Also, he wrote "protest songs," not "propaganda songs" (they're sort of opposites, aren't they?)
― morrisp
in best bob dylan style, i stole that line from someone who's been dead since around 1986 and am not super qualified to debate the point
― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:26 (four years ago) link
I think the “name checking” parts of this song are very meaningful; it’s like an elegy for the 20th Century, as evoked through cultural references that also stretch back farther (all the way to, you know, “Hamlet”).
but how does it stack up to
JFKBlown awayWhat else do I have to say?
this is Dylan's "Junior Dad"
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:27 (four years ago) link
I only make it all the way through once last night before bed. I went from loving it to kind of hating it and back to loving it again. I really like the dirge-like arrangement and the instrumentation, but the lyrics kept throwing me.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:27 (four years ago) link
And while some of the couplets are indeed clunky, I think there may be a deliberate strategy to discuss Kennedy’s murder in very matter-of-fact, even clichéd terms (similar to how Lennon’s death was addressed in “Roll on John”) — to leave “breathing room” for evoking its heavy cultural weight in the other parts of the song, and tying in the Kennedy mythos with all those other aspects of Americana, both fictional and real. (I dunno, I’ve also only listened to it once all the way thru so far!)
― morrisp, Friday, 27 March 2020 16:28 (four years ago) link
xp You know, I think you're right. Maybe one of these days I'll wander over to the Dylan: classic or dud thread and post my take on Desolation Row, but it doesn't really have anything to do with what I think of this song. I like it a lot but can't articulate what I think of it yet, I'll have to let it percolate.
― The fillyjonk who believed in pandemics (Lily Dale), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:28 (four years ago) link
music reminds me of Dirty Three
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:30 (four years ago) link
In case not everyone is aware, Kennedy’s motorcade was on Elm Street when he was shot — so there’s a double meaning there.
they are both streets that something bad happened on, i would put the meaning multiplier at 1.25, maybe lower
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:34 (four years ago) link
Jimmy Wapo reference
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:36 (four years ago) link
Dylan's entire studio protest output is basically about 13 songs off his first four albums, and that is only if you include stuff like "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall".
― Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:38 (four years ago) link
Dumb comma.
You can also probably remove "Song to Woody" and "I Shall be Free" from the list.
― Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:40 (four years ago) link
@ums otm re Dirty Threethe music is really gorgeous, very eerie too. and the far-off rumble of drums when he repeats the “murder most foul” semi chorus is cool
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:47 (four years ago) link
they are both streets that something bad happened on, i would put the meaning multiplier at 1.25, maybe lowerOk, it’s a “double reference” — however you prefer to phrase it.
― morrisp, Friday, 27 March 2020 16:51 (four years ago) link
Friend just pointed out the arrangement sounds like Ghosteen, kinda.
― Julius Caesar Memento Hoodie (bendy), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:53 (four years ago) link
xp for more insights check out my new podcast where i go through dylan line by line and rate the precise amount of meaning in each lyric
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Friday, 27 March 2020 16:54 (four years ago) link
It seems to me that part of the whole premise of the song's construction is that lines are there because they rhyme. And needing rhymes, you allow things in. But I'm not convinced of their vacuousness.
― timellison, Friday, 27 March 2020 18:14 (four years ago) link
Hey, and Billy Joel's in there, too. In fact, it's the first song he asks Wolfman to play. I admire the inclusivity.
― timellison, Friday, 27 March 2020 18:27 (four years ago) link
― Julius Caesar Memento Hoodie (bendy), Friday, March 27, 2020 11:53 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
yeah there's a strong cave feeling. i was reminded of higgs boson blues, mostly cause of all the references.
― ooga booga-ing for the bourgeoisie (voodoo chili), Friday, 27 March 2020 18:30 (four years ago) link
Play Oscar Peterson, play Stan GetzPlay "Blue Sky," play Dickie Betts
― timellison, Friday, 27 March 2020 18:31 (four years ago) link
I found this pretty lovely. The lyrics idk I heard less than half of them but found them pretty disarming, laughed a few times. Definitely felt like it could be a matter of faith whether I took them as poignant or just daft but I’m not sure what I would have to gain from being a scepticI’m not a Dylan person really but desolation row is one of my all time faves so that might explain itDon’t really care about Kennedy at all don’t @ me
― felt jute gyte delete later (wins), Friday, 27 March 2020 18:33 (four years ago) link
"play Don Henleyplay Glenn Frey"well, yeah
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 27 March 2020 18:33 (four years ago) link
I love this
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 27 March 2020 18:34 (four years ago) link
On the Waterfront reference?
