Posted on 02/24/2015 11:11:53 AM PST by nikos1121
Dylan was (still is) the Yip Harburg of the 1960s, just as Paul Simon was (still is) the Hoagy Carmichael. To compare either Dylan or Simon to the above 1930s quartet--or sestet, if you were to include Gershwin, Kern, and Ellington, which you would have to, to complete the story--is to compare apples to oranges.
There are essentially two strains of American popular music of any intelligence: the music that glorifies American ideals, and the music that critically analyzes America in relation to its ideals. People like Berlin, Porter, Gershwin, and Ellington did the former--even Ellington's Black, Brown, and Beige ends on a literal and figurative high note. People like Harburg, Carmichael, Dylan, and Simon did the latter.
(With one exception, and that is how Carmichael slid into the role of patriotic tunester in WWII, which wasn't too difficult for him because he was a Republican who questioned FDR's policies, but who united as everyone else did after Pearl Harbor. It almost makes you wish Al Gore had been President on 9/11, because the Democrats would have supported his going to war, and the Republicans would have supported the country. Almost, because that's assuming he would have gone to war against the enemy the way FDR did.)
Just think how great Dylan’s songs would be if someone would put them to music, and them someone else would sing them!
One of my regrets is that not one of the tracks from that album ever really caught on in the Christian world. "When He Returns" was covered by John Lee Sanders a few years back, but it should be a standard solo piece in worship, just as "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking" and "Gotta Serve Somebody" should have been covered by at least a dozen Christian groups in a dozen different formats and styles by now. Maybe a new generation will rediscover it, the way Mendelssohn rediscovered Bach or the Coen bothers rediscovered bluegrass gospel.
Dylan wrote some of my all time favorite songs...
Like a Rolling Stone
My Back Pages (Byrds)
Make You Feel My Love (Trisha Yearwood) - THE greatest love song ever.
All Along the Watchtower (Jimi)
As an aside, I have a CDR burned direct from the master studio tapes. A very special gift from a friend who has remastered many classic albums. H61 master tapes has surprisingly good sonic quality - Bob’s voice sounds quite good.
The greatest songwriter/poet/oracle of his time...and many other times as well.
Perhaps prophet, too.
Not a fan, eh?
I agree....those that criticize his vocals are missing the point....he was an original...a poet.It was up to others to make his songs “beautiful”, like PP&M, Joan Baez, etc., etc.,
The Times They Are A’changin’ is like prophecy,...
And if his vocals were so abominable, why did he sell millions of records? People who criticize them would be happier with Donny and Marie.
When He Returns
The iron hand it ain’t no match for the iron rod
The strongest wall will crumble and fall to a mighty God
For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears
It is only He who can reduce me to tears
Don’t you cry and don’t you die and don’t you burn
For like a thief in the night, He’ll replace wrong with right
When He returns
Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through
He unleashed His power at an unknown hour that no one knew
How long can I listen to the lies of prejudice?
How long can I stay drunk on fear out in the wilderness?
Can I cast it aside, all this loyalty and this pride?
Will I ever learn that there’ll be no peace, that the war won’t cease
Until He returns?
Surrender your crown on this blood-stained ground, take off your mask
He sees your deeds, He knows your needs even before you ask
How long can you falsify and deny what is real?
How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?
Of every earthly plan that be known to man, He is unconcerned
He’s got plans of His own to set up His throne
When He returns
Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music
I call my aged mom every morning. My B-I-L lives upstairs and comes down every morning to grind up all her pills and mix them into her applesauce.
So, she says to me:
Mom: “Donnie’s in the Kitchen mixing up my medicine.”
to which I replied:
“And I’m on the Internet, FReepin’ ‘bout the Government!”
She GOT it! hahahahaha!
mom is cool.
And he didn't care much for production techniques. He was known as One-take Zimmy by some of his musician friends for his refusal to do more than one take on his recorded songs.
So while Dylan put out a lot of good songs, he put out a lot of crap as well. Poorly sung, indifferently played crap. Even in concert on his best songs he breezed through many of them in a haphazard, musical way.
I don't know if many people remember in 1976 NBC put on a live Dylan primetime special called "Hard Rain." It was awful. Again Dylan just sped through his songs as if merely playing by the numbers made a good concert. Dylan simply didn't care what people (or his audience) thought about the way he did things. Probably still doesn't.
Rumor has it that he's working on an album of covers by Robert Smith, who many here might know as song writer and lead singer for the British goth band "The Cure."
I'm looking very much forward to that.
*bubblegum statement attributed to another music genius, Leonard Cohen........
Have the CD in my car. I must tell you, Folks...this is a hard hard listen. Dylan is no Frank Sinatra...I don’t think he claims to be. It’s basically your Leonard Cohen style, “more for Dylan personally than the listener.”
I honestly don’t know if I can keep listening to it, because it makes me want to actually pull out the originals by Frank.
The sheer magic and brilliance of Dylan’s work has always been from the interpretation of others...many others from Peter, Paul and Mary to JOan Baez, Ian & Sylvia Jimi Hendrix and countless many others. I think the fun is watching his early performances, not his recordings...
I agree, but you look at the way other artists have interpreted his work, and it’s right up there with the great songwriters of the 20th Century. The music itself is different, but Dylan transcends it all.
I think his work has been performed by more artists than anyone else, so in my book, he’s the best.
Hey, I was a big Dylan fan at the time. Sorry, but after the sixties, most of his stuff was tripe. Certain songs he could sing very effectively. But a lot of what he did fell far short of “magic and brilliance.”
Or Justin Beeeeeeeber. Oh, what an age of mediocrity we live in today.
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