Pete wrote:
Songs like Isis, Brownsville Girl, and his IMHO grossly underappreciated masterpiece, Highlands.
I was at a crowded dive bar once in Savannah, Ga, and fed the jukebox $2 to play "Highlands" twice in a row -- or, for those unfamiliar with the song, 32 straight minutes of Dylan's excellence. As the first play ended and the second began, the bartender shut the song off. I was livid. Demanded my $1 back. After some arguing, the song was turned back on.
Haha, that's apretty funny story.
I should admit I was a hardcore Dylan hater until ~ 1997. Mostly because all I'd been exposed to i the stuff that got radio play, which is, IMHO, among the least enjoyable of his best work. Way too nasally voice, harsh, irritating harmonica.
My wife was a casual Bob Dylan fan at the time, and as a gift, I picked her up the recently issued Time out of Mind. Not sure why, but I gave it a few listens, and became absolutely hooked, to the point of a probably unhealthy obsession with his work. :-)
I started picking up more Dylan, then more, then more, where now I have pretty much all his official studio stuff, and a assortment of other work (Dylan andthe Dead, Basement Tapes and other stuff with the Band, etc....).
I will be the first to admit there is a decent chunk of his catalog that doesn't appeal to me, including several complete albums. But probably 20 of his albums and numerous other miscellaneous tunes are in frequent rotation on the ipod.
His lyrics just happen to tickle my brain in a certain way that I find addictive.
I don't have too much of a problem with his songwriting, and there are even a few songs that I think are outstanding. But I went to see him live one time in the 1980s, and it was hands down the worst rock and roll performance I've ever seen. The ONLY redeeming aspect was G.E. Smith was killing it on the lead guitar that night.
The last thing Bob Dylan said in his documentary "TURN IT UP", as thousands of fans were boo-ing him. Does not give a damn.
He went electric and purists hated that.
Rick wrote:He went electric and purists hated that.The funny thing here is that he always "was" electric. In his realy years in New York when most of his oeuvre was folk music, he played a lot of accoustic guitar. The folkies liked him and assumed he was "theirs" instead of his own man with his own tastes and interests that had always extended well beyond American folk. He has been a chameleon his whole career. That may be the more notorious example of moving away from his fans, who felt they owned him, but it was only one of many such examples.
Damn typos... "before his early years in New York..."
Point is he had played electric since he was a kid. Didn't happen to use it when he first built an audience in New York.
"The Basement Tapes" contains a lot of little-known but wonderful stuff. The unpolished nature of the work is a big part of its appeal.
As for the OP, "Blowing in the Wind" is pretty simple, but for its topicality and all, it may have been a breakthrough in its time. In any case, it sure was a lot more accessible than something like "Masters of War."
I don't think it's all that unusual for a performer's best-known work to be close to his worst. I mean, Roxy Music is one of the all-time great bands, but their "big hit" was "Love Is the Drug," which pretty much sucks.
I seriously doubt that slick.
I'm not one with no opinion on the topic.
Wrong. I bet you enjoy Leonard Cohen as well.
While I can't say for sure, I suspect that if slick, pretentious "intellectuals" and hipster-types didn't latch onto Dylan's music because of its "challenging" qualities, the majority of people wouldn't feel pressured to feel like they get it.
The above would be referred to as 'talking out of your ass'.
Blowin' In the Wind is simple, but also simply profound.
The Dylan genius is found in the images by which messages are delivered.
"The answer is blowin' in the wind." It's there for all of us to grasp or feel, but it's only a Dylan who can find the image to symbolize/express the point with such clarity.
He's a painter, but he paints with words, imagery, and music.
His live shows can be awkward and off putting, I'll grant you that.
He's also, literally, a fairly serious painter.
I've seen him live three times and all three shows were fantastic, but he is famous for his inconsistent live shows. He is either fantastic or awful, rarely just so so, and always backed by top notch players, both live and in studio
Dude, you forgot James McMurtry.
Bob Dylan music is for wannabe intellect types who are too lazy to read a book to act all snooty. Right alone the line of people who think watching obscure movie makes them real smart.
Dylan himself has said don't take me seriously. I have no idea what I am talking about.
"I wonder the same thing about the Greatful Dead"
Just laid back music for lazy hippies or wannabe hippies to get high. Really. They sucked so bad.
"Wrong. I bet you enjoy Leonard Cohen as well.
While I can't say for sure, I suspect that if slick, pretentious "intellectuals" and hipster-types didn't latch onto Dylan's music because of its "challenging" qualities, the majority of people wouldn't feel pressured to feel like they get it."
I actually love Waits and Cohen. I've listening to them once I realized how awful Springsteen was. Dylan. He is another story. Such a calculated poser who guards his "artist" image by acting all stupid. Even worst is Lou Reed. I fxxking hate that guy. Biggest phony of all.
Dylan has stolen works of real legitimate people for a long time. Google it.
Yes I did and...
Calvin Russell
Dave Van Ronk
Blind Willie Johnson
Tommy McClennan
Robert Petway
Lightnin' Slim
Bonus points for the Calvin Russell reference.
sdfsdfsdf wrote:
Driving to work just now, and "Blowing in the Wind" came on. It really is some of the most boring, pretentous crap ever written. But was this Dylan's point? Was he commenting on how vain and pretentious the world had become, and was acting like a sort of mirror to the world? If this is the case, he gets my respect.
This is such a horrible, awful love song to write and sing about the woman you just married. Justin Bieber is so much better. So much deeper.
http://fan.tcm.com/_Bob-Dylan-Sad-Eyed-Lady-of-the-Lowlands/audio/846082/66470.htmlPete, he actually did do electric material during his formative years in New York. For his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the one which made him a star in the folk scene, he did actually record about half a dozen electric tracks, but they were all rejected for the album by his label Columbia. I guess they knew they were onto something with the acoustic stuff.
It was no secret that he had done electric stuff before his time in NY, but what the folkies didn't know at the time was that even during his protest years he was writing and recording electric material. He just didn't get final selection on which tracks made it onto the album I guess.
Robert Zimmerman is a good Jew boy that knows how to make money. Same thing with the Jewish Full Dead and other Jewish crappy music. Jews know how to market their garbage so the goy can buy it.