would just assume that anybody making a video for "Like a Rolling Stone" would either show Dylan through the years, or a montage of the same '60s footage you've seen 10 million times already--Vietnam, MLK, moon landing, etc. (which can sometimes still work for me, but most of the time, enough). I would never even have conceived of what this guy did.

I suppose encountering it "in the wild" on the net makes it more enjoyable than reading about it or having brian williams explain it to you.

it seems more like a shared celebration to me. It's such a liberating song to yowl along to, and that's what connects everybody--they're all having fun yowling along. Also, some of the participants aren't actors; I don't think we're supposed to feel contempt for Drew Carey.

Yes, and re. Shakey Mo's post, I'm not sure we're supposed to consider Drew Carey's authenticity either.

I'd say a lot of it comes from one's own personal associations w/Drew Carey, various tv shows etc (as well as one's own personal associations with the relatively vague lyrics of LARS). The strange combination of impressions, strange new feelings. I'm not feeling it, but I think I get it now.

drew carey is pretty authentic he's friends w/joe walsh

i think the video is about how dylan likes pawn stars

The great gift of this video is showing that footage of Bob Dylan performing in the 60s is more authentic than a home shopping network. Truly some great, mindblowing art here.

Oh wow Rolling Stone magazine proclaims the new video to "Like a Rolling Stone" is brilliant, didn't see that one coming.

Truly some great, mindblowing art here.

don't think anyone here claims it's mindblowing. it's kind of a novel application of technology, that's about it.

Bob Dylan performing in the 60s is more authentic than a home shopping network

I happen to believe this is true fwiw

will happily sub "more interesting" for "authentic" there if necc

yeah i think placing the song in such an "inauthentic" (i might say more distracted and fleeting) media context is meant to both demonstrate how the song has been fully commodified (it's hard to "hear" the song with fresh ears) while also paradoxically ratcheting up what remains bracing and "authentic" about it through that very context. the song break through despite everything (or so the intention as i read it seems to hope). it's an interesting double gesture, i think.

it's like "i can't really show young dylan tearing through this song, we've all seen that, it's not really 'new' anymore...so instead i'll go to the opposite extreme in order to suggest that same feeling."

So, this Nobel prize.

I don't care if Trump gets it, just no PHILIP ROTH

now he's overrated

LOL, not half!

well-deserved imo

Sure, but why now? Slow year in lit?

It's an award for lifetime achievement, not for any particular work. So I guess they just ran out of reasons not to give it to him.

nyt sez he is like homer and sappho

http://orig15.deviantart.net/1378/f/2008/104/3/d/halloween_iii_homer_by_blacksupernova.png

hah seeing his name trending I naturally thought the worst (given the way this year has gone) so this is quite pleasant news, really

Given the basic scenario of a Nobel prize in literature going to a pop singer, one would expect inevitable howls of outrage from at least some corner of the literary establishment. It will be interesting to see if this happens with Dylan- or who will be the highest profile author to voice discontent with the choice. I expect the protests from those rarefied precincts to be scarce. If so, that will be a kind of tribute in itself.

Going by the Irish Times today, its looks like 80% of our literati are pretty cool about it

it'll just be this guy lamenting the fate of the world...

https://nevalalee.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bloom.jpg

truth is, if anyone is prone to hyperbole where dylan is concerned its academics/poetry professors/lit professors/writers/poets/etc. they love the guy more than anyone.

so many dots to connect for the egghead crowd. they looooove dots.

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"

fuck off and die! Equally as bullshit as your peace prizes to genocidal psychopaths.

an act “wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies”.

truth is, if anyone is prone to hyperbole where dylan is concerned its academics/poetry professors/lit professors/writers/poets/etc. they love the guy more than anyone.

― scott seward, Thursday, October 13, 2016 8:13

That's true. Christopher Ricks' Dylan is more absurd and incomprehensible than Tarantula.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP85Uc6H79U

ha, trainspotting. oi, sicky fell in the loo! i remember that movie.

A few snarky takes in here, notably one from Gary Shteyngart:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trainspotting-author-criticizes-bob-dylans-nobel-honor/

truth is, if anyone is prone to hyperbole where dylan is concerned its academics/poetry professors/lit professors/writers/poets/etc. they love the guy more than anyone.

this is otm. his stuff reads very well as poetry esp if yr hermeneutic is a new-criticism style -- you can break it down, you can do stuff with it, there's always a little something you can't square

It seems like the acceptable move will be to argue that its a category error and not to confront Dylan's worthiness directly.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/jun/30/popandrock.poetry

notably ... Gary Shteyngart

does not compute

"It is funny that the only people who actually approached the ferocity of early pre-motorbike crash Dylan (1966 being the dividing line between scary can-do-no-wrong Dylan and bloody, beaten, bowed, sometimes scary, and good-when-he-feels-like-it Dylan) were the art brut garage and punk bands of the 60's and 70's. The dandies and aesthetes of those eras mainly pegged the corn pone/po'boy/nasal/fake Carter family/should sound like you're 60 when you're 20/spaghetti western Dylan that he could get away with because he was and is a freak of nature and because he invented the shit in the first place. That ferocity was hunger and could previously be heard on Charles Ives and Eartha Kitt records, making it alien to most pop and pop-folk fans at the time. The juvenile delinquents heard Dean and Brando in his voice, but unfortunately his words were too good and the boring people heard Shakespeare."

I can't really buy into that motorbike-crash dividing line theory. A lot of those early albums are frankly kind of uneven. It's true that Bringing it All Back Home through Blonde on Blonde is probably his best consecutive run of three albums, but if I had to choose between only hearing the pre- and post-crash albums for the rest of my life, I would choose the post- in a second.

you can find definitions of literature that include things that are SUNG. i mean it just has to be written to be literature. i think. i'm all for it. would have been happy for leonard cohen too. now HE doesn't have a chance. too dylan-y.

I listen to John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and New Morning more than to the mid sixties stuff

if the criterion is "how does this stuff sound when recited unaccompanied" cohen is >>>>>>>> dylan, but it isn't and he's not.

lou reed kinda the supreme example of *please don't try to read this out loud without musical accompaniment*. as far as post-dylan bards go.

I listen to John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and New Morning more than to the mid sixties stuff

And if you include the Basement Tapes stuff that was also recorded around this time and the Self-Portrait out-takes that were released in the bootleg series, this becomes a very strong contender for best Dylan period bar none.

really kinda wish steve allen had made an album of lou reed recitations before he died.

"Don't you know you'll stain the carpet?" (arches eyebrow)

I definitely think this was informed by the death of Bowie and Prince and they were nervous Dylan he was next and they wanted to do it while he was still alive. He wrote "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," he deserves it.

now he is (to answer the thread title)

I like Dylan a lot but this was a weird thing to do considering there are so many other qualified writers in the world; and it's not like he needed more exposure.

stadows sellin a little slow

i'm glad dylan got it instead of delillo because delillo's dylan-like character was named bucky wunderlick and that is the worst sub-pynchon character name in literary history. it's even sub-pkd. you can't reward a person who could come up with a name like that.

Its like "Twig TheWonderkid"

scott seward
Posted: October 13, 2016 at 8:40:44 PM
you can find definitions of literature that include things that are SUNG. i mean it just has to be written to be literature. i think. i'm all for it. would have been happy for leonard cohen too. now HE doesn't have a chance. too dylan-y.

The only other one I could countenance for something like this would be mark e smith, there's this speedfreak palimpsest source-code-of-consciousness zone that only him and Dylan (of song lyricists) have visited IMO

is bob dylan oversated?

http://66.media.tumblr.com/41507359e09ee5ce462754687654cb8c/tumblr_ni2tfpOkyh1ti7dwio1_400.jpg

I'm a little confused by the Leonard Cohen comparison since Cohen is a poet, even in the most traditional/conservative sense of the word. I'm probably biased because I find his music unlistenable but I always thought of him as a poet first and foremost.

most people don't remember that cohen was a poet first though. and he was obviously heavily inspired by dylan. that's why i thought of him.

Leonard Cohen On Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize: “It’s like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain”

xps when the meth does not hit

most people don't remember that cohen was a poet first though.

Ha, he's often English class material in Canada.

Trying to remember that great quote of his from his mentor's obituary, the name of said mentor escaping me now.

Ah, Irving Layton. “I taught him how to dress, he taught me how to live forever."

I read a lot of Irving Layton when I was 15 or so.

And did you learn to live forever?

"Ha, he's often English class material in Canada."

yeah, i was actually gonna say...except in canada...

i still have nightmares of having to watch that horrible documentary with cohen

he's such a sleazeball

what did he do in it? i probably don't want to know. i like listening to his old records. some of them are amazing. he never raped anyone did he?

i can't listen to john martyn records anymore after reading beverley's horrifying accounts of life with him.

I remember seeing part of a documentary following an obviously heavily depressed and strung-out cohen on tour in the 70s, he gets stage fright and drops acid in jerusalem. it was a bummer

did he do heroin? i honestly don't know much about his life.

recently i listened to new skin for the first time in a long time and is this what you wanted and lover lover lover made me so ecstatic i thought i was gonna die. my kids thought i was nuts. they filled me with the idea that anything was possible in life. it wore off. but still...

listened to "Highway 61" the other day and it's still a great record. the mandolin and the lyrics go together so well on "Desolation Row". it is very poetic. he always has this evocative quality to whatever he does, whether it is folk, country rock, or singing Christmas songs. the uber snarky personality displayed in "Don't Look Back" being an intimidating jerk to Donovan and several journalists is part of this package.

i didn't get into Dylan until way later in my musical development. by then i realized how big an influence he was on so many people. Lou Reed is trying to be Dylan on half the Velvet Underground tracks. that mid 60s run is still my favorite (cos of the garage band and sound quality) but it is a testament to his greatness that it is nearly half a century later and we are still getting new music (and new old music) that is just as captivating and stunning as it has always been. when that Scorcese documentary came out a few years ago I saw a good hour or so of it and all the early footage of Dylan performing is spellbinding stuff. he is a born performer and a born charmer. of course all of that is part of his legend.

did he do heroin? i honestly don't know much about his life.

― scott seward, Friday, October 14, 2016 10:26 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

recently i listened to new skin for the first time in a long time and is this what you wanted and lover lover lover made me so ecstatic i thought i was gonna die. my kids thought i was nuts. they filled me with the idea that anything was possible in life. it wore off. but still...

― scott seward, Friday, October 14, 2016 10:28 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm imo he should have prizes or something

I don't think he did do heroin, no. I read and enjoyed the biography of him that came out a few years ago but am a little hazy on the details

Now they should give the next musician/lyricist one to a rapper... probably GZA or RZA.

did he do heroin? i honestly don't know much about his life.

ppl have said this was the case at some point in the late 60s, but I forget who/when exactly and at least one of them was notoriously crazy bio/stalker guy that used to dig through his trash

http://www.stereogum.com/1905429/bob-dylan-celebrated-his-nobel-prize-by-playing-guitar-for-the-first-time-in-4-years/video/

what can a nobel laureate do except what he does best

what can a nobel laureate do except what he does best

― F♯ A♯ (∞)

so he's bringing back his radio show? i loved that radio show.

on wballz

I just saw someone with a crazy looking t-shirt that turned out to be from a Dylan world tour. I wonder if I should try to describe and see if the hive mind can find an image of it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/17/nobel-prize-committee-gives-up-trying-to-contact-bob-dylan/

He should be made to be wearing a telephone

Would love to hear a live "Long and Wasted Years":

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bob-dylan/2016/comerica-theatre-phoenix-az-2bfd64ce.html

This t-shirt.

https://img1.etsystatic.com/133/1/5651148/il_570xN.1003061825_5932.jpg

What the heck?

