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.

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.

Like the Trembling Heart of a Captive Bird?

In case you needed more proof that computers should not be running our lives, check out this article, in which it is revealed that the saddest song of all time – as deftly calculated by clever computer algorithms – is Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I saw Your Face.

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.

Like An Overheard Remark

Have a listen to the hauntingly beautiful bit of melancholia called In The Falling Dark, by Bruce Cockburn.

There’s not much else to say, is there?

Scared To Run Out Of Time

Have a listen to Bonnie Raitt’s Nick Of Time.

Now that’s a Grammy performance.

Who’s That Again?

Interesting memory test in Rollling Stone’s 10 Singer-Songwriter Albums … You’ve Never Heard.  Forgive me if I abbreviate the ridiculously long title.

Anyway, the 70’s was the heyday of the singer-songwriter, and I remember a lot of it - some good, some angst-ridden cheddar.  But I guess I didn’t notice it all.

I remember Hoyt Axton because I remember Three Dog Night.  I remember Thank You For Being A Friend, but not Andrew Gold.  I remember Tony Joe White because Polk Salad Annie was a fun tune.  Jesse Winchester?  Vaguely remember the name is all.

Elliott Murphy?  Steven Grossman?  Wendy Waldman?  Randall Bramblett?  David Forman?  Rory Block?  I gotta believe my FM station played all these artists, because they were pretty diverse.  But sorry, don’t recall them.   Goes to show our memories make us all smaller over time.

Thanks for the homework, RS.

No One Here Gets Out Alive

In each of the six decades since the birth of rock and roll, you can find some magic, and you can shake your head and wonder how anybody could listen to such rubbish. 

But for me, the 70’s is the big enigma.  Some of the best rock, much of it indelibly stamped into the concrete of our collective consciousness, was made in that decade.  And I couldn’t do without it.  But it was a confusing decade, one with little or no direction, a time of extremes and excesses.

Hard rock, prog rock, power pop, funk, metal, disco, jazz fusion, punk, folk-rock, singer-songwriter … and the leisure suits.  Brother.

The 70’s were not kind to a lot of 60’s icons.  The Stones, Clapton, and The Who, for example, all had their moments, but really they drifted through with mixed results.  Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd triumphantly pushed through, and then collapsed at the finish line.  Deep Purple didn’t make it.  The Beatles and Hendrix didn’t even get out of the starting block.

The energy that began as punk and coalesced into New Wave was certainly welcome.  It brought some much-needed focus to all that aimless thrashing about.  To borrow from Rossini’s invective against Wagner, the 70’s had wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour.

Zombie Apocalypse Music

Of all the musical genres out there, the one that scares me the most is the one they call singer-songwriter.  Some earnest cat with a guitar telling you about his sad luck, or complaining about what’s wrong with the world.  Downer stuff, man.  Run away and hide.  We’re all doomed.

Wait a minute!  Wikipedia says singer-songwriter just means musicians who write, compose and perform their own music – in the finest folk tradition.  Leadbellly, Woody, Dylan – guys like that.  That’s cool, right?

And anyway, Buzz, don’t you adore James Taylor and Cat Stevens, and didn’t you enjoy and respect some of those hippy-era guys like Tim Hardin and Bruce Cockburn?

And by the way, Buzz, what the heck do you think most of your music should be called?

OK!  Fine!  Then why do I associate the genre with the likes of Harry Chapin and Jim Croce and Dan Hill, guys whose songs – with all due respect – make me lose my will to live?

Maybe it was that bad voodoo going on in the early seventies, the force that codified, stereotyped and exaggerated everything, the thing that pushed metal into silliness and prog rock into pointlessness and soul into disco and goofy hair.  Maybe it’s just that little bit of singer-songwriter that turns me off.

Anyway, it ought to be the most respected genre, ‘cause it’s got to be the oldest.  Troubadours, bards, poets, Homer and all that.

By the way, I’d respectfully suggest the Wikipedia entry needs a major overhaul.  Maybe Frank Zappa did write, compose and play his own songs, but come on!  Is singer-songwriter really the genre that pops to mind when you hear his name?

Then again, as David Knopfler’s thoughtful article points out, it’s a genre that has defied categorization.