(Personal reflections
inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “Mama, You Been
On My Mind”
Album: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare &
Unreleased) 1961-1991
Release Date: March,
1991 (recorded 1964 for the Another Side
of Bob Dylan sessions)
Several
week’s back I received a few thought-provoking critical replies to Master
Blueprint # 15, which discussed “Like a Rolling Stone” and the 1965 album it
first appeared on, Highway 61 Revisited.
In that entry I praised the record - and its successor Blonde on
Blonde - for reigning in the era of concept albums, without recognizing
them as a singular concepts in their own right, thereby admitting to my own
lack of insight in this regard with these aficionados (although they did generally
like my assessment that virtually every song on these albums comes across as its
own fully fleshed out concept). The
feedback was fairly similar in argumentative points; the gist message being
that ‘you had to be there’, seeing as in each case it appeared the responder
was truly there.
Ok, well
despite not being there, I’m hoping to clear those mental hurdles one day if
indeed there are hurdles to clear. It has happened to me on a number of
occasions, most notably when I was writing the Stepping Stones series six
years ago (inspired by the music of the Rolling Stones) and became enlightened with
the Stones greatest album, Exile on Main Street (see the entry “Tapping
Into My Inner Grasshopper”: http://pete-gemsandbeyond.blogspot.com/2012/04/17th-in-series-of-stepping-stones.html ). At times the effects that come from listening,
reflecting and then writing these blog series can be oh-so satisfactory.
Anyhow,
the comments from those insightful Dylan contemporaries spurred other thoughts in
me as well. Whether of that 60’s era or
not, most of us Bob Dylan enthusiasts are pretty certain that he’s earned
himself one helluva long-term legacy; that his music will thrive the test of
time. But just what is it that will
become long lasting vs. something that may begin to sound a bit dated over time? I mean, if ‘you had to be there’ than maybe Highway
61 Revisited as an album won’t thrive that test because it spoke to a very
unique (albeit fascinating) period in American history, versus something like Oh
Mercy, or Love and Theft, which at least for now have the feel of
transcending any given timeframe.
Many have
argued that Bob Dylan was at his most voluminously gifted in the 60s. If this be the case than I am representative of
the first wave of age groups (I was born in 1962) that did not experience Dylan’s
genius firsthand while he was at his supposed peak. With that said, a fan like me may very likely
be a good case study – a barometer if you will - as to what it is that will propel
his legacy forward. In other words, us
latter-day Bob Dylan fans should be taken seriously, because each successive
wave of us will have less and less direct identity with the times he was a part
of.
I’ve been
reflecting this week on what it was that initially stimulated my interest in
Bob Dylan’s music and more importantly how that initial spark spread like
wildfire. What follows is a quick
synopsis of a 5 year period (~ 1986 -91) where I went from simply admiring Dylan’s
music to really feeling it. I think it
speaks to the fact that you can come at Bob Dylan from any number of angles and
then build on that foundation in many ways.
‘The
spark’ itself was covered in Master Blueprints # 1; a car parking moment in the
mid-80s, when I heard the live Rolling Thunder Review version of “Shelter From
the Storm” on the radio (from the “Hard Rain” album). After that it was an avalanche of connections
that ultimately cemented the deal. There
were my early back-catalog purchases: Blood on the Tracks, Freewheelin’, The
Basement Tapes, and Slow Train Coming, all of which came upon
recommendation from those more in the know than I, particularly Jeff Strause. Soon after, there was the Travelling
WIlbury’s first album in 1988 (I think it was George Harrison who stated at the
time that his own writing contributions were self-curtailed because this super band
included the best songwriter of them
all, so why bother). Then, the release
of Oh Mercy in 1989, which was a quantum leap into my immersion: The
first great Dylan album I could celebrate at the time of its public germination.
Around
that time I watched “Pat Garrett and Bill the Kid”; Dylan playing the bit-role
as the quirky character “Alias”, and of course setting the mood with the
soundtrack (the scene with the Slim Pickens character dying from a gunshot
wound, his woman by his side, while “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” plays in the
background still sends shivers). Then
came the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary (with Atlantic Records) Celebration,
which I watched live simulcast (see Master Blueprints # 7 and # 8). There was the Joan Baez Any Day Now
album of Dylan covers, a gift from a good friend (again, Jeff), which I would
eventually wear out (note to self….get a new copy). There were several Rolling Stone Magazine interviews,
always inspiring. There was the Roy
Orbison tribute show in Los Angeles (1990), which included a surprise reunion
of the Byrds with Bob Dylan joining them on stage (my wife and I with 2nd
row seats and backstage passes…this also covered in Blueprint # 1).
There were 3 other concerts as well.
On top of
all this were all the accolades. For
example, I attended many other concerts during this period, from big venues to
small clubs, and invariably the given act would cover a Bob Dylan song; several
of whom would also speak glowingly of him in the process. It seemed as if praise was coming from every
angle in Dylan’s direction. Recognition
of such came to a crescendo for me on Bob Dylan’s 50th birthday, May
24, 1991, when I headed into ‘Boston Town’ for an evening of live music with my
good friend Mac.
Before I proceed, I have to say this qualifier upfront: I’m a big fan of many musicians, but not to
the degree that I celebrate (or even know) their birth dates. Iconic musicians like those I’ve been musing
on these past six years are a big part of my life, yes, but in no way do they define
my life. Professional lives are one
thing, personal lives are another. If
the personal adds something to the songwriter’s song story, then I’m
interested. Otherwise, I’m content to
leave well enough alone. The key to
loving the music of any given act is to relate to it and grow your own life
from what you hear and feel.
For the
most part, this qualifier includes Bob Dylan (heck, I even had to look up his
birthday just now, though a sixth sense was telling me it was getting close). But here’s the thing; something has
transpired with Dylan’s birthday over the years that is quite unique and
astonishing. It is celebrated by
musicians like no other I’ve seen. I’m
not sure when it started, but for me it was that 50th birthday of
his, when Mac and I bellied up at the bar of a small club and watched as at
least 10 local musicians came and went; each setting up, playing a small suite
of Dylan songs, breaking down, and moving on to other clubs. I’d bounced from bar to bar to catch multiple
acts in tight-knit downtown music hubs like Music Row in Nashville, Sixth
Street in Austin, and Bourbon Street in New Orleans. But in this case it was the musicians doing
the bouncing around. It was a communal, organic
and eclectic experience on many levels and the celebratory mood of it all
caught me quite by surprise.
I’ve not
experienced it in quite the same fashion since, but as Bob Dylan’s most
significant decadal birthdays have inevitably played out in subsequent years (to
date, his 60th and 70th) I’ve kept my ears open for
events here in the Boston region, and I’ve never been disappointed. More recently
it’s turned into a half decade thing (75th). In each case, the celebration was of multiple
musicians playing at one event (in these cases though, the musicians stuck
around to watch each other rather than move on). What you get to hear and feel is just how
many wonderful ways Bob Dylan’s music can be interpreted and honored. This is the core to why Dylan will have a
long term legacy.