I hope they become so ashamed of giving the award to an American who won't go to get it, who isn't Thomas Pynchon, that they give it to someone who is Thomas Pynchon next year. And then Bob Dylan goes and gets it on his behalf.

i really hope dylan turns it down, more than anything because it would hint at how dumb it was to give it to him in the first place

but maybe he just won't do anything, which would be good too

today in Dumb Dylan "News"
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvPEYpNVMAAwfjY.jpg:large

Well I mean if someone knew the def of overrated it would be Vonnegut, don't @ me

haha, well i think vonnegut's fine, just weird to make a news story out of a dead author's offhand comment from 25 years ago. i'm sure bob dylan didn't keep vonnegut awake at night. dude was born in 1922, he definitely did not give a shit.

Pretty stupid to separate his lyrics from the music. As poetry, out of context, his "and then SHAKESPEARE / was frozen in FEAR / because the KING OF FRANCE / wasn't wearing PANTS" shit is terrible.

Dylan planning a gospel-years volume of the Bootleg Series

Did Dylan show at all? Last I heard was that he didn't respond to the prize.

Rejecting the prize or not acknowledging it at all seems like a very Dylan thing to do. Everyone else fighting if he deserves it or not while he doesn't give a fuck.

ceremony doesn't happen for a while -- dylan's site updated a page selling his new lyrics book with a small note about the prize, heh heh.

Assuming he is just laying low whilst cooking up a cranky speech.

he's been closing shows this week with "Why Try To Change Me Now?"

So let people wonder
Let 'em laugh
Let 'em frown
You know I'll love you
Till the moon's upside down
Don't you remember
I was always your clown
Why try to change me now

I sit and daydream
I've got daydreams galore
Cigarette ashes
There they go on the floor
Go away weekends
Leave my keys in the door
Why try to change me now
Why can't I be more conventional
People talk
People stare
So I try
But can't be
'Cause I can't see
My strange little world
Just go passing me by
So let people wonder
Let 'em laugh
Let 'em…

If dogs run free.

They're polling flagposts of the zinging

dylan's site updated a page selling his new lyrics book with a small note about the prize, heh heh

Now removed!

a tony award is next bob dylan has written lyrics and music for a musical opening next year

Wigwamalot!

how soon we forget
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-93Ck62tsGQ

^ almost makes me interested in Bob Dylan

eh he's overrated

a tony award is next bob dylan has written original lyrics and music for a musical opening next year

yes, yes i get it.

Wigwamalot!

lmao

My work is done here

would love for Dylan to reject the prize or not care too much, but based on his ramblings in the 2012 RS interview where he talks about iirc being reincarnated as a biker or smth, I'm afraid this is all wishful thinking:

I'd always been different than other people, but this book told me why. Like certain people are set apart. You know, it's just like the phrase, "peers" – I mean, I see this, "Well, your peers this, your peers that." And I've always wondered, who are my peers? When I received the Medal of Freedom I started thinking more about it. Like, who are they? But then it became clear. My peers are Aretha Franklin, Duke Ellington, B.B. King, John Glenn, Madeleine Albright, Pat Summitt, Toni Morrison, Jasper Johns, Martha Graham, Sidney Poitier. People like that, and they are set apart, too. And I'm proud to be counted among them.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-unleashed-a-wild-ride-on-his-new-lp-and-striking-back-at-critics-20120927

dylan otm.

b.b. king is overrated though.

and i don't even know about madeleine albright.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/quotabelle/authors/pat-summitt/summitt1970utmartin.jpg

r.i.p.

feel like the death of pat didn't get enough love but it's been a busy year. also i don't have sportscenter.

it's interesting how he still seems able to tap into this kind of postmodern stream-of-consciousness rambling that's somewhat unique and recognizable in his mid 60s output, when it's absent on Together Throug Life and Tempest which are (most of the time) caught up in poor storytelling...

i would also add softball legend joan joyce to dylan's list of peers. one of a kind. i got to see her play in her prime. unbelievable.

http://flo-static-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/api/5791789ab14b8.jpeg

that 2012 dylan interview is kind of crazy, where he's talking about transfiguration?

By transfiguration, you mean it in the sense of being transformed? Or do you mean transmigration, when a soul passes into a different body?

Transmigration is not what we are talking about. This is something else. I had a motorcycle accident in 1966.I already explained to you about new and old. Right? Now, you can put this together any way you want. You can work on it any way you want. Transfiguration: You can go and learn about it from the Catholic Church, you can learn about it in some old mystical books, but it's a real concept. It's happened throughout the ages. Nobody knows who it's happened to, or why. But you get real proof of it here and there. It's not like something you can dream up and think. It's not like conjuring up a reality or like reincarnation – or like when you might think you're somebody from the past but have no proof. It's not anything to do with the past or the future.

So when you ask some of your questions, you're asking them to a person who's long dead. You're asking them to a person that doesn't exist. But people make that mistake about me all the time. I've lived through a lot. Have you ever heard of a book called No Man Knows My History? It's about Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. The title could refer to me.
Transfiguration is what allows you to crawl out from under the chaos and fly above it. That's how I can still do what I do and write the songs I sing and just keep on moving.

well, maybe not in her PRIME prime, but she was still amazing when i saw her play. she played forever.

xp I cannot read that without laughing (a laughter tinted with anxiety)

sounds like more or less the same guy telling that Newsweek journalist abt big and small letter versions of words

and i don't even know about madeleine albright.

― scott seward, Friday, October 21, 2016 2:08 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

She said the price was "worth it" when asked about half a million Iraqi children dying due to US sanctions.

So...yeah, no fucking idea why he's lumping her in with those others...unless Duke Ellington's final act was to participate in the 1973 Chile coup or something.

i totally get what he's talking about with the transfiguration thing. makes total sense to me. doesn't sound crazy either.

I think it's walking a razor's edge wrt making sense - I feel like I kinda get it if I squint my eyes, but I'm not sure if that's because it distorts my vision or focuses on what he's saying

makes a little more sense in the entire context of the interview, but i guess just the fact that he's trying to explain it seems out of character. and i don't know the stuff about the other guys named Zimmerman -- a confusing thing, but I think Dylan's always been sort of obsessed with doubling / twins etc.

re xpost "Why Try To Change Me Now", one of my fave recent Dylan tracks, this is a pretty intriguing Cy Coleman tribute album: some of the renditions are a bit bland, but even those are at least transparent enough to show off the songwriting. Coleman might coulda been the East Coast Bacharach, but didn't care about pop-rock, incl. Broadway attempts at same. Art/indie-inclined pop-rockers etc. still find affinity with him on this set (which did pretty well on the jazz charts, says here). Would like for Mr. D. to some more of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_Is_Yet_to_Come:_The_Songs_of_Cy_Coleman

So when you ask some of your questions, you're asking them to a person who's long dead. You're asking them to a person that doesn't exist. But people make that mistake about me all the time.

in less mystical terms, this totally makes sense to me in terms of dylan and being interviews, like i can't even really think back to who i was at 19 and the things that person might have thought or said and relate to them in anyway...yet for dylan he still gets asked -- at 75! -- things about the early 60s folk movement. i'm sure that does seem like another person in another world to him, yet because of his icon status it sort of stalks him in a way that our past doesnt because no one cares about our past.

and i don't know the stuff about the other guys named Zimmerman -- a confusing thing, but I think Dylan's always been sort of obsessed with doubling / twins etc.

http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/g/h0IAAOSw-itXvIC7/s-l225.jpg

Listening to Tempest for the first time ever, and as my comments on several other threads probably shows, Bob Dylan isn't my cup of tea, but most most of it is pleasant and ok. But the title track is just BAD, huh? This is really one where the text works better on it's own, without the horrible melody and plodding rhythm, not that that's saying much. Oy. But some of the other tracks were ok, I'll give him that. But oy.

this is the part that feels the weirdest:

I'm trying to determine whom you've been transfigured from, or as.

I just showed you. Go read the book.

That's who you have in mind? What could the connection to that Bobby Zimmerman be other than name?

I don't have it in mind. I didn't write that book. I didn't make it up. I didn't dream that. I'm not telling you I had a dream last night. Remember the song "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream"? I didn't write that, either. I'm showing you a book that's been written and published. I mean, look at all the connecting things: motorcycles, Bobby Zimmerman, Keith and Kent Zimmerman, 1964, 1966. And there's more to it than even that. If you went to find this guy's family, you'd find a whole bunch more that connected. I'm just explaining it to you. Go to the grave site.

it's like the mystical messenger character in a thriller w/ paranormal elements

Too bad he didn't write a song about it--or maybe he did, and we just didn't get it...

It was "Wigwam."

haha! i mean, the most obvious candidate is "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum" ... there was some essay about i that i can't seem to track down right now.

Those Dylan quotes just make me wish some writer sometime had put him and Ornette Coleman together in a room and transcribed the results.

yeah haha, they definitely both have/had weird brains

Well, the thing is, a big part of that is/was an act - I've had extended conversations this summer/fall with one of Ornette's bassists, and his son Denardo, and both of them said to me that Ornette liked to basically gaslight journalists. That within the band, he would have extremely detailed, down-to-earth conversations about the actual music and how it worked and what he wanted and why, but when a journalist (like me!) asked him about musical stuff, he'd give them a philosophical disquisition instead.

Oh I believe it -- the ornette in the Spellman book strikes me as very different than the mystic sage of his latter days. And Dylan is probably the same -- making a game out of explaining himself, playing with a journalist's expectations etc. but I do think they get wrapped up in that stuff themselves, to the extent that they might not know where it begins or ends.

I think he's trying to tell us that he staged a motorcycle crash in which he killed off his original identity and was reborn as "Robert Zimmerman", after getting the idea from a book he'd been reading that day

(xp re: the dylan interview bit in question)
would be pretty funny if you did go to the gravesite, something was off, & shit very rapidly went all North-by-Northwest tho -- mr. dylan if you're reading please finance this adventure film & I promise to find a way to put you in, even if you're dead by the time we start shooting, we will find a way to cast your remains in a minor speaking role

You gave your prize to a rockstar, duh

He'll try to make it

this is a strange thing to say, especially the way the journalist connected these two ideas

“There’s a certain intensity in writing a song,” he replies, “and you have to keep in mind why you are writing it and for who and what for,” he says. “Paintings, and to a greater extent movies, can be created for propaganda purposes, whereas songs can’t be.”

with films, you can really lead the viewer by the nose and force them to experience the work the way you want them too. maybe paintings are similar -- images are more potent in advertising than jingles.

i feel like his paintings are the opposite of propaganda though -- these quiet scenes, rendered with these bold, oversaturated colors that collapse space and texture. the most propagandistic things he's done are songs like "blowin in the wind."

his statements in interviews often seem tossed off

Can someone show Dylan this, cheers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Propaganda_songs

I don't think of "Blowin' In The Wind" as "proprandistic", although yeah he's shaking his head re them cannonballs etc., but "the answer is"--not "we're gonna win, in a righteous peaceful way, that is" or "It's too soon to know", with cautious hope, folkie folk wisdom, like "the answer's out there, just hang in there"---nope, it's not doin' nothin" but blowin' in the wind, like a flag flappin' or any random piece of paper, paper bag, pine pollen, whutever. He marches us along and tips us over the edge like a trash can at the end of the line, over and over. And makes us, well some of us most of the time, makes us like it. Kind of an anti-anthem, or at the very least his own doubts.
Much later, one woman's experience of writing, in a way, with Mr. D.:
http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/bob-dylan-carole-bayer-sager-book-excerpt.html

Beautifully otm re blowing and that excerpt is outstanding

Outstanding indeed. Leafed through that book in the store the other day and read a funny anecdote about her and a shrink when she was breaking up with Burt.

