Maybe this isn’t the thread to say it, but I don’t get the jabs at Dylan’s singing.
As someone else here said, most Dylan covers suck because Bob did it almost impossibly right the first time. Saying he isn’t a good singer because of his voice is like saying Jimi Hendrix wasn’t a good guitar player because he used distortion effects and didn’t sound like Andres Segovia.
On edit: What robardin said.:smack:
Yes, it has. Thanks.
Dopers 1, Ignorance 0
Go team.
I liked (and agreed with) your review. The only thing I’d add is that to me, he’s a sloppy wordsmith too. His lines don’t scan unless you unnaturally stress syllables
*How many times must a man look up
Before he can see-hee the sky *
(and it still doesn’t scan even with the awkwardly stretched “see-hee”)
or his “I can’t come up with a word that actually DOES rhyme, so I’ll stick in an assonance and then mispronounce it” bit.
trembles/rambles
bored/war (or world war)
raging/changin’
This is just sloppy.
I also find many of his sentiments banal–to me, he generically protests stuff without actually…thinking…about it. Only example that pops to mind is “Blowing in the Wind” where the big message is “War is baaaaad”. Granted there are a LOT of songs with that same message, but compare “Blowin’” to, say Seegar’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”–Seegar (to me) gives some powerful images as there’s a logical progression from young girls->young men (or husbands)->soldiers->graveyards->flowers. “Blowin’” to me is a bunch of rhetorical, unconnected questions that just ramble around the theme.
I find Pete Seegar, Woodie (and frankly Arlo) Guthrie and Paul Simon* all possessing the qualities attributed to Dylan that (to me) Dylan doesn’t actually have.
*Why isn’t Simon normally thought of as a folk-singer? He is, by any reasonable measure.
For another excellent use of that song, beautifully sung by Aaron Neville in a very un-Dylanlike manner, see the end credits to Constantine’s Sword, a documentary/opinion about the Catholic Church’s complicity with the Nazis and other dubious alliances. I recommend the movie for more than just the music.
Because he has moved on from just folksongs to other genres, and perhaps enjoys greater fame now than then.
But isn’t stuff like The Boy In The Bubble or Diamonds on the Soles Of Her Shoes folk? Possibly more heavily orchestrated than traditional folk, but hell, so were some of Peter, Paul and Mary’s songs and for all that they’re often considered poseurs nowdays, they were certainly accepted as folk back then.
What makes you think “Blowin’ in the Wind” is an antiwar song? Mavis Staples heard it as a civil rights anthem, and was amazed that a white kid could tap so powerfully into the longings of black Americans.
The real strength of the song is in its vagueness – it’s really just a plea for people to take a look around and see the world for what it is, and to at least wonder WHY it’s that way.
The reason you can’t think of many Dylan “protest songs” is that he didn’t write that many. I’ve long believed that Dylan is the most persistently misunderstood major musical artist, and one of the biggest misconceptions about him is that he is predominantly a protest singer. He had already begun to leave protest music behind in 1963, when “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” came out with “Girl from the North Country” and “Don’t Think Twice.” His true achievement was to bring a new vocabulary and range of thought to popular music, not rallying people to any specific cause.
Fair enough–I hadn’t considered the song in that light–that adds some depth I hadn’t seen before, but I still don’t think it’s all that profound–to me, the imagery is very weak.
Hm.
Could you elaborate? What vocabulary and range of thought do you feel Dylan brought?
However Tombstone Blues is the best anti-Vietnam War song I know of - though subtle enough I suspect most people don’t get it. Reading the book of interviews though, shows that calling him a protest singer was a good way to get scorned.
He wrote about “Masters of War” and many of his lyrics are anti war. But he did not get into organized protests. “John Brown” is as about anti war as you can get.
I prefer Woody Guthrie. IMO, Dylan owed him a great debt. I just don’t get the whole Dylan worship. Criticizing him is akin to kicking puppies or something. I like some folk music, but like most music, I tend to stay away from the devout and the devoted–I like some punk, some rock, some opera, some classical etc. YMMV and most likely does. That’s great.
It is possible to like contemporary music and not worship Dylan. Just sayin’.
And with that, I acknowledge that I will have to listen to his music more. I doubt I’ll warm up to his voice–it’s reedy and dry in his younger days; I can’t imagine it got better with time, so I’ll probably look to covers when I get around to this which won’t be right away.
A’ight. Idiot Wind, from the Bootleg Tapes Vol. 2. That’s the baseline here; if you can’t find anything you like about that, then we’ll just have to chalk it up to irreconcilable differences.
One thing I have noticed, though, is that pretty much all of my least favorite songs, the ones that truly grate my nerves, are a subset of the ones that are most popular and most closely connected to his name.
My Back Pages gets lauded as being all intellectual and deep, and it’s absolutely the most smug and self-satisfied song I’ve ever listened to. Blowin’ in the Wind: an okay song if you don’t think about it too hard, but it would be seen as drivel if it wasn’t about peace and justice and brotherhood and so on. Masters of War: everything mentioned above, with the added handicap of being truly awful.
(Workingman’s Blues poundsign-Two was also mentioned earlier. ‘The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down / Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak’? ‘I got to be careful, I don’t want to be forced / Into a life of continual crime’? Seriously?)
But if you skip those singles (and the majority of 1977-87), you have a body of work that (IMO) puts him among the best singer-songwriters, and is absolutely Pulitzer-worthy.
