Posted on 07/29/2006 8:18:50 AM PDT by Rocko
Unlike the global climate, which was always exactly the same for billions of years* until evil rich Americans started driving SUVs, people change with time, whether they want to or not.
*</global-warming sarcasm>
I agree. There was some filler on that album that could have been replaced with those gems.
According to one biography, he was having trouble writing at the time (songs don't come to him as easily as they used to), and he wanted to save them for future albums.
Yep. They contain some of his best work, but tend to be under appreciated by most fans.
But Dylan doesn't limit his contempt to the President. The long final track, "Ain't Talkin' Just Walkin'" which, with its ominous, portentous strings, is clearly intended as a major statement, sees a vengeful Dylan stalking "through the cities of the plague" to kill enemies who will "crush you with wealth and power". He doesn't name the neocons - just as he never directly named Vietnam - but he plainly despises them.
I hope this Brit writer is mistaken, because i would think Bob Dylan could see who the real enemies are in the world today.
.
This wouldn't be the first time the critics have read things into Dylan's songs that were not there.
bttt
Gee, aren't Osama Bin Laden and George Soros rich guys?
"natural causes"
other rumors: rock star deaths
I said, "Oh, kind miss, it most certainly does"
She says, "you must be jokin.'" I say, "I wish I was!"
Then she says, "you don't read women authors, do you?"
Least that's what I think I hear her say,
"Well", I say, "how would you know and what would it matter anyway?"
"Well", she says, "you just don't seem like you do!"
I said, "you're way wrong."
She says, "which ones have you read then?" I say, "I read Erica Jong!"
She goes away for a minute and I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street, but nobody's going anywhere
my favorite source for dylan:
http://www.bjorner.com/bob.htm
Post-70s Dylan often gets overlooked, but he recorded dozens of amazing tunes during that (continuing) era.
I think "Highlands" is a classic, up there with "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." It has one of the best endings to a Dylan song:
The sun is beginning to shine on me
But it's not like the sun that used to be
The party's over, and there's less and less to say
I got new eyes
Everything looks far away
Well, my heart's in the Highlands at the break of day
Over the hills and far away
There's a way to get there, and I'll figure it out somehow
But I'm already there in my mind
And that's good enough for now
Almost every verse in "Highlands" is quotable.
Another long Dylan song I quite like is "Brownsville Girl" (from Knocked Out Loaded).
Thanks for the link. I wasn't familiar with that one.
I lost my best friend the year (who I knew since I was 11) the week that TOOM came out. All of those songs hold a dark meaning for me. It was kind of ironic that this dylan album held such deep meaning for me, since he looked like Dylan from the cover of his first album.
I got my copy in the mail today and slapped it on my ipod. I have listened to it once. My question is: Why Alicia Keyes?
A bigger mystery: why Joan Baez?
PLAYBOY: Mistake or not, what made you decide to go the rock- 'n'-roll route?
DYLAN: Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13- year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a "before" in a Charles Atlas "before and after" ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy - he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say?
PLAYBOY: And that's how you became a rock-'n'-roll singer?
DYLAN: No, that's how I got tuberculosis.
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