Rex Murphy typically comes off as Canada's cranky, conservative old uncle, but I mostly* agree with him here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUmDDkIeIq4

*Dylan > Cohen

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22485-blood-on-the-tracks/

Pitchfork reviewing BOTT for some reason

They're planting stories in the press.

i feel like his paintings are the opposite of propaganda though -- these quiet scenes, rendered with these bold, oversaturated colors that collapse space and texture. the most propagandistic things he's done are songs like "blowin in the wind."

Don't tell me we're supposed to take his painting seriously too as well now, how much more overrated can Bob Dylan get?

Analysing the shit daubings of famous people is pure 1st world degeneracy and should never have happened. A recent example was that laughable Marr program about Winston Churchill's art club style Sunday paintings.

Dylan apparently really valued his painting lessons from his neighbor down the road, all the more so since the guy didn't care at all about rock and roll celebrity, although he did feel pretty guilty when he abandoned the guy one day to entertain George Harrison at his house.

Bob was painting in Dorfman’s studio on Thanksgiving 1968 when Pattie and George Harrison’s car came up the road toward his property. Bob put down his brushes and asked Dorfman excitedly, ‘Aren’t ya comin‘?’ ‘Well, Bob, I’ve got work to do. You go ahead.’ It seemed to Dorfman, as Bob left, that his friend was irritated by his lack of interest in such a distinguished visitor.

Sounes, Howard (2011-05-24). Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan, Grove/Atlantic

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/questions-raised-about-dylan-show-at-gagosian/

remember this?

this was an enjoyable read: http://www.villagevoice.com/music/when-bob-dylan-practiced-downstairs-929266

Dylan apparently really valued his painting lessons from his neighbor down the road, all the more so since the guy didn't care at all about rock and roll celebrity, although he did feel pretty guilty when he abandoned the guy one day to entertain George Harrison at his house.

― From a Vanity 6 (James Redd and the Blecchs),

not guilty

For leading you astray
On the road to Mandalay..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-lQyRihb3k

great read, thanks Karl

that garland jeffries album is great if you were there were another early graham parker & the rumor or elvis costello record

Can someone remember which Heylin book is good?

hmm my library only has the 1991 version of 'Behind the Shades' - must've been the one I read last time

iirc it's p definitive - any other recommendations?

wanna do a Dylan podcast, so I'm gonna read up a bit (the Heylin bio, Chronicles, Gray's Encyclopedia for reference, the Scorsese doc)

Took that one out of my own library a while back, perhaps in Revisited. The quotes are excellent, but I skimmed over his own opinions, since I was forewarned.

happy birthday, you overrated genius!

made a playlist for the occasion https://open.spotify.com/user/betamaxdk/playlist/5ObYSdPI0mpDzl7ObTe2cR

a tony award is next bob dylan has written lyrics and music for a musical opening next year

― conrad, Friday, 21 October 2016

i must say - i wasn't expecting three songs off of infidels

You got 'em, and so much more:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/inside-bob-dylan-musical-girl-from-the-north-country-w502632?utm_source=rsnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=091317_16

I saw it. It's very bad indeed. Don't waste your money.

Dylan's not overrated. Conor McPherson, however...

Bob Dylan is overrated, depending on who you're talking to.

trying to decide if i want to shell out to see bob next month — mavis staples opening definitely makes it more enticing.

didn't know they were still touring together, that's sweet

also Bob otm

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.BWwHxBlXMM2QEE7z-aSxhwEsEK%26pid%3D15.1&f=1

$2500 for a signed copy of his Nobel prize lecture (the one he couldn't be bothered to deliver in person):

http://bobdylannobel.com/

lol wasn't it plagiarized from sparknotes or whatever too

hadn't seen this one, kinda cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbXcCqSjDPU

Update: Merrill Markoe decodes neighbor Dylan's 2017 Christmas lights. She's been doing this on and off for nine years, for backstory includes helpful pix along the way, li'l film at the end. Sorry it's on Vice.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59wp5k/a-critical-analysis-of-bob-dylans-2017-xmas-lights?utm_campaign=VICE+HOLIDAY+NEWSLETTER+1225&utm_content=VICE+HOLIDAY+NEWSLETTER+1225+CID_1adfe21ae8e2a4793a42f7bac14e15d2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=vicetwitterus&utm_source=Campaign+Monitor&utm_term=A+Critical+Analysis+of+Bob+Dylans+2017+Xmas+Lights

Very favorable re New York production (didn't like the British) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/theater/girl-from-the-north-country-review-bob-dylan.html

Hope "Clothesline Saga" and others from The Basement Tapes are in there, ditto John Wesley Harding.

So now the director of Call Me By Your Name is making a movie based on Blood On The Tracks:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/call-me-by-your-name-bob-dylan-blood-on-the-tracks-film-738293/

I hope the internet is down the day Dylan dies.

kinda feels like todd haynes already made the blood on the tracks movie with one of the segments in I'm Not There, but ah well ...
supposedly there's a screenplay some guy in the 70s wrote for Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.

^^^my feelings exactly

I hope the internet is down the day Dylan dies.

― brotherlovesdub, Tuesday, October 16, 2018 1:25 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm gonna post and tweet so much it's gonna be insane

the takes are going to be hottt!

I'm sure we could get a 1,000+ thread going right now if we want to get a jump on things

snowtakes

honestly, though are there any new frontiers for dylan hot-takers? feels like everything has been covered. there's probably someone out there who's written tens of thousands of words on christmas in the heart. (which is great, don't get me wrong!)

feel like ILM is full of hot takes on Street Legal tbh

maybe that was the last frontier idk

unless you can cook up a hot take on Froggy Goes a Courtin

Everything he did is worthless except tarantula

Anyone been hailing Knocked Out Loaded or Down in the Groove as lost classics? I know everyone loves “Brownsville Girl” (hot take: it’s kinda funny but stupid and not really worth returning to, “Long and Wasted Years” uses the same delivery in a 10x better song)

I posted a lil' about "KOL" recently: Defend the very defensible - Knocked Out Loaded

Street Legal is good!

I love Street-Legal -- OG mix, not 1999 Don DeVito mix. Represent!

i'm gonna post and tweet so much it's gonna be insane

― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, October 16, 2018 4:05 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me2. I will be more insufferable than I was when Bowie died

is preferring the 1999 street legal mix a hot take? i prefer it.

I bought it years ago and promptly returned it. Maybe I'd like it more now, I dunno. The version on Spotify seems to be OG mix?

Oh dear. I didn't realise there was a Street Legal mix beef. No idea which side I'm on....

The original mix is a horror; the 1999 mix improved it vastly. It's still not a great album (I'm fine with okay).

God, I love the Dylan thing of putting a 12-bar blues song as track #2 on an LP.

I've an old vinyl edition and the 2003 reissue. Is the latter the remix?

HOW MUCH
HOW MUCH

feel like ILM is full of hot takes on Street Legal tbh

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, October 16, 2018 3:29 PM (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry Street Legal is good is canon now

fine, then my hot take is that it is actually terrible

The 2003 SACD reissue is indeed the remix. Tho according to da Wiki - "In 2014, as part of The Complete Album Collection Vol. 1, Street-Legal was again remastered, but restored to its original 1978 Stan Kalina LP mix."

THE ORIGINAL IS BACK! That's some "A New Hope Restored Without the Late-90s CGI" fan-dream shizz

Shakey, Alfred - I can't believe you don't love this album! Aside from "Is Your Love in Vain?" (one weak track, smack in the middle), this is such a hott LP.

lucky for everyone because original vinyl of Street Legal isn't exactly in every single record store of all time

http://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/image/030/thumb/bob-dylan-jc-35453-2-ab-t.jpg

my feelings about Street Legal are well documented on the Street Legal thread.

which at least produced the LEGAL HASSLE Dylan/Reed mashup joke

Well the last thing I remember before I stripped & kneeled
Was a trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field

Fuck yeah!!!

Shakey, Alfred - I can't believe you don't love this album! Aside from "Is Your Love in Vain?" (one weak track, smack in the middle), this is such a hott LP.

― brush ’em like crazy (morrisp),

The writing is windy self-parody in a lot of places even on songs I like ("Senor"). "Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat)" is "Like a Rolling Stone" extended to crackpot length.

Well the last thing I remember before I stripped & kneeled
Was a trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field

This is what I meant by a Dylan imitator.

"I fought with my twin/My enemy within," undergirded by bongos, is my idea of Dylan hell.

Damn, this is prime-era Dylan for me.

"If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise / Remind me to show you the scars"

!!!???

that's good

get ready for my hot take

Bob Dylen suxxxxxxx

unless you can cook up a hot take on Froggy Goes a Courtin

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, October 16, 2018 8:30 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh my memory is that i kinda like his version of froggy goes a courtin!

RENEGADE PRIESTS

+1000

I have a memory of a conversation with difficult listening hour in which we treated every sentence as a line from "Changing of the Guards."

"I need a beer"

I NEED. A. BEER.

"I think we need to take this right."

TAKE. THIS. RIGHT.

anyway

Like regardless of whether this song is "imitation Dylan" or not, the whole lyric is so excellent to me - https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/where-are-you-tonight-journey-through-dark-heat/

I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m alive!!

...But without you, it doesn't seem right

Now I've moved on to Saved; pounding air piano at my desk

now *that's* a good record

PRESSIN ON

Ok there’s definitely more than one weak track on Street Legal. I really like “Where Are You Tonight” though (and I’m pretty sure it’s shorter than “Like a Rolling Stone”).

Christ, “No Time to Think” is interminable before the first verse ends.

"Is Your Love in Vain" is a classic example of interminable misogynist groaning.

DO YOU UUUNDERSTAAAHHND MAH PAAAAIIINN

All too well, you self-pitying bimbo

I have dined with kings, I’ve been offered wings
And I’ve never been too impressed

has always reminded me of:

I've been undressed by kings
And I've seen some things that a woman ain't supposed to see

(I agree this one track is dudsville)

I have dined with kings, I’ve been offered wings

from Hooters?

😂

Street Legal owns the zone

We have a pre-emptive Bob Dylan RIP thread

When Bob Dylan dies

Is that like "If Madonna Calls"?

My microwave macaroni take from the Dylan's Christian Periond thread (where I later noticed that Euler had made the same point about "Changing of the Guard" as symptom of desperation, brain train comin' to Jesus etc)
I finally listened to Street Legal: good singing (the choral group is used effectively, for the most part), good music (except for the drums); but lyrics incl. bubblin' toxic rainbow brain stew of homeless prophetic imagery and serenades which start suavely but quickly go so wrong ("Can ya cook and sew, make the flowers grow," he sounds like even he knows this is hopeless as soon as he hears it--and/or he already knew it, but it's still like, "No? Course not, but come 'ere and show me what you can do, then. Beech.") Performance-wise, the most successful (and stylistically, the most unusual here) is "New Pony," which morphs into bizarre bluesoid porn, though not in a good way (to my taste). Overall, sounds like he's really moving toward some desperate change.
(Before this album came out, Renaldo and Clara incl Dyl paying much attention as Ginsberg tells him about Jesus and the ladies---think some of this was from the Apocrypha, but some from the Protestant-approved Gospels).
Not that all the lyrics are bad, but this set incl. off-putting syndromes.(?)

A follow-up notebook note re S L:
Music has he been listening to early-mid 70s Van Morrison’s Caledonia Soul Orch, pre-disco Boz, Robertson’s production of (or other) Neil Diamond? But the scuzziest, deadest, mildewed bottom of the barrel drums--ever. Dunno which mix I heard, came across it on YouTube, soon taken down by Web Sheriff.

