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Dylan notes

Don’t ever suppose that Bob Dylan wrote or recorded inferior music in the era immediately after the famed mid-60s explosion.

What Dylan wrote in the late 60s and early 70s was more country than rock, more Southern than Yankee, and more happiness or regret than strife or rebellion; for these and other reasons it alienated many in the New York crowd. But it was still excellent songwriting. Both Nashville Skyline and New Morning are very fine albums. That they supply the bookends to Dylan’s season of artistic indifference to anti-Vietnam agitation, social radicalism, and personal narcissism, only demonstrates conclusively that, contrary to representations, his 60s diehards do not believe in “art for art’s sake,” that in other words they cannot separate their principles of life from their estimate of art. This is no strike, mind you, against the 60s diehards. We traditionalists have long insisted that “art for art’s sake” detachment is not possible; that what Richard Weaver called a man’s “metaphysical dreams” have constant and discernible impact on everything he does, including his art. Pure aesthetic detachment is not a power that we mortal men possess.

Were the 60s diehards to just abandon their mandarin pretense that they alone, cast as they are among the proles of America, can attain sufficient artistic detachment to profoundly grasp Bob Dylan, we could get down to the business of proving their politico-artistic judgment of his late 60s/early70s production wrong.

Have you ever given “If Not for You” a careful listen? That dates from 1970. Wikipedia, in an unusual burst of dry elegance, describes it as a “sentimental love song” of “modest ambitions.” Well after all, what is wrong with that? This is the character of a great many outstanding blues, pop, country, rock, or R&B songs. From simplicity and earnestness the best of these songs derive their charm.

Try out “I Threw It All Away.” Below a live version, introduced by Johnny Cash, but the newly-released recording is better. Take a listen. That song came out in 1969. It’s flatly penitential.

What is the particular character of these Bob Dylan tunes? Why, they are wholesome, traditional, rhythmic, modest, repentant. As a contrast, the very antithesis of that era.

Here then is Dylan’s surest send-off to 60s radicalism. Not what he did, but what he declined to do.

In the latter song, at the height of the 60s triumph, he sang, “I must have been mad, I never knew what I had, until I threw it all away” and “one thing for certain, you will surely be a-hurting, if you throw it all away.”

This song of modest ambitions, it turns out, is adjudged nearly among the top 50 of Dylan’s whole prodigious career — by Rolling Stone magazine, no less — which means that the radicals of the 60s can be taught. Experience is school sufficient even for this unruly tribe of mankind.

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In related news, readers alert to the bewildering enthusiasms of social media will have noted a surprise entrant to the field. In a small masterpiece of video production, Bob Dylan has introduced a new generation to his most famous song:

http://video.bobdylan.com/desktop.html

The subtleties here belie more artistry and brilliance than most laymen will be privy to — frequent integration of video pantomiming and lyrical punctuation, careful adjustments in the style of editing, excellent choreography, ironical transitions, and suchlike.

A writer at Forbes fittingly praises Dylan’s astute business sense. King Bob Capitalistically. Meanwhile, Sean Curnyn, formerly of Right Wing Bob fame, stands austere and curmudgeonly against it.

“Like a Rolling Stone” is occasionally mentioned as The Greatest Song of All Time. I hardly suspect it is even the greatest Bob Dylan song of all time. Its languid rhythm, infectious hooks, and legendary refrains give solidity to some lines that are many of them duds. I’m too young to have much connection with the real tempest of the “going electric” era; and too historical to think the defiance that marked Dylan’s decision to cut loose at a folk concert with a blues band, was any less marked than the defiance that marked his decision to cut loose with apocalyptic Christian hard rock in the late 1970s.

Well, nearly a half-century later, we finally have a video worthy of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Play around with it. It's interactive. Lots of fun.

Comments (15)

Ok, Paul, I'll take a shot at this.

Dylan is obviously a superior poet and a good composer of songs. As for a singer, well he does his own stuff OK, but it is hard to say that he is more than just OK in terms of standard technical ability. Actually, aside from having an amazing capability of making it look like he is singing while stoned even when he is not actually stoned, he might never have managed to get his singing over the hump into stardom. I think that blitzed look makes all the difference to carrying over the undertones of his poetry - which is probably why nobody else can really sing his stuff properly. Only Dylan can sing Dylan. I don't believe I have ever seen anyone else even remotely succeed with his songs.

"I don't believe I have ever seen anyone else even remotely succeed with his songs."

Wow -- that is a bold statement and will bring me out from hiding.

