I picked up the new Bob Dylan CD a couple of days ago. Good stuff.
I have my concerns, though. Mikal Gilmore, in a recent Rolling Stone interview gave Dylan opportunity after opportunity to confess his sins, ignore economic reality and let Obama into his heart.
Seriously.... Was Gilmore really expecting the author of this musical gem to continue endorsing our Warlord-In-Chief ???
Here are some of the boys from Pearl Jam doing Dylan's "Masters Of War".
I don't care which side of the Wall Street protest divide you're on, this is funny.
It's from the geniuses at Reason magazine.
Come gather round people
come and join your hands
we're taking Wall Street
and we're making demands
and we're heeding the call
and we're crying for help
only 1% of us have wealth
but first we need posters
we need to make signs
but to do so it seems
that we need some supplies
We need poster board
I can't make it myself
but it's 10 cents a sheet
at the store it's on sale
an example of economies of scale
it's so evil
They're saying that freedom
has done little to stop
Corporations from keeping
the wealth at the top
But at what point in history
would a kid and a king
both have clean water to drink?
George Washington was
the richest man of his age
But he lost all his teeth
at a very young age
Because they didn't have Scope
and they all crapped in trays
we're not wealthy?
now there's fountains on streets
from which clean water pours
Four dollar generics
at all big box stores
a sultan and student
both have iPhone 4s
it's not fair
Come gather young people
come on everyone
and I'll tell you a tale
of a fortunate son
He's born in a country
and given vaccine
and rendered immune
to all kinds of disease
the Kardashians are on
all his TVs
it's not perfect
Banks don't need bailouts
on that we agree
so let's start up a group
and let's take to the streets
because if we do that then
you know what that means
we're racist.
"Acoustic Song Circle" at The Corporate Image, this Sunday at 2:00. 5418 Brentwood Stair Road in Fort Worth. Bring your guitar and 3 chords, or just show up and listen and drink a few. It's a fun time!
(The gent who is 2nd from the right in the gray T-shirt is our infamous Dr. Ralph. Dr. Ralph can play his Democrat rear end off, BTW.)
Here's how it works. Somebody starts a song. The people who know the song play along with whoever is taking the lead on it. The people who DON'T know the song play along with whoever is taking the lead on it. Sometimes harmonicas are brought into the equation. No fake British accents are allowed.
Other people take turns soloing over the chords every now and then.
This is me, trying really hard to remember the lyrics to something.
We're doing this every Sunday afternoon until football blows up the Sunday afternoon time slot. Hope you can make it this weekend !!
First of all, Happy 70th Birthday, Bob Dylan !
The world is a better place with you in it.
Second, there are billions of people out there who just can't "get" Dylan's music.
I used to be one of them.
I couldn't get past all the strange vocal mannerisms. The swoops at the end of each line and his kazoo voice (which I think can produce the root and the 3rd of a chord simultaneously) were too off-putting for this boy who grew up singing in Southern Baptist choirs.
But Dylan was always there in the background, lurking in the pages of my Rolling Stone subscription that my grandmother got me every year. Every now and then Dylan's songs would get played on WHBQ in Memphis, or a little more often on Rock 103 out of Jackson. Sometimes I changed the station, sometimes I didn't. I figured Dylan was just a "you had to be there to appreciate it" 1960's thing.
Dylan became a Christian in the late 70's, and his "Slow Train Coming" album could've been the gateway drug to a proper appreciation of The Great Bob and all his works. I thought "Serve Somebody", "Slow Train", and "When You Gonna Wake Up" were pretty good songs, mostly because they fit well with the near-fanatical sense of evangelical purpose I felt at the time.
But "When He Returns" was nothing to me but a series of croaks and groans. Why on earth would anybody sing that way? I mean, you could listen to him on "The Freewheeling Bob Dylan" and hear that the man really could hold a pitch for several seconds. Why did he do that Minnesota Mud Throat thing, and why did so many people like it?
I just didn't get it.
And then it happened. Trisha Yearwood covered Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" on the "Hope Floats" soundtrack. It was a beautiful song, and I had no idea that Dylan wrote it.
Later on in the same movie, Ol' Garth did the same song.
I liked the movie; I loved the soundtrack.
Years passed by. Dylan kept writing songs. I kept ignoring them.
Then an employee of mine asked me to sing "To Make You Feel My Love" at her wedding. When I was downloading the guitar tab, I saw that the song was written by...Bob Dylan.
I found his original version, and it clicked. I loved it.
I got it.
(Is there any other performer out there who can inspire "conversion stories"?)
In my opinion, the vocal swoops and falls are more than just a weird mannerism. Listen to any of the dozens and dozens of covers of Dylan songs on the internet, and you'll hear people taking his melodies in radically different directions. That's because different people hear different pitches inside those weird-assed roller coaster vocal things he does. Bob Dylan hits every note in the scale when travelling from the first to the last syllable of a word. If you want to sing a Dylan song, you can take your pick of pitches and melodies.
Somewhere in there, your version fits his.
Rolling Stone magazine has published a list of the 70 Greatest Bob Songs.
If you're not yet a Dylan fan, but feel like you're missing something, select one of those tunes. Pick one that has lots of YouTube pickers who cover it. Listen to his fans do the songs. Keep it in your head for a few days. Sing it to yourself.
Then listen to his original. It'll be like finding a King James Bible after making do with nothing but a copy of Good News For Modern Man.
If that doesn't work, at least you'll know that you have an open mind and that you gave it a shot.
Here's one for all my friends in Memphis and the Mississippi Delta. "High Water Everywhere (for Charley Patton)".
I get it now. I get it. Beautiful, beautiful stuff.
Hope you learn to like it.