Eleanor Friedberger recorded a cool cover of “True Love Tends to Forget.” And Will Oldham covered “Señor.” If you’re into those artists.

This weekend in Hell is making me sweat, y’all

MAKING. ME. SWEAT.

Street Legal is probably a bit overrated at this point, but New Pony rules

supposedly there's a screenplay some guy in the 70s wrote for Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.

haha this sounds so bad

Real Dylan Hot Take Heads Know Under The Red Sky Is Where It's At!

rarely has such an all star cast produced such an unmemorable record (thread idea?)

the Bootleg vol 8 version of Born in Time is great

Oldham covered New Pony live too
He's part of #TeamStreetLegal

UTRS >>>>>> Street-Legal

I saw Dylan live a few weeks after UTRS came out and he played NOTHING from that album

Street Legal is probably a bit overrated at this point, but New Pony rules

Overrated by whom? Most ppl on this thread don’t even seem to like it!

If any Dylan album is “overrated,” it’s Desire, IMO

at least this revive led me to make a playlist of 80s Dylan albums, most of which I haven't heard for 25 years

I saw Dylan live a few weeks after UTRS came out and he played NOTHING from that album

lol, I seem to recall a lot of press flown in for a UK concert shortly after the release of Together Through Life, no songs from that album on the setlist

There’s a good Willie Nelson cover of Senor on the I’m Not There soundtrack.

UTRS >>>>>> Street-Legal

Florida Man Arrested for Aggressive Online Trolling

"Wiggle Wiggle," like The Police's "De Doo Doo Doo...," mocks the singer's own obsession with fussy lyrics.

Dierks Bentley did a good "Senor" cover too

"Wiggle Wiggle," like The Police's "De Doo Doo Doo...," mocks the singer's own obsession with fussy lyrics.

― You like queer? I like queer. Still like queer. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 17, 2018 9:31 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

goop on ya grinch level analysis

if dylan had recorded utrs 10 years later with his love & theft-era touring band, it probably would be thought of as a minor late-period classic. the weak production / half-hearted performances don't do it any favors.

Christgau on UTRS:

To my astonishment, I think Under the Red Sky is Dylan's best album in 15 years, a record that may even signal a ridiculously belated if not totally meaningless return to form … It's fabulistic, biblical … the tempos are postpunk like it oughta be, with Aronoff's sprints and shuffles grooving ahead like '60s folk-rock never did.

"The tempos are postpunk"?

isn't UTRS the album Dylan was talking about in Chronicles where he claimed he'd discovered some new way of playing guitar?

I thought that was an earlier album...

(xp) I think that was earlier - when he was burned out around the time of "Dylan & The Dead" - but I could be wrong.

it's Oh Mercy

so, not much earlier!

oh yeah, UTRS was the one he recorded at night while he was recording with the Wilburys in the daytime.

"The tempos are postpunk"?

― a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze (morrisp), Wednesday, October 17, 2018 1:33 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have no idea what the hell this is supposed to mean

"I worked with George Harrison and Jeff Lynne during the day -- everything had to be done in one day, the track and the song had to be written in one day, and then I'd go down and see Don Was, and I felt like I was walking into a wall. He'd have a different band for me to play with every day, a lot of all-stars, for no particular purpose.

"Back then I wasn't bringing anything at all into the studio, I was completely disillusioned."

The only thing remotely post-punk I hear is Aronoff's roll after the first chorus in "Wiggle Wiggle"? idk

aronoff's stint in the smashing pumpkins retroactively makes his old stuff post punk imo

aronoff and keltner are the godfathers of post-punk drumming iirc

imagine how great the Raincoats could have been with Kenny laying down a slammin beat

steve gadd on pink flag, it'd be sweet.

I just dry-heaved reading that.

I mean, I love it all, but to me the Vinnie Appice lineup of the Fall will always be the best

getting the Purdie shuffle on their Heard it Through the Grapevine cover was peak Slits

It's worth looking up, although I'm not gonna: The xp Chronicles description of how the Dead wanted to do some of his songs that he wasn't familiar with, and he became uneasy about the whole jamtastic road ahead, about his own abilities, so he went to a bar and drank until he remembered something Lonnie Johnson (blues guitarist who also performed with Bird and other jazz heavies on occasion) told him about guitar-playing, and he began to see how it could be adapted to his own material, and vice-versa, gradually---Dylan and the Dead is notoriously bad, but some of the show tapes are okay, and anyway it was more about a process he meant to stick with, one motivation for the Endless Tour.
Speaking of Lonnie Johnson, D covered his "Saturday NIght" on Good As I Been To You, some prev. unreleased tracks from which showed up on Tell-Tale Signs, and I'd like to hear 'em all on a new edition of Good... (didn't think it was as good as World Gone Wrong, but maybe it would be if complete).
UTRS was good, though could use a remaster, and bonus tracks prob (live versions at least). I always like Kenny Aronoff, however you describe his style (played with Mellencamp too, right? Seems like he would fit.)

re: dylan and lonnie johnson, here's what Bob wrote:

"Popular music is usually based on the number 2... If you're using an odd numerical system, things that strengthen a performance begin to happen...In a diatonic scale there are eight notes. In a pentatonic scale there are five. If you're using the first scale and you hit 2, 5 and 7 to the phrase and then repeat it, a melody forms. Or you can use the 4 once and the 7 twice... the possibilities are endless... I'm not a numerologist. I don't know why the number three is more metaphysically powerful than the number 2, but it is. Passion and enthusiasm, which sometimes can be enough to sway a crowd, aren't even necessary. You can manufacture faith out of nothing and there are infinite number of patterns and lines that connect from key to key."

Kinda think Bob is BS-ing here, but who knows, maybe it makes sense to him. I know that some of his 1990s lead guitar work is pretty uhhhh unique.

Yeah I’ve always wanted a musician to explain what that stuff means (and how much sense it makes).

it doesn't make any sense, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless

yeah it is! i think Dylan has always had weird systems that are probably incomprehensible to everyone but him ... cool to at least get a glimpse of how his weird mind works.

kinda feel like he's trying to convey some kind of Coltrane-level musical system there but can't be bothered to use a nomenclature everyone else would use (like notes lol)

I'd go so far as to argue that Dylan is deeply underrated as a composer of melodies but Coltrane he is not

Oh wow, I forgot some of that (to maybe make more sense of it all, or at least get some intriguing sequences, see Part Four of Chronicles); He went to the bar, yes, but no Lonnie yet; instead, he sees "an old jazz singer" perform, reminding him somewhat of Billy Eckstein, and suddenly remembers a vocal techique---runs back to rehearsal, can't wait to tackle those old forgotten Dylan songs (and the ones he knew too well): At first it was hard going, like drilling through a brick wall. All I did was taste the dust. But miraculously something internal came unhinged. In the beginning all I could get out was a blood-choked coughing grunt and it blasted up from the bottom of my lower self, but it bypassed my brain. That had never happened before. It burned, but I was awake. The scheme wasn't sewed up too tight, but I grasped the idea. I was having to maneuver more than one stratagem at the same time, but now I knew I could perform any of these songs without them having to be restricted to the world of words. This was revelatory. I played those shows with the Dead and didn't have to think twice about it...
Then he plugs himself into the tour with Petty & the Heartbreakers, still no vocal probs, however, his pre-Dead sense of dead ending comes back:
Night after night it was like I was on cruise control...Petty was drawing most of the people...My performances were an act, and the rituals were boring me...Even at the Petty shows I'd see the people in the crowd and they'd look like cutouts from a shooting gallery...I was sailing along.
Then suddenly, one night in Locarno, Switzerland, at the Piazza Grande Locarno, it all fell apart. For an instant I fell into a black hole. The stage was outdoors and the wind was blowing gales. the kind of night that can blow anything away. I opened my mouth to sing and nothing came out...I thought I had it down so well, yet it was just another trick... So, in front of thirty thousand people, with nothin' more to lose, I conjured up some different type of mechanism to jump-start the other techniques that weren't working...Everything came back, and it came back in multidimension. Even I was surprised. It left me kind of shaky...It was like I'd become an unknown one in the true sense of the term.
So hey, he starts digging the Petty shows, *really* sailing along. And then he breaks his arm, and then he knows, with no pleasure, that he'll have to go to work, and come up with another guitar style, to match up with the new vocal technique, "one that would go along with helping me re-create my songs":
I had always played in the casual Carter Family flat-picking style, and the playing was more or less out of habit and routine. It was always clear and readable but didn't reflect my psyche in any was. It didn't have to. The style had been practical, but now I was going to push that away from the table, too, and replace it with something more active with more definition of presence.
So then he starts remembering what Lonnie Johnson showed him:
...based on an odd not even numbering system...It's a highly controlled system of playing...how (the notes of a scale) form melodies out of triplets and are axiomatic to the rhythm and the chord changes..The method works on higher or lower degrees depending on different patterns and they syncopation of a piece. Very few would be converted to it because it had nothing to do with technique and musicians work their whole lives to be technically superior players. You probably wouldn't pay any attention to this method if you weren't a singer...The system works in a cyclical way...The total effect would be physiological, and triplet forms would fashion melodies at intervals. This is what would drive the song---not necessarily the lyric content...The opposite of improvisation...It doesn't run on emotion. That was another good thing. I had been leaving my songs on the floor like shot rabbits for a long time. That wouldn't be happening any more.

He fucked up his hand as well as his arm.

re: dylan and lonnie johnson, here's what Bob wrote:

"Popular music is usually based on the number 2... If you're using an odd numerical system, things that strengthen a performance begin to happen...In a diatonic scale there are eight notes. In a pentatonic scale there are five. If you're using the first scale and you hit 2, 5 and 7 to the phrase and then repeat it, a melody forms. Or you can use the 4 once and the 7 twice... the possibilities are endless... I'm not a numerologist. I don't know why the number three is more metaphysically powerful than the number 2, but it is. Passion and enthusiasm, which sometimes can be enough to sway a crowd, aren't even necessary. You can manufacture faith out of nothing and there are infinite number of patterns and lines that connect from key to key."

Kinda think Bob is BS-ing here, but who knows, maybe it makes sense to him. I know that some of his 1990s lead guitar work is pretty uhhhh unique.

― tylerw, 17. oktober 2018 23:32 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol, isn't he talking about intervals and saying he's using fourths rather than thirds? But then saying that he is jumping three notes rather than two for numerological reasons, but... I think he is bullshitting, he knows what a third is. Right?

if dylan had recorded utrs 10 years later with his love & theft-era touring band, it probably would be thought of as a minor late-period classic. the weak production / half-hearted performances don't do it any favors.

― tylerw, Wednesday, October 17, 2018 5:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm. "minor classic" is right because the lyrics are much weaker than Love & Theft, like "2 X 2" is a lazy turd that was originally (according to Heylin) a song about animals walking onto Noah's Arc, but became much dumber after rewriting. "Handy Dandy" has a nice groove but it's again a bunch of lazy rhymes without any story. I can see why he ended up playing ancient covers for the next half decade, to recover a better voice that we'd finally get in 2001.

When I first read that section, the whole section, I speculated that whatever he was talking related to the way he was then (early 00s, also some show tapes from late '90s) playing, say, "Cold Irons Bound"---although when I had seem him in the early 90s, he was doing a lot of fancy folkie finger-picking, and high-pitched bluesy solos on not particularly bluesy songs---all good to great, in the context of a band show (with extended police siren steel guitar etc., also a roadrunner, nerve-testing "Watchtower" that eventually and instantly vanished into something else) but apparently taking his guitarisms further in a subsequent show my Omaha buddy caught, and reported, "Seems like he's been going back and studying what Bloomfield did on 'Tombstone Blues' and all that." Trying different things, not just following that one Path.
(Also in Part Four, he cites Link Wray's "Rumble" and a Martha Reeves performance he saw as exemplifying the "numbering system.")