One thing
that very much helped that first Bob Dylan birthday-bash experience for me back
in ’91 was an interview I taped just prior. Dylan sat with Rock DJ Tony Pigg on New York
City radio station WPLJ (simulcast to other stations including Boston’s WBCN) to
discuss and play highlights from the first 3 volumes of his phenomenal Bootleg Series. Dylan’s 50th birthday
was brought up at several points in the interview. Whether it was the landmark birth date or
Pigg’s very effective and reverential tone (reverential to the music, not the
man), or both, I am not sure, but the interview found Dylan in an unusually
open and reflective mood. One of the
cuts that was played was last week’s Blueprint “She’s Your Lover Now”. Others included; a magnificent homemade
version of “Every Grain of Sand”, family dog barking at times in the
background; a hypothetical canvas scene playing out masterfully in the song
that is “Wallflower”; and the head-shaking beauty that is “Angelina” (after it’s
played in the radio interview, Dylan is asked by the clearly blown-away Pigg
why he never released this or so many other songs on the albums they were intended
for, and Dylan replies something to the effect of “well, you can’t release them
all, can you?” Yeah, as if we all have
that problem!). It was all so profound
because again, many of these were deep cuts that would be scratched from albums
of yesteryear. I know of no other
musician who has such a gift. How was
this all helpful with that Boston 50th experience? Several songs
from the Bootleg Series were played
that evening, which gave me a sense that others related to the notion that this
treasure chest of Bob Dylan’s was much deeper than any of us imagined.
Another
cut from the Pigg interview is this week’s Master Blueprint, “Mama, You Been on
My Mind” ( https://vimeo.com/161261103 ). This one
is a bit of a makeup for last week’s borderline caustic entry “She’s Your Lover
Now” (although I must say, I defend it as a Blueprint focus because it is so
well performed). “Mama, You Been on My
Mind” is the flip side of that emotion.
It’s one of Bob Dylan’s finest love songs, and one he sat on, unreleased
for 27 years. It’s reflecting on lost
love, and since I’m not going there, I’m going to broaden the meaning
here. I believe that loosely interpreted, “Mama You Been on My Mind” can be about anyone
close to you who you’ve seen at one time or another in a state of grace (think Lieutenant
Dan, in the near-end wedding scene of Forrest
Gump, or maybe even Dylan singing this song). It’s those moments that you always want to
remember when you are at odds with that person, or your relationship is
strained. You’ve seen that person at
their God-given best. Thankfully, these
types of memories are indelible, always there for you to capture in time of
need.
- Pete
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Master Blueprints # 16: “But Please Tell That to Your Friend in the Cowboy Hat. You Know He Keeps on Sayin’ Ev’rythin’ Twice to Me”
(Personal reflections
inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “She’s Your Lover Now”
Album: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
Release Date: March, 1991 (recorded in Jan. 1966 for the Blonde on Blonde sessions)
Rolling Stone magazine has Bob Dylan in at # 7 for the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time ( https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-19691231 ). When I first glanced at the rating I thought….what’s up with this? I mean, I love Dylan’s music (hopefully stating the obvious at this point), but I’d never put much thought along this particular line when reflecting on what it is that makes his music superb, and before reading that Rolling Stone list, I could not recall anyone who had ever made such a compelling case for this aspect of his musicianship. Yeah, maybe toss him in as a courtesy somewhere in the 80s or 90s, but # 7? Was this not akin to ranking Dylan’s guitar prowess with the likes of Clapton, Hendrix, and Santana? It just did not register at first.
When it comes to singing, there will always be strong cases made for the likes of Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, Aretha Franklin, Roger Daltrey, Joan Baez, Marvin Gaye, Roy Orbison, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, and Curtis Mayfield and many others. These musicians are all obviously extremely talented in this regard. Heck, even Neil Young has gotten the rare nod as a great singer, at least for those of us who have an attuned ear for what many others may consider a vocal delivery akin to shrieking. With Bob Dylan however, I have always had felt that his singing was more a means to an end and surmised perhaps that even he felt this way.
However, the Rolling Stone #7 slot got me thinking, and it did not take long before I was changing my tune. After all…. there has to be a reason why Bob Dylan sings all his own material; this despite the fact that he himself has called his versions blueprints (hence my blog series title). And then it dawned on me: Dylan sings every single one of his own songs because he knows how honest he is with himself, and in this way he trusts himself to deliver his version of any song first and let the chips fall from there. Honesty with oneself can be revealing in many ways but I can’t think of any that are more revealing than in how someone delivers a song vocally. From this point of view, there are few out there who can rival Bob Dylan when it comes to singing. Rolling Stone Magazine got it right.
All this came to mind this week as I listened to the deep cut “She’s Your Lover Now”, a song from the Blonde on Blonde sessions that did not make the final cut. Why a blog focus on Bob Dylan’s singing in this song, and not say “Blowin’ in the Wind” – where Dylan is speaking core truths – or “Lay Lady Lay” – where he comes across in a rare comforting sort of way – or “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – where the day of reckoning is expressed so poignantly - or “Every Grain of Sand” – where deep Faith shines through? Converse to all those gems, “She’s Your Lover Now”, like its blood relatives “Ballad of a Thin Man”, “Positively 4th Street” “Idiot Wind” and “It’s All Good”, drips with sarcasm, in a way that is both hilarious and downright scary at the same time. These are not the type of emotions that typically stir the soul, which is what great vocals do. So what was it that tripped that Dylan-vocals wire in my head this week? Well I’ve already greased those skids, because….. I did say just say ‘typically’.
When I think of singers who can express themselves in ironic fashion, Ray Davies immediately comes to mind (“Plastic Man”, “Shangri La”, “David Watts”). John Lennon is not too far behind (“How Do You Sleep”, “Working Class Hero”). After that, Bob Dylan is right there in the mix and the song that does it best for me in this regard is “She’s Your Lover Now”. The lyrics are priceless, and the delivery of them is equally astonishing. This is a complex song (one of the most complex in Dylan’s catalog), which may be the biggest reason it never made it on Blonde on Blonde. The version we get on The Bootleg Series cuts off abruptly near the end of the fourth and final stanza, Dylan presumably forgetting the closing lines (although I leave room for this being a slip up with one of the Nashville session guys). But other than causing it not to make the original classic album it was intended for, it matters not. The cat is out of the bag by this point of the song. Every ounce of artistic energy has already been spent.
Bob Dylan sets the scene brilliantly in “She’s Your Lover Now”. We are placed in the world of mid-60s counterculture, likely Greenwich Village, New York City, the protagonist in the song laying it all out on the line to a former love interest, who comes across as extremely headstrong and self-absorbed. And equally on the receiving end of the verbal abuse is her new lover, who kowtows to her egocentric ways. We get brought into the hip social setting of the day, and there’s a light shed on it that is devoid of praise. You get the sense that Bob Dylan was on the cusp of heading for the hills (which indeed is what happened less than a year later).
