Or Else Expecting Rain

 

Check out the lyrics for Dylan’s Desolation Row. 

 

How can one guy be this …  insightful, cutting, good, clever, empathic, cynical, hypnotic, intimate?

 

Thanks, Bob.  Wow!  Ouch!  Right on!  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

 

I think.

Don’t Think Twice

 

In the run up to Bob Dylan’s 80^th birthday, there have been dozens of articles offering praise, trivia and insights.  As a fan, of course I read them.

 

One of the more interesting tidbits I picked up was the notion that Dylan’s songs are paintings.  You don’t have to understand them.  You don’t even have to like them.  You only have to know whether they speak to you.

 

Speaking for myself, they do.  Yeah, they do.

No Time To Stay The Same

When I listen to Country Girl by CSNY, I can’t help but wonder how Neil Young next two or three solo albums would have sounded if he had recorded those songs with Crosby, Still and Nash.

You Stole My Heart

Whenever I hear the opening strains of Maggie May by Rod Stewart, I always think:  Oh no, not again.  I mean, it’s been, like twelve million times, right?  And I’ve always thought the lyrics were, I dunno, a bit lazy or something.

But then, by the time the guitar solo comes around, I think: Actually, this is a pretty good song.

Then when the mandolin kicks off the coda I realize all over again that I’ve been listening to a masterpiece.

There’s So Much You Have To Know

If Cat Stevens added a verse or two to Father and Son, and added the perspective of the grandfather, well  …  I’m old enough to also relate to that.

But I’m still pulling for the son.

It Happened Just The Other Day

I have been guilty of saying some unkind things about David Crosby, but I will say this: Almost Cut My Hair is one powerful tune.  Every single time I hear it, I stop what I’m doing and think: ‘Damn Right!’

I couldn’t even say what part of the lyrics grabs me ‘cause I’m not even sure I get them – but I’m not giving in an inch either if I can help it.

Long Time Gone

Since no one seems to be writing protest songs anymore, why don't we just have another listen to this?

Hello Old Friend, Goodbye Old Friend

More than anyone else, Tom Petty had the ability to repackage all the music I love and play it back as something brand new.

While unique and original, each song arrived like an old friend you had somehow forgotten about.  Simple yet profound, each song delivered a straight up truth:  this is me; this is us; this is rock and roll.

Tom Petty gave us 40 years of honesty, hope, joy and comfort.

Goodbye old friend.  And thank you.

Can This Really Be The End?

To be Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again.  By heavens, but Dylan wrote some damn fine songs.

Does Anybody Hear?

I know If A Tree Falls by Bruce Cockburn is a little intense, but it’s good.  Okay, it’s a lot intense, but it’s really good.

I Have My Freedom But I Don’t Have Much Time

Note to all you girls who drove me crazy in my final year of high school by playing Wild Horses on the cafeteria juke box every single day:  OK, you were right.  It’s a darn good song.

Getting Better

Part II of my rebuttal to Professor Armand Leroi’s preposterous assertion that The Beatles had virtually no influence on pop music.

Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, the Everlys - played by punks, punks who grew up listening to show tunes, folk songs, sing-alongs, music hall numbers, cowboy movies, and Granny’s weekly performance at the pub.

By the time they had emerged from Hamburg and those 6 hour sets, The Beatles had developed their own unique sound, a sound which incorporated that early rockabilly, 50’s R&B, and yes, their childhood influences.  They had become adept at absorbing other styles and transforming them into their own brand of rock and roll.

Then there was soul music, and the pixie dust of Motown, which had, in its own way, done the same thing.

Dylan, folk-rock, classical, Eastern, psychedelic, singer/songwriter, hard rock, each one studied, re-imagined and grafted on to that ever-expanding base.  Each new experiment set someone else off on another new idea, which looped right back to The Beatles for them to start all over again.  Getting so much better all the time.

There is no scientific way to explain the influence of The Beatles, because it magic.

You Can’t Do That

So, Armand Leroi, a professor at Imperial College London, has concluded that The Beatles had virtually no influence on pop music, having had computers analyze hits from 1960 through 2010.

To which I would say this:  At every step of their career, The Beatles absorbed the music around them, assimilating each style, giving it new life from the raw force of pure rock and roll. Each addition created new opportunities for other artists, which The Beatles then heard and absorbed in turn. And on and on it went.  That’s what you call music evolution.