I often wonder what a mixing board soloing of Bob's live guitar would sound like, and I often think it would sound quite dreadful (or at least completely apart from what the rest of the band are doing)

https://youtu.be/B_nKf7BNqhA
^^this live @ the white house "times are a changing" is a lovely intimate version, but what is he doing on that acoustic guitar? half the time he's hardly playing

https://youtu.be/9hO-83CIVKM
^^this classic live-in-the-studio Cold Irons Bound has shredding galore, but Dylan's work is almost inaudible

and those are examples of, imo, great live takes more or less made for commercial redistribution - when you look at live videos from the neverending tour it gets even more mysterious

I tend to think of him mostly as a great singer/songwriter, his harmonica playing is much more distinctive than his guitar work (to my ears)

https://youtu.be/9v6XdUA8SK8

He plays a short solo on that ^^ Grammys performance of Love Sick. Making similar patterns as on the intro etc to Cold Irons Bound above

I always thought he was using simple pentatonic scales

that's a decent solo, though it hardly leaves the impression that he's got everything under control

so weird to have that choir/crowd in the background doing nothing

though it hardly leaves the impression that he's got everything under control

That's one of many reasons why it's such a brilliant solo. It's so intensely focused, and the focus is on, "How close to going-off-the-rails can I make this?"

When I saw him in '97, he took every solo of the night, and there were a lot of them. Every solo was this insane see-saw between no more than two notes. There might have been a third note in one of the solos, but I don't think so. I've never heard a guitarist play that way before or since. And his band (as in the "Love Sick" clip) drew inspiration from his guitar playing, ratcheting up the energy.

Isn’t there some story of Ronnie Hawkins saying to him something like “I know a few hundred guitarists worse than you but none of them make a living at it”?

to some extent I buy that - something weirdly convincing often happens when he does whatever it is he does, kept me coming back to the live shows quite a few times, the uncertainty keeping everyone on edge, every once in a while delivering magic moments

Isn’t there some story of Ronnie Hawkins saying to him something like “I know a few hundred guitarists worse than you but none of them make a living at it”?

― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs)

Also said about his piano playing, which I adore like an ugly child.

anyway, Uncle Greil answered the question last week:

What Dylan has, as the late Ralph J. Gleason was probably the first to point out, is swing. He can move rhythm. He has country time. At his best he can’t be followed. As with his piano playing on “She’s Your Lover Now”—no actually existing piano player could, as the word serves, accompany his singing. It was him or no one. It’s the same with rhythm guitar playing—listen to the simple, but essential counting in “Like a Rolling Stone.” And then there’s his early 1990s shift–when he decided, in his fifties, to become a lead guitarist, and suddenly his songs, in terms of how long they went on, became two thirds instrumental, one third sung.

He is, at bottom, a folk singer, which means he does what’s necessary to find the song and seal it. Often that isn’t much. Often it’s just a little more than what the Blue Sky Boys do for “Down on the Banks of the Ohio” on guitar and mandolin. Isn’t it enough?

new pearl jam drummer seems to be working wonders
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oehJDt5Uag

wow, that was taken down fast

anyway, search: Not Dark Yet, Irvine, California, oct 11 2019, Matt Chamberlain on drums

https://youtu.be/wU9cnKOXMv4 new upload

damn, that's spellbinding

Underrated

his stuff in-between Desire and Time Out of Mind def. underrated

Matt Chamberlain on drums

― corrs unplugged, Tuesday, October 15, 2019 11:25 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

matt chamberlain or matt cameron? the latter is pearl jam's drummer, the former is tori amos' drummer (who filled in for cameron once with soundgarden)

yeah not the pearl jam drummer. seeing bob tomorrow in Denver for the first time in a couple years. excited!

i mean i'm still gassed that it's chamberlain, incredible drummer

love the feeling of that "not dark yet"

Chamberlain is great, he's played with everyone from Pearl Jam to Jon Brion.

He's not on Ten, but I think he was an early touring drummer. He's in that live video for Even Flow, iirc. Or maybe Alive? Anyway, love him.

you're right! quite a resume ... bill frisell, bowie, neko case, tori, fiona, broooooce ....

haha wow talk about super session drummer

having both Perfume Genius and Eric Clapton on your resume

wow this arrangement of not dark yet, so vibey and spacious

pretty much a new song, haha

going to see him next Thursday, even more excited now

always fun to have the oooooh shit that's (insert title here) at the 2 minute mark

awesome, let us know if he does some cool versions!

there's a new guitar player on board too, guy from the TooM sessions

matt chamberlain or matt cameron? the latter is pearl jam's drummer, the former is tori amos' drummer (who filled in for cameron once with soundgarden)

good thread idea: similarly named musicians who play the same instrument and are also connected in other ways

Is Bob playing guitar in that clip?

show in denver last night was great! bob is looking incredibly spry -- maybe the most animated I've ever seen him, whether he was standing at the piano, pounding the keys, or prowling the stage. weirdly, the performer i thought of most was mark e smith, haha. "simple twist," "masterpiece," "not dark yet" and "girl from north country" were all highlights ...

https://scontent.fapa1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/72842292_2648404011905072_1224765703194673152_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_oc=AQm06c6AvfhcxwuTcuCPHifFrENw1Ijovh5BSMpgR5q7rcuaD0jwwu2YrTne3Jjg8xA&_nc_ht=scontent.fapa1-1.fna&oh=f8b9ca195e1ab750252c6d1c1b63e251&oe=5E2B2ADF

I assume arthritis = no guitar playing, and it's been that way for awhile, yeah?

he actually played guitar on the opener — "things have changed" — and pulled off some surprisingly solid lead lines. but that was it ... yeah, i don't know if it's arthritis, back problems, or just that he's not into it.

how's the voice?

really good! obviously still gravelly, but he's not barking things out — phrasing is dead on target.

cool I was hoping the relative improvement from Tempest (which was really getting rough) to the standards records was reflected live?

do you remember where you were when Bob Dylan didn't die
and everyone who ever listened learned he lived a lie
they had reflected on their mortality
apparently entirely needlessly
while his Cadillac cruised down the backroad not leading to the sky

I was never the biggest dylan fan but I saw him this week partly out of "see this legend before it's too late" obligation despite not knowing much about his live shows. It was different/better than I expected and holy shit is Matt Chamberlain fun to watch.

this tour has been really excellent

I don't think I've seen this mentioned anywhere on ILM as yet: anyone else listened to this Dylan podcast? https://isitrollingbobtalkingdylan.podbean.com/

It's naturally dependent on the guest but the dudes are the right side of obsessive and it's engaging enough. Can recommend the Jonathan Lethem and Geoff Dyer episodes.

Thanks for this. I've just listened to Robyn Hitchcock. Good stuff

I've got that one lined up. Favourites have also included Andrew Male and Michael Gray. Billy Bragg was hard going.

To celebrate BD's bd, somebody recently tweeted tbis---haven't checked all its links to prev coverage & excerpts ("lone verse" presented here is bad not good, but he did discard it):
https://www.nodepression.com/bob-dylans-three-blood-on-the-tracks-notebooks-not-just-red/

I've been talking to some older, discerning listeners who have listened to Dylan since the '60s and more or less followed what he's done since then. It's kind of interesting to see how expectations of Dylan have evolved over time, and how they really went off a cliff in the late '70s.

For example, the late '60s and early '70s look like a lost period to me. There is enjoyable music to be found, even great music, but he was at best making pleasant but thin albums, nothing approaching what he did before. That seems to be a popular sentiment even then, but it doesn't sound like he was written off as someone who couldn't deliver anymore either. As bad as Self-Portrait and Dylan may have been, the latter was considered a malicious release that was never approved by Dylan while a lot of naysayers viewed the former as an anomaly. More importantly, people just assumed he lost interest in fully pursuing his music career. So when he "came back" in the mid-'70s, it seemed to reaffirm the most optimistic view people had on him. For starters, he was once again madly prolific - at the start of 1974, he launches a high profile reunion tour with the Band, their collaborative album comes out a few weeks in, and later that summer, just a few months after the tour ends, the live album comes out. A few months after that, he records Blood on the Tracks, and even though the release is delayed to January due to re-recording, the original version leaks out by Christmas. Regardless of how people feel about them now, each one was greeted with a lot of good will which seemed to grow exponentially with each album. Then when next summer comes up, the "Basement Tapes" are officially released (albeit in incomplete and tampered form), which eventually tops that year's Pazz & Jop poll. By the fall, he's already doing the Rolling Thunder Revue to much (if not universal) acclaim. Desire comes out in January, and he does another leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour (albeit to less acclaim) followed by an appearance at the Band's farewell show. So for a lot of people, he was still a major, vital figure mid-decade, and at that point, it's not too kind to say that the only broad consensus of an outright failure he's had is Self-Portrait.

Then comes the alimony tour. And the widely derided Street-Legal (at least in the U.S. - the British press is more receptive), and then the highly polarizing evangelical years, and then we're into the '80s where the albums spiral into a black hole. The growing number of detractors who turned on him or thoroughly mocked him really appear around this time, and it doesn't seem like you can overstate how abysmal the '80s were for him. He still had fans of what he was doing during this time, but even they get criticized for overrating his work, either for putting value into garbage or elevating so-so albums to the level of masterpieces.

I'd say he permanently rights the ship with Time Out of Mind - it goes platinum within a year (much better than any album he's done in decades), finally gets him an AOY Grammy (meaningful only in what it says about how he's viewed within the industry), tops the Pazz & Jop poll, and despite missteps like a bad film, the three "Sinatra" albums (or the occasional oddity like a Christmas album), he's firmly a revered institution now, at least when you look at how well he does on the road (more impressive considering how many shows he puts on every year - he packs them in EVERY night) and how generous the press is to him.

The early ‘80s (Infidels, Empire Burlesque) and late ‘80s (Oh Mercy, Wilburys) were both strong for him, though. I feel like his real “lost decade” was the ‘90s.

1) New Morning is one of his greatest albums

2) the Another Self Portrait box totally changed the conventional wisdom on that period, it's up there with the best Bootleg Series

3) Street Legal owns

I've been talking to some older, discerning listeners who have listened to Dylan since the '60s and more or less followed what he's done since then. It's kind of interesting to see how expectations of Dylan have evolved over time, and how they really went off a cliff in the late '70s.

Honestly there's probably no one who's opinion I trust least than super 60s fans, maybe the early folk crowd

Both groups had this ideal of who Dylan was, something that he never was to begin with and they feel betrayed when he changed

2) the Another Self Portrait box totally changed the conventional wisdom on that period, it's up there with the best Bootleg Series

ums fiercely otm

As a kid, my dad owned only the Christian Dylan albums, since he tended to only play albums with Christian lyrics or instrumental music. So that was the Dylan I heard in my formative years. The first Bob Dylan album I ever listened to of my own volition was Under the Red Sky. I had started reading rock magazines around that time, read a review or two, was curious, and checked it out from the library. I couldn't really see what the fuss was about. A couple of years later, I finally went out and bought Highway 61 Revisited, and my years of serious Dylan appreciation began. I avoided anything after Blood on The Tracks for many years, though I did go to see Dylan in concert in the early 90s, which was fairly disappointing: unrecognizable versions of songs I loved with terrible vocals. It wasn't until Love and Theft really that I was ever interested in a "new" Dylan album.

morrisp, re: the '80s, I wish I could agree. I think "Infidels" and "Oh Mercy" could've been great albums, especially "Oh Mercy," but in both cases arguably the best songs were left out in favor of mediocre ones, and I have reservations about the way they were recorded as well. "Infidels" has a nice polish, but it sounds TOO polished and pretty slick after listening to better renditions of some of those songs. This was discussed in another thread, but while Lanois did a good job with "Oh Mercy," he didn't know when to stop and the results as released can sound overproduced. (I prefer the earlier mixes/alternates of at least a handful of tracks on "Tell Tale Signs.") I tried, but I'll never be a fan of "Empire Burlesque." The Wilburys stuff is a mixed bag for me. "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" is a hilarious song but I can barely stand Jeff Lynne's production. Between "World Gone Wrong" and "Time Out of Mind" (and how much better his live shows became) the '90s do not feel like a lost decade to me at all.