Out of the gate, Dylan sounds mockingly saccharine with the line “the scene was so cra-zeeee, wasn’t it?” j…..catching lightning in a bottle with one of the hip phrases of the day (when I listen, I’m reminded of Richard Manuel singing “Cuz’ I’m tired of everything being bea-uuuu-tiful, bea-uuuu-tiful” on “Orange Juice Blues”…. same era phrase coming out in sarcastic wit there). From that point on it’s a relentless surge of ridicule. There are four or five tempos, verses and bridges going on here but at the core of it all is a recurring toggle of the protagonists attention, first toward his former love interest in the form of indignation, and then toward her current lover in the form of disgust. When he switches attention to the new lover it’s always with the line “and you….”, as in “and YOU!”. The listener can almost see him pivot and wave a finger in the poor saps face.
I love analyzing this song because it’s endlessly entertaining. One of the early great lines directed at the former love interest goes “Now you stand here expectin’ me to remember something you forgot to say”. That’s another thing about “She’s Your Lover Now”; we hear anger directed at the laziness of spirit. Just after that line, the protagonist pivots attention to the new lover for the first time with “Yes, and YOU, I see your still with her, well. That’s fine ‘cause she’s comin’ on so straaaange can’t you tell”. The double barrage attack is now becoming apparent.
The second stanza includes my favorite line in the entire song (and also the title of this entry) - directed at the former love interest: “But pleeeease tell that to your friend in the cowboy hat. You know he keeps sayin’ ev’rythin’ twice to me”. We are all welcomed into the room of the bohemian party scene here, and the big bruiser bouncer type, coming across as a mercenary for the former love interest, looking to lay a beat down on the protagonist for either real or imagined slights (more likely the latter). The insight to conceive of a line like that is what puts Bob Dylan in a class all his own.
Later in the stanza there’s this: “Now you stand here sayin’ you forgive and forget. Honey what can I say?”. So very real: Considering the circumstances, there is really nothing to say. Again, Bob Dylan, as the protagonist, being true to himself. And then the 2nd pivot to the new lover: “Yes, you, you just sit around and ask for ashtrays, can’t you reach? I see you kiss her on the cheek ev’rytime she gives a speech”. I’m staggered every time I hear it. And there’s more rollicking verbal abuse immediately after that line, but I’d just be repeating myself with description.
On to the third stanza, which includes the line “Now you stand here while your finger’s goin’ up my sleeve”. Yow! There will have to be some reevaluation at some point for that former love interest if she ever hopes to get her life back intact. And then the 3rd pivot: “and YOU, just what do you do anyway? Ain’t there nothin’ you can say?” This is the way it’s written out in the on-line lyrics (as well as Bob Dylan’s book of lyrics). But when Dylan sings it on the Bootlegs version, I hear “there ain’t nothin you can say”. Note, there’s no question mark here at the end. This is a statement of fact. I like it much more, as well as the notion of how far a simple rearranging of words can make a difference. This is followed by one of the most mind boggling lines in Bob Dylan’s vast laundry list of lyrics: “She’ll be standin’ on the bar soon. With a fish head an’ a harpoon. And a fake beard plastered on her brow”. Dylan howls this out, dragging out the last word. It’s fascinating, but I don’t even know where to begin with it. Somebody help!
One thing that makes “She’s Your Lover Now” so effective is one particular transition that resonates in each stanza. I’ll use the line in the first stanza as an example. It’s where Dylan sings “Did it have to be that way?” ….with a long drawn out “waaaaaaayyyyy”, where Dylan sings down through several octaves, as if slipping into the deep abyss. It’s a feeling of hopeless resignation and Bob Dylan makes it so palpable in the way he sings it. Again, Rolling Stone got it right.
I could not find the Bootlegs version on the internet. If you’ve never heard it, you’re just going to have to track it yourself (I recommend it). Another take is here: ( https://vimeo.com/153198336 ). It’s a solo version, with not as much, ahhh …… venom. But it carries its own weight.
Ok, so Bob Dylan’s vocals are top notch. I get it. An acquired taste, yes, but definitely worth putting the effort in to acquire. This entry got me thinking though along another line. Dylan’s musicianship has never been in question, however, if you isolate the argument to how great his guitar playing, piano playing, harmonica playing, what have you, is, you are left thinking that none of it percolates to anywhere near the aficionado realm. But as with Leonard Cohen, it’s much much deeper than that. That’s partly what this blog series is about. To get to the bottom of why -- that -- is.
- Pete
Song: “She’s Your Lover Now”
Album: The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991
Release Date: March, 1991 (recorded in Jan. 1966 for the Blonde on Blonde sessions)
Rolling Stone magazine has Bob Dylan in at # 7 for the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time ( https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-19691231 ). When I first glanced at the rating I thought….what’s up with this? I mean, I love Dylan’s music (hopefully stating the obvious at this point), but I’d never put much thought along this particular line when reflecting on what it is that makes his music superb, and before reading that Rolling Stone list, I could not recall anyone who had ever made such a compelling case for this aspect of his musicianship. Yeah, maybe toss him in as a courtesy somewhere in the 80s or 90s, but # 7? Was this not akin to ranking Dylan’s guitar prowess with the likes of Clapton, Hendrix, and Santana? It just did not register at first.
When it comes to singing, there will always be strong cases made for the likes of Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Van Morrison, Aretha Franklin, Roger Daltrey, Joan Baez, Marvin Gaye, Roy Orbison, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, and Curtis Mayfield and many others. These musicians are all obviously extremely talented in this regard. Heck, even Neil Young has gotten the rare nod as a great singer, at least for those of us who have an attuned ear for what many others may consider a vocal delivery akin to shrieking. With Bob Dylan however, I have always had felt that his singing was more a means to an end and surmised perhaps that even he felt this way.
However, the Rolling Stone #7 slot got me thinking, and it did not take long before I was changing my tune. After all…. there has to be a reason why Bob Dylan sings all his own material; this despite the fact that he himself has called his versions blueprints (hence my blog series title). And then it dawned on me: Dylan sings every single one of his own songs because he knows how honest he is with himself, and in this way he trusts himself to deliver his version of any song first and let the chips fall from there. Honesty with oneself can be revealing in many ways but I can’t think of any that are more revealing than in how someone delivers a song vocally. From this point of view, there are few out there who can rival Bob Dylan when it comes to singing. Rolling Stone Magazine got it right.
All this came to mind this week as I listened to the deep cut “She’s Your Lover Now”, a song from the Blonde on Blonde sessions that did not make the final cut. Why a blog focus on Bob Dylan’s singing in this song, and not say “Blowin’ in the Wind” – where Dylan is speaking core truths – or “Lay Lady Lay” – where he comes across in a rare comforting sort of way – or “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – where the day of reckoning is expressed so poignantly - or “Every Grain of Sand” – where deep Faith shines through? Converse to all those gems, “She’s Your Lover Now”, like its blood relatives “Ballad of a Thin Man”, “Positively 4th Street” “Idiot Wind” and “It’s All Good”, drips with sarcasm, in a way that is both hilarious and downright scary at the same time. These are not the type of emotions that typically stir the soul, which is what great vocals do. So what was it that tripped that Dylan-vocals wire in my head this week? Well I’ve already greased those skids, because….. I did say just say ‘typically’.