Play Nat King Cole, play "Nature Boy"Play "Down in the Boondocks" for Terry Malloy
― timellison, Friday, 27 March 2020 18:35 (four years ago) link
i enjoyed the rhymes & the references he grabbed to complete them were idk, just enjoyable from a writing standpoint either for silliness or outthereness etc
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 27 March 2020 18:36 (four years ago) link
― Why, I would make a fantastic Nero! (PBKR)
some of those songs are pretty decent tho
― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, 27 March 2020 18:40 (four years ago) link
This is an obvious reference but it's making me think of (70s) Waits if anything. I love the arrangement.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Friday, 27 March 2020 18:59 (four years ago) link
Who am I kidding - these are weird times and this is destroying me.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Friday, 27 March 2020 19:05 (four years ago) link
Listening for the first time, haven't read anything above.
Very striking...It's not "Desolation Row," but I know how silly it is to even say that; it's not the same person who made "Desolation Row," so why would it be? The music's beautiful, and I'm more comfortable with the vocal than most of what I've dipped into the past couple of decades. Putting out a Kennedy song right now is perversely vintage.
― clemenza, Friday, 27 March 2020 19:15 (four years ago) link
Dylan has spent so much time just referring to the musicians before him that it is totally disarming to hear him reference those who came after him. Like that 70s interview where he praised Alice Cooper felt odd (and true) enough.
― Julius Caesar Memento Hoodie (bendy), Friday, 27 March 2020 19:33 (four years ago) link
Bob was friends with Kurtis Blow
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 27 March 2020 19:37 (four years ago) link
The Beatles thing is interesting because it sounds like a putdown, yet Dylan is the author of my favourite Beatles-love quote ever, the one about driving through Colorado in 1964.
― clemenza, Friday, 27 March 2020 19:37 (four years ago) link
xxp Or the Alicia Keys verse in "Thunder on the Mountain."
― morrisp, Friday, 27 March 2020 19:40 (four years ago) link
For anyone who's never read it...
Then, when we were driving through Colorado we had the radio on and eight of the ten top songs were Beatles songs. In Colorado! ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand,’ all those early ones.
They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid. You could only do that with other musicians. Even if you’re playing your own chords you had to have other people playing with you. That was obvious. And it started me thinking about other people.
But I just kept it to myself that I really dug them. Everybody else thought they were for the teenyboppers, that they were gonna pass right away. But it was obvious to me that they had staying power. I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go. I was not about to put up with other musicians, but in my head the Beatles were it. In Colorado, I started thinking it was so far out that I couldn’t deal with it — eight in the Top Ten. It seemed to me a definite line was being drawn. This was something that never happened before. It was outrageous, and I kept it in my mind. You see, there was a lot of hypocrisy all around, people saying it had to be either folk or rock. But I knew it didn’t have to be like that. I dug what the Beatles were doing, and I always kept it in mind from back then.
Greatest use of the word "outrageous" ever.
― clemenza, Friday, 27 March 2020 19:41 (four years ago) link
that is cool, thx for posting clemenza
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 27 March 2020 19:50 (four years ago) link
"In Colorado!" That kills me every time.
― clemenza, Friday, 27 March 2020 19:55 (four years ago) link
they used to throw horses off of cliffs together iirc
― Οὖτις, Friday, 27 March 2020 19:56 (four years ago) link
I also dig the reference to Paula Abdul while in New Orleans recording Oh Mercy.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 27 March 2020 19:57 (four years ago) link
re:Chronicles and others---fits current discussion, and I've always found it disturbing. Keeps coming back into my head uninvited (as does "Desolation Row," but don't mind that one): https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2005/03/10/i-is-someone-else/
― dow, Friday, 27 March 2020 20:01 (four years ago) link
My computer has probs posting YouTubes here, but check for his track w Kurtis Blow.