Great Dylan covers, probably better than the original:

- Hendrik, "All Along the Watchtower";

- The Byrds, "Mr. Tamborine Man";

- Johnny Cash, "Wanted Man";

- George Harrison, "If Not for You";

- Garth Brooks, "To Make You Feel My Love" (from Dylan's late career masterpiece "Time Out of Mind").

Add to that "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Don't think twice, it's all right." Peter, Paul and Mary

More Byrds: All I Really Want to Do, My Back Pages, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
Manfred Mann: The Mighty Quinn
The Band: Tears of Rage, I Shall Be Released
Rod Stewart: Tomorrow Is a Long Time
Bryan Ferry: A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

(And then there's Sebastian Cabot...)

The Grateful Dead covered more Dylan than almost anyone. One of the Deadheads among my colleagues gave me a Jerry Garcia Band cover of "Tangled Up in Blue" that is really quite impressive.

"Wagon Wheel" is back in circulation on its second time around as a cover.

"Knocking on Heaven's Door," Guns N' Roses.

"It Ain't Me Babe" by Johnny Cash and June Carter.

What this comes down to is that Tony is right when he writes, "it is hard to say that [Dylan] is more than just OK in terms of standard technical [singing] ability."

"it is hard to say that [Dylan] is more than just OK in terms of standard technical [singing] ability."

If one is discussing an artist as a mere popular entertainer, providing pleasant inoffensive background musak, there would be a strong case for this statement. However, Dylan, particularly since 1979, has been communicating hard-core Christian theology with a voice that commands those, with ears to hear, to listen and concentrate. I would strongly recommend his most recent studio album, complete with references to Our Lady among many lines dedicated to Our Lord, and would suggest the singing is all the more powerful for the fact that he has to struggle to do it.

"Knocking on Heaven's Door," Guns N' Roses


Huh? If anyone's a worse singer than Dylan it's Axl Rose!

Have you heard Dylan's original?

For DeGaulle, all I can offer is my agreement with these lines:

Dylan, particularly since 1979, has been communicating hard-core Christian theology with a voice that commands those, with ears to hear, to listen and concentrate. I would strongly recommend his most recent studio album, complete with references to Our Lady among many lines dedicated to Our Lord, and would suggest the singing is all the more powerful for the fact that he has to struggle to do it.

Sometimes Dylan has not exactly correlated "hard-core" with "orthodox," and so kind of lost me, but I think this summary stands, despite the troubadour's many eccentricities.

Great Dylan covers, probably better than the original: ***

- Garth Brooks, "To Make You Feel My Love" (from Dylan's late career masterpiece "Time Out of Mind").

Jeff, that's kind of my point. Brooks' version is vastly better sung, and makes the song a straight-up love song - with simply none of the tiny little niggles of question, irony, or whatever else it is (for which I don't even have the right words) that Dylan puts into it with that style all his own. If you are looking at the words and the score on their own without ever having heard of Dylan, then Brooks does a magnificent job with the song because he sings it the way it seems to be written. But half of Dylan's poetic talent is taking the words and the score and turning them into a bit more than that. Either that, or Dylan's style is actually detrimental to his art, which seems an odd thing to say.

Tony, I consider that Dylan's 'Make You Feel My Love' is audaciously intended to be heard as being narrated by Christ, while masquerading on another level as a more conventional type of love song. I find Dylan's unique delivery more convincing in this regard than other singers'. Have a listen with that in mind, if you can get a chance.

Tony,

I think this is a fair point you make:

"Brooks' version is vastly better sung, and makes the song a straight-up love song - with simply none of the tiny little niggles of question, irony, or whatever else it is (for which I don't even have the right words) that Dylan puts into it with that style all his own."

This is probably why my favorite all-time Dylan cover remains "All Along The Watchtower" -- Hendrix's voice, but mostly his guitar, has all the special intensity, passion, and drama that the song's lyrics seem to call for -- more so than Dylan's more languid version.

There are several other excellent "Watchtowers" as well -- in my younger days I loved the U2 and Dave Matthew Band versions.

"Have you heard Dylan's original?"

I've heard a couple Dylan versions -- don't know if any of them were the original. But my point is that Axl Rose's version is horrible. The man's a lousy singer: his badness is of an entirely different magnitude than Dylan's, in that he actually thinks he can sing.

No one mentioned it (probably because it need hardly be mentioned) but think of how many of the Band's great songs are, technically, Dylan songs. It's easy to forget about that.

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