When I think of singers who can express themselves in ironic fashion, Ray Davies immediately comes to mind (“Plastic Man”, “Shangri La”, “David Watts”). John Lennon is not too far behind (“How Do You Sleep”, “Working Class Hero”). After that, Bob Dylan is right there in the mix and the song that does it best for me in this regard is “She’s Your Lover Now”. The lyrics are priceless, and the delivery of them is equally astonishing. This is a complex song (one of the most complex in Dylan’s catalog), which may be the biggest reason it never made it on Blonde on Blonde. The version we get on The Bootleg Series cuts off abruptly near the end of the fourth and final stanza, Dylan presumably forgetting the closing lines (although I leave room for this being a slip up with one of the Nashville session guys). But other than causing it not to make the original classic album it was intended for, it matters not. The cat is out of the bag by this point of the song. Every ounce of artistic energy has already been spent.
Bob Dylan sets the scene brilliantly in “She’s Your Lover Now”. We are placed in the world of mid-60s counterculture, likely Greenwich Village, New York City, the protagonist in the song laying it all out on the line to a former love interest, who comes across as extremely headstrong and self-absorbed. And equally on the receiving end of the verbal abuse is her new lover, who kowtows to her egocentric ways. We get brought into the hip social setting of the day, and there’s a light shed on it that is devoid of praise. You get the sense that Bob Dylan was on the cusp of heading for the hills (which indeed is what happened less than a year later).
Out of the gate, Dylan sounds mockingly saccharine with the line “the scene was so cra-zeeee, wasn’t it?” j…..catching lightning in a bottle with one of the hip phrases of the day (when I listen, I’m reminded of Richard Manuel singing “Cuz’ I’m tired of everything being bea-uuuu-tiful, bea-uuuu-tiful” on “Orange Juice Blues”…. same era phrase coming out in sarcastic wit there). From that point on it’s a relentless surge of ridicule. There are four or five tempos, verses and bridges going on here but at the core of it all is a recurring toggle of the protagonists attention, first toward his former love interest in the form of indignation, and then toward her current lover in the form of disgust. When he switches attention to the new lover it’s always with the line “and you….”, as in “and YOU!”. The listener can almost see him pivot and wave a finger in the poor saps face.
I love analyzing this song because it’s endlessly entertaining. One of the early great lines directed at the former love interest goes “Now you stand here expectin’ me to remember something you forgot to say”. That’s another thing about “She’s Your Lover Now”; we hear anger directed at the laziness of spirit. Just after that line, the protagonist pivots attention to the new lover for the first time with “Yes, and YOU, I see your still with her, well. That’s fine ‘cause she’s comin’ on so straaaange can’t you tell”. The double barrage attack is now becoming apparent.
The second stanza includes my favorite line in the entire song (and also the title of this entry) - directed at the former love interest: “But pleeeease tell that to your friend in the cowboy hat. You know he keeps sayin’ ev’rythin’ twice to me”. We are all welcomed into the room of the bohemian party scene here, and the big bruiser bouncer type, coming across as a mercenary for the former love interest, looking to lay a beat down on the protagonist for either real or imagined slights (more likely the latter). The insight to conceive of a line like that is what puts Bob Dylan in a class all his own.
Later in the stanza there’s this: “Now you stand here sayin’ you forgive and forget. Honey what can I say?”. So very real: Considering the circumstances, there is really nothing to say. Again, Bob Dylan, as the protagonist, being true to himself. And then the 2nd pivot to the new lover: “Yes, you, you just sit around and ask for ashtrays, can’t you reach? I see you kiss her on the cheek ev’rytime she gives a speech”. I’m staggered every time I hear it. And there’s more rollicking verbal abuse immediately after that line, but I’d just be repeating myself with description.
On to the third stanza, which includes the line “Now you stand here while your finger’s goin’ up my sleeve”. Yow! There will have to be some reevaluation at some point for that former love interest if she ever hopes to get her life back intact. And then the 3rd pivot: “and YOU, just what do you do anyway? Ain’t there nothin’ you can say?” This is the way it’s written out in the on-line lyrics (as well as Bob Dylan’s book of lyrics). But when Dylan sings it on the Bootlegs version, I hear “there ain’t nothin you can say”. Note, there’s no question mark here at the end. This is a statement of fact. I like it much more, as well as the notion of how far a simple rearranging of words can make a difference. This is followed by one of the most mind boggling lines in Bob Dylan’s vast laundry list of lyrics: “She’ll be standin’ on the bar soon. With a fish head an’ a harpoon. And a fake beard plastered on her brow”. Dylan howls this out, dragging out the last word. It’s fascinating, but I don’t even know where to begin with it. Somebody help!
One thing that makes “She’s Your Lover Now” so effective is one particular transition that resonates in each stanza. I’ll use the line in the first stanza as an example. It’s where Dylan sings “Did it have to be that way?” ….with a long drawn out “waaaaaaayyyyy”, where Dylan sings down through several octaves, as if slipping into the deep abyss. It’s a feeling of hopeless resignation and Bob Dylan makes it so palpable in the way he sings it. Again, Rolling Stone got it right.
I could not find the Bootlegs version on the internet. If you’ve never heard it, you’re just going to have to track it yourself (I recommend it). Another take is here: ( https://vimeo.com/153198336 ). It’s a solo version, with not as much, ahhh …… venom. But it carries its own weight.
Ok, so Bob Dylan’s vocals are top notch. I get it. An acquired taste, yes, but definitely worth putting the effort in to acquire. This entry got me thinking though along another line. Dylan’s musicianship has never been in question, however, if you isolate the argument to how great his guitar playing, piano playing, harmonica playing, what have you, is, you are left thinking that none of it percolates to anywhere near the aficionado realm. But as with Leonard Cohen, it’s much much deeper than that. That’s partly what this blog series is about. To get to the bottom of why -- that -- is.
- Pete
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Master Blueprints # 15: “You Never Turned Around To See the Frowns on the Jugglers and the Clowns When They All Did Tricks for You”
(Personal reflections
inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “Like a Rolling
Stone”
Album: Highway 61 Revisited
Release Date: August,
1965
The birth-year
range of the “Baby Boomer” generation is defined by Wiki as “beginning early-
to mid-1940s and ending anywhere from 1960 to 1964”. Those of us on the tail end who
were teens in the 70s (I was born in 1962) relate strongly to our Boomer
roots. We see the images of The Civil Rights
Movement, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Woodstock, and we think,
yeah, I can dig that (I just had to slip in this term in honor of those older Baby
Boomer brethren). Most of us do
anyway. In fact, there’s a fascination
with it all.