― dow, Friday, 27 March 2020 20:02 (four years ago) link
Dickie Betts?
― calstars, Friday, 27 March 2020 20:19 (four years ago) link
"oh you like Ozzy? What about Ratt? You like Ratt?"https://youtu.be/cntGcbU3nM8
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 27 March 2020 20:42 (four years ago) link
Probably super uncool and unhelpfully obvious but this makes me think of "Rave on John Donne"
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Friday, 27 March 2020 20:45 (four years ago) link
that 80s street interview is one of my favorite Bob artifacts
― Οὖτις, Friday, 27 March 2020 20:49 (four years ago) link
That clip is priceless.
― clemenza, Friday, 27 March 2020 20:52 (four years ago) link
I experienced that once in an autograph lineup for Bobby Hull: famous old males are very receptive to getting their picture taken with younger females.
― clemenza, Friday, 27 March 2020 20:54 (four years ago) link
Dylan's entire studio protest output is basically about 13 songs off his first four albums
this is unfair to "George Jackson" and "Hurricane" imo, but point taken
― sleeve, Friday, 27 March 2020 20:59 (four years ago) link
I love in one of those AJ Weberman calls when Bob turns his nose up at just abt every living songwriter except Gordon Lightfoot. "Yeah...he's alright" (or something to that effect)
― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Friday, 27 March 2020 21:00 (four years ago) link
^see: Scorsese's movie about Dylan
― morrisp, Friday, 27 March 2020 21:14 (four years ago) link
Beatles bit didn't strike me as a putdown. (And their chords WERE outrageous.)
― timellison, Friday, 27 March 2020 21:14 (four years ago) link
They hadn't even gotten to "A Hard Day's Night" yet.
― timellison, Friday, 27 March 2020 21:15 (four years ago) link
I wouldn't use quite so many ">"s, but I also prefer "Wiggle Wiggle." (I'm not too into Time Out of Mind, tho)
― Reese's Pisces Iscariot (morrisp), Monday, 14 November 2022 17:20 (one year ago) link
Kenny Aronoff's drum roll in "Wiggle Wiggle" is the real thunder on the mountain
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 14 November 2022 17:31 (one year ago) link
Love Kenny Aronoff! So hope he'll show up on the Never-Ending tour.he snare crack of “LaRS” is the shot that starts the revolution. Yeah, but after that I'm pretty much with pinefox--got tired of the monotonous, lecture-y delivery long ago (even though he later said, "Every time I say 'you' I mean 'I'"), It's the one track from that LP that doesn't play itself in my head on any given day---nothing necessarily against the song, though; I really like the Hendrix at Monterey Pop rendition.
― dow, Monday, 14 November 2022 17:33 (one year ago) link
As a character read, it's more effective for the shrewd, seemingly soft and off-handed phrasing.
― dow, Monday, 14 November 2022 17:35 (one year ago) link
That "Wiggle Wiggle" performance was the beginning of the decline of Aronoff's greatness. He was brilliant with Mellencamp -- his re-entrance in "Check It Out" is arguably the greatest moment in Mellencamp's oeuvre. But with Dylan and -- especially -- Fogerty, every snare hit sounds like a sales pitch as aggressive as it is ineffective.
I don't see Aronoff jumping back into Bob's band anytime soon, as Charley Drayton is beyond perfect for what Bob's doing now, and Bob seems to love him ("Boy, Charley's really something on the drums, isn't he?" -- Bob during the band introductions when I saw him a year ago).
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 14 November 2022 17:48 (one year ago) link
I didn't realize it until much later, but when I saw Jerry Lee Lewis at Riot Fest, it was Aronoff on drums. Agree with Tarfumes, he's a loud, aggressive player. I don't think he'd be right for Dylan at this point. He was perfect for Mellencamp though.
― birdistheword, Monday, 14 November 2022 18:56 (one year ago) link
got tired of the monotonous, lecture-y delivery long ago
Now there's a controversial take! Not one I can agree with though.
― o. nate, Monday, 14 November 2022 19:13 (one year ago) link