Computer analysis is irrelevant.  The record shows that all the major artists over that half century have acknowledged the influence The Beatles had on them, and The Beatles freely and frequently acknowledged who they were listening to and learning from.

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Just Like The Time Before And The Time Before That

I got three things to say about Bob Dylan’s Hurricane:

1)    I don’t know much about Scarlet Rivera’s work other than what she did with Dylan, but she must have been a Beatles fan.  The violin solos are like Beatles backward guitar tracks from Revolver.

2)    Dylan's Nobel Prize is right there in this song.  The horror, the outrage, the compassion at the stupidity of ignorance and hate over love – summing up the human condition in one spellbinding song.

3)    Who says Dylan can't sing?

#1

My favourite song of all time is the last one I heard John Lennon sing.

Admit That The Waters Around You Have Grown

Well!   Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for literature, and I think that’s very cool.

Relax and Float Downstream

Here’s some Socratic reasoning:  Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles is an R&B tune because it has a hypnotic, driving beat.  It is also a folk song because it’s carried by simple strumming on an acoustic guitar.  But it’s pretty heavy, so you could argue it’s a rock song.  Or compromise and call it folk rock. 

Then again it’s very trippy, so really it’s psychedelic rock – or maybe even early prog rock, since it lifts from other genres and quotes strange modalities.

Or you could say it’s all of those things, which happens to nicely sum up The Beatles.  Now, if you can say a single song can represent the diverse canon of the best group of all time, then obviously that song is the best song of all time.

Sweet Dreams And Flying Machines

They may not all rock in a kick-ass kinda way, but the songs listed in Guitar Player’s Top 10 Acoustic Riffs of All Time nicely remind us that you don’t need a wall of Marshalls and a dozen stomp boxes to deliver 6-string joy.

The list is ostensibly about riffs, and every song listed has a signature riff indelibly stamped into our collective consciousness.  But the article actually focuses more on the tunes themselves, so you might question whether More Than A Feeling, or Hotel California, or Stairway To Heaven are acoustic or electric tunes – especially as compared to Fire And Rain, Angie or Tears In Heaven.

Then again, what’s to question?  They’re all awesome songs masterfully delivered.

Double The Pleasure

Now here’s a fresh list on an overdue subject:  Guitar World’s Top 30 12 String Guitar Songs of All Time brings some attention to an underappreciated instrument.

America, Dylan, The Hollies, The Byrds,  … the people/bands you quickly identify with 12 string are all there.  And some surprises too.  OK, maybe not surprises, but people/bands you wouldn’t immediately associate with the sound:  Hendrix, Queen, Bowie, The Who.  For me, anyway, the tendency is to associate the 12 string with folk, delta blues and country, so if you say 12 string guitar my mind gravitates to folk rock tunes.

And songs like Maggie May, As Tears Go By, Mr. Tambourine Man and Free Falling are all there.  As are classics like A Hard Days Night and Stairway to Heaven.  Um, OK, these aren’t folk rock, but you do expect to find them on the list.

But there are songs I would have forgotten about, like Closer To The Heart, More Than A Feeling or Wish You Were Here.

Anyway, whether electric or acoustic, the 12 string guitar produces such a beautiful rich sound.

I don’t own one though, as much as folk rock is pretty much home base for me.  I can barely keep my 6 strings in tune.

Forever Young

If he had never made another record after Nashville Skyline, Bob Dylan would still be regarded as one of the most important artists in the history of music.

But has Rolling Stone Readers Poll of Bob Dylan’s 10 Best Post-60’s Songs nicely proves, he had a lot more to say.  And if the list had been expanded to 40 songs, every one of ‘em would be a powerful tune.

Tangled Up In Blue, Hurricane, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door … every song on the list is a masterpiece.  And, unlike a lot of 60’s stars, he didn’t just drift into the 70’s and then peter out.  Time Out of Mind was one of the best albums of the 90’s and easily rivals Blood on the Tracks or Highway 61 Revisited (or Freewheelin’, if you prefer) for the title of Best Dylan Album Ever.

Five and a half decades into his monstrously large career, the man is still going.  I hope he never stops.