Invariably,
however, there’s bound to be a bit of disconnect when one has not experienced
something firsthand, which requires research and reflection if you hope to hurdle
this truism. I went through just such a
hurdling process this week as I listened to Bob Dylan’s magnum opus (one of
them, anyway), “Like a Rolling Stone”, opening wide a cascade of new insights
on what it must have been like to be in your formative years in 1965, and
hearing this song when it first came out.
I’ll get
to that moment and the ensuing cascade of thought soon enough. First a bit of background.
Transitioning
from one song focus to another on a weekly basis for these blogs can often be
smooth, but I was under no illusion that this time around would be one of those. I’d been on a roll of sorts with the previous
6 entries, diving into some of my favorite Bob Dylan albums and/or building
loose ideas and storylines from one to the next. But as I leafed through my cd options this
past Sunday, I felt it was time to take a leap of faith. I’d been avoiding Dylan’s two mid-60s album outputs,
Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. I was well aware that both of these records are
often ranked at or near the top of the all-time greatest Rock albums by
critics, and so I was beginning to feel I’d be remiss to not tackle them sooner
than later. With this in mind, I performed
a quick eeny-meenie-mynie-moe, and with not much of a clue where I was heading,
I proceeded to remove the winning cd from its sleeve and popped it into the
player.
Why the
hesitancy? Well those who have read these blog entries even on a cursory basis
can pretty much conclude that I’m a studio-album-oriented kinda guy. I get many of my writing points from that broad
perspective and then hone in on a given ‘song of the week’ as I continue to
listen to it through the lens of the original host album. Great albums have a contextual story behind
them, and I’m often compelled to tackle that first. My hang-up here was, although these 2 seminal
works are chalk full of song chestnuts, I’d never really felt that ‘album vibe’
from either of them. As I began
listening to Highway 61 Revisited this week, I recalled feeling the same
way from time to time when I was writing my ‘Stepping Stones’ series six years
ago, which was centered on the music of the Rolling Stones. Those occasions were when I was writing about
some of the Stones earliest hits from albums like Out of Our Heads and Aftermath.
The album vibe wasn’t working then either.
In such cases I would have to come at things from a different
angle.
It’s been
fairly well documented that the Beatles Revolver (released in 1966) and then
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (’67) were the first album-oriented
Rock records, and I tend to agree (although I have to say, Bob Dylan’s much
more subtle first contribution to album orientation, John Wesley Harding,
came out around the same period). So if Highway
61 Revisited (released in 1965) and Blonde on Blonde (’66) predated
album orientation, what was it about them that was so revolutionary? The answer, which I came to this week, is actually
quite mind boggling: I now believe that
virtually every song on these albums conceptually equates to a classic rock
album in and of itself. Bob Dylan was so
prolific at this time in his career, that he would singlehandedly usher in the
era of album orientation……by actually
taking the concept one quantum leap further!
Once that
ton of bricks hit me over the head after several cycles through Highway 61
Revisited, I began thinking, “ok, how am I going to zero in on anything
here if I’m listening to up to nine different ‘albums’ for one blog entry”? At this stage I had to make another conscious
leap of faith…. this time it was to choose a song and just run with it. I narrowed it down to four choices: The title track, “Ballad of a Thin Man”, “Desolation
Row”, and what my final choice turned out to be; the opening number “Like a
Rolling Stone” (I’ll just have to circle back to those others at some other
time). I simply decided this song was
too big to pass up.
It had
been a while since I’d been truly bowled over by “Like a Rolling Stone”: Sometimes a popular song like this one introduces
you to a great artist and then you move on to deeper stuff. However, with my new perspective this week….listening
to it as an album in and of itself, I felt I had a fighting chance to get those
old wowed sensations again. Another
thing that would end up helping: Bass
guitar lessons. For almost a year now, I’ve been getting great weekly lessons
by a young virtuoso guitarist named Jake Hallett. Part of Jake’s approach has been to try to get
me to hear every note in a major or minor scale as relating to a specific
emotion. He often teaches in the key of
C, because there are no sharps or flats which allows us to get better focused
on his priorities, whereby he ties the major notes in C (C, F, G) to different
uplifting emotions and the minor notes (D, E, A) to more melancholy
emotions. Hearing the notes this way,
helps to get creative with melodies, along with all sorts of other
benefits. Slowly, it seems to be
working.
Anyhow, in
the past, when I’ve listened to “Like a Rolling Stone”, I’ve never gotten past 1)
the singing, 2) the lyrics, and of course 3) Al Kooper’s Hammond organ
playing. Each of these components are
dominating ones. This week for the first
time however, I cued in on Mike Bloomfield’s guitar. The reason?
He plays it arpeggio style - or one note at a time. In other words, like a bass. Most standard guitar work is done in chords:
triplets of notes played simultaneously (typically 1, 3, and 5, which in the root
key of C would be C, E, and G), but not here.
This lead guitar sound was something I could emulate. On top of that it was a fairly
straightforward stepping up and down of notes.
At first I was not sure what key the song was in because I needed my
guitar in hand to figure it out (it would end up being in C), but I could hear
the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5… the do, re, mi fa, sol, and to some degree even the
emotions of each (still working on that).
It was fantastic. In my mind’s
eye, I was suddenly singing in the Salzburg Austria foothills with Julie
Andrews.
Kidding
aside (kind of), once I tuned into Bloomfield’s guitar this past Monday on my way to work,
the floodgates of connection to “Like a Rolling Stone” began opening up all
over again. I guess all I really needed
was this new observation, this new ear.
When I returned home I went directly to my bass and within minutes I had
the entire song down; I’d pretty much worked it all out in the car. This added to my reacquaintance with my old song-friend. I began to envision what it must have been
like for those older Baby Boomers who were in their formative years when “Like
a Rolling Stone” first came out. Many Rock
fans, and aspiring musicians of the period, including Neil Young and Bruce
Springsteen, have commented that it was a life altering experience for
them.
Every
commentary I’ve ever seen that critiques “Like a Rolling Stone” focuses on who
the source of Bob Dylan’s venom is in this song, which could be anyone who was
born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and naïve to those who had not. All well and good, but I think this misses
the point. I believe Dylan had something
quite a bit more intense in mind. After all, the type of person he was singing
about would never be the type who would listen to “Like a Rolling Stone” in the
first place. No, this was a song of
solidarity. The people who were listening
were those who could relate. This would
include anyone who had been rejected, or who had experienced loneliness, or awkwardness,
or struggles of any kind, particularly those who were going through these
struggles at the time the song first came out…..”to be without a home, like
a complete unknown, like a rolling stone”.
This was solidarity with the misfits, the free spirits, the oddballs,
and the poets, the soon to be hippies and the agonizing Vietnam Vets as well as
the draft dodgers.
There were
many folkies and beatniks who did not understand. To them, Bob Dylan was abandoning the power
of folk-music-protest that he had been blessed with when he went electric and
started writing songs about other topics.