*The whole world is filled with speculation
the whole world, which people say is round
I got no time for idle conversation
I need to find a doctor in this town
*
Dylan is protest. Dylan sings about love. He is whimsical. He is funny. He plays with words sometimes. He can be deep.
People bitch about Sinatra. Some do not like Beethoven. But casually listening and sniping at a song or two is silly. He has a large body of work spanning 40 years . I suppose we all have songs we do not like of his.
Sorry for my inept wording; the OP was
and I quoted my two favourite lines (from the UK single which was probably my first real exposure to Dylan) because I like them a lot. Maybe I should have taken into account the shifting ground of the responses…
Saying they were neither deep nor meaningful was a bit tongue in cheek, as I had no intention of analysing them and, as I quoted them, they seem quite facile. Still like them, though, both in and out of context.
I both respect and hate the lyrics of that song. They remind me of being in a nightmare in which weird stuff is happening which everyone else understands but you are left out. I think I spend too much of my time feeling like Mr Jones.
Love it or hate it, you have to regard someone who can write lyrics that provoke such a reaction as having serious talent.
Dylan would be the first to admit that.
I’m not sure why you have to call it “worship.” That implies an irrational devotion, and it’s somewhat disdainful of the people who do like him. I think most Dylan fans respect him immensely, and even if you don’t like him, his 40+ year career making music that is consistently high quality and widely varied commands at least some respect. I also find it hard to believe that you’d be able to look through his entire canon and not find some examples of poetry that moved you. Whether you like his voice or not, he was a great American poet of the late 20th century, one who influenced many other great artists.
I like “See you later, Allen Ginsbeg” I get the feeling that Dylan was totally messed up on some good drugs.
Lyrics:
-Croco-gator
(See you later croco-gator)
After a while (smockywhile)
(See you later Allen Ginsberg)
See you later Alligator
(See you later croco-gator)
After a while crocodile
(In a while Allen Ginsberg)
See you while croco-gator
(See you later croco-gator)
After a while crocodile
(In a while croco-gator)
Allen Ginsberg later gator
(See you later Allen Ginsberg)
Later Later Allen Ginsberg
(See you while Alli-crile)
Allen Ginsberg later later
(Little Later on the Nile)
Allen Ginsberg after a while
(See you later if you’re vile)
Allen Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg
(See you later croco-gator)
Allen Ginsberg after a while
(See you later croco-gator)
I’m surprised there isn’t more disagreement. I personally hold Dylan higher than nearly all other musicians, but sometimes I think his lyrical ability is… overestimated. Also, this discussion reminds me of an article by Germaine Greer. I think her choice of Dylan’s lyrics is wise for her argument, but there are other songs which would not be so easily ridiculed.
Where did I say I wouldn’t like it? I said I would look more closely into him (at some point–this is not a matter of vital importance to me), because here I am finding things that appeal to me. Any artist who has lasted 40 years must have some talent–and I don’t mean to imply that I think Dylan doesn’t.
In my RL, I have come across people (more than 5, less than 10 or so-- I didn’t count–it’s not like I get into music discussions every day) who react in horror to the fact that I don’t “know” Dylan and than I don’t care for what little I do know.
They usually shake their head and say stuff like “he’s the greatest! The guy’s a genius!” Noone (until this thread, when I can read the lyrics w/o the image or mystique) ever showed/told me why they liked him so much. Of course, I never asked, either… 
What I am mildly poking fun at here is the mystique–hell, there was a movie made about Dylan’s “mystique”. I tend to be :dubious: about mystiques–I’m too old to be taken in by sunglasses, a cigarette and an attitude. I truly didn’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, so I’ll bow out.
Frankly, I wouldn’t bother going that route. You’ll never understand Dylan via cover versions. If you can’t handle Dylan’s voice, maybe he’s just not for you. No blame. Here’s my usual rant about Dylan as singer:
It is so often said of Dylan, “He writes great songs, but he should get someone else to sing them.” I completely disagree. The old Columbia Records advertising slogan got it right: “Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan.” No one else can duplicate the expressiveness, the knowing winks and leers in the voice, the “lived-in-ness” of the songs, the utter *Bobness *of it all. Take Joan Baez: she has a terrific voice, and if anyone can claim to really know what Dylan is all about, she should be the one…so why is her *Any Day Now *double set of all Dylan covers so stiff and lifeless? The Byrds are famous for their Dylan interpretations, and their “Mr. Tambourine Man” is indeed a glorious noise, but they might as well be singing a laundry list for all the involvement with the song they display. (The fact that they ditched most of the lyrics shows how much respect they had for the song itself.) Tellingly, the only Dylan interpretations I can think of that I would rate above Dylan’s own also feature singers who can’t sing in the conventional sense: Hendrix’s “All Along The Watchtower” and the Nice’s “Country Pie” and perhaps also their “She Belongs To Me.” In both cases, of course, the singing is a distant second in importance to the displays of instrumental prowess, so a comparison with Dylan himself as a singer becomes pointless.
No one will argue that Dylan is a great singer in the conventional sense. His greatness as a singer has a lot less to do with any mechanics of music than with personality and charisma, and Dylan’s uncanny ability to establish communication on a visceral level with the receptive listener. To me, this is more interesting than someone who can simply hit all the notes with a clear voice. If you don’t “get it,” that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you–it’s more of an emotional than a technical thing–but when you do get it, you see that there’s a lot to love in even Dylan’s most outrageously “off” singing.
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”–Francis Bacon
While I’m at it, I feel the same way about Leonard Cohen.