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.
It's not ironic but he very quickly moved light years beyond Blowing in the Wind.
lenny wrote:
It's not ironic but he very quickly moved light years beyond Blowing in the Wind.
Well I certainly hope so, and I also hope he moved beyond the even worse "Like A Rolling Stone"
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.
In that same vein this post is a tribute to him.
1/10. Just looking for a fight, are you?
I wonder the same thing about the Greatful Dead and The Band. Surely everyone is in on some joke that they're playing on me ... these bands SUCK.
Charley Paton was the King of the Mississippi Delta Blues a huge influense on everyone back in the 20's. Jimmie Rodgers is the King of Country Music. Both are light years away from what we hear on American Idol. Then there's...
Bukka White
Tom Waits
John Lee Hooker
Dr. John
Leon Russell
Ray Lamatagne
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Towns Van Zandt
Muddy Waters
Howlin' Wolf
Roscoe Holcomb
Howlin' Wolf
.....all would get booted off a talent show. All a must listen!
Dylan is absolutey incredible. If you don't like him, it's you not him.
Avante wrote:
Charley Paton was the King of the Mississippi Delta Blues a huge influense on everyone back in the 20's. Jimmie Rodgers is the King of Country Music. Both are light years away from what we hear on American Idol. Then there's...
Bukka White
Tom Waits
John Lee Hooker
Dr. John
Leon Russell
Ray Lamatagne
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Towns Van Zandt
Muddy Waters
Howlin' Wolf
Roscoe Holcomb
Howlin' Wolf
.....all would get booted off a talent show. All a must listen!
Dylan is absolutey incredible. If you don't like him, it's you not him.
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.
Think of "Blowin' in the Wind" as Dylan's "My Weekly Reader." It was so basic that every eighth grade chorus was singing it back then. It might be his least impressive song that anyone actually knows by name. It's absurd to pretend the guy is not a genius and one of the major forces in American music for the last half century.
Reminds me of the book Infinite Jest. One of the characters in the book is a former avant-garde filmmaker who came up with an idea for "films" where there nothing was actually filmed and there was no audience. The whole idea being to play a joke on pretentious critics, who praised the idea for its "avante-garde neorealsim." Basically creation of something so completely meaningless and devoid of substance that pseudo-intellectuals will try to ascribe some deep meaning to it.
I don't think that Dylan was doing anything like this or that he was bad for the sake of irony, but I do sometimes wonder if some musicians and artists make people think that they're deep just by spewing nonsense.
Mad Stork wrote:
but I do sometimes wonder if some musicians and artists make people think that they're deep just by spewing nonsense.
I guess really I should say that I sometimes wonder which musicians and artists make people think that they're deep just by spewing nonsense. I know that some musicians and artists do so.
Mad Stork wrote:
Mad Stork wrote:but I do sometimes wonder if some musicians and artists make people think that they're deep just by spewing nonsense.
I guess really I should say that I sometimes wonder which musicians and artists make people think that they're deep just by spewing nonsense. I know that some musicians and artists do so.
Agreed.
I'd like to fill an auditorium with first year Arts students and go up and do a musical bit. I wouldn't actually play anything -- I'd just stand on a soap box with a harpoon in my hand while two Jamaican children dressed in pyjamas throw spoonfuls of mayonnaise at me.
Surely the majority of the students would later go on and on about what I was "really saying".
I'm a big fan of Dylan's work, but after seeing him perform a few years ago, I couldn't help wondering whether he was doing a bad Bob Dylan parody just to see what he could get away with. Kind of a similar impression to the OP, but I don't think he was doing that early in his career, certainly not with "Blowing in the Wind".
sdfsdfsdf wrote:
I also hope he moved beyond the even worse "Like A Rolling Stone"
You're kidding right? LARS is fantastic.
You're an idiot!
For general information, rolling stone magazine considers "like a rolling stone" the greatest rock cut of all time.
Me, I'm a huge Dylan fan, but my least favorite Dylan tunes are the ones he's most commonly associated with.
In the early days, Dylan sang about human rights. A lot of people in the sixties died for that cause. When he moved away from protest singing, many of his follower felt abandoned.
Desire is his best album.
this machine kills fascists wrote:When he moved away from protest singing, many of his follower felt abandoned.His "finger pointing songs," while important, make up a tiny fraction of his work, which crosses numerous musical genres. I love some of his "protest songs" like Masters of War, Oxford Town, Only a Pawn in their Game, etc etc, but some of his work is far more interesting and enjoyable to me. Songs like Isis, Brownsville Girl, and his IMHO grossly underappreciated masterpiece, Highlands.
Rick wrote:Desire is his best album.
Desire is a GREAT album.
My favourites include, in no particlar order:
Blood on the Tracks
Blond on Blond
Highway 61 Revisited
Desire
Time out of Mind
Modern Times
John Wesley Harding
Oh Mercy
Slow Train Coming
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