I actually like "New Morning," but there's no way I could call it a great album. It's good, but not THAT good. I think Tarfumes is spot-on about "Another Self Portrait," that was far better than I thought it would be, but "Self Portrait" is still a pretty terrible album and you can ever hear why on "Another Self Portrait" - the best "Self Portrait" cuts are no longer marred by goopy strings, even better songs were left off the album ("Pretty Saro" for one), the Isle of Wight songs are actually mixed correctly, and they even cheat a bit by adding some great "New Morning" stuff, though a few alternate mixes with Al Kooper's overdubs feel like they repeat the same mistakes made on "Self Portrait."

I like some of the songs on "Street Legal," but it also has some of my least favorite music period - tracks through 3 through 5 sound like terrible songs, especially "No Time to Think." I'm sorry, but that track alone is horrendous.

Anyway, in terms of fans of who think an artist should be a certain kind of artist, that's always been bullshit, and that's a problem virtually every great artist has put up with, not just Dylan. As it applies here, it's fascinating to see how Dylan responds to that. Most of the conversations I've been referring to revolve around that - Dylan grappling with nostalgia when he reunites with the Band (everyone involved in that tour was very aware of that), how he engages with the audience in his evangelical period, and struggling with his own loss of interest throughout an active '80s which he's mentioned more than once in recent years.

Gotcha - though I didn't think you were talking about your personal taste, as much as general reception of his work in those time periods... and my point was just that he at least had some critical heat & well respected periods in the '80s (whatever you may think of those albums); vs. the '90s, where he retreated after Red Sky, and nothing much really happened until Time Out of Mind (I guess MTV Unplugged did well).

Coincidentally, I was talking to my kids about Dylan today, and I was actually struggling to convey his importance. I mean, I think I did a good job, but it was a bit like trying to explain why the color yellow is important, you know?

xp It could also be that those two albums of traditional songs each got, like, 4.5 stars in Rolling Stone (I'd have to look it up) -- but I just don't recall much heat around Dylan in the '90s, they feel like the softest decade in terms of his rep.

the hate for street legal completely passes me by

like singling out “no time to think” as a particularly bad song... that song is awesome. the hook gets stuck in my head for days

Yeah, it rules. That album rules. (FWIW, "Is Your Love in Vain?" is the dud.)

I'm no Dylan obsessive, though I do own tons of Dylan stuff, officially released and otherwise. Anyway. some years back I caught an Alejandro Escovedo show down the street, and during it he covered "Dark Eyes." I'd never heard it because I've never really listened to any '80s Dylan stuff, but I thought, huh, that's a pretty good song.

You're partly right about the '90s because there wasn't much studio activity and it started off terribly with "Under the Red Sky." Dylan himself expressed regret about that one, saying it was a complete disorganized mess. (Basically he was trying to record that at the same time he was writing and recording the next Wilburys album, and he says he wasn't focused on his own album at all.) The tours kept coming, and pretty soon that was his main focus because his next two albums were the covers albums. They were knocked out quickly, and they helped fulfill his contract at a time when he wasn't really writing new material, but they also allowed him to regroup by diving back into the music that really got him into music as a way of life. The first one is pretty uneven - there is some good stuff, but he isn't completely convincing on everything, especially "Tomorrow Night" where he sounds awful. But he's begun righting the ship, and the next one, "World Gone Wrong," is very close to a masterpiece - his interpretations that are absolutely riveting. (Along with "In Utero," Patti Smith said it was one of the two albums she listened to most that year.) After that you had MTV Unplugged (which may have been more about the TV broadcast) and "Time Out of Mind," but that's it until "Things Have Changed" came out in 2000, so a pretty modest output for the decade, but I'd only call one of those albums a dud.

With Dylan (or Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, the Beatles, the VU, James Brown...) the first thing I zeroed in on was how much they changed music, and you have to look at what was made before they came along. There was no shortage of great music before they came along, but the music most people know today was completely shaped by their contributions. Dylan's influence was so varied and broad, it's really hard to imagine what songwriting would've been like without him. When Prince died, someone made that point and listed like 30 major artists from the past 30 years who were profoundly shaped by Prince - it was basically 30 names that collectively felt like the center of popular music. That's pretty much what it's like with Dylan, though the influences are becoming more second or thirdhand given how long he's been around (i.e. even artists who don't know his music are likely to be influenced via someone else who was). Anyway, that's how I've explained someone like Dylan to people who are unfamiliar with Western music.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of "Is Your Love in Vain?" either (it's one of the three duds I listed). I'm sorry, but that hook you're talking about on "No Time to Think" is one reason I find it so irritating melodically speaking. The singing and the arrangement are both horrendous to me. If I had to make the case for that album, there's probably four tracks I'd focus on: "Changing of the Guards" (which I prefer to hear from Patti Smith on "Twelve" - it's a much better, low-key arrangement, and transposing the cheesy sax riff to the piano is an enormous improvement), "Senor," "We Better Talk This Over" (reportedly, the new musical direction was inspired by the recently deceased Elvis Presley and what Presley was doing in the final 7 or 8 years of his life - this track reminds me of his best music from that era), and "Where Are You Tonight?" which sounds like Dylan's on the verge of collapse - it's a stunning piece of work and placed within the context of his subsequent conversion, it feels all the more perfect.

Yeah, "Dark Eyes" is gorgeous. It's been singled out before, but Patti Smith used to sing that with Dylan when they toured together in the '90s. It's the one real keeper from "Empire Burlesque" IMHO.

Huh - I made a similar but much less informative post while you were typing that. Under the Red Sky was a head-scratcher for sure, then that early stage of the Neverending Tour (RIP) was widely derided, and well it should have been, D barking cryptic chunks of lyrics in this weird shambling state for many of the shows. But a major factor to remember was that The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3 came out in 1991 and fired up some interest. And then the roots covers albums, which are great, didn't gain much attention, but Time Out of Mind dropped in 1997 and was universally hailed. So I don't think the 90s were a void, maybe 5 years were.

Just to clarify the point about Dylan's influence (it's late so I'm a little tired now), a good point of reference may be the "Sinatra" albums. Not many people like them, and Dylan's concerts noticeably lost attendance because of them. But those are GREAT songs. And Frank Sinatra's albums from the '50s to the early '60s were marvelous. The Capitol recordings are probably one of the great bodies of work in 20th century music. Ella Fitzgerald's Verve songbooks are almost up there too. These are great records tapping into the Great American Songbook, and it says a lot that Dylan's covers didn't captivate the imagination. He may have been a poor fit for this material, but these songs didn't feel like they had any connection to the present. What made these albums "work" conceptually was that it made one re-think the place this music had in the culture now - at one time this was THE popular music in the Western world, but the audience it was made for (the audience in the broadest sense, meaning the population at large) is now virtually gone. Dylan is preserving this music the way he's preserved songs that are centuries old. It's poignant knowing this music has now slipped into that side of history. It's also ironic because it was songwriting like Dylan's that made that music part of an old tradition instead of a continuing path to something new. We're in the middle of perhaps another major upheaval as some are arguing that rock music is now slowing down and giving way to hip-hop, but regardless any rock band can cover Dylan's songs now and the best stuff wouldn't sound out of place at all, even close to 60 years after the fact. I think that alone says a lot.

a major factor to remember was that The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3 came out in 1991 and fired up some interest

Interesting you mention this; another thing happening in the ‘90s was Dylan sort of transitioning into the “legacy” phase of his career. You can think of something like The 30th* Anniversary Concert Celebration in this regard, as well.

(*I can’t believe that Dylan had been recording for only 30 years at that point... it sounds like nothing now! A band like, say, Mudhoney has been around for longer today than Dylan had been in ‘92.)

But seriously, New Morning is one of his best

Honestly there's probably no one who's opinion I trust least than super 60s fans, maybe the early folk crowd

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

I can't post this often enough

I'm the fan for whom JWL, New Morning, and Empire Burlesque are essential Dylan.

UTRS is a fun album!

New Morning is awesome. So human, laid back, and fun. Few moments in his entire career bring more joy than the last verse of Went to See the Gypsy through the outro.

And what's great about Bob is the weird angles he takes on things. Like how Day of the Locusts was inspired by receiving an honorary doctorate from Princeton.

John Wesley Harding is absolutely one of his greats, I don't think many would disagree with that.

New Morning has a few great tracks, and I agree "Went to See the Gypsy" is one of them, but I actually prefer the alternate take on Another Self Portrait - completely different arrangement, but Dylan's vocal is exquisite on that one. And I would say my favorite song on New Morning is "Sign on the Window" - it may be the best song he released in this era (after JWH and before BOTT). I don't think the album gets better than those two tracks, but a lot of stuff on the first side is still pretty good: "Time Is Passing," "Day of the Locusts," and "If Not For You" which is now a standard though again I prefer the alternate arrangement on Another Self Portrait. (Elvis Costello even singled it out as a great discovery on that Bootleg Series set, but it's actually been widely bootlegged for a while, and in a better mix that has some lovely pedal steel on it.) "Winterlude" and "The Man in Me" are funny little novelties, maybe even "If Dogs Run Free" though it kind of wears thin by the end. Title track's okay, "One More Weekend" is pretty disposable, and "Three Angels" and "Father of Night" feel like a waste of space - not the worst songs he's written, but I don't think they're good songs either. I can see why Dylan would claim New Morning was a bunch of tossed off songs that evaporated into thin air, but "Sign on the Window" alone is much more than that.

Judging by the Rod Stewart thread, Alfred is a big booster of the synthpop-influenced rock of the '80s, so if you're into that era of Rod Stewart, you're likely to enjoy Empire Burlesque a lot. A lot of Under the Red Sky is too slick for my tastes, but with the novelty songs I can see it being a lot more fun if you have kids. "Handy Dandy" is fun in either form, but "Wiggle Wiggle" is too inane for me. The title track can be gorgeous.

empire burlesque doesn't really have that many synths

I don't consider myself a booster; what I've attempted for years is to eviscerate received boomer wisdom concerning technological innovations, s if a particular guitar sound from, say, 1965 >>> a Casio programmed in 1985. Also, if a song from 1981-1990 sucks, blame the song, not the production. I will not save Down in the Groove or most of Knocked Out Loaded (I would save "Brownsville Girl," "Got My Mind Made Up," "Driftin' Too Far from Shore," though).

As for UTRS, "Cat's in the Well," the title track, "Wiggle Wiggle" (Kenny Aronoff!), and "2x2" are perfectly fine songs.

one of those records where its reputation seems more based on the album cover than the actual music xp

The only song on which the synths go bonkers is "When the Night Comes Falling...," which I'll argue is a poorly realized song in any version. "Never Gonna Be the Same Again" is also meh. And the synths absolutely enliven the simmering "Something's Burning, Baby."