But no, that was not it at all. Dylan
was building on top of that foundation.
He was choosing creativity over stagnation. With this in mind, a case could be made that the
60s as we know them really started right then and there with “Like a Rolling
Stone”. Dylan had already done his
protest stuff (which I will get to in this blog series).
What he was doing now was rallying the troops.
Associating
with this deeper meaning now, I can see even more why I loved this song when I
first heard it back in my own formative years.
Being on that tail end of the
Boomer generation helped to pull me away from the traditional views of success
that tie it solely to wealth and power. My
inherited attitude did not come without adverse reverberations. Yet, I wouldn’t trade those experiences for
all the tea in China, because they were learning experiences. There is much to be gained from an independent
spirit. Despite some of the ugly
reputation related to drugs and dropping out, the 60s did after all teach us
70s kids this fact. And Bob Dylan was on
the front lines, speaking his mind in extremely formidable and inspiring
fashion.
- - Pete
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Master Blueprints # 14: “There Are No Mistakes in Life Some People Say, and its True Sometimes, You Can See It That Way”
(Personal reflections
inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “Man in the Long Black Coat”
Album: Oh Mercy
Release Date: September, 1989
As they passed their fourth and fifth decades of public attention, a number of my favorite musicians, including Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Neil Young, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson looked back on their respective careers with autobiographies. Each and every one of their books would prove to be excellent reads, and all well-reflected the given author’s personality. Each also reveals the great memories of these second-career authors. Put them all together and you have a pretty darn good cross-section synopsis of the Rock and Roll music world in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Five or so years ago - in the span of what would equate to a college semester - I would read most of these books, including Dylan’s (Chronicles: Volume One), Townshend’s (Who I Am), Young’s (Waging Heavy Peace) and Richards’ (Life). Going in, I was curious about a lot of things, and for the most part that curiosity was satiated. One of my big-ticket items of curiosity was studio-album oriented. I wanted to get a better sense of how some of the greatest rock and roll albums of our time came to be. How did the stars align in such a way that elevated the final product above the fray? How did the individual songs come together? Who raised their game? Where was everyone’s head space at during the production? How did the interpersonal dynamics effect things? How did that period of either rising or declining popularity of the musicians who contributed factor in? How did the lyrics come together? How did the music come together? What made that moment in time unique?
In one single chapter of his book, Bob Dylan did the best job out of all these musician-authors of addressing those fascinating questions. One big reason Dylan nailed it was in the way he approached Chronicles. The book was unlike any autobiography I had ever read. Rather than a chronology of his life, he plucked out specific periods for self-scrutiny (in turn, leaving plenty of in-between space for future ‘Volumes’). And there were only five chapters in all, which was brilliant, because it gave Dylan breathing space to dive into details. Not the type of detail that can get watered down if an entire book is dedicated to one topic. But just enough to make things tantalizingly interesting.
The singular chapter I’m referring to is titled “Oh Mercy”, which is about the making of the masterful Bob Dylan album of the same name. All the questions I pose above were answered in this chapter. Dylan has a reputation as being a bit opaque and mysterious. This is not what you get here. There is clairvoyance, and open honesty about the struggle of pulling Oh Mercy together. The reader is brought behind the scenes in a number of ways, and so can get a taste of what it takes to create something from scratch; something that in the end can be truly lasting. One take-home message is that all good things require effort. When that effort is particularly significant, once you’ve been through it a handful of times - whether successful or not - human instinct can have us shy away from doing so again. You have to grab yourself by the bootstraps and persevere somehow. Often it takes considerable introspection. Sometimes it takes compromise. These are some of the key points that Bob Dylan articulates both directly and indirectly in this chapter.
Oh Mercy (the album) was the first Bob Dylan album that hit me hard upon its release. In the years prior, I was primed for a strong Dylan album out of the gate: My rock and roll ‘education’ had finally reached this stage of awareness. But throughout much of the 80s, there would be nothing that even hinted at a great album from this extremely talented artist. This did not only apply to Dylan, it was the case with virtually all of the iconic 60s musicians. What was it about the mid-80s that sapped them of their mojo? The Rolling Stones Dirty Work, released in 1986, was disjointed at best. Bob Dylan’s mid-80s efforts, Empire Burlesque and Knocked Out Loaded, were not much better. The Who released the disappointing It’s Hard and then called it quits. Neil Young seemed to be going completely off the rails (Trans, Re-Ac-Tor, and a handful of other unmemorable efforts). You would think this burn out/fade-away would have happened in the 70s. But no, the 70s were actually pretty productive for most of these 60s icons. The creative dormancy did not go into effect until the big hair MTV 80s. Perhaps there’s only so much sustained shelf life for a rock and roll musician or any musician/artist for that matter. Someone should write a master’s thesis on it.
But then, quite incredibly, as the 80s curtain began to mercifully close, there was a momentum shift. Creativity was on the rebound for a number of long timers, who were now entering their 4th decade of being in the public eye. Within a handful of years we would get The Travelling Wilburys self-titled Volume 1 (sounds familiar), Lou Reed’s New York, Leonard Cohen’s The Future, and three amazing albums by Neil Young (Freedom, Ragged Glory, and Harvest Moon). And of course there was Oh Mercy.
What was it about Oh Mercy that elevated it above its immediate predecessors? For one thing, Bob Dylan appears to have admitted to himself for the first time in his career that if he was going to accomplish something significant this time around he was going to need help. Much of that help would come in the form of Canadian record producer/musician Daniel Lanois who would assert his own creativity in the studio like no other individual Bob Dylan has worked with before or since (including when Lanois produced the masterpiece Time Out of Mind in 1997, which is the only other collaboration he has had with Dylan. In that case his contributions appear to have been more subtle).
Back in 2011, as I contemplated an every-other-year focus on my favorite musicians and the memories their music inspires within me, I made the conscious decision to toggle that focus between bands and solo musicians. And so, first out of the gate was 50 blog entries on the Rolling Stones (“Stepping Stones” in 2012). Next came the Neil Young “Forever Young” series in 2014, followed by the Who-inspired “Under the Big Top” series in 2016. Now it’s Bob Dylan’s “Master Blueprints” (I’m not sure what I’ll be calling my Beatles series, slated for 2020). Anyhow, the reason I did it this way is that I see a distinct difference between musicians who succeed mostly on their own and those who succeed as a collective unit. I concluded right off that I would need to bounce back and forth to keep my own juices stirring.
I’ve known all along that I’m a bit more fascinated with collective creativity than what comes from one individual alone (with rare exceptions, including Messrs. Dylan and Young). There are more variables with collective creativity. More dynamics. More fluidity. This is why Oh Mercy, as a Bob Dylan album, is so intriguing to me. Dylan was allowing others (particularly Daniel Lanois) into his creative space. As he explains in his autobiography though, that paradigm shift came with angst and setbacks and futility and energy-draining days where little was agreed on or accomplished. I think Bob Dylan knew what he was in for. He sucked it up and made it work. So did Lanois.