I suspect critics at the time wanted the Serious Dylan of Oh Mercy, so when they heard George Harrison, Kenny Aronoff, Elton, etc play on nursery rhymes they thought he was squandering his gifts or something when, if they wanted to examine their values, tracks like "Political World" and "Disease of Conceit" are worse than nursery rhymes. At least on UTRS Dylan and his crack superstar band treat nursery rhymes seriously.

i love that new morning ends with "three angels" and "father of night," it's such an interesting, rich, well-arranged record with these pockets of total abstraction

Funny, "Political World" and "Disease of Conceit" (and I'll throw in "Where Teardrops Fall") are actually the mediocrities I was referring to - those are definitely the three I would toss in favor of the stronger outtakes, including "Born in Time" which wound up on UTRS. But the crack band Lanois put together treated those songs seriously too - they're still terrible. I don't have a problem with Dylan doing nursery rhymes, but you don't want to give a free pass to all of them without any discriminating taste either. I enjoy "Handy Dandy" as much as "Tattle O'Day" (Another Self Portrait), and I have a fun time singing them to my nephews, but they're actual fun songs while "Wiggle Wiggle" is understandably polarizing. (I like Kenny Aronoff - one of the best things about those Mellencamp records he's on - but his drumming isn't enough to save "Wiggle Wiggle" for me.)

Alfred, you're generally right that technological innovations of the '80s, but I'd use a less broader range of music to make the case. Prince, New Order, the Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode make a rock solid case for the sounds of that decade, but I don't find a convincing case with some of those other records, quite the opposite.

Also, "Something's Burning, Baby" is actually not a bad song - there's some good lyrics in there - but the synths are kind of a trade-off where it becomes more radio-friendly at the expense of the darker and most interesting elements of that song.

To be brutally honest, Dylan's album covers are usually underwhelming regardless of the music inside, which is fine. There's plenty of terrible albums with covers worth hanging on the wall.

(some typos there, should be "generally right about the technological innovations" and Pet Shop Boys has no "the." Also with "Something's Burning, Baby," to be more accurate, it's not just the use of synths but probably the arrangement in general. Should probably add that "2 x 2" and "Cat's in the Well" are actually okay - maybe not great, but they're fine children's songs.)

We spend a lot of time here discussing the divisive albums and low-hanging fruit. I’d be interested to see someone try to make the case that, say, Blonde on Blonde is overrated.

hi!

j/k it's not overrated but I prefer the 12-bar blues on L&T.

the Born in Time off Telltale Signs is great

also the Most of the Time

I find "Born in Time" as blank as "Emotionally Yours," both of which have illegible titular metaphors (the hell does "born in time" mean?). Pretty melodies, though, hence my preference for the O'Jays' version of the ltter.

*latteer

lol latter

pick of the latter

Yeah, the "Born in Time" on Tell Tale Signs is great (the "first" version that is, you can find on it on every edition of that set, whether it's the single, double and triple disc edition). That track along with the finished versions of "Series of Dreams" and "Dignity" (both easily found on Side Tracks) would have been my preference over the three tracks I listed above.

For some of the other songs, I would still prefer earlier "less-produced" mixes that were included on Tell Tale Signs. ("Everything Is Broken" found on all editions, "Ring Them Bells" and "Most of the Time" on disc three of the ridiculously priced three-disc edition.) But taken together, that would be a great album for me, easily among the top 5 of a pretty strong year that already included 3 Feet High and Rising, Paul's Boutique, Doolittle and Freedom/El Dorado, all masterpieces to me.

(urgh, typo again: "can find it on every")

"Blonde on Blonde" has too many good songs to be overrated. But I've actually never been able to get into "Blood on the Tracks."

I loved BotT as a teen/young guy, but rarely listen to it now -- not I listen to Blonde on Blonde too often, either. They're both terrific albums, though.

I've noticed more and more dissenters about BOTT in recent years. Not necessarily a backlash, more like people who had reservations about it have been more vocal thanks to the Bootleg Series release and the RSD release of the "NY version" creating a platform where that kind of discussion would go on. To be clear, it has nothing to do with the debate about which version is better. (Tom Hull said he never could stomach the album, Greil Marcus said it was the most overrated Dylan album ever, etc.) Anyway, I was under the impression it was the one universally hailed Dylan album of the '70s, so it was a bit of a surprise when I kept coming across people who were a bit down on it. Personally, I think I still think it's a masterpiece.

oh it’s absolutely fuckin incredible

that and JWH his only essential records for me

live 1966 if that counts

the box set was revelatory in that you could hear him deliberately trying out a back-to-basics approach, the accompaniment being his most minimal since john wesley harding i think. which the ny version of the record ultimately bears out and the final version of the record somewhat undermines. all of those songs are like these fucking enormous tangles of time and heartache in any version tho imo

I enjoy "Handy Dandy" as much as "Tattle O'Day" (Another Self Portrait)

Tattle O'Day is one of my favorite Dylan songs, full stop. It would fit perfectly with the absurdist stuff on The Basement Tapes and it's an example of what Dylan took from old folk songs; not protest bullshit, but weirdness and humor. I'll not here Tattle O'Day slandered on this site.

here = hear

I haven't listened to BOTT in years. I'm sure I'll still enjoy it.

We spend a lot of time here discussing the divisive albums and low-hanging fruit. I’d be interested to see someone try to make the case that, say, Blonde on Blonde is overrated.

How about someone making the case that Bob Dylan is overrated?

That would be a novelty in the Is Bob Dylan overrated? thread.

can't remember who recommended this alternate running order BOTT on here, but think it's my fave version
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VP1R9iNOJ0gHDSnkgDU3m?si=cnrCBFTJRbyL6jDFGGRzUg

h/t user karl malone
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks poll

what’s the usefulness of measuring the “correct rating” apart from pointing out that some other artist did x first

wait nm I finally get it, it’s about the momentum of history and shit... not being sarcastic, actually, it helps to think about stuff

Good alternates, but I still prefer the master takes originally selected for the "NY version." Anyway, the stark production/recording reminds me of "Pink Moon" - since Nick Drake's album initially sold less than his previous two and wallowed in obscurity for decades, I don't blame them for re-recording half of it to make it more commercial, but it does lose something vital in the process.

And BKR, just to be clear, when I said I enjoyed "Tattle O'Day" as much as "Handy Dandy," I wasn't putting those two songs down. (But if you hate the latter, I understand your mistake in assuming that.)

I was thinking what on Earth is "Tattle O'Day", is it a traditional song? It's not availabe on Youtube, so I haven't heard it but I remembered that Robin Williamson recorded a song called "Toderoday" which is I assume is the same song, same lyrical idea anyway.

It's possibly better known as "Little Brown Dog" or "Autumn to May" but it's centuries old. I know someone's aunt who sings and teaches it to her kindergarten class, and she herself learned it in school when she was growing up in the UK (I think Scotland). The words are kind of psychedelic, but again it's a very old song.

I'm mostly joking with my indignation, but not about how awesome Tattle O'Day. It gives me shivers when he sings:

"I think mine are the very best of sheep for yielding me increase,
For every full and change of the moon they bring both lambs and geese."

Geese must like sheep and/or lamb poop, I be thinking.

This just in---Theme Time Radio Hour Returns---The Whiskey Episode
view here: http://view.fans.legacyrecordings.com/?qs=38277b1c7dfdf516940d38c571331909eef0fc234ce99c8451e305f440c14e2980a28eab1bf742c8ed9df3b48f997ed2cae8e7021eca5d4fcdf05ee1564daac45e6959117e668fd75e0174d8ba35cce3

Inspired by his passion for whiskey and the creation of his own brand, Heaven's Door, Dylan returns to Theme Time with an eclectic mix of music, poetry, anecdotes and special guests. See, it's not just whiskey, so I didn't put it on his whiskey thread.

Listening to this now. I need to go back and listen to some of the archived original shows too.

Do yall ever look at his art? Got a new series, The Asia Series. A little busy w the details, but not too bad---this is still a favorite, w Dylany combo of mundane street view x dramatic veering perspective, incl the looming skycraperette:
https://www.castlefineart.com/assets/img/resized/standard/late-in-the-day-houston-street.jpg
If that address is blocked, it's also here: https://www.castlefineart.com/art/bob-dylan/late-in-the-day-houston-street

Also, Donut Shop:

https://www.castlefineart.com/assets/img/resized/standard/bdy20donut20shop-std-cmyk-hr-rgb-hr-rgb-lr.jpg

https://www.castlefineart.com/art/bob-dylan/donut-shop

huh yeah the perspective/angles are kinda wild

i like it

Oh, the Asia Series has a trailer!

https://www.castlefineart.com/blog/bob-dylan-the-asia-series-2021?cid=nl508404&utm_medium=email_SFMC&utm_source=6383315&utm_campaign=email-508404-202124&utm_content=nllink-17925821-type-merch_artist-bob+dylan_service-castlefineart_genre-rock

i like the paintings!

OMG!! That's our neighborhood donut shop(!)

https://onthegrid.city/imager/s3_amazonaws_com/onthegrid.city/assets/grid/los-angeles/burbank/doughnut-hut/burbank-donut-hut-01_299006722e285f47655d17d1c9136337.jpg

lol, those paintings remind me of the amateur stuff for sale in our local coffee shop.

Wasn't Dylan accused of ... painting plagiarism? Yes.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/28/bob-dylan-paintings

A different Dylan art thing showed up on my FB wall today.

https://www.dylan.halcyongallery.com/artwork-editions

"I think I'd like to buy those six Mondo Scripto graphics," I thought, but I think my ceiling price-wise is probably a tad low.

Wasn't Dylan accused of ... painting plagiarism? Yes.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/28/bob-dylan-paintings

LOL, that's like the interview you linked to re: Together Through Life

That's just how operates as an artist, but he's been getting so lazy with that approach that he's frequently Xeroxing his sources nowadays. It's pretty astounding, especially in light of Norm MacDonald's story where Dylan warned him about being a "stenographer" instead of an actual writer. http://www.bdcwire.com/heres-the-really-weird-story-norm-macdonald-told-about-bob-dylan-last-night/

^that story is... amazing (if a bit of a tease)!

That's an amazing story. Reminds me of the bit in The Last Samurai (Helen DeWitt book, not Tom Cruise movie) when she gives her son a magazine article, a Liberace tape and a copy of a Lord Leighton painting and is like, "When you understand what is wrong with these things, then you will be ready to know who your father is."

lol, those paintings remind me of the amateur stuff for sale in our local coffee shop. Well yeah, but as David Letterman said, "Tony Bennett paints pretty good! For Tony Bennet." If you don't mind that, it can be cool, and the ones I picked are cream of the coffee shop, I think. (Also dig his album cover for Music From Big Pink, wish he'd done more like that.)

Oh, I would totally love to have some Dylan bootleg kitsch hanging on the wall. I mean, it's not the final product that makes it interesting, it's the guy that done it.

I like his cover for Self Portrait, but mainly for the concept. It's not a great painting but I have to give it some credit - if it were, say, the painting used for Another Self Portrait (had he painted it decades earlier), it wouldn't have worked as well.

Yeah, look at S P again after hearing it, and he's telling you what's inside, attitude-wise, although visual still better on the eyes than most of music on ears. A N P cover kinda goes w the better music, which is also better than the new cover, reversing orig experience.
We could do our own Dylan bootleg kitsch hanging on the wall maybe. It would be a way to learn about painting and drawing, if we didn't already know, as I don't, though for me it might be too late. I've got a friend who has done some knock-offs for his own amusement, though he was already a pro---could def handle xp Cartier-Bresson.
I'd like to try one of these motel pix:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/26/art-fraud-margaret-walter-keane-tim-burton-biopic

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/bob-dylan-favourite-songs-to-dance-to-ramones-buck-owens/
From the Ramones to Buck Owens: Bob Dylan's 18 favourite songs to dance to
Cool, but think I'd take out the overworked Martha & The Vs (who wants to dance in the *streets* awready), and add Gram P. & Emmylou's take on Tom T.'s "I Can't Dance":https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gWkMzWsYWU

lol that all 18 songs have "dance" in the title

That's how he knew. Damn, still wantin those pix, esp. Katz's!

It looks like a Dylan song.

lol that all 18 songs have "dance" in the title

He probably just did a song title search for "dance" in his music collection and picked some he liked when asked.

dow otm

octobeard too

the bunker hill track is so good, truly unhinged

Theme Time Radio Hour is so good; I ignored it when it came out but I've been listening this year and it's really astonishing how much work he put into the details of it: every song has an intro that's surprising, informative, often very funny, and perfectly delivered.

i liked it a lot when it was on, i should revisit it, probably a great quarantine listen. the intros and stories are all great and his vibe & delivery are perfect for that format. (although maybe i'm cynical but i always assumed that a team was programming the shows and writing it and he just showed up to record the breaks - i just have too hard a time imagining that he actually has heard & remembers "dance the slurp" or the dirtbombs or whatever, staying up late sweating over needing to find four more "Tree" songs or whatever.)

He probably just did a song title search for "dance" in his music collection and picked some he liked when asked.

Suggests he's never danced to a song in his life.

I bet he has

Just none of the ones on this list.

Bob busts out some sweet dance moves at the end of this (amazing) video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nheBN2UWAaM

lol xp a youtube search for "bob dylan dancing" produces a handful of videos that really stretch the definition - mostly clips of him bending his knees slightly while playing guitar

as a 'song & dance man' his focus over the years has been a little lopsided imo

xp Yeah, I think there was a team researching it and probably writing a lot of it, but it has a very consistent voice, it sounds like him, and it seems to genuinely reflect his interests in music and history, so I think he must have had a pretty big role in putting it all together. My guess is it's a bit like the Daily Show was back in the Jon Stewart days - not at all a solo effort, but very clearly bearing the creative imprint of the person in charge.

yeah i mean people are acting like this is a too obvious, focus group Obama "songs of the summer" playlist or something, it's pretty weird and seems very "bob" to me

he's probably danced more than many of us, just because of when he was born, just from my mom being a rural minnesotan just a bit younger than dylan. they went to dances all the time. it was just what you did. also people used to know how to couple dance.

xp That is an amazing video! How have I never seen that before?

My guess is that when Bob Dylan is around people he knows and trusts, he does a lot of normal-person stuff including dancing.

There's one show with the theme "classic rock" where he starts by saying he's gotten a lot of requests for this theme, so here you go. And then he plays an hour's worth of songs about rocks. That's the kind of goofy trolling that could only come direct from the man himself.

I'm not putting down his dance list (other than "Dancing In The Streets," which, aside from the unappealing title conceit, never *sounded* like anything I wanted to dance to, no matter who did it)! Songs about rocks looks great, incl his comments:
https://www.themetimeradio.com/episode-55-classic-rock/
(Would maybe add "I am a Rock" and "Boulder to Birmingham")

Is that video footage from Hearts of Fire or filmed specifically for the video?

I'm imagining it's from an 80s sitcom starring Bob - just needs a dog puppet at the end saying, "get a load of this guy."

The "Tight Connection" video? It's its own thing — directed by Paul Schrader!

No, it's from The Never Ending Tour, staring Bob Dylan as himself, Rita Moreno, Rick Schroeder (S1 only), and the voice of Redd Foxx as Scoop the Dog.

He actually did guest on Dharma & Greg.

(Couple more good rock songs: "Love Me Like A Rock," "Big Rock Candy Mountain." And smell what The Rock is cookin'.)

He actually did guest on Dharma & Greg.

lol, i forgot about this.

Reminds that somehow I came across this the other day?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DkP4G1LzNI

Veeps will present Bob Dylan in an exclusive broadcast performance, Shadow Kingdom, which will showcase the artist in an intimate setting as he presents renditions of songs from his extensive body of work created especially for this event.
Tickets are on sale now for his show on Sunday, July 18 at BobDylan.veeps.com.

an intimate setting

"Purchase your tickets for this virtual performance below. “Shadow Kingdom” will remain available to view until 11:59PM PT on July 20, 2021."

I wonder if we can buy tickets AFTER the show and watch it in that two-day window, i.e. wait for fans to say whether it was a good or less-than-good show.

if i know anything about bob dylan fans, there is *not* going to be a consensus on that

Hah, good point!

My favorite take from someone I know who attended Bob Dylan shows throughout his life: "I've seen him a dozen times. One of them was one of the greatest shows I've EVER seen...and for the rest of them, he was fucking terrible."

lol the first time I saw him (around 2010) I thought he was incredible. I talked to someone else later who was at the same show; they were amazed I enjoyed it, they thought his voice was awful lol

Second time in 2014 I had a closer seat and it was just so overwhelming and awesome that I barely remember individual moments. Totally sober at the time!

One of the few shows I've ever seen that put me to sleep, back when he had two fiddle players. At least I got to see Merle Haggard open up. Other times I've seen him he was absolutely great. After the time I fell asleep I kind of swore him off, but I know someone that saw him the last time he came through town and said it was pretty solid, especially when he did the crooner stuff.

The best shows I've seen him do were the two that happened in the last few years, the first one opening for Mavis Staples (who was great). I think I know why - in both cases, he played the same exact setlist for the entire leg of the tour, so by the time I saw him, it was like a smooth, running machine where there was no guesswork. (And even two years apart, both shows I saw still had a LOT of overlap in the setlist, maybe 3/4.) Worst show was unfortunately the one time I was close-up, like in the GA section and close to the edge of the stage. The excitement of being that close really wears off when he's not only messing up the words but doing it so bad that someone in the band reacts in horror.

FWIW, once I became very familiar with Charley Patton, it kind of struck me that Dylan's approach to performing comes from him, especially since Dylan has name-checked him quite a few times in the few interviews he's given in his later years. Read Robert Palmer's classic Deep Blues where he discusses how one of Patton's own peers complained that they couldn't understand Patton - once you make that connection, a lot of the same elements apply, where singing becomes more about rhythmic vocalizing rather than enunciating words. On the one hand, that sounds odd when it's artist who made his name with songwriting, especially the lyrics, but it also makes perfect sense given his connection (especially the musical elements of his songs) to traditional folk music, which also encompasses deep Mississippi blues (and many other things, to be fair).

Also, it looks like my second paragraph may conflict with the anecdote about the worst show I ever saw, but even when Dylan's enunciation isn't crystal clear, it's not the same as forgetting the words altogether. In that show I mentioned, he got clearly forgot an entire line when he got ready to sing, drew a blank, and then very late in that space where the line should be, he dropped a random glob of gibberish like it was a piece of food falling out of his mouth. That ain't Patton.

*he clearly forgot

On the one hand, that sounds odd when it's artist who made his name with songwriting, especially the lyrics, but it also makes perfect sense

Not odd at all, imo. Dylan's lyrics have always prized rhythm and sound over meaning or the words themselves.

The first time I saw him was on a late 70s tour that started (in Japan?) with pix of him in makeup, careful coiff, white scarf,Neil Diamond-Elivs-type glittery outfit, and stage patter: "We;;, as my friend Jerry Garcia says, I must be getting down the road." in Birmingham, his recombinat orchestra swarmed the stage, and then he came out kind of hunched over, blinking, hair flattened on one side, in what looked like a wrinkled Cisco Kind outfit (little black jacket and matching pants, w white fringe and brocade around the inset jewelry, also dirty white tennis shoes (in the 80s, I had a table at a record show across from a dealer who kept showiing excerpts from that whole tour, always with the same outfit clearly visible, unless he had 20 of 'em).
All the performers were standing in small groups, and he would beckon over either a whole subset, maybe put two or more of those together, or some from combo A, some from B, maybe order off-menu from the wings as well, like a guy whom he introduced as having played sax on some famous record of the early 60s or 50s, new providing flute for a verra nice trio "Blowin' In The Wind." Then a pre-speed metal big band "Masters of War." The female black gospel-style group sang all of "Rainy Day Women." I don't remember his own voice that well, but wotta showman.

Sscond time I saw him was in the early 90s, also in North Alabama, this time at Oak Mountain (now or more recently Verizon) Ampitheater. Smaller group, very hot, the Never-Ending Tour band of that era, natch. Vocals were mostly low-key, okay, main thing with him was excellent guitar, rocking out and fingerpicking the acoustica. "Watchtower" was diabolical, galloping up and then by, fading out, then coming back, the Roadrunner bee-beep, screwing with Wile E. Coyote and the folks in the Tower and the Ampitheater too. Eventually the middle of something else swallowed it along the way to "Highway 61," with steel (and maybe slide) guitar as very extended siren call.

"Well, as my friend Jerry" etc that should be

There's some kind of new doc out today: https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/bobdylanoddsandends

Has anyone watched the Shadow Kingdom thing? Just learned that Buck Meek of Big Thief was in his band, which is cool.

(apparently the answer to birdistheword’s question below is “yes”; it’s still available to watch for 2 days. I can see a live performance being handled that way, but a concert film? if I pay $25 to watch something on a computer screen, I’d like at least to “own” it and be able to rewatch it at my leisure…)

I wonder if we can buy tickets AFTER the show and watch it in that two-day window, i.e. wait for fans to say whether it was a good or less-than-good show.

Nice to see "What Was It You Wanted?" on the Shadow Kingdom setlist.

watched it, really really great. he's singing so we'll, band was fantastic. definitely odd almost twin peaks staging, really worked well overall

Yeah, I could have sworn I saw someone post that this band and some of their versions are better than any previous versions, period. Did I hear that Dylan played some guitar again, or did I misread?

He did a bit, sometimes played but sometimes just hanging around his neck, mostly just singing without guitar

His voice is really good, the version of "Forever Young" was really something

I guess not touring for the last year or so has helped Dylan's voice

It was really good, Dylan was in great voice and the band, arrangements, and song selections were all great. It was a little short, but the show's subtitle "the Early Songs of Bob Dylan" has me hoping there will be another installment

his vocals have actually been in great shape the past couple years — seems like those sinatra records gave him a new approach that was less growl / bark.

Thought Shadow Kingdom was great, totally unique arrangements ... maybe the settings were occasionally a little cornball, but it was fun nonetheless. Some mystery about what exactly was going on — the band (at least the electric guitarist) was definitely miming, he didn't match up with what was being played. Not sure if they were all playing along to pre-recorded tracks or if there were overdubs etc.

I can't find the tweet now, but I saw someone mentioning that there was one song where Bob fumbled the lyrics a little at the start (and it was left in), but that it appeared to be dubbed in vocals later on in the same song. I haven't watched this yet (probably won't tbh, given all that I have to do in the next few days).

yes definitely noticed that, esp the guitarist on acoustic was doing stuff that wasn't in the track

I appreciate this approach

In his new WTF interview, Rick Rubin tells a story where Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Tom Petty are writing a Traveling Wilburys' song together. Harrison leaves for a minute, and Dylan leans over to Petty and whispers, completely seriously, "You know, he was in the Beatles."

— Luke Epplin (@LukeEpplin) July 19, 2021

^That belongs in the "great Dylan stories" thread

My dad hooked me up with his username/pw for the Shadow Kingdom stream... I agree with the above posts, both Dylan and his band sound great!

Hey look it's TylerW in the post Shadow Kingdom livestream!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxL7xKQ7VyM

One of the two EPs is named "Max Ice"... I'm gonna assume that's a Dylan pseudonym (like "Jack Frost").