What did Daniel Lanois bring to the table? Well I’ll say this… Oh Mercy sounds like no other Bob Dylan album (same for Time Out of Mind). Dylanophiles could argue that none of his albums sound like any other, but this is particularly the case for Oh Mercy. It’s extremely ethereal, which is in direct contrast to how one would describe the meaning of each and every one of the 10 songs on the album, which are all extremely heavy. This was likely the struggle that had to play out in the studio: Bringing together these two polar environments. The end result: It works.
Of all the ethereal and the heavy that the listener is bombarded with in the songs on Oh Mercy, the most ethereal/heavy of them all has to be this week’s Master Blueprint, “Man in the Long Black Coat” ( https://vimeo.com/80491883 ). And of all the songs that Bob Dylan describes how they came to be in Chronicles, this one stands out in extra potent detail. He tells of how the drawn out sessions in New Orleans were nearing an end but there was still room for several more songs on the album. Dylan felt he had to get away from it all for a bit, and so he and his wife took a 2-day motorcycle ride southwest over the Mississippi River and into Louisiana Bayou country. On the second day, as Bob Dylan describes it “a gaunt shack called King Tut’s Museum caught my eye” (it ended up being a general store of sorts). Dylan went inside while his wife sat out on the deck and he proceeded to have an extraordinary exchange with the proprietor, an ‘old timer’ named Sun Pie (who did most of the talking). You would have to read Chronicles to understand how it plays out, but in essence, the entire 2-day road-trip experience, culminating in this exchange, is how “Man in the Long Black Coat” germinates. Afterwards, Bob Dylan got back to the studio, and in no time, he, Lanois, and several New Orleans cats would be putting the icing on the Oh Mercy cake.
I’d like to close this entry with several acknowledgements…..
Other than the 2 Linda’s I met in Hibbing last month (see Master Blueprint # 10), the biggest fellow Bob Dylan enthusiast I personally know is Mike Major; a Canadian colleague who lives in Sherbrooke, Quebec. We’ve collaborated and met quite often over the past 3 years. Whenever we exchange emails we include a Bob Dylan quote in closing. We also have been known to sing a bar or two when the mood is right, say after a long day of meetings. The song we refer to the most is “Man In the Long Black Quote”, especially the bridge. When we do this we take turns with the lines, which go:
After I read it though, I came to a rather unexpected realization: That there’s a fair likelihood I’ve been unconsciously attempting to emulate Bob Dylan’s autobiography style in these blog entries. In his book, a somewhat unique philosophy plays out in Dylan’s words and accounts where it appears as if he’s often compelled to follow through with inklings of thoughts that may at first seem somewhat inconsequential to those around him, but later pan out to be much more significant. In other words, he’s driven to make meaning out of what first may appear to be peripheral to the moment. He follows his muse and then encapsulates it all in a way that cuts to the core. Apparently it’s an approach that is having an effect on my end.
With that, it’s a wrap.
- Pete
Song: “Man in the Long Black Coat”
Album: Oh Mercy
Release Date: September, 1989
As they passed their fourth and fifth decades of public attention, a number of my favorite musicians, including Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Neil Young, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson looked back on their respective careers with autobiographies. Each and every one of their books would prove to be excellent reads, and all well-reflected the given author’s personality. Each also reveals the great memories of these second-career authors. Put them all together and you have a pretty darn good cross-section synopsis of the Rock and Roll music world in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Five or so years ago - in the span of what would equate to a college semester - I would read most of these books, including Dylan’s (Chronicles: Volume One), Townshend’s (Who I Am), Young’s (Waging Heavy Peace) and Richards’ (Life). Going in, I was curious about a lot of things, and for the most part that curiosity was satiated. One of my big-ticket items of curiosity was studio-album oriented. I wanted to get a better sense of how some of the greatest rock and roll albums of our time came to be. How did the stars align in such a way that elevated the final product above the fray? How did the individual songs come together? Who raised their game? Where was everyone’s head space at during the production? How did the interpersonal dynamics effect things? How did that period of either rising or declining popularity of the musicians who contributed factor in? How did the lyrics come together? How did the music come together? What made that moment in time unique?
In one single chapter of his book, Bob Dylan did the best job out of all these musician-authors of addressing those fascinating questions. One big reason Dylan nailed it was in the way he approached Chronicles. The book was unlike any autobiography I had ever read. Rather than a chronology of his life, he plucked out specific periods for self-scrutiny (in turn, leaving plenty of in-between space for future ‘Volumes’). And there were only five chapters in all, which was brilliant, because it gave Dylan breathing space to dive into details. Not the type of detail that can get watered down if an entire book is dedicated to one topic. But just enough to make things tantalizingly interesting.
The singular chapter I’m referring to is titled “Oh Mercy”, which is about the making of the masterful Bob Dylan album of the same name. All the questions I pose above were answered in this chapter. Dylan has a reputation as being a bit opaque and mysterious. This is not what you get here. There is clairvoyance, and open honesty about the struggle of pulling Oh Mercy together. The reader is brought behind the scenes in a number of ways, and so can get a taste of what it takes to create something from scratch; something that in the end can be truly lasting. One take-home message is that all good things require effort. When that effort is particularly significant, once you’ve been through it a handful of times - whether successful or not - human instinct can have us shy away from doing so again. You have to grab yourself by the bootstraps and persevere somehow. Often it takes considerable introspection. Sometimes it takes compromise. These are some of the key points that Bob Dylan articulates both directly and indirectly in this chapter.
Oh Mercy (the album) was the first Bob Dylan album that hit me hard upon its release. In the years prior, I was primed for a strong Dylan album out of the gate: My rock and roll ‘education’ had finally reached this stage of awareness. But throughout much of the 80s, there would be nothing that even hinted at a great album from this extremely talented artist. This did not only apply to Dylan, it was the case with virtually all of the iconic 60s musicians. What was it about the mid-80s that sapped them of their mojo? The Rolling Stones Dirty Work, released in 1986, was disjointed at best. Bob Dylan’s mid-80s efforts, Empire Burlesque and Knocked Out Loaded, were not much better. The Who released the disappointing It’s Hard and then called it quits. Neil Young seemed to be going completely off the rails (Trans, Re-Ac-Tor, and a handful of other unmemorable efforts). You would think this burn out/fade-away would have happened in the 70s. But no, the 70s were actually pretty productive for most of these 60s icons. The creative dormancy did not go into effect until the big hair MTV 80s. Perhaps there’s only so much sustained shelf life for a rock and roll musician or any musician/artist for that matter. Someone should write a master’s thesis on it.
But then, quite incredibly, as the 80s curtain began to mercifully close, there was a momentum shift. Creativity was on the rebound for a number of long timers, who were now entering their 4th decade of being in the public eye. Within a handful of years we would get The Travelling Wilburys self-titled Volume 1 (sounds familiar), Lou Reed’s New York, Leonard Cohen’s The Future, and three amazing albums by Neil Young (Freedom, Ragged Glory, and Harvest Moon). And of course there was Oh Mercy.
What was it about Oh Mercy that elevated it above its immediate predecessors? For one thing, Bob Dylan appears to have admitted to himself for the first time in his career that if he was going to accomplish something significant this time around he was going to need help. Much of that help would come in the form of Canadian record producer/musician Daniel Lanois who would assert his own creativity in the studio like no other individual Bob Dylan has worked with before or since (including when Lanois produced the masterpiece Time Out of Mind in 1997, which is the only other collaboration he has had with Dylan. In that case his contributions appear to have been more subtle).
Back in 2011, as I contemplated an every-other-year focus on my favorite musicians and the memories their music inspires within me, I made the conscious decision to toggle that focus between bands and solo musicians. And so, first out of the gate was 50 blog entries on the Rolling Stones (“Stepping Stones” in 2012). Next came the Neil Young “Forever Young” series in 2014, followed by the Who-inspired “Under the Big Top” series in 2016. Now it’s Bob Dylan’s “Master Blueprints” (I’m not sure what I’ll be calling my Beatles series, slated for 2020). Anyhow, the reason I did it this way is that I see a distinct difference between musicians who succeed mostly on their own and those who succeed as a collective unit. I concluded right off that I would need to bounce back and forth to keep my own juices stirring.
I’ve known all along that I’m a bit more fascinated with collective creativity than what comes from one individual alone (with rare exceptions, including Messrs. Dylan and Young). There are more variables with collective creativity. More dynamics. More fluidity. This is why Oh Mercy, as a Bob Dylan album, is so intriguing to me. Dylan was allowing others (particularly Daniel Lanois) into his creative space. As he explains in his autobiography though, that paradigm shift came with angst and setbacks and futility and energy-draining days where little was agreed on or accomplished. I think Bob Dylan knew what he was in for. He sucked it up and made it work. So did Lanois.
What did Daniel Lanois bring to the table? Well I’ll say this… Oh Mercy sounds like no other Bob Dylan album (same for Time Out of Mind). Dylanophiles could argue that none of his albums sound like any other, but this is particularly the case for Oh Mercy. It’s extremely ethereal, which is in direct contrast to how one would describe the meaning of each and every one of the 10 songs on the album, which are all extremely heavy. This was likely the struggle that had to play out in the studio: Bringing together these two polar environments. The end result: It works.
Of all the ethereal and the heavy that the listener is bombarded with in the songs on Oh Mercy, the most ethereal/heavy of them all has to be this week’s Master Blueprint, “Man in the Long Black Coat” ( https://vimeo.com/80491883 ). And of all the songs that Bob Dylan describes how they came to be in Chronicles, this one stands out in extra potent detail. He tells of how the drawn out sessions in New Orleans were nearing an end but there was still room for several more songs on the album. Dylan felt he had to get away from it all for a bit, and so he and his wife took a 2-day motorcycle ride southwest over the Mississippi River and into Louisiana Bayou country. On the second day, as Bob Dylan describes it “a gaunt shack called King Tut’s Museum caught my eye” (it ended up being a general store of sorts). Dylan went inside while his wife sat out on the deck and he proceeded to have an extraordinary exchange with the proprietor, an ‘old timer’ named Sun Pie (who did most of the talking). You would have to read Chronicles to understand how it plays out, but in essence, the entire 2-day road-trip experience, culminating in this exchange, is how “Man in the Long Black Coat” germinates. Afterwards, Bob Dylan got back to the studio, and in no time, he, Lanois, and several New Orleans cats would be putting the icing on the Oh Mercy cake.
I’d like to close this entry with several acknowledgements…..
Other than the 2 Linda’s I met in Hibbing last month (see Master Blueprint # 10), the biggest fellow Bob Dylan enthusiast I personally know is Mike Major; a Canadian colleague who lives in Sherbrooke, Quebec. We’ve collaborated and met quite often over the past 3 years. Whenever we exchange emails we include a Bob Dylan quote in closing. We also have been known to sing a bar or two when the mood is right, say after a long day of meetings. The song we refer to the most is “Man In the Long Black Quote”, especially the bridge. When we do this we take turns with the lines, which go:
“There are
no mistakes in life some people say
And it’s true sometimes you can see it that way
People don’t live or die people just float
There was dust on the man in the long black coat”
Added side note for my concerned brother: These lyrics do not reflect mine or Mike's views (particularly that 3rd line).... but it is intriguing to contemplate that there are those out there - Sun Pie for instance - who feel that way. In Chronicles Bob Dylan called "Man in the Long Black Coat" his "Walk the Line", so I'm pretty darn sure he's not in that 'people-just-float' camp either. A credit to brother Joe as well for recognizing the similarity with a line in Forrest Gump: “I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. “.... which prompted my "Walk the Line" recall.
Acknowledgement # 2: Of all the great tidbits of Bob Dylan’s life’s journey that he describes in Chronicles it was that 2-day motorcycle journey which resonated most with me when I first read it. Since it had been a while, I felt that I needed to refresh my memory somewhat on the details of that short story before writing this entry. I picked the book up at a local library (originally, Chronicles was lent to me by good friend, Jeff Strause) and began reading from the very beginning of the 80 page “Oh Mercy” chapter. The re-read definitely helped.
And it’s true sometimes you can see it that way
People don’t live or die people just float
There was dust on the man in the long black coat”
Added side note for my concerned brother: These lyrics do not reflect mine or Mike's views (particularly that 3rd line).... but it is intriguing to contemplate that there are those out there - Sun Pie for instance - who feel that way. In Chronicles Bob Dylan called "Man in the Long Black Coat" his "Walk the Line", so I'm pretty darn sure he's not in that 'people-just-float' camp either. A credit to brother Joe as well for recognizing the similarity with a line in Forrest Gump: “I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. “.... which prompted my "Walk the Line" recall.
Acknowledgement # 2: Of all the great tidbits of Bob Dylan’s life’s journey that he describes in Chronicles it was that 2-day motorcycle journey which resonated most with me when I first read it. Since it had been a while, I felt that I needed to refresh my memory somewhat on the details of that short story before writing this entry. I picked the book up at a local library (originally, Chronicles was lent to me by good friend, Jeff Strause) and began reading from the very beginning of the 80 page “Oh Mercy” chapter. The re-read definitely helped.
After I read it though, I came to a rather unexpected realization: That there’s a fair likelihood I’ve been unconsciously attempting to emulate Bob Dylan’s autobiography style in these blog entries. In his book, a somewhat unique philosophy plays out in Dylan’s words and accounts where it appears as if he’s often compelled to follow through with inklings of thoughts that may at first seem somewhat inconsequential to those around him, but later pan out to be much more significant. In other words, he’s driven to make meaning out of what first may appear to be peripheral to the moment. He follows his muse and then encapsulates it all in a way that cuts to the core. Apparently it’s an approach that is having an effect on my end.
With that, it’s a wrap.
